You may or may not know, but I live in Florida. We've suffered through two major hurricanes recently (my parents and brothers and their families, thankfully, had some damage to their homes but not a huge amount) and are about to have a third, it looks like. Through all of the aftermath, Governor "Jeb" Bush has provided what appears to me to be pretty good leadership. While I'm a state employee, I am not directly involved with the crisis situation, so this isn't one of those "he's my captain right or wrong things". In fact, some of his policies make me nervous for the future of my job or of my colleagues', and his politics and mine differ quite a bit. But I have to say that I admire the way he seems to be handling this crisis - he's in there leading, doing stuff, not on the front page every day with a new proclamation. When a false rumour about gas rationing started, he had to make a statement - and he said we had way more imortant things to do than to get hyper-excited about rumors. He chose, after Hurricane Charley, to not go to the Republican Convention even though I'm sure he would have enjoyed being there to cheer on his brother. There has been speculation, supposedly substantiated, that the GOP wanted JEB to run for President in 2000, not his brother, but that an unexpected loss in Florida's gubernatorial election of 1994 ruined those plans. I have to say, I think he is "good enough" for the job. I might not like his policies any better than some of his brother's, and I probably wouldn't have voted for him - but I think that he'd have been more thoughtful and less dogmatic about them, and less likely to be listening to whoever is pulling GWB's strings. I think JEB is more his own man. If he runs later in life, he'll have a real shot at winning.
