WSVN — For John Ellis Bush, you can truly ask: What’s in a name?
Campaigning throughout Florida with the bright red “Jeb” logo, Jeb Bush became Florida’s 43rd governor in 1998, and won reelection four years later.
He told us in 2002…
Jeb Bush: “Life as governor is fulfilling. I’m completely immersed in it and engaged in it.”
And then there’s the famous family name. Jeb is the son of President George H.W. Bush and the younger brother of president George W. Bush. His announcement of looking into becoming the next president of the United States is in his lineage, but it was never a given.
Before leaving the Governor’s Mansion, Jeb said he was approached in 2006 about becoming the next commissioner of the National Football League. He passed.
He considered running for the U.S. Senate in Florida in 2010. He never did.
He constantly shot down rumors in 2011 he would run for the White House in 2012. Even 2016 was never a sure thing as Republicans, and his brother, pressed.
Jeb Bush (on March 10, 2013): “I don’t know if I’m going to run for elected office again or not. In the interim, I have a blessed life, I have a great family.”
George W. Bush (on Oct. 2, 2014): “He and I had a conversation. I, of course, was pushing him to run for president. He, of course, was saying, ‘I haven’t made up my mind,’ and I truly don’t think he has.”
As Jeb looks forward to the White House, his own policies will be scrutinized, including during the Republican primary. Jeb’s stint in Tallahassee will largely be remembered for his education reform and approval of statewide testing. He currently supports Common Core, education standards on a national scale, which is a target of many Republicans.
Jeb Bush: “Tenemos hermanos muy famosos. [“We have brothers who are very famous.”]
Jeb raised his family in Miami when he moved here in the early 1980s, speaks Spanish, and his wife is from Mexico.
Some in his party also took exception to his views on immigration when he said in 2014 that undocumented immigrants are not felons and came to this country as “an act of love.”
Jeb Bush (on April 6, 2014): “If immigrants come to this country and want to participate, they should embrace our values and so should native-born Americans, by the way. I mean, we need much broader civics education in this country, a sense of our history.”
Now this Bush, Jeb Bush, is making history of his own.