The Wall Street Journal’s annual CEO Council this week features a host of high-profile speakers, including Christine Largarde, managing director of the International Monetary Fund, Representative Paul Ryan, National Security Adviser Susan Rice, potential GOP presidential candidate Jeb Bush and many others. But the event also brings together CEOs of some of the biggest global companies, and they were asked which Republican they want to win the 2016 primary.
The answer was clear, according to the Journal's Washington bureau chief:
At WSJ #CEOCouncil 73% of CEOs say Jeb Bush is their choice for 2016 GOP nomination.
— Gerald F Seib (@GeraldFSeib) December 2, 2014That would seem to be good news for Bush—73 percent means a lot of powerful, well-funded people are waiting to help his candidacy. Then again, many voters already view Bush as too close to Wall Street. The CEO Council poll—assuming that's how Seib arrived at that figure—won’t do anything to dissuade those fears.
Jeb Bush: the choice of CEOs https://t.co/0UTXJ3ab1G
— Matt O'Brien (@ObsoleteDogma) December 2, 2014Locking Up the Fortune 500 Vote RT @GeraldFSeib: At WSJ #CEOCouncil 73% of CEOs say Jeb Bush is their choice for 2016 GOP nomination.
— W Bradford Wilcox (@WilcoxNMP) December 2, 2014That could hurt him in the Republican primary as well. The Washington Examiner, for instance, reported Monday that conservatives are already working to block his candidacy. “Jeb is a very good moderate Democrat,” conservative talk radio host Mark Levin told the Examiner. “He's very boring. He doesn't elicit excitement and energy outside a very small circle of wealthy corporatists and GOP Beltway operatives. Time to move on.”
Maybe Bush should've hoped to lose the WSJ CEO poll after all.