For anyone who thinks Jeb's Bushiness will prevent him from winning an election, you're wrong.
I agree. He can win the GOP pretty damn easily. People writing off Jeb so easily are in for a surprise. What do the Republicans normally do?
1. Big money controls everything in government and politics...and the GOP has plenty of it...nearly all on the side of the establishment.
2. In the 50+ years since the Goldwater mistake, they support the most electable establishment candidate. Always. No matter the rhetoric of Reagan pretending to be an outsider (etc.) none of them were outsiders. They all had big money behind them.
3. Over that same period (since '64), in all but one instance they have nominated a candidate that had been through the fire before. (McCain, Reagan, Dole, Romney...all of them). The one instance where that didn't apply? George W Bush. The legacy vote.
4. George HW Bush is just as much Jeb's father as W is his brother. The establishment (the smart guy business conservatives, not the Reagan-worshippers) respects Bush 41 more than any living Republican. And Jeb is seen as "the smart son" to these people.
5. His stances on immigration and potentially other areas are far more electable than the vast majority of these GOP candidates.
I'm not saying the Bush legacy won't be a drag on him...it certainly will...but people get too narrow minded on this shit. Clinton has as much drag on her too but it doesn't matter in either case.
80% of the people already will vote for the D or the R and it's that simple. Of the 20% in the middle that can be swayed, issues like equal rights (women, gays) and immigration are quite important. Jeb fits that bill. Will he get out of the bloody GOP primary without needing to pander too much? I don't know but if he can show signs of life early on, I think he rolls to the nomination.
And I also agree, he's the only one that could remotely beat HRC. But he won't. The demographics, the electoral college...the basic GOP platform...it's all going against them.
If I had to bet right now, I'd say Walker-Bush or Bush-Walker and that's entirely dependent on whether Walker is a legit national candidate or another Rick Perry/Tim Pawlenty, both wilted like a flower in the national spotlight.