Another squishy accomodationist laments the current state of the Grand Old Party:
One of the GOP's leading voices said Monday that former President Ronald Reagan, considered an idol among Republican politicians, would struggle to mesh with today's hyper-partisan attitude among some elected officials.
Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, speaking to editors at Bloomberg, also said his father, former President George H.W. Bush, would have trouble fitting in with today's Republican Party.
"Ronald Reagan would have, based on his record of finding accommodation, finding some degree of common ground, as would my dad – they would have a hard time if you define the Republican party – and I don't – as having an orthodoxy that doesn't allow for disagreement, doesn't allow for finding some common ground," Bush said, according to the website Buzzfeed.\
Even if we accept Bush's faulty premise -- that seeking accomodation with the other side is desirable -- his point is meaningless. The list of presidents who probably could not get elected today includes all our past presidents. Presidents are products of their times, and the country ends up with two candidates who best capture the spirit of the prevailing debate.
At least Bush, unlike some of the yearners for a kinder, gentler GOP, does place some of the blame with President Obama. If presidential candidates have arisen from contemporary circumstances, so have philosophical positions and political postures. The Obama administration has been breathtakingly audacious in pushing a hardline statist agenda. Radical on the left begets radical on the right.
