COLLEGE STATION, Texas (AP) – Former President George W. Bush said 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 dad’s presidential library center 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. It’s not going to cause him to think positively or negatively if we all continue to harass him. Only he can decide.”
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 wheelchair, smiled and waved but did not speak at the event.
Bush said 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.”