New York bettors might consider Jeb Bush's views on freedom of religion and separation of churh and state and religious preference when Andrew Cuomo comes calling?
Politics
For Jeb Bush, Evolving Views Over 2 Decades
Jeb Bush
once called for building prisons and emphasizing “punishment over
therapy” for juvenile offenders. Today, he supports reforming the
criminal justice system, arguing that incarceration can harden low-level
lawbreakers into career criminals.
In
the past, he stressed using deportation to rid the United States of
unauthorized immigrants. These days, he describes crossing the border
illegally as “an act of love” by migrant parents and supports a path to
citizenship for those who have done so.
He
used to emphasize the rights of big landowners who felt cheated by
environmental programs. Now, he is a champion of state-sponsored
conservation, celebrated for his $2 billion program to restore the Everglades.
Mr.
Bush, 61, the former governor of Florida, insists that he will not
contort himself to satisfy the ideologues of the Republican Party as he
lays the groundwork for a possible presidential run in 2016. But as he
pledges to stay true to his beliefs, an examination of Mr. Bush’s record
reveals ways in which those views have already changed since his first
run for elected office — in presentation, in tone, in language and, at
times, in substance.
The
long trail of Mr. Bush’s pronouncements — from his days as a candidate
for governor of Florida in 1994 to today in his role as a public policy
expert bent on recasting the Republican brand — will inevitability
invite suspicion from within his party that he lacks genuine
conservative conviction, a wariness that he needs to overcome to win the
Republican nomination. But the journey may give Mr. Bush the broader,
cross-party appeal necessary to compete in a presidential general
election.
Over
the past two decades, Mr. Bush has shifted from a doctrinaire and, in
his word, “headbanging” version of conservatism, forged in the crucible
of Newt Gingrich’s
revolt-driven Republican Party, to a more nuanced approach, one
influenced, colleagues said, by his immersion in the multiculturalism of
Florida and his adoption of the Catholic faith.
“There
is an evolution in temperament and an evolution in judgment and an
evolution in wisdom — and there is an evolution in his respect for
others’ point of view,” said Al Cardenas, a longtime friend who insisted
that Mr. Bush had “not changed his conservative values.”
Policy adjustments big and small are routine in American politics. Mitt Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts, and Gov. Chris Christie
of New Jersey once supported abortion rights. Now, both oppose them.
President Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton, a likely presidential
contender in 2016, previously objected to same-sex marriage; today, they support it. In each case, cultural change seemed to alter personal beliefs to political advantage.
For Mr. Bush, the pattern was illustrated last week by a head-turning statement
on the legalization of same-sex marriage in Florida, when he urged
“respect” for the unions and offered words of conciliation to same-sex
couples “making lifetime commitments to each other.”
In 1994, as he ran for governor in Florida, Mr. Bush employed strikingly different language when discussing gay rights,
arguing that “polluters, pedophiles, pornographers, drunk drivers and
developers without permits receive — and deserve — precious little
representation or defense from their governor.” He concluded that “we
have enough special categories, enough victims.”
From
that point, he has been on a long walk away from such harshness.
Friends, advisers and outside analysts said the deepest transformation
had occurred after his stinging loss in the 1994 race, even as the
Republican Party achieved victories so sweeping that it took control of
the House of Representatives for the first time in 40 years.
His
unstinting message of financial austerity and tear-it-down conservatism
had alienated many Florida voters. “He lost because he did not come
across as particularly likable,” said Aubrey Jewett, a professor of
political science at the University of Central Florida who has studied
Mr. Bush. “He was harsh.”
Sally
Bradshaw, who advised Mr. Bush during that period, said: “He learned
from his loss that there are ways to bring people together and ways to
drive people apart. The lesson from ’94 was that he wanted to bring
people together.”
A chastened Mr. Bush re-evaluated his style. He co-founded a charter school
in an impoverished Miami neighborhood and visited shelters for abused
woman. He played down rigidity. “The ideological battle is not as
important as it once was,” he told The New York Times in 1998 as he prepared his second race for governor, which he won.
A
useful case study: the environment. Before the 1994 election, Mr. Bush
supported a state constitutional amendment, also backed by big
corporations, to compensate landowners hurt by conservation efforts. He
held out the prospect of cutting funds for a major program to purchase
environmentally fragile lands and declared that “excessive regulation
does not mean we are going to improve the quality of water, air or
land-use planning.”
Allison
DeFoor, who was a top environmental adviser to Mr. Bush when he became
governor, said bluntly, “He was hostile to the environment in 1994.”
But
Mr. Bush was open to arguments from the other side. He met with
conservation experts and toured important environmental sites across
Florida. When he was elected four years later, “his heart changed,” Mr.
DeFoor said.
As
governor, Mr. Bush invested heavily in a plan to restore the
Everglades, eroded over time by development and agriculture. He called
the wetlands “a treasure” and kept a toy version of a manatee, an
endangered aquatic mammal, on his desk.
Mr. Bush “does not flip-flop,” Mr. DeFoor said. “He learns. When he learns, he changes.”
Mr.
Bush, a former real estate developer, was particularly influenced by
the experience of governing, aides said. Once elected in 1998, he
suddenly had access to measurements of what worked, and what did not, on
issues like juvenile justice.
At
times, though, the winds of political change have appeared to quickly
upend Mr. Bush’s thinking. In 2012, he wrote the book “Immigration
Wars,” in which he opposed a direct pathway to citizenship for
immigrants in the country illegally. He called it “an undeserving reward
for conduct we cannot afford to encourage.”
By
the time the book was published in 2013, the Senate was preparing to
pass bipartisan legislation that included such a pathway. Mr. Bush, when
pressed in interviews, backed away from his resolute position, saying he could support citizenship.
In
other cases, Mr. Bush has simply changed the way he talks about an
issue. On same-sex marriage, he has not embraced legalization, yet he
has adopted sympathetic, accepting language.
Matthew
T. Corrigan, a professor at the University of North Florida who wrote a
book, “Conservative Hurricane,” about Mr. Bush’s agenda as governor,
said Mr. Bush’s “overall presentation has changed, especially since he
left the governor’s office” in 2007.
The
modifications, he said, are more opportunistic than ideological. “He
saw that the Republican Party looked anti-everything and needed a bigger
tent,” Dr. Corrigan said. “His approach to explaining issues and
talking about politics has adapted to that.”
Mr. Bush hinted at this during the last Republican presidential primary when, dismayed by intraparty squabbling, he warned the candidates. “You have to maintain your principles,” he said, “but have a broader appeal.”
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Home > LI
Confidential > Stop
scratching on holidays
Stop scratching on holidays
Published: June 1, 2012
Off Track Betting in New York State has been racing into a crisis called shrinking revenue. Some people have spitballed a solution: Don’t close on holidays.
New York State Racing Law bars racing on Christmas, Easter and Palm Sunday, and the state has ruled OTBs can’t handle action on those days, even though they could easily broadcast races from out of state.
“You should be able to bet whenever you want,” said Jackson Leeds, a Nassau OTB employee who makes an occasional bet. He added some irrefutable logic: “How is the business going to make money if you’re not open to take people’s bets?”
Elias Tsekerides, president of the Federation of Hellenic Societies of Greater New York, said OTB is open on Greek Orthodox Easter and Palm Sunday.
“I don’t want discrimination,” Tsekerides said. “They close for the Catholics, but open for the Greek Orthodox? It’s either open for all or not open.”
OTB officials have said they lose millions by closing on Palm Sunday alone, with tracks such as Gulfstream, Santa Anita, Turf Paradise and Hawthorne running.
One option: OTBs could just stay open and face the consequences. New York City OTB did just that back in 2003. The handle was about $1.5 million – and OTB was fined $5,000.
Easy money.
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