Skepticism greets Jeb Bush in first Iowa visit

DES MOINES, Iowa — Even before Jeb Bush leaves his first footprint in Iowa on Friday during his debut trip here as a presidential hopeful, some conservative activists seem hardened against him.

"It's hard to reconcile his membership in the Republican Party as anything more than a multigenerational family tradition," Cary Gordon, a Christian conservative pastor at a Sioux City church, told The Des Moines Register this week. "He appears to be a Republican in name, but not necessarily a Republican in heart and head."

Comments like that invent a Bush persona that's wholly unfamiliar to Republican and Democratic politicos in Florida, where he was governor from 1999 to 2007.

"He's regarded as a conservative hero in Florida," Republican state Rep. Matt Gaetz told the Register. "As governor, he took on every liberal special interest group and won."

Democratic state Rep. Keith Fitzgerald, who lives in Sarasota, said: "He's a very serious guy, and he's very, very smart. He has his principles. In fact, he can be rigid and unyielding. He's an ideologue."

Florida leaders said Bush built the GOP almost from scratch in a Democrat-dominated state, then governed sharply to the right, preaching the gospel of fiscal and social conservatism.

Bush created the nation's first school voucher program, pushed accountability in public schools, chiseled away at taxes, fought to prevent abortions, shored up gun rights, cracked down on armed criminals, reformed Medicaid into a system of private managed-care providers and ended affirmative action in state hiring.

"I laugh now about people talking about Governor Bush being a moderate. He was perceived at the time for being the Attila the Hun of conservatives," said Nick Hansen, a Florida GOP campaign strategist.

Bush's Iowa debut later than most

Bush, 62, finally suits up in Iowa on Friday, at the starting line for the race to the White House. He'll mingle Friday night with about 200 Iowans at a dessert reception fundraiser for one of Iowa's newly elected GOP congressmen.

On Saturday morning, he'll take the stage before a crowd of 900 at a presidential auditioning event called the Iowa Ag Summit. In the afternoon, invited guests will get a chance to talk with him at a private gathering at Jethro's barbecue restaurant in Waukee. Then he's off to Cedar Rapids for an open-to-the-public meet-and-greet at a Pizza Ranch restaurant.

Bush is the last contender on the current 2016 roster of major Democratic and Republican presidential aspirants to make his debut trip to Iowa. A narrative has already begun to sink in here that conservatives should be skeptical of him, partly because he embraces academic standards for student achievement and is disinterested in deporting every immigrant living in the country illegally.

Suspicions also percolate that Bush harbors positive feelings about same-sex marriage, although Bush, a Catholic, has repeatedly said he supports traditional marriage.

Asked if he's worried that it might already be getting too late to change some Iowa conservatives' negative opinions about him, Bush told the Register in a telephone interview: "No."

He chuckled.

"Look, if I actually go beyond the consideration of running to actually running, then I'll do it with lots of energy. I'll do it with lots of passion, and I'll do it honestly, telling my story about how conservative principles applied the right way through principles-centered leadership made a difference here in Florida. I'd put my record up against anybody's, to be honest with you. That's a solid conservative record."

Iowa isn't entirely hostile turf for Bush — 46 percent of Republicans who intend to vote in the first-in-the-nation presidential caucuses in 2016 view Bush favorably, according to a late January Des Moines Register/Bloomberg Politics Iowa Poll. But 43 percent have a negative view. Eleven percent aren't sure. Forty percent think his political leanings are "about right." But 37 percent consider him to be "too moderate."

Professor: Don't equate Bush brothers

Iowans might have an incomplete assessment of Bush if they equate him with his brother, George W. Bush, said Fitzgerald, the Democratic Florida state representative who is also a former political science professor at Iowa's Grinnell College.

"Even people on the Democratic side (in Florida), people who really did not like what Jeb Bush did, have a good deal of respect for him and his intelligence," Fitzgerald said. "His brother made dumb decisions and didn't think things through and was glib. That is not Jeb Bush."Those who know Bush describe him as thoughtful, inquisitive and self-aware. But he can be impatient. He does not suffer fools gladly, they say.

Although he might prefer to stay at home with a book, he has shown an eagerness to get out to meet voters and donors, repeatedly explaining his thinking on immigration and common core education standards and how all that fits in with what he believes the country needs.

He's a restless kind of a guy, friends say. He's into golfing and tennis. And he's happier when he's taking action.

Gaetz, who was a legislative aide at the time Bush was governor, recalled how Bush didn't like to sit still during meetings with aides. It was important to Bush to connect directly with people, so he published his email address — the same one he still uses. One day, staff gathered around Bush to hash over a legal case with multimillion-dollar implications. At the same time Bush was telling them his analysis, he was also typing responses to Floridians, including a woman reporting a problem pothole.

"It remains the most fascinating multitasking experience I have ever witnessed," said Gaetz, who is the finance and tax committee chairman in the Florida House.

Another Bush moment that several Florida Republicans described was his loss in the 1994 governor's race. Bush realized the infrastructure Republicans needed to win elections was almost nonexistent, they said. For four years, Bush went county to county. He cultivated a grassroots movement that eventually led to GOP control of both houses and the governor's office.

In 2002, he made Florida history as the first Republican governor to win re-election, which left him in a powerful position, with a friendly Legislature ready to jump on what he called his "big hairy audacious goals."

"It's 10 years later, and we're still talking about, 'Governor Bush did that,' " said Hansen, who worked on the presidential campaigns for Mitt Romney in 2008 and Rick Perry in 2012.

Democrat says he cut budget too deeply

Democrats are still talking about Bush, too, but their list of what they consider his accomplishments is far smaller.

Dan Gelber, who was the Florida House minority leader during Bush's tenure, said when the state got hammered by hurricanes in 2004 and 2005, Bush was on the ground in the middle of everything, offering guidance and comfort in both Spanish and English.

"He was the calm in the storm," Gelber said. "In fact, eight of them. But beyond that, his record is mixed."

Bush's austere approach to running the state bureaucracies, including his decision to cut 13,000 positions, left Florida hurting when the recession hit after he left office, Gelber said.

"He didn't cut the fat; he cut the marrow," Gelber said. "We've had problems because of it with our children and our seniors."

Fitzgerald said Bush deserved the nickname "Veto Corleone" for whacking $2.3 billion in earmarks, but Fitzgerald thinks any good governor can sift through state budgets and find "some real turkeys." He said Bush shepherded the state's bond rating, shored up rainy day funds, and left the pension plan "in great shape."

But Fitzgerald and several other Democrats said Bush made nothing more than mild improvement in education, and his conservative prescription for tax cuts, outsourcing and downsizing did not improve outcomes in other state services.

In the telephone interview with the Register, Bush said: "Each one of these things — I think it's safe to say most people would agree with this — we worked hard to execute on what the Legislature gave us the authority to do, and it did improve outcomes — education outcomes particularly. In K-12, we went from the bottom of the pack to having some of the greatest learning gains over the last decade."

Bush said: "I've had a chance to be governor of a complex state, where we fixed a few big things that made it possible for a whole lot of people in our state to benefit. That life experience that came from business and public leadership — if I go forward and run for president — I think will be a useful part of the story that I'll tell Iowans."