My premise is no. Or let's put it this way: there are no positive differences. Yes, Jeb says more liberal sounding things on immigration-and in his heart of hearts is less conservative. If it were just about him he would be willing to make a deal with Democrats on immigration. However, it's not about him, it's about his party which is categorically opposed to it.
And his brother was for immigration reform too-he believed in the A-word-amnesty-as did their father years ago.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gYHMwEdvIk
Back then even Reagan was against 'building a fence' now that's pretty much the only thing you can get the GOP in Congress to agree to. Despite W's more humane personal feelings about immigration he was able to accomplish nothing on reform either and not for want of trying.
As for other differences, the only other one that is really clear is that Jeb-that is the name of his campaign by the way, just Jeb; he wants people to forget he's a Bush at all-has a history on abortion that is much more conservative than W-which ought to be shocking with W's reputation.
While Jeb now claims to exempt cases of the life of the mother, rape, and incest, while Governor of Florida he tried to force rape victims and victims of incest into bearing children.
http://diaryofarepublicanhater.blogspot.com/2015/06/scott-walker-field-general-in-war.html
On Iraq, Jeb can't really expalin if he's like his brother or not. He at first boasted to being basically a clone of his brother on Iraq then changed his tune when he saw what a hornet's nest that kicked. Still, he-like all other GOPers in the race-want to send more troops to Iraq and want more saber-rattling the world over, which amounts to a return to the W. Bush years.
Now he's trying to steal his brother's moniker and run as a 'compassionate conservative.' What we know from W is that even a compassionate conservative isn't very compassionate.
"We won’t know all the details until he gives the speech, and I’m sure there will be a reasonable amount of massaging of the conservative pleasure centers on things like tax cuts and reducing regulation. But Jeb’s first notes as an official candidate sound a lot like his brother’s “compassionate conservatism.”
And his brother was for immigration reform too-he believed in the A-word-amnesty-as did their father years ago.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gYHMwEdvIk
Back then even Reagan was against 'building a fence' now that's pretty much the only thing you can get the GOP in Congress to agree to. Despite W's more humane personal feelings about immigration he was able to accomplish nothing on reform either and not for want of trying.
As for other differences, the only other one that is really clear is that Jeb-that is the name of his campaign by the way, just Jeb; he wants people to forget he's a Bush at all-has a history on abortion that is much more conservative than W-which ought to be shocking with W's reputation.
While Jeb now claims to exempt cases of the life of the mother, rape, and incest, while Governor of Florida he tried to force rape victims and victims of incest into bearing children.
http://diaryofarepublicanhater.blogspot.com/2015/06/scott-walker-field-general-in-war.html
On Iraq, Jeb can't really expalin if he's like his brother or not. He at first boasted to being basically a clone of his brother on Iraq then changed his tune when he saw what a hornet's nest that kicked. Still, he-like all other GOPers in the race-want to send more troops to Iraq and want more saber-rattling the world over, which amounts to a return to the W. Bush years.
Now he's trying to steal his brother's moniker and run as a 'compassionate conservative.' What we know from W is that even a compassionate conservative isn't very compassionate.
"We won’t know all the details until he gives the speech, and I’m sure there will be a reasonable amount of massaging of the conservative pleasure centers on things like tax cuts and reducing regulation. But Jeb’s first notes as an official candidate sound a lot like his brother’s “compassionate conservatism.”
"Let’s be clear about what that means. “Compassionate conservatism” was always light on policy and heavy on image-making. While it’s fashionable for Republicans to now say that George W. Bush wasn’t a “real” conservative because he didn’t cut spending enough, the truth is that he gave conservatives almost everything they wanted: huge tax cuts for the wealthy, slashing regulations, a belligerent foreign policy, right-wing judges, and so on. But he also said nice things about poor people and spent lots of time posing for pictures with African-Americans and Hispanics — hence, “compassion.” His 2004 campaign web site featured a “Compassion Photo Album” that was, I kid you not, just a bunch of photos of George and Laura with black and Hispanic people."
And Jeb is following in those footsteps. "
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2015/06/15/jeb-bush-repackages-his-brothers-compassionate-conservatism/
A compassionate conservative is basically a conservative willing to be photographed in public with lots of black and brown folks.
"To be clear, this doesn’t mean Jeb Bush is some kind of moderate — he isn’t, and he isn’t going be claiming to be so in any explicit way. Saying that clearly would be going too far for the primary electorate (prominent conservative media figures like Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Mark Levin, and Laura Ingraham are already lining up against him because he supposedly isn’t conservative enough). The differences between him and the other candidates on policy are tiny, where they exist at all."
"But the Bush campaign says he’ll be “showing his heart,” which appears to mean talking to the kind of people his party has spent the last few years trying as hard as they could to alienate. It sounds like someone who’s already looking past the primaries to the general election."
At the end of the day this is more of the same: Old wine, new bottles. If you loved W you will also love Jeb.
P.S. What Sargent says about Jeb and the other GOP candidates-policy differences are tiny where they exist at all-is also true of Hillary vs. her few challengers-Marvin O'Malley, Bernie Sanders, Lincoln Chafee.
I did find Chafee very charming on Rachel the other night. But I wish more liberals could realize that there isn't this huge difference. I get tired of people believing that Bernie or O'Malley, or Saint Elizabeth, has some diametrically different Royal Road to Progressive Paradise.
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