Republican candidate Jeb Bush told a New Hampshire audience Monday that if elected president, he would not point to President Barack Obama over any problems he would inherit.
"My pledge to you: When I'm president I will not blame Barack Obama for a single thing," the former Florida governor told an audience at the Nashua Country Club in Nashua, NH,
The Hill reports.
"The day that I'm sworn into office, I'm on watch — whatever it is," he added.
Bush said the next president must take personal responsibility from the start and not look back at the perceived shortcomings of previous leadership.
"I am really tired of politicians that blame their predecessors," he said, The Hill reports. "I have a personal kind of feeling about it having watched it for a while."
He also took a conciliatory line toward the partisan divide in politics.
"Basically in Washington we have two armed camps," Bush said, The Hill reports.
"We've got the red camp and the blue camp ... They don't talk to each other, there's no personal trust, there's no friendship. There's no assumption that somebody who might not agree with you might just be wrong. They might not be bad."
The pledge not to disparage Obama while in office may also be a further attempt by Bush to position himself as the alternative to feisty GOP front-runner Donald Trump.
"I'm tired politicians who push down a group of people to make themselves look better," Mr. Bush said in Nashua,
the Wall Street Journal reports.
"The front-running candidate for the Republican Party is that kind of politician.
"Donald Trump organizes his campaign around disparaging people, as a sign of strength," he continued. "It's not strong to insult women. It's not strong to castigate Hispanics. It's not strong to ridicule the disabled."
A President Bush not blaming his predecessor would be in sharp contrast to the actions of Obama, who has
blamed Jeb's brother former president George W. Bush for a litany of crises, including the economy, the deficit, the VA scandal, the Fast and Furious scandal, and
the rise of ISIS.
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