One of Florida’s top political editors labeled former Florida Governor Jeb Bush the “loser of the week” and noted that his full-throated embrace of Common Core is making it less likely that he would secure the GOP nomination if he decides to run for President of the United States.
“Bush’s strength as a presidential candidate looks much more dubious today than a few months ago, amid widespread backlash against education accountability policies closely associated with him,” veteran Florida politics observer Adam Smith wrote at the Tampa Bay Times.
Smith noted that “the Lee County School Board voted to opt out of Common Core,” which Jeb Bush’s education foundation criticized. On the contrary, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal “sued the federal government over Common Core, while Rick Scott is scrambling to distance himself from Common Core and standardized testing.”
In addition to crony capitalism concerns, Bush’s other major liability, should he choose to run, is his support of amnesty. He has said that illegal immigration is an “act of love,” repeatedly called for a pathway to citizenship for all the country’s illegal immigrants, and advocated for more foreign guest-worker visas at a time when the U.S. economy has a surplus of American workers.