He Ain't Heavy. He's My Brother

By MARGARET CARLSON

Like a siamese twin, Jeb Bush may now have to lay down his political life so that his brother can survive. It wasn't supposed to come to this. Seeing peril in leading George W.'s postelection fight, Jeb recused himself, leaving the heavy lifting to his secretary of state, Katherine Harris, who relished the task and delivered the goods. But last week Jeb emerged from his self-imposed exile to comment on the effort by house speaker Tom Feeney, his friend and former running mate, to summon the legislature into special session, perhaps as early as Wednesday, to name pro-Bush electors. There may be no need to do that, but with the entire press corps in Tallahassee, no branch of government worth its salt wants to be left out of a constitutional drama. And there's a branch of the Republican Party willing to go down for a cause--like Newt Gingrich, the impeachment posse and majority leader Tom Delay--even if it's in flames. Feeney was willing to give Jeb a pass on signing any bill, but Jeb enthusiastically jumped in, calling the maneuver "an act of courage," and saying "I can't recuse myself from my constitutional duties as Governor...and I can't recuse myself frankly of being my brother's brother, either."

By now Jeb looks Shakespearean in his tragedy. By dint of self-abnegation, he had almost made it through a campaign that many, including his parents, thought would be his to wage. While big brother was always the party-hearty sort, coasting through school, floating through oil busts, a cutup during the first 20 years of a checkered career, Jeb was the good son who worked hard and played by the rules. As his dad advised, Jeb made his fortune before making a bid for office, and meanwhile slowly climbed the party ladder in South Florida. But fate is fickle, and W.'s career, which really didn't begin until he gave up drinking in his 40s, took off suddenly when he got control of the Texas Rangers. Party elders started urging him to run for Governor. Jeb had already decided to run again, having made his millions (although W.'s $14.9 million sweetheart payout for his share of the baseball team gave him more, faster). Jeb told the New York Times--when his jokes turned up in W.'s speeches and when odious comparisons (like this one) became commonplace--how he feared that the brother thing could turn into a PEOPLE magazine story. W., surprisingly, was first to win a statehouse; Jeb, the anointed one, lost before he won. Barbara Bush went around exclaiming, "Can you believe it?"

As Governor, Jeb was a smirk-free policy wonk, working from dawn till dusk with no breaks for video games or naps. Yet he became a warm-up act, introducing W. as "my older, smarter and wiser brother." Sometimes appearing disengaged in the campaign, he volunteered to reporters, "You know, George doesn't have to win Florida to win the election," as if the pressure to produce were misplaced. During the final push, Jeb dodged inquiries about his effort by saying how much he loved his brother. W. joked that if Jeb didn't deliver, he'd "be washing my car over vacation." In private, the joke was a tad cruder but no funnier.

Will the ersatz Gingrichites take Jeb down with them if they go, or is he leading the leapfrogging of the courts? Should he sign the bill to name electors, he could be signing his political death warrant. His popularity has already slipped 5 points. Up for re-election in two years, he has a black community angered anew over voting-rights violations. Then there are the seniors, who became fair game for driving too slowly, eating too early, and because they couldn't read a ballot although they can manage a dozen bingo cards. There are the Jews, ridiculed for letting a simple butterfly ballot trick them into voting for Nazi-revisionist Pat Buchanan. And there are the random voters who had the misfortune to vote in heavily Democratic precincts using antiquated machines that have an undercount rate five times as great as those with modern equipment. I'm Irish. I know from grudges. My guess is that they don't get over it.

Jeb has to wonder why the election has turned into his Groundhog Day. Election night was bad enough. After leaving dinner when Florida was called for Gore, Jeb was back in the family's bosom, a hero for all of 30 minutes when Florida moved back into Bush's column. When the polls shifted again, W. tried to get Gore not to retract his concession by citing Jeb as a controlling legal authority that he had won Florida. W. was wrong then, but may yet turn out to be right. If Gore wins the contest, and the legislature has picked its own electors, then Congress, on Jan. 5, will have to choose whether Gore's or the legislature's electors will be seated. But if the two houses of Congress split on that (probably, with a Republican House and a Democratic Senate), the decision will go back to the chief executive of the state. Jeb Bush will then become the first state executive to name a slate of electors to defeat the popular vote, the first to have the choice of President come down to him, the first to award the presidency to a brother. And he once thought George could win without him.