Jeb Bush posts e-mails, first chapter of e-book

Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush has posted a trove of communications from his time in office to a new website, as well as the first chapter of an e-book that spans the early portion of his time in office as Florida’s chief executive.

Mr. Bush writes that being governor of Florida was his “dream job,” and the feeling never changed in eight years, “not through the hurricanes, budget debates, or even hanging chads.”

He also wrote about the time he (and his staff) spent answering personal emails, which became part of the foundation for the book.

“The idea of this book, through the use of these emails, is to tell the story of a life of a governor,” he wrote. “No day is like the one before it, or what will come after. No day ends the way it began. The unexpected became the expected.”

The e-mails cover exchanges between Mr. Bush and constituents, as well as staff.

“One of our goals should be to have fewer government employees each year we are serving,” Mr. Bush wrote to staff in December 1998. “We need a baseline from which to start. Labor has huge potential to be reduced, possibly in half. Let me know how many govt folks are our base.”

While they reveal the often mundane aspects of serving as a chief executive, the emails could also serve as an early marker of transparency as Mr. Bush lays the groundwork for a presidential run.

Other possible presidential contenders, such as former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee and Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, have come out with books recently as well. But Mr. Bush’s straight-to-the-Internet publication, based on a catalog of e-mailed communications, also serves as somewhat of a bridge between the arguably novel means of communication he employed during his time in office and the types of technological advances available to political candidates operating today.

Later Tuesday, Mr. Bush is scheduled to headline an education summit hosted by the Foundation for Florida’s Future in Tallahassee.