Latest Jeb Bush Gaffe Draws Todd Akin Comparison
Just a couple weeks after his damaging “work longer hours” gaffe, former Florida Governor Jeb Bush, who last campaigned for office in 2002 before this current campaign, committed yet another severe blunder, Breitbart News reported today. Comparing this latest gaffe to the “legitimate rape” blunder by former Missouri Senate nominee Todd Akin, Breitbart reported how Bush said, in part, “I’m not sure we need a half-billion dollars for women’s health issues.”
“You could take dollar for dollar — although I’m not sure we need half a billion dollars for women’s health issues — but if you took dollar for dollar, there are many extraordinarily fine community health organizations that exist to provide quality care for women on a wide variety of health issues,” Bush said.
Writing for the Washington Post, Paul Waldman compared Jeb Bush to Mitt Romney, and suggests this latest gaffe will make him vulnerable to the same “war on women” attack that Romney faced in 2012.
“After all, in 2012 President Obama hammered Mitt Romney (see this ad, for instance) for taking exactly this position on defunding Planned Parenthood, and ended up beating Romney among women by 11 points,” Waldman wrote.
Jeb Bush says he misspoke when he made the comment Tuesday about half a billion dollars for women’s health issues, the Hill reported. The comment by Bush was quickly criticized by Hillary Clinton and CNN, which quickly opined that “Jeb Bush’s Planned Parenthood jab backfires.”
“With regards to women’s health funding broadly, I misspoke, as there are countless community health centers, rural clinics, and other women’s health organizations that need to be fully funded. They provide critical services to all, but particularly low-income women who don’t have the access they need,” Bush said in a statement reported by the Hill.
The Bush gaffe got attention in Breitbart News and has drawn criticism from others on the conservative side of the political spectrum, as well.
“It wasn’t just Democrats who blasted Bush for his on-stage remark,” CNN reported, “Guy Benson, the political editor at the conservative news website Townhall, tweeted that Bush’s comment will allow Democrats to obfuscate on five controversial Planned Parenthood videos that have stoked a conservative push to block federal funds from flowing to the organization by conflating that push with a debate over women’s health.”
“Jeb Bush wants to define who and what he is as a candidate for president before the Democrats define him,” the Inquisitr reported.
“He saw the mistake made by Mitt Romney and doesn’t want to repeat it,” as CNN Politics has reported, that Romney advisers “admitted one of their biggest mistakes was failing to define him before the Democrats did.”
Will Jeb Bush’s gaffes prevent him from becoming the GOP nominee for president in 2016? Only time will tell, but his blunders certainly don’t help him win this campaign.
[Photo of Jeb Bush from Getty Images]
