It was late October, and notices were flying that Jeb Bush’s lean, handsome son would be at The Prospector’s Grill & Saloon in College Station, Texas, to do some last-minute campaigning for his first political run. The social-media alerts had also been blasting the news that the Mike Ryan band was going to be playing, probably ready to uncork one of its signature songs: “Wasting No More Whiskey.” For now, sitting on his campaign tour bus, George P. Bush stared at ABC’s Jonathan Karl and listened to how the conversation was swinging pretty far away from what George P. planned to do in case he won the election for Texas land commissioner.

He had to know it was going to happen this way. He had to realize that national audiences really didn’t care a whit about the office he was running for in the Lone Star State. No one outside Texas has the slightest idea what the land commissioner does—and probably not even most Texans could really explain the role. What the national media really wanted to know was what the hell his father was going to do:

Karl: So is your dad going to run for president?

Bush: I think he's still assessing it.

Karl: Do you think it's more than 50 percent, less than 50 percent?

Bush: I think it's—it's more than likely that he's giving this a serious thought and moving—and moving forward ...

Karl: More than likely that he'll run?

Bush: That he'll run. If you had asked me a few years back, I—I would have said it was less likely ...

From his bus, George P. could see the small town that is home to Texas A&M University. And if his bus followed the winding George Bush Drive and Barbara Bush Drive, it would take him to the apartment Jeb’s parents, George P.’s grandparents, keep for the times they are visiting their presidential library. Some visitors joke that you can rap a stick on the ceiling as you are queuing up to buy “George Bush socks” at the gift shop and that maybe Barbara Bush herself will knock back from above. Texas A&M, of course, isn’t to be confused with the presidential library and foundation George P.’s uncle, George W., has erected 180 miles to the north in the heart of Dallas.

It’s right here, in the heavily Christian heart of the state, where three generations of Bushes tried to convince voters that they’re really connected to the heartland. That the Bush family DNA is defined by ordinary American values—and not the blue-blood lineage that traces to Yale, the private schools in the Northeast and straight to Wall Street.

It’s been part of every Bush campaign dating back to the early 1960s, and the strategy often seemed to reach its apotheosis in College Station, a place so comfortable to the Bushes that some dubbed it “Kennebunkport South.” Years later, it was a pretty easy decision to steer the first Bush presidential library to the city. The Bush clan liked coming here. So did their friends. Chuck Norris and Garth Brooks (and Brit Hume) were known to come pay homage.

Today, though, it is also the perfect place to map out the attack plan to derail Jeb Bush and any presidential aspirations he harbors. Here, where the Bush shadows linger, Jeb Bush will be forced to confront the conflicted legacies of both his father and brother—and even that of his first child from his marriage to his Mexican-born wife, Columba.

Prop up the pale specter of Bush Fatigue like a nagging ghost that will never go away.”

But here, deep in Texas, he will also be forced to face the muscled-up presence of what Ted Cruz and his Tea Partiers represent to the nation—and even what the recently emboldened wings of the GOP are feeling in the wake of midterm elections. For sure, the edgier wings of the Republican Party are out here in force on the streets of College Station and other places like it across the nation—and it is almost as if the conciliators, the centrist Republicans who might still rally about Jeb’s father, are being forced out to pasture.

Back on the bus, Karl had one more question for George P. Bush about his father’s dreams of the presidency:

Karl: So the family will be behind him 100 percent?

Bush: The family will be behind him 100 percent if he decides to do it.

And there it was: an easy answer with very complex outcomes—and one that hinted at the low-hanging-fruit blueprint for the dirt doctors who would want to bury Jeb Bush.

Don’t just attack Jeb Bush, his politics as governor, even his family’s brushes with the law.

Relentlessly attack the Bush Dynasty—and prop up the pale specter of Bush Fatigue like a nagging ghost that will never go away.

***

When his son won his bid for Texas land commissioner, Jeb dutifully sent out the requisite statement: “I could not be prouder of George. He ran a great campaign, built his own first-rate team, united a broad and winning coalition and presented a clear vision for the future of Texas.” It had the ring of the same dutiful statements he had to send out when his brother first became governor, and then when his brother became president.