Video of George H.W. Bush... the elder Bush... endorsing Kay...

As I suspected... Bush 41 is endorsing Kay because as he put it... he and Barbara said they would a long time ago... it is not really an anti Rick endorsement but will still help Kay if only because it shows her campaign still has some serious fight left in it...

Rick vs. the world has a good take on this endorsement as well as the other big block buster endorsement of Kay from James Baker (link). Excerpt follows...

George H.W. Bush and his Sec of State James Baker are obviously big names. And it certainly says something to primary voters when big names like that endorse the challenger.

On the other hand, political decisions such as voting are largely driven by emotion, and I think people respect former President Bush and Sec Baker, but I'm not so sure that they move many votes these days among Republican primary voters. I'm not so sure that non-Republicans understand this.

I agree that this does say something... and Elise Hu has written a great blog about what it might mean that Rick and the Bush peeps are mostly parting ways (link). Excerpt follows...

He joins his close friend, longtime consigliere, and former White House chief-of-staff James Baker, who endorsed Hutchison earlier this week, and a long list of his son George W. Bush's closest associates in lining up behind the challenger to the incumbent. Hutchison has the public backing of former Vice President Dick Cheney, former Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings, and former Counselor to the President and communications director Karen Hughes, and she's being advised by former Deputy White House Chief of Staff Karl Rove.

Of all the prominent Bushies, Perry can claim only one outlier: Joe Allbaugh, who was chief of staff to Governor George W. Bush and the head of FEMA in 43's first term.

What's going on here? It's a question without a definitive answer and a subject that those in-the-know do not want to go anywhere near. Nearly every one of the two dozen sources contacted for this story refused to be quoted by name; several of those who went on the record saved their best material for after they went back off. But everyone with knowledge of the Bushworld-Perryworld divide had a theory. At least four emerged as plausible.

The whole thing is worth some time... I didn't really believe there was such a pronounced rift until this week's big announcements... but now it is undeniable... and I think Elise covers the plausible explanations very well...

There is an old video going around from 1998 showing the elder Bush endorsing Rick when he was running for Lt. Governor...

If Rick had lost to John Sharp Bush might not have been such an eager choice for Republicans who were concerned that elevating Bush to the presidency would also mean elevating a Democrat to the governor's seat... the Bush team and the Rick team from what I have seen in Paul Burka's recent article and others did not see eye to eye on strategy... and the Rick peeps felt like Bush's strategy made Rick barely win... had Rick been able to implement his own strategy Bush might not have won by as much but Rick would have won by more...