Former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean said Friday that former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush will probably win the 2016 GOP presidential nomination, saying Republicans typically end up nominating the more “moderate, mainstream person.”
“Despite Texas and Florida, this is a northeastern family,” Mr. Dean, who ran for president in 2004, said on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.” “His father — he moved to the right when he became Reagan’s vice president, but George Bush was a quintessential patrician Republican — the kind, actually, that my parents liked.”
“Jeb’s still got a lot of those mannerisms — I think it’s going to be a fascinating campaign, [because] the Republicans have always tried to do the really conservative thing and they always end up nominating [the] more moderate, mainstream person, which would be Jeb Bush,” Mr. Dean said. “And they’re going to try it again, and I think Jeb Bush probably wins.”
The former Florida governor has not backed off of his comparatively moderate positions on issues like immigration and Common Core, defending them to potential voters as he travels around and lays the groundwork for a possible presidential run.
Many conservatives were unenthused with Sen. John McCain of Arizona and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, the GOP’s presidential nominees in 2008 and 2012, respectively, and National Journal reported this week that a group of influential conservative power brokers is working on potentially coalescing behind a single candidate in 2016 in an effort to head off a so-called establishment pick.
• David Sherfinski can be reached at dsherfinski@washingtontimes.com.
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