George W. endorsing brother Jeb: would it help Jeb or hurt him?

[hangfan91]

Would you say George W. Bush coming out and endorsing his brother publicly would help Jeb Bush in the primaries by potentially drawing in more mainstream/establishment GOP support vs. Trump's populist campaign? Or would his legacy hurt Jeb?

[tmthforu94]

I think the better question would be if it would help if W goes out and campaigns for Jeb...he obviously supports him.

I would say yes - GWB's favorability has drastically improved since he left office and he is popular with Republicans. Probably won't be too helpful for the general, though.At this point, though, I think Jeb just needs to focus on winning the primary first, because it's certainly not a done deal.

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

I can't wait for the Donald to point out what a sh**tty President he was.

[dudeabides]

I can't wait for the Donald to point out what a sh**tty President he was.

I have had it with people being critical of President George W. Bush without looking at the entire picture. Also, Trump is such an idiot no one will take his criticisms seriously but his supporters who are generally angry people anyway.

Yes, Bush doubled the size of the Department of Education, increased the national debt by $5 trillion in eight years, continued to support Bill Clinton's policies of having the government promote home ownership, and he had awful Federal Reserve chairmen during his tenure.

However, President Bush's policies kept Americans safe, and we even saw some modest economic growth during 6 of his 8 years. Thanks to policies he implemented, such as the Patriot Act, 60 terrorist plots were prevented since 2001. Thanks to his doubling of agents at our southern border, illegal border crossings are down. In 2002, President Bush was given intelligence that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. Hussein had lied to weapons inspectors for years, and he kicked out inspectors in 1998. While it is true we shared some of the same enemies as Saddam, he also hated the U.S. The fact of the matter is, Saddam Hussein might have sent some of his weapons into Syria. He definitely had the capacity to produce such weapons. He was responsible for 2 million murders and the imprisonment of thousands and millions of innocent Iraqis. When we went into Iraq, we did so for our security and to promote freedom in a part of the world where it is all to rare. We made some strategic errors, but by 2007, Iraq was a functioning young Democracy that faced challenge, but most people were better off in 2007 in Iraq than under Saddam. Unfortunately, Iraq has made a turn for the worst since, but that is not Bush's fault contrary to popular belief. Bush's actions in Iraq also led to Libya abandoning their weapons program all together. The President toppled the Taliban in Afghanistan, that not only made us more safe, but it was a victory for human rights. The President's policies also weakened Iran's ability to go nuclear. The bottom line: President Bush made some mistakes, but he kept this country safe and made the world just a little bit more free.

Even on economic policy, where Bush has a rather mixed record, he still did far better than our current President. The financial collapse and recession were caused by a housing bubble, federal tax policy, and Federal Reserve policy. President Bush tried to increase regulation of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, both created by Bill Clinton. This was in 2005, three years before the financial crisis. Congress didn't allow Bush to make any changes. In 2001, the U.S. entered into a recession after seven years of healthy and robust economic growth, but also during a time in which we had an internet bubble. However, thanks to the President's tax relief programs, the recession was the shallowest in U.S. history. In the three years following the recession, GDP growth averaged around 4%, and worker productivity rose 16.6% between 2000 and 2005. Under President Obama, we have not had such consistent and robust economic growth. Americans saw six years of modest growth, where as under President Obama, we've had three years of a worsening recession and three years of consistent stagnation. Some of the economic challenges we face today were present under Bush. Since 2000, we've seen falling median incomes. But we also saw a slow growth in wages during the mid-1990s.

President Bush also can point to a record of sending vaccines to third world countries, banning partial-birth abortion, and appointing strict-constructionist judges.

Let me take a moment here and do something I rarely do: defend President Barack Obama. I disagree with Obama on 99.999% of the issues, but I am willing to give him credit where credit is do. Obama kept in place many of Bush's homeland security policies, he was right to have the surge in Afghanistan, and he is right to push for trade promotion authority. Despite my strong opposition to virtually all of Obama's other policies, I am going to stick to the issues. Obama was born in the United States, period, end of subject. For Donald Trump to have to accuse Obama of being born elsewhere proves he doesn't know what he's talking about, he's delusional, he doesn't care about issues, and he is really isn't very bright.

The point is, Donald Trump doesn't know how to attack anyone. He has been critical of President Bush for being tough on terrorism. He has been critical of President Obama for not being born in the U.S. because Trump can't stand a black man as President. He has been critical of John McCain because McCain was captured in Vietnam, McCain is a hero and Trump is a loser. He has been critical of Marco Rubio for taking a water break during a speech, and has referred to him as "over rated" because Trump is clueless about issues or Rubio's backround. He has said that Rick Perry is wearing glasses to look smart, well mission accomplished Perry is smarter than Trump. Trump has said Bush has no energy, if that's the worst he can come up with, then Bush will be the 45th President, no problem. He's attacked Walker for poor finances in Wisconsin when Trump has been bankrupt four times. He gave out Lindsey Graham's phone number, which is just lame.

Donald Trump knows nothing about economics, he's made that clear with all of his positions on a 14% wealth tax, protectionist trade policies, socialized medicine etc. He knows nothing about managing money because he's gone bankrupt and ran a sporting league into the ground. He knows nothing about foreign policy, and he's for abortion.

The typical Trump supporter is a 62 year old white male who is angry because his manufacturing job went to China or Mexico. He doesn't want to go to a 3 month program at his local community college so he can take one of the 500,000 manufacturing jobs sitting there that require newer skills. He is angry at the immigrants moving into his neighborhood because they look different and he therefore feels threatened, but without full time work he can't afford to move. He watches Jeb Bush talk about growing the economy at 4%, Bush is not pissed off and that makes this guy mad. Hillary Clinton is too busy talking about social issues. He then sees Trump as angry as he is, blaming immigrants and globalization for all of America's problems, and suddenly this 62 year old white male says "yeah, he makes sense."

[Devils30]

I'm not gonna bother to read your entire essay there but the economic growth during W was all a bubble. Jeb hasn't even been hit on this yet by anyone. The GOP doesn't realize how badly the Dems will absolutely destroy Jeb Bush on this. The idea that he's using the same economic team that got us into this mess is pretty much a point blank shot for the Clinton's. Of course the GOP could always have a Kasich or Rubio who could take advantage of Hillary's issues but that would be too smart of them.

[Likely Voter]

Apparently the Bush campaign is paying by the word now?

As for the OP question, we can take it as a given that W endorses Jeb but I believe he has already said he isn't going to be going out in the campaign trail, IIRC.

[Famous Mortimer]

It wouldn't help or hurt. Everyone already knows/assumes W backs his brother.

[Vega]

^^
Yeah, I mean, it's not like it's a mystery who George is going to be backing.
 
Of course, I doubt George will be stumping for Jeb.

[Fmr President & Senator Polnut]

Why does dudeabides (it's offensive that a Bush supporter has that name, but anyway) always thinks he needs to be a campaign surrogate?

Long story short, W will OBVIOUSLY support his brother and I doubt a public acknowledgement of that will have any impact at all.

[SATW]

I can't wait for the Donald to point out what a sh**tty President he was.

I have had it with people being critical of President George W. Bush without looking at the entire picture. Also, Trump is such an idiot no one will take his criticisms seriously but his supporters who are generally angry people anyway.

Yes, Bush doubled the size of the Department of Education, increased the national debt by $5 trillion in eight years, continued to support Bill Clinton's policies of having the government promote home ownership, and he had awful Federal Reserve chairmen during his tenure.

However, President Bush's policies kept Americans safe, and we even saw some modest economic growth during 6 of his 8 years. Thanks to policies he implemented, such as the Patriot Act, 60 terrorist plots were prevented since 2001. Thanks to his doubling of agents at our southern border, illegal border crossings are down. In 2002, President Bush was given intelligence that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. Hussein had lied to weapons inspectors for years, and he kicked out inspectors in 1998. While it is true we shared some of the same enemies as Saddam, he also hated the U.S. The fact of the matter is, Saddam Hussein might have sent some of his weapons into Syria. He definitely had the capacity to produce such weapons. He was responsible for 2 million murders and the imprisonment of thousands and millions of innocent Iraqis. When we went into Iraq, we did so for our security and to promote freedom in a part of the world where it is all to rare. We made some strategic errors, but by 2007, Iraq was a functioning young Democracy that faced challenge, but most people were better off in 2007 in Iraq than under Saddam. Unfortunately, Iraq has made a turn for the worst since, but that is not Bush's fault contrary to popular belief. Bush's actions in Iraq also led to Libya abandoning their weapons program all together. The President toppled the Taliban in Afghanistan, that not only made us more safe, but it was a victory for human rights. The President's policies also weakened Iran's ability to go nuclear. The bottom line: President Bush made some mistakes, but he kept this country safe and made the world just a little bit more free.

Even on economic policy, where Bush has a rather mixed record, he still did far better than our current President. The financial collapse and recession were caused by a housing bubble, federal tax policy, and Federal Reserve policy. President Bush tried to increase regulation of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, both created by Bill Clinton. This was in 2005, three years before the financial crisis. Congress didn't allow Bush to make any changes. In 2001, the U.S. entered into a recession after seven years of healthy and robust economic growth, but also during a time in which we had an internet bubble. However, thanks to the President's tax relief programs, the recession was the shallowest in U.S. history. In the three years following the recession, GDP growth averaged around 4%, and worker productivity rose 16.6% between 2000 and 2005. Under President Obama, we have not had such consistent and robust economic growth. Americans saw six years of modest growth, where as under President Obama, we've had three years of a worsening recession and three years of consistent stagnation. Some of the economic challenges we face today were present under Bush. Since 2000, we've seen falling median incomes. But we also saw a slow growth in wages during the mid-1990s.

President Bush also can point to a record of sending vaccines to third world countries, banning partial-birth abortion, and appointing strict-constructionist judges.

Let me take a moment here and do something I rarely do: defend President Barack Obama. I disagree with Obama on 99.999% of the issues, but I am willing to give him credit where credit is do. Obama kept in place many of Bush's homeland security policies, he was right to have the surge in Afghanistan, and he is right to push for trade promotion authority. Despite my strong opposition to virtually all of Obama's other policies, I am going to stick to the issues. Obama was born in the United States, period, end of subject. For Donald Trump to have to accuse Obama of being born elsewhere proves he doesn't know what he's talking about, he's delusional, he doesn't care about issues, and he is really isn't very bright.

The point is, Donald Trump doesn't know how to attack anyone. He has been critical of President Bush for being tough on terrorism. He has been critical of President Obama for not being born in the U.S. because Trump can't stand a black man as President. He has been critical of John McCain because McCain was captured in Vietnam, McCain is a hero and Trump is a loser. He has been critical of Marco Rubio for taking a water break during a speech, and has referred to him as "over rated" because Trump is clueless about issues or Rubio's backround. He has said that Rick Perry is wearing glasses to look smart, well mission accomplished Perry is smarter than Trump. Trump has said Bush has no energy, if that's the worst he can come up with, then Bush will be the 45th President, no problem. He's attacked Walker for poor finances in Wisconsin when Trump has been bankrupt four times. He gave out Lindsey Graham's phone number, which is just lame.

Donald Trump knows nothing about economics, he's made that clear with all of his positions on a 14% wealth tax, protectionist trade policies, socialized medicine etc. He knows nothing about managing money because he's gone bankrupt and ran a sporting league into the ground. He knows nothing about foreign policy, and he's for abortion.

The typical Trump supporter is a 62 year old white male who is angry because his manufacturing job went to China or Mexico. He doesn't want to go to a 3 month program at his local community college so he can take one of the 500,000 manufacturing jobs sitting there that require newer skills. He is angry at the immigrants moving into his neighborhood because they look different and he therefore feels threatened, but without full time work he can't afford to move. He watches Jeb Bush talk about growing the economy at 4%, Bush is not pissed off and that makes this guy mad. Hillary Clinton is too busy talking about social issues. He then sees Trump as angry as he is, blaming immigrants and globalization for all of America's problems, and suddenly this 62 year old white male says "yeah, he makes sense."

Honestly, this is a great post. Good job

[Indy Texas]

None of the blue avatars are willing to explain why more jobs were created under eight years of Bill Clinton than under eight years of George W. Bush. Or why Obama surpassed Bush's job creation record barely halfway through his time in office.

To say nothing of the fact that a higher percentage of Americans lacked health insurance when Bush left office than they did when he took office.

dudeabides, Saddam sent weapons into Syria to hide them? You really are even stupider than your avatar would automatically suggest. Syria and Iraq hated each other for decades. Syria participated in the coalition that attacked Saddam during the Gulf War. Syria backed Iran during the Iran-Iraq War. You think Saddam would let the Assads keep his weapons safe for him? You are just retarded. You are an idiot, pure and simple. People like you are the reason Fox News stays on the air when half the stuff their commentators say can be disproven in five minutes on Wikipedia.

[Negusa Nagast 🚀]

None of the blue avatars are willing to explain why more jobs were created under eight years of Bill Clinton than under eight years of George W. Bush. Or why Obama surpassed Bush's job creation record barely halfway through his time in office.

To say nothing of the fact that a higher percentage of Americans lacked health insurance when Bush left office than they did when he took office.

dudeabides, Saddam sent weapons into Syria to hide them? You really are even stupider than your avatar would automatically suggest. Syria and Iraq hated each other for decades. Syria participated in the coalition that attacked Saddam during the Gulf War. Syria backed Iran during the Iran-Iraq War. You think Saddam would let the Assads keep his weapons safe for him? You are just retarded. You are an idiot, pure and simple. People like you are the reason Fox News stays on the air when half the stuff their commentators say can be disproven in five minutes on Wikipedia.

Careful pointing out the success of the Obama record Indy Texas. dudeabides will respond with a deluge of incorrect, biased, and out of context graphs.

[Famous Mortimer]

I always need to point this out because people always forget, even if Iraq did have weapons, it would still have been a stupid, unjustified war.

[CapoteMonster]

I always need to point this out because people always forget, even if Iraq did have weapons, it would still have been a stupid, unjustified war.

Bingo. Saddam Hussein was a brutal dictator but the country was more stable and human rights were better in many ways.

[Pyro]

Regardless of an endorsement, the majority of conservatives will support Jeb and the other side won't.
I don't believe it would have much of an effect on the race at all.

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

It helps only in primaries.  Regardless, the country is polarized against the Bushes, as Clinton only have to sway 43 percent of indies, that a 3rd term Bush is unacceptable.

[OSR stands with Israel]

I can't wait for the Donald to point out what a sh**tty President he was.

I have had it with people being critical of President George W. Bush without looking at the entire picture. Also, Trump is such an idiot no one will take his criticisms seriously but his supporters who are generally angry people anyway.

Yes, Bush doubled the size of the Department of Education, increased the national debt by $5 trillion in eight years, continued to support Bill Clinton's policies of having the government promote home ownership, and he had awful Federal Reserve chairmen during his tenure.

However, President Bush's policies kept Americans safe, and we even saw some modest economic growth during 6 of his 8 years. Thanks to policies he implemented, such as the Patriot Act, 60 terrorist plots were prevented since 2001. Thanks to his doubling of agents at our southern border, illegal border crossings are down. In 2002, President Bush was given intelligence that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. Hussein had lied to weapons inspectors for years, and he kicked out inspectors in 1998. While it is true we shared some of the same enemies as Saddam, he also hated the U.S. The fact of the matter is, Saddam Hussein might have sent some of his weapons into Syria. He definitely had the capacity to produce such weapons. He was responsible for 2 million murders and the imprisonment of thousands and millions of innocent Iraqis. When we went into Iraq, we did so for our security and to promote freedom in a part of the world where it is all to rare. We made some strategic errors, but by 2007, Iraq was a functioning young Democracy that faced challenge, but most people were better off in 2007 in Iraq than under Saddam. Unfortunately, Iraq has made a turn for the worst since, but that is not Bush's fault contrary to popular belief. Bush's actions in Iraq also led to Libya abandoning their weapons program all together. The President toppled the Taliban in Afghanistan, that not only made us more safe, but it was a victory for human rights. The President's policies also weakened Iran's ability to go nuclear. The bottom line: President Bush made some mistakes, but he kept this country safe and made the world just a little bit more free.

Even on economic policy, where Bush has a rather mixed record, he still did far better than our current President. The financial collapse and recession were caused by a housing bubble, federal tax policy, and Federal Reserve policy. President Bush tried to increase regulation of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, both created by Bill Clinton. This was in 2005, three years before the financial crisis. Congress didn't allow Bush to make any changes. In 2001, the U.S. entered into a recession after seven years of healthy and robust economic growth, but also during a time in which we had an internet bubble. However, thanks to the President's tax relief programs, the recession was the shallowest in U.S. history. In the three years following the recession, GDP growth averaged around 4%, and worker productivity rose 16.6% between 2000 and 2005. Under President Obama, we have not had such consistent and robust economic growth. Americans saw six years of modest growth, where as under President Obama, we've had three years of a worsening recession and three years of consistent stagnation. Some of the economic challenges we face today were present under Bush. Since 2000, we've seen falling median incomes. But we also saw a slow growth in wages during the mid-1990s.

President Bush also can point to a record of sending vaccines to third world countries, banning partial-birth abortion, and appointing strict-constructionist judges.

Let me take a moment here and do something I rarely do: defend President Barack Obama. I disagree with Obama on 99.999% of the issues, but I am willing to give him credit where credit is do. Obama kept in place many of Bush's homeland security policies, he was right to have the surge in Afghanistan, and he is right to push for trade promotion authority. Despite my strong opposition to virtually all of Obama's other policies, I am going to stick to the issues. Obama was born in the United States, period, end of subject. For Donald Trump to have to accuse Obama of being born elsewhere proves he doesn't know what he's talking about, he's delusional, he doesn't care about issues, and he is really isn't very bright.

The point is, Donald Trump doesn't know how to attack anyone. He has been critical of President Bush for being tough on terrorism. He has been critical of President Obama for not being born in the U.S. because Trump can't stand a black man as President. He has been critical of John McCain because McCain was captured in Vietnam, McCain is a hero and Trump is a loser. He has been critical of Marco Rubio for taking a water break during a speech, and has referred to him as "over rated" because Trump is clueless about issues or Rubio's backround. He has said that Rick Perry is wearing glasses to look smart, well mission accomplished Perry is smarter than Trump. Trump has said Bush has no energy, if that's the worst he can come up with, then Bush will be the 45th President, no problem. He's attacked Walker for poor finances in Wisconsin when Trump has been bankrupt four times. He gave out Lindsey Graham's phone number, which is just lame.

Donald Trump knows nothing about economics, he's made that clear with all of his positions on a 14% wealth tax, protectionist trade policies, socialized medicine etc. He knows nothing about managing money because he's gone bankrupt and ran a sporting league into the ground. He knows nothing about foreign policy, and he's for abortion.

The typical Trump supporter is a 62 year old white male who is angry because his manufacturing job went to China or Mexico. He doesn't want to go to a 3 month program at his local community college so he can take one of the 500,000 manufacturing jobs sitting there that require newer skills. He is angry at the immigrants moving into his neighborhood because they look different and he therefore feels threatened, but without full time work he can't afford to move. He watches Jeb Bush talk about growing the economy at 4%, Bush is not pissed off and that makes this guy mad. Hillary Clinton is too busy talking about social issues. He then sees Trump as angry as he is, blaming immigrants and globalization for all of America's problems, and suddenly this 62 year old white male says "yeah, he makes sense."

Bush is the worst president ever. Oh and I didn't read your defense of him.

Hes 8th worst ever on my list

1. Buchanan
2. Pierce
3. Andrew Johnson
4. Tyler
5. Hoover
6. Harding
7.  Carter
8. Bush

[OSR stands with Israel]

I can't wait for the Donald to point out what a sh**tty President he was.

I have had it with people being critical of President George W. Bush without looking at the entire picture. Also, Trump is such an idiot no one will take his criticisms seriously but his supporters who are generally angry people anyway.

Yes, Bush doubled the size of the Department of Education, increased the national debt by $5 trillion in eight years, continued to support Bill Clinton's policies of having the government promote home ownership, and he had awful Federal Reserve chairmen during his tenure.

However, President Bush's policies kept Americans safe, and we even saw some modest economic growth during 6 of his 8 years. Thanks to policies he implemented, such as the Patriot Act, 60 terrorist plots were prevented since 2001. Thanks to his doubling of agents at our southern border, illegal border crossings are down. In 2002, President Bush was given intelligence that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. Hussein had lied to weapons inspectors for years, and he kicked out inspectors in 1998. While it is true we shared some of the same enemies as Saddam, he also hated the U.S. The fact of the matter is, Saddam Hussein might have sent some of his weapons into Syria. He definitely had the capacity to produce such weapons. He was responsible for 2 million murders and the imprisonment of thousands and millions of innocent Iraqis. When we went into Iraq, we did so for our security and to promote freedom in a part of the world where it is all to rare. We made some strategic errors, but by 2007, Iraq was a functioning young Democracy that faced challenge, but most people were better off in 2007 in Iraq than under Saddam. Unfortunately, Iraq has made a turn for the worst since, but that is not Bush's fault contrary to popular belief. Bush's actions in Iraq also led to Libya abandoning their weapons program all together. The President toppled the Taliban in Afghanistan, that not only made us more safe, but it was a victory for human rights. The President's policies also weakened Iran's ability to go nuclear. The bottom line: President Bush made some mistakes, but he kept this country safe and made the world just a little bit more free.

Even on economic policy, where Bush has a rather mixed record, he still did far better than our current President. The financial collapse and recession were caused by a housing bubble, federal tax policy, and Federal Reserve policy. President Bush tried to increase regulation of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, both created by Bill Clinton. This was in 2005, three years before the financial crisis. Congress didn't allow Bush to make any changes. In 2001, the U.S. entered into a recession after seven years of healthy and robust economic growth, but also during a time in which we had an internet bubble. However, thanks to the President's tax relief programs, the recession was the shallowest in U.S. history. In the three years following the recession, GDP growth averaged around 4%, and worker productivity rose 16.6% between 2000 and 2005. Under President Obama, we have not had such consistent and robust economic growth. Americans saw six years of modest growth, where as under President Obama, we've had three years of a worsening recession and three years of consistent stagnation. Some of the economic challenges we face today were present under Bush. Since 2000, we've seen falling median incomes. But we also saw a slow growth in wages during the mid-1990s.

President Bush also can point to a record of sending vaccines to third world countries, banning partial-birth abortion, and appointing strict-constructionist judges.

Let me take a moment here and do something I rarely do: defend President Barack Obama. I disagree with Obama on 99.999% of the issues, but I am willing to give him credit where credit is do. Obama kept in place many of Bush's homeland security policies, he was right to have the surge in Afghanistan, and he is right to push for trade promotion authority. Despite my strong opposition to virtually all of Obama's other policies, I am going to stick to the issues. Obama was born in the United States, period, end of subject. For Donald Trump to have to accuse Obama of being born elsewhere proves he doesn't know what he's talking about, he's delusional, he doesn't care about issues, and he is really isn't very bright.

The point is, Donald Trump doesn't know how to attack anyone. He has been critical of President Bush for being tough on terrorism. He has been critical of President Obama for not being born in the U.S. because Trump can't stand a black man as President. He has been critical of John McCain because McCain was captured in Vietnam, McCain is a hero and Trump is a loser. He has been critical of Marco Rubio for taking a water break during a speech, and has referred to him as "over rated" because Trump is clueless about issues or Rubio's backround. He has said that Rick Perry is wearing glasses to look smart, well mission accomplished Perry is smarter than Trump. Trump has said Bush has no energy, if that's the worst he can come up with, then Bush will be the 45th President, no problem. He's attacked Walker for poor finances in Wisconsin when Trump has been bankrupt four times. He gave out Lindsey Graham's phone number, which is just lame.

Donald Trump knows nothing about economics, he's made that clear with all of his positions on a 14% wealth tax, protectionist trade policies, socialized medicine etc. He knows nothing about managing money because he's gone bankrupt and ran a sporting league into the ground. He knows nothing about foreign policy, and he's for abortion.

The typical Trump supporter is a 62 year old white male who is angry because his manufacturing job went to China or Mexico. He doesn't want to go to a 3 month program at his local community college so he can take one of the 500,000 manufacturing jobs sitting there that require newer skills. He is angry at the immigrants moving into his neighborhood because they look different and he therefore feels threatened, but without full time work he can't afford to move. He watches Jeb Bush talk about growing the economy at 4%, Bush is not pissed off and that makes this guy mad. Hillary Clinton is too busy talking about social issues. He then sees Trump as angry as he is, blaming immigrants and globalization for all of America's problems, and suddenly this 62 year old white male says "yeah, he makes sense."

Bush made many mistakes

1. He should have focused on Afghanistan and maybe given the ultimatum to Pakistan to let us send troops into that country or we will invade  as they supported terrorism more then Iraq did. There was no need to invade Iraq.

2. He inherited a 200 billion surplus and when he left there was a 1.2 trillion dollar defict

3. After ousting Suddam bush made a massive mistake of disbanding the Republican Guard which turned into the insurgency who we fought for 8 years which eventually transformed into ISIS.

4. He should have started the surge in like june of  2003 so we could have defeated the insurgency when they were in their infancy instead we started in 2007 when they were far more organized and many more islamic militants had joined them which let them turn into ISIS  when we left

5. He did nothing of the economic downturn until September of 2008 when it was too late

[Mr. Morden]

Hes 8th worst ever on my list

1. Buchanan
2. Pierce
3. Andrew Johnson
4. Tyler
5. Hoover
6. Harding
7.  Carter
8. Bush

I bet you crafted that list years ago, in hopes that it would come in handy in conversation one day. 

[OSR stands with Israel]

Hes 8th worst ever on my list

1. Buchanan
2. Pierce
3. Andrew Johnson
4. Tyler
5. Hoover
6. Harding
7.  Carter
8. Bush

I bet you crafted that list years ago, in hopes that it would come in handy in conversation one day. 

Nope a couple years ago I thought Bush was a good president and blamed Obama for everything and didnt have Tyler on the list.

[heatmaster]

I can't wait for the Donald to point out what a sh**tty President he was.

I have had it with people being critical of President George W. Bush without looking at the entire picture. Also, Trump is such an idiot no one will take his criticisms seriously but his supporters who are generally angry people anyway.
You are right on the money dudeabides,  good for you, as for you Devils30,  what planet are you on? An observation, you are so stuck in the Democratic bubble. You think the echo chamber you inhabit, is the real world, well the question which begs to be asked, is according to whom? The U.S.A. has, under Obama's stewardship, doubled the national debt, and all due to Obama's social engineering and his half-assed liberal agenda, and then you assert that Democrats will slaughter Jeb Bush, how? All I see is common sense approaches to significant problems which need addressing. Hillary is no more equipped to address these problems, than Donald Trump is. I sincerely doubt your theories will work out as you imagined, but as dudeabides said, Trump is an idiot and delusional,  and so are you my friend😑 As for Donald Trump, his inconsistencies on a whole swath of issues, are way off the beam, when it comes to the grassroots and these inconsistencies will be Trump's undoing as they become more evident.

Yes, Bush doubled the size of the Department of Education, increased the national debt by $5 trillion in eight years, continued to support Bill Clinton's policies of having the government promote home ownership, and he had awful Federal Reserve chairmen during his tenure.

However, President Bush's policies kept Americans safe, and we even saw some modest economic growth during 6 of his 8 years. Thanks to policies he implemented, such as the Patriot Act, 60 terrorist plots were prevented since 2001. Thanks to his doubling of agents at our southern border, illegal border crossings are down. In 2002, President Bush was given intelligence that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. Hussein had lied to weapons inspectors for years, and he kicked out inspectors in 1998. While it is true we shared some of the same enemies as Saddam, he also hated the U.S. The fact of the matter is, Saddam Hussein might have sent some of his weapons into Syria. He definitely had the capacity to produce such weapons. He was responsible for 2 million murders and the imprisonment of thousands and millions of innocent Iraqis. When we went into Iraq, we did so for our security and to promote freedom in a part of the world where it is all to rare. We made some strategic errors, but by 2007, Iraq was a functioning young Democracy that faced challenge, but most people were better off in 2007 in Iraq than under Saddam. Unfortunately, Iraq has made a turn for the worst since, but that is not Bush's fault contrary to popular belief. Bush's actions in Iraq also led to Libya abandoning their weapons program all together. The President toppled the Taliban in Afghanistan, that not only made us more safe, but it was a victory for human rights. The President's policies also weakened Iran's ability to go nuclear. The bottom line: President Bush made some mistakes, but he kept this country safe and made the world just a little bit more free.

Even on economic policy, where Bush has a rather mixed record, he still did far better than our current President. The financial collapse and recession were caused by a housing bubble, federal tax policy, and Federal Reserve policy. President Bush tried to increase regulation of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, both created by Bill Clinton. This was in 2005, three years before the financial crisis. Congress didn't allow Bush to make any changes. In 2001, the U.S. entered into a recession after seven years of healthy and robust economic growth, but also during a time in which we had an internet bubble. However, thanks to the President's tax relief programs, the recession was the shallowest in U.S. history. In the three years following the recession, GDP growth averaged around 4%, and worker productivity rose 16.6% between 2000 and 2005. Under President Obama, we have not had such consistent and robust economic growth. Americans saw six years of modest growth, where as under President Obama, we've had three years of a worsening recession and three years of consistent stagnation. Some of the economic challenges we face today were present under Bush. Since 2000, we've seen falling median incomes. But we also saw a slow growth in wages during the mid-1990s.

President Bush also can point to a record of sending vaccines to third world countries, banning partial-birth abortion, and appointing strict-constructionist judges.

Let me take a moment here and do something I rarely do: defend President Barack Obama. I disagree with Obama on 99.999% of the issues, but I am willing to give him credit where credit is do. Obama kept in place many of Bush's homeland security policies, he was right to have the surge in Afghanistan, and he is right to push for trade promotion authority. Despite my strong opposition to virtually all of Obama's other policies, I am going to stick to the issues. Obama was born in the United States, period, end of subject. For Donald Trump to have to accuse Obama of being born elsewhere proves he doesn't know what he's talking about, he's delusional, he doesn't care about issues, and he is really isn't very bright.

The point is, Donald Trump doesn't know how to attack anyone. He has been critical of President Bush for being tough on terrorism. He has been critical of President Obama for not being born in the U.S. because Trump can't stand a black man as President. He has been critical of John McCain because McCain was captured in Vietnam, McCain is a hero and Trump is a loser. He has been critical of Marco Rubio for taking a water break during a speech, and has referred to him as "over rated" because Trump is clueless about issues or Rubio's backround. He has said that Rick Perry is wearing glasses to look smart, well mission accomplished Perry is smarter than Trump. Trump has said Bush has no energy, if that's the worst he can come up with, then Bush will be the 45th President, no problem. He's attacked Walker for poor finances in Wisconsin when Trump has been bankrupt four times. He gave out Lindsey Graham's phone number, which is just lame.

Donald Trump knows nothing about economics, he's made that clear with all of his positions on a 14% wealth tax, protectionist trade policies, socialized medicine etc. He knows nothing about managing money because he's gone bankrupt and ran a sporting league into the ground. He knows nothing about foreign policy, and he's for abortion.

The typical Trump supporter is a 62 year old white male who is angry because his manufacturing job went to China or Mexico. He doesn't want to go to a 3 month program at his local community college so he can take one of the 500,000 manufacturing jobs sitting there that require newer skills. He is angry at the immigrants moving into his neighborhood because they look different and he therefore feels threatened, but without full time work he can't afford to move. He watches Jeb Bush talk about growing the economy at 4%, Bush is not pissed off and that makes this guy mad. Hillary Clinton is too busy talking about social issues. He then sees Trump as angry as he is, blaming immigrants and globalization for all of America's problems, and suddenly this 62 year old white male says "yeah, he makes sense."

[pbrower2a]

I can't wait for the Donald to point out what a sh**tty President he was.

Democrats will remind people of how awful a President Dubya was at the Democratic national Convention and will not stop until Election Day.

[Fuzzy Bear]

I can't wait for the Donald to point out what a sh**tty President he was.

I have had it with people being critical of President George W. Bush without looking at the entire picture. Also, Trump is such an idiot no one will take his criticisms seriously but his supporters who are generally angry people anyway.
You are right on the money dudeabides,  good for you, as for you Devils30,  what planet are you on? An observation, you are so stuck in the Democratic bubble. You think the echo chamber you inhabit, is the real world, well the question which begs to be asked, is according to whom? The U.S.A. has, under Obama's stewardship, doubled the national debt, and all due to Obama's social engineering and his half-assed liberal agenda, and then you assert that Democrats will slaughter Jeb Bush, how? All I see is common sense approaches to significant problems which need addressing. Hillary is no more equipped to address these problems, than Donald Trump is. I sincerely doubt your theories will work out as you imagined, but as dudeabides said, Trump is an idiot and delusional,  and so are you my friend😑 As for Donald Trump, his inconsistencies on a whole swath of issues, are way off the beam, when it comes to the grassroots and these inconsistencies will be Trump's undoing as they become more evident.

Yes, Bush doubled the size of the Department of Education, increased the national debt by $5 trillion in eight years, continued to support Bill Clinton's policies of having the government promote home ownership, and he had awful Federal Reserve chairmen during his tenure.

However, President Bush's policies kept Americans safe, and we even saw some modest economic growth during 6 of his 8 years. Thanks to policies he implemented, such as the Patriot Act, 60 terrorist plots were prevented since 2001. Thanks to his doubling of agents at our southern border, illegal border crossings are down. In 2002, President Bush was given intelligence that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. Hussein had lied to weapons inspectors for years, and he kicked out inspectors in 1998. While it is true we shared some of the same enemies as Saddam, he also hated the U.S. The fact of the matter is, Saddam Hussein might have sent some of his weapons into Syria. He definitely had the capacity to produce such weapons. He was responsible for 2 million murders and the imprisonment of thousands and millions of innocent Iraqis. When we went into Iraq, we did so for our security and to promote freedom in a part of the world where it is all to rare. We made some strategic errors, but by 2007, Iraq was a functioning young Democracy that faced challenge, but most people were better off in 2007 in Iraq than under Saddam. Unfortunately, Iraq has made a turn for the worst since, but that is not Bush's fault contrary to popular belief. Bush's actions in Iraq also led to Libya abandoning their weapons program all together. The President toppled the Taliban in Afghanistan, that not only made us more safe, but it was a victory for human rights. The President's policies also weakened Iran's ability to go nuclear. The bottom line: President Bush made some mistakes, but he kept this country safe and made the world just a little bit more free.

Even on economic policy, where Bush has a rather mixed record, he still did far better than our current President. The financial collapse and recession were caused by a housing bubble, federal tax policy, and Federal Reserve policy. President Bush tried to increase regulation of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, both created by Bill Clinton. This was in 2005, three years before the financial crisis. Congress didn't allow Bush to make any changes. In 2001, the U.S. entered into a recession after seven years of healthy and robust economic growth, but also during a time in which we had an internet bubble. However, thanks to the President's tax relief programs, the recession was the shallowest in U.S. history. In the three years following the recession, GDP growth averaged around 4%, and worker productivity rose 16.6% between 2000 and 2005. Under President Obama, we have not had such consistent and robust economic growth. Americans saw six years of modest growth, where as under President Obama, we've had three years of a worsening recession and three years of consistent stagnation. Some of the economic challenges we face today were present under Bush. Since 2000, we've seen falling median incomes. But we also saw a slow growth in wages during the mid-1990s.

President Bush also can point to a record of sending vaccines to third world countries, banning partial-birth abortion, and appointing strict-constructionist judges.

Let me take a moment here and do something I rarely do: defend President Barack Obama. I disagree with Obama on 99.999% of the issues, but I am willing to give him credit where credit is do. Obama kept in place many of Bush's homeland security policies, he was right to have the surge in Afghanistan, and he is right to push for trade promotion authority. Despite my strong opposition to virtually all of Obama's other policies, I am going to stick to the issues. Obama was born in the United States, period, end of subject. For Donald Trump to have to accuse Obama of being born elsewhere proves he doesn't know what he's talking about, he's delusional, he doesn't care about issues, and he is really isn't very bright.

The point is, Donald Trump doesn't know how to attack anyone. He has been critical of President Bush for being tough on terrorism. He has been critical of President Obama for not being born in the U.S. because Trump can't stand a black man as President. He has been critical of John McCain because McCain was captured in Vietnam, McCain is a hero and Trump is a loser. He has been critical of Marco Rubio for taking a water break during a speech, and has referred to him as "over rated" because Trump is clueless about issues or Rubio's backround. He has said that Rick Perry is wearing glasses to look smart, well mission accomplished Perry is smarter than Trump. Trump has said Bush has no energy, if that's the worst he can come up with, then Bush will be the 45th President, no problem. He's attacked Walker for poor finances in Wisconsin when Trump has been bankrupt four times. He gave out Lindsey Graham's phone number, which is just lame.

Donald Trump knows nothing about economics, he's made that clear with all of his positions on a 14% wealth tax, protectionist trade policies, socialized medicine etc. He knows nothing about managing money because he's gone bankrupt and ran a sporting league into the ground. He knows nothing about foreign policy, and he's for abortion.

The typical Trump supporter is a 62 year old white male who is angry because his manufacturing job went to China or Mexico. He doesn't want to go to a 3 month program at his local community college so he can take one of the 500,000 manufacturing jobs sitting there that require newer skills. He is angry at the immigrants moving into his neighborhood because they look different and he therefore feels threatened, but without full time work he can't afford to move. He watches Jeb Bush talk about growing the economy at 4%, Bush is not pissed off and that makes this guy mad. Hillary Clinton is too busy talking about social issues. He then sees Trump as angry as he is, blaming immigrants and globalization for all of America's problems, and suddenly this 62 year old white male says "yeah, he makes sense."

dudeabides thinks that displaced workers are lazy.  In truth, the 62 year old displaced worker may well not have a job locally due to NAFTA.  Ask the employees of Meridian Electric in Jackson, OH, who lost their jobs in such a fashion in the 2000s.  Oh, of course, people are portable; they can just sell their house (assuming someone will buy it) and move hundreds of miles away for their next job.  Assuming that the 62 year old displaced worker overcomes the reality of age discrimination in the workplace ("You sure you can handle this gig, Pops?"), it's just fine that he would have to move, so he can be used as an example of how our society has become more transient, etc.

Most people think George W. Bush was a lousy President who lied to them to get this country into a war that was motivated by personal Bush motivations.  No, he didn't lie to folks about who he was sleeping with; he lied to them about the need to go to war.  Kind of a scumbag thing to do, eh?  

People KNOW George W. Bush supports Jeb; it's assumed.  Bringing W on the campaign trail isn't going to help, however.  Conservatives don't like W for one set of reasons, and liberals don't like him for other reasons, but he's not popular.  In truth, if dudeabides didn't exist, who'd be saying anything positive about W?  His endorsement would be sort of like LBJ's endorsement of McGovern in 1972; it's better than none at all, but campaigning on the candidate's behalf isn't going to help.

[dudeabides]

I'm not gonna bother to read your entire essay there but the economic growth during W was all a bubble. Jeb hasn't even been hit on this yet by anyone. The GOP doesn't realize how badly the Dems will absolutely destroy Jeb Bush on this. The idea that he's using the same economic team that got us into this mess is pretty much a point blank shot for the Clinton's. Of course the GOP could always have a Kasich or Rubio who could take advantage of Hillary's issues but that would be too smart of them.

Jeb Bush didn't create the housing bubble and even without the housing bubble, economic growth in Florida still would have been greater than the nation as a whole.

I can't wait for the Donald to point out what a sh**tty President he was.

Bush made many mistakes

1. He should have focused on Afghanistan and maybe given the ultimatum to Pakistan to let us send troops into that country or we will invade  as they supported terrorism more then Iraq did. There was no need to invade Iraq.

2. He inherited a 200 billion surplus and when he left there was a 1.2 trillion dollar defict

3. After ousting Suddam bush made a massive mistake of disbanding the Republican Guard which turned into the insurgency who we fought for 8 years which eventually transformed into ISIS.

4. He should have started the surge in like june of  2003 so we could have defeated the insurgency when they were in their infancy instead we started in 2007 when they were far more organized and many more islamic militants had joined them which let them turn into ISIS  when we left

5. He did nothing of the economic downturn until September of 2008 when it was too late

I actually agree with you on #3, partially on #4, and he passed a $700 billion stimulus which failed just like Obama's $787 billion stimulus.

I can't wait for the Donald to point out what a sh**tty President he was.

dudeabides thinks that displaced workers are lazy.  In truth, the 62 year old displaced worker may well not have a job locally due to NAFTA.  Ask the employees of Meridian Electric in Jackson, OH, who lost their jobs in such a fashion in the 2000s.  Oh, of course, people are portable; they can just sell their house (assuming someone will buy it) and move hundreds of miles away for their next job.  Assuming that the 62 year old displaced worker overcomes the reality of age discrimination in the workplace ("You sure you can handle this gig, Pops?"), it's just fine that he would have to move, so he can be used as an example of how our society has become more transient, etc.

Most people think George W. Bush was a lousy President who lied to them to get this country into a war that was motivated by personal Bush motivations.  No, he didn't lie to folks about who he was sleeping with; he lied to them about the need to go to war.  Kind of a scumbag thing to do, eh?  

People KNOW George W. Bush supports Jeb; it's assumed.  Bringing W on the campaign trail isn't going to help, however.  Conservatives don't like W for one set of reasons, and liberals don't like him for other reasons, but he's not popular.  In truth, if dudeabides didn't exist, who'd be saying anything positive about W?  His endorsement would be sort of like LBJ's endorsement of McGovern in 1972; it's better than none at all, but campaigning on the candidate's behalf isn't going to help.

Nice try, I didn't say displaced workers are lazy. I was describing a typical Trump supporter. The vast majority of displaced workers are hard working, patriotic Americans.

None of the blue avatars are willing to explain why more jobs were created under eight years of Bill Clinton than under eight years of George W. Bush. Or why Obama surpassed Bush's job creation record barely halfway through his time in office.

To say nothing of the fact that a higher percentage of Americans lacked health insurance when Bush left office than they did when he took office.

dudeabides, Saddam sent weapons into Syria to hide them? You really are even stupider than your avatar would automatically suggest. Syria and Iraq hated each other for decades. Syria participated in the coalition that attacked Saddam during the Gulf War. Syria backed Iran during the Iran-Iraq War. You think Saddam would let the Assads keep his weapons safe for him? You are just retarded. You are an idiot, pure and simple. People like you are the reason Fox News stays on the air when half the stuff their commentators say can be disproven in five minutes on Wikipedia.

Your insults are completely meaningless to me because clearly, you have been brainwashed. Don't take my word for it, take the world of one of Saddam's top military people:

http://www.foxnews.com/story/2006/01/26/exclusive-former-top-military-aide-to-saddam-reveals-dictator-secret-plans.html

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[Publius]

It'll hurt in the general, but help in the primaries. A CNN/ORC poll from two months ago has George W. Bush's approval rating among Republicans at 88 percent and among conservatives at 73 percent.
http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2015/images/06/02/obama,.economy.poll.pdf