Jeb Bush 2016 is a non-starter with the tea party activists affiliated with the conservative FreedomWorks organization.
“My guess is over the last several years, Jeb Bush has disqualified himself from winning the nomination by his very strong stance on Common Core,” Adam Brandon, the executive vice president of FreedomWorks, said in a Wednesday interview with The Daily Caller.
Brandon’s comments foreshadow the problem Bush will likely have with the conservative base should he proceed with plans to run for the White House in 2016.
“That’s what I hear as most commonly from the base, people we’re working with,” Brandon said of Bush’s support for the educational standards. “Also, there’s just a lot of Bush fatigue.”
Bush also has also not helped himself with these voters with reports that he has said he wants to run for president without pandering to conservatives in a GOP primary.
Bush has also argued for a pathway to citizenship for illegal immigrants, another toxic position that will be problematic with some in the base.
Referencing Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, Utah Sen. Mike Lee and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, Brandon argued Wednesday that there’s “this feeling right now” among activists that there’s a new crop of conservative leaders out there that they “could do better” with.
“We can expect more from the GOP candidates,” he said.
As for FreedomWorks’ involvement in the 2016 GOP presidential race, Brandon said: “It’s way too early to start going out there and saying this candidate is absolutely unacceptable, and this candidate is this and that.”
“But maybe by the summer we’ll start putting out our first scorecards on the candidates, grading them on some key issues,” he said.