Bushes back Jeb for White House

Former President George W Bush says that he and his father believe Jeb Bush should run for president but ultimately the former Florida governor must make a decision regardless of any pressure from the family.

“I can tell you I can speak for 41,” Bush said, referring to the 41st president, George H W Bush, during the official launch of the 43rd president’s book at his father’s presidential library centre at Texas A&M University. “He ought to run for president. He would make a great president.”

“We can pressure him all we want, but it’s not going to matter. You can’t pressure somebody on such an important decision. Only he can decide,” he said.

With his father and mother a few feet from him in the front row of an auditorium filled with a friendly audience of several hundred people, Bush was responding to questions from Andrew Card, his father’s transportation secretary and his own White House chief of staff, primarily about his personal book 41: A Portrait of My Father. The older Bush, seated in a wheel- chair, smiled and waved but did not speak at the event.

George W Bush said that he didn’t know of any timetable for a decision but said from speaking with his brother he knows Jeb Bush “doesn’t like the idea of a political class”.

“The idea of ‘Bush, Clinton, Bush, Obama, Bush’ troubles him, which speaks to his great integrity,” George W said of the succession of recent presidents. “So I said: ‘How does this sound? Bush, Clinton, Bush, Obama, Clinton’,” George W added, referring to the potential presidential run of former secretary of state Hillary Clinton.