Barbara Bush on Jeb: ‘I Hope He Won’t’ Run For President

'If we can't find more than two or three families to run for high office, that's silly'

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If former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush decides to run for the White House in 2016, he will have to first win over his mother.

In an interview with C-SPAN, former First Lady Barbara Bush expanded on her observation last year that “we’ve had enough Bushes,” saying she hopes Jeb doesn’t run, even though she thinks he is the most qualified. “If we can’t find more than two or three families to run for high office, that’s silly,” she said in an interview for the network’s First Ladies series.

But by all indications, it seems her son agrees. The son and brother of presidents has been largely out of the spotlight in recent months, and Republican operatives widely believe he will not seek the White House.

Her full comments:

“I think this is a great American country, great country, and if we can’t find more than two or three families to run for high office, that’s silly, because there are great governors and great eligible people to run. And I think that the Kennedys, Clintons, Bushes, there are just more families than that. And I’m not arrogant enough to think that we alone are raising, but we’re — we’re raising public servants, whether they’re feeding the poor, like Lauren is, who’s fed 68 million children around the world, or Barbara, who’s bringing global health to the world, or Pierce is working for Big Brothers, Big Sisters.

But there are a lot of ways to serve. And being president is not the only one. And I would hope that someone else would run, although there’s no question in my mind that Jeb is the best qualified person to run for president, but I hope he won’t, because I think he’ll get all my enemies, all his brother’s, all — and there are other families. I refuse to accept that this great country isn’t raising other wonderful people.”