Jeb Bush Tells It Like It Is, 'Reagan Would Not Win In Today's GOP'

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Last updated on June 13th, 2012 at 10:08 am

Those of us on the left have been saying how crazy the Republican party has become. First, we have Bruce Bartlett, an office holder in the Reagan administration. Bruce was Reagan's right hand man on domestic, economic policy and even he has been highly critical of the state of the current GOP. Gov. Mike Huckabee, gas stated that this GOP wouldn't nominate Reagan either, because Reagan raised taxes, negotiated with the Democrats on fiscal and immigration issues.

Now we have Jeb Bush, who said this morning,

"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, adding that he views the hyper-partisan moment as "temporary."

"Back to my dad’s time and Ronald Reagan’s time – they got a lot of stuff done with a lot of bipartisan suport," he said. Reagan "would be criticized for doing the things that he did."

Bush used as an example, "the budget deal my dad did, with bipartisan support — at least for a while — that created the spending restraint of the ‘90s," a reference to a move widely viewed now as a political disaster for Bush, breaking a pledge against tax increases and infuriating conservatives. It was, Bush said, "helpful in creating a climate of more sustainted economic growth."

So what has changed? Obviously not the Democrats, they bent over backwards to accommodate the GOP's positions. They extended the Bush tax cuts, cut massive holes in the budget, even the so called stimulus had $333 billion dollars in tax cuts. The tea party came in and everything changed. The tea party continues to stick to a mission not to compromise. It caused a debt ceiling debacle that panicked the global market, and much more.

Month after month, the classical Republican is being pushed out and is being replaced by an extreme ideological sector of the party. This is the John Birch Society of steroids. They are no longer on the fringes of the party, they ARE the face of the party of Reagan and Eisenhower.

The polarization of the GOP was brought to the forefront by Sarah Palin and obviously Fox News personalities, like Megan Kelly, Glenn Beck and Sean Hannity. Until rational people grab hold of the party formerly of Reagan, the deep end is not that far away, or perhaps they have already gone off it.