All but one of the potential Republican presidential nominees manged to attend the 32nd annual NALEO convention this year, but at Nancy LaTourneau at the Washington Monthly pointed out, there were thirteen of them ready to go run and kiss Ralph Reed and the evangelical Christians' rear ends this weekend, and of course, Jeb Bush was one of the ones doing the pandering.
It seems Bush is running straight to his right already, because I don't know who he think this is going to appeal to other than the hard right in his base. Most of the country believes what he did during the Terri Schiavo case was shameful. Michael Schiavo did his best to remind everyone of that last year when Bush first said he was exploring the possibility of running.
Now Bush is back, throwing another bone to the religious right.
Here's more on Bush's speech from McClatchy: Jeb Bush touts conservative credentials at conservative confab:
Jeb Bush touted his intervention in the Terri Schiavo case and support for abortion restrictions Friday in an address to a gathering of conservatives that views the Bush family name warily.
Speaking before the Faith & Freedom Coalition’s conference, Bush said he would forgo a political speech in lieu of talking about his faith. But he made repeated reference to his record as governor of Florida, saying that when he was elected he insisted his administration would “build a culture of life from beginning to end.”
Religious conservative voters - who play an outsized role in many states - have viewed Bush with skepticism, given his support for the Common Core education standards and legalization for those in the U.S. illegally. [...]
Bush, who converted to Catholicism for his wife, Columba, said his faith is an “organizing part of my architecture,” as a person and, as an elected official.
He said when he became governor he was “shocked” at what he said was the “total lack” of regulations at abortion clinics and pushed for regulations on the clinics. He said he also signed a partial birth abortion ban, led a fight for a constitutional amendment requiring parental notice for abortions and signed into law a bill that required 48-hour notice to a parent or guardian.
And he defended his role in the Schiavo case, including his support for a law that ordered doctors to reinsert a feeding tube into a comatose woman six days after it had been removed under a court order. The law was later struck down as unconsitutional.
“When I was asked to intervene on behalf of a woman who could not speak up for herself, I stood on her side,” Bush said. “I stood on the side of Terry Schiavo and her parents.”
He warned that religious freedom is “under attack in ways that we've never seen before, “ from the Obama administration and the “general culture.”
“In a big, diverse country, we need to make sure that we protect the right not just of having religious views but the right of acting on those views,” he said. “Religious conscience is one of the first freedoms in our country.”
More conservative victimhood syndrome from the right. They love freedom from government unless it means the government's right to interfere in your reproductive health choices, or in Schiavo's case, end of life decisions. They care about life right up until the day you're born, then you'd better pull yourself up by your own bootstraps, and they don't seem too terribly concerned about the lives lost in these endless wars they want to start and never pay for.
