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Jeb Bush wants to tear down this myth!

    by Will Bunch | Columnist
    Published 

You'd almost think that Jeb Bush actually read my book, "Tear Down This Myth," after seeing his comments yesterday on the GOP "listening tour" that actually seems to be a lot of Jeb Bush, Mitt Romney and Eric Cantor yammering away like they were doing before. This is what Jeb said about the GOP's fixation with Ronald Reagan:

Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush said Saturday that it's time for the Republican Party to give up its "nostalgia" for the heyday of the Reagan era and look forward, even if it means stealing the winning strategy deployed by Democrats in the 2008 election.

"You can't beat something with nothing, and the other side has something. I don't like it, but they have it, and we have to be respectful and mindful of that," Mr. Bush said.

He went on:

"So our ideas need to be forward looking and relevant. I felt like there was a lot of nostalgia and the good old days in the [Republican] messaging. I mean, it's great, but it doesn't draw people toward your cause," Mr. Bush said.

I think everyone agrees with that, so....WHAT IS YOUR NEW IDEA?!! The 2009 GOP reminds me of some of those company new Web sites during the high-flying years of the dot- com bubble, where the site that was causing all the buzz was "under construction" when you actually went there. So now the new Republican Party is "under construction," but what can they possibly build? Cloning the Democrats won't work, nor will going back to the worn-out ideas still beloved by the ever-shrinking base. You know why there's not so much real listening on the "listening tour"? Because check out what "the base" is trying to tell them:

"I mean they're, is it surprising that Barack Obama was elected and he goes around apologizing in every country he goes to, when people are spoon fed years in high school and college of anti-American history? I mean quite honestly I think people learn more from listening to Rush Limbaugh's show than they do in high school and college. And do you have a response?"

How can you respond to something like that?