The Guy Everyone Wants To Meet

Not every foreign Tom, Dick or Harry gets to meet with two German cabinet ministers. Except for Jeb Bush. After all, he could become president.

Jeb Bush is a really lucky guy: The retired Florida governor makes a quick trip to Berlin and is promptly received by half the German government. Monday afternoon he first met with Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble (Christian Democratic Union) and then with Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier (Social Democratic Party.) And if that wasn’t enough to make a visit to the German capital city a success, he managed to shoehorn into an economic conference meeting that same evening at the Hotel Intercontinental with Chancellor Angela Merkel (CDU).

The German government apparently also didn’t want to go into details and merely said it was no big deal: Cabinet ministers regularly receive foreign guests. In reality, such a big reception actually is anything but normal. Not just any old Tom, Dick or Harry gets appointments with two cabinet ministers.

That holds true even if Tom, Dick or Harry is planning to announce he’s running for president. First off, about a zillion other Republicans beside him are planning to do the same. And secondly, the German government normally keeps its nose out of foreign political elections.

So why the exception here? Possibly because Jeb Bush has a chance of running in his father’s and big brother’s footsteps. As of right now, he has collected more campaign donations than the other Republican candidates and his opinion poll numbers still look decent. It can’t hurt to learn a little more about this would-be president.

Not Radically Right for a Bush

Or could the German government be thinking about secretly helping Bush get the nomination? Compared to other Republican contenders, Bush is almost considered a moderate. While he’s no great supporter of same-sex marriage or civil rights, he’s at least married to the daughter of a Mexican and he’s in favor of a more moderate immigration policy.

But what a successful candidacy still lacks in his case is foreign policy experience. Therefore, he’s doing a European tour, which, when he leaves Berlin, will also take him to Warsaw and Tallinn. American voters may not be all that impressed by a foreign minister from Lower Saxony, but he might score points at home when he trots out his other new German federal government acquaintances.