An intense and growing public backlash forced Jeb Bush to pull a Mitt Romney and flip-flop on his support for “religious freedom” laws in less than two days.
Jeb Bush appeared to modify his public comments about Indiana’s “religious freedom” law on Wednesday in a closed-door Silicon Valley fund-raiser, telling a small group of potential supporters that a “consensus-oriented” approach would have been better at the outset.
To get more stories like this, subscribe to our newsletter The Daily.
…
“By the end of the week, I think Indiana will be in the right place, which is to say that we need in a big, diverse country like America, we need to have space for people to act on their conscience, that it is a constitutional right that religious freedom is a core value of our country, ” Mr. Bush said.
But “we shouldn’t discriminate based on sexual orientation,” he said.
Bush reversed course from what he told conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt on Monday, “I think if you, if they actually got briefed on the law that they wouldn’t be blasting this law. I think Governor Pence has done the right thing. Florida has a law like this. Bill Clinton signed a law like this at the federal level. This is simply allowing people of faith space to be able to express their beliefs, to have, to be able to be people of conscience. I just think once the facts are established, people aren’t going to see this as discriminatory at all.”
Jeb Bush’s own donors were voicing confusion about what his real position is after his remarks on Wednesday. Confusion was the point. Bush is pulling from Mitt Romney’s playbook of his true agenda by supporting everything that everyone wants.
The former Florida governor has also fallen into the Republican frontrunner trap of trying to run a general election campaign during a Republican presidential primary. Bush is pulling a Mitt Romney. He is trying to fool the voters of this country by muddying his agenda so much that it is unrecognizable.
The strategy didn’t work for Romney in 2012, and it won’t work for Bush in 2016.
Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.
Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association
