In this Nov. 20, 2014 file photo, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush listens before speaking at the National Summit on Education Reform in Washington. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh, File)

(Politico) – One of Jeb Bush’s biggest challenges in the 2016 campaign will be to come up with a fresh economic plan that doesn’t make him seem like a tool of deep-pocketed Wall Street donors or the second coming of Mitt Romney, whose big, expensive tax cut plan failed to catch fire and left him wide open to populist attacks.

So far, however, the roster of economic advisers with Bush’s ear includes a heavy dose of Wall Street veterans and holdovers from previous GOP campaigns and the administrations of Bush’s brother and father. Bush’s advisers say it is way too early to properly assess an economic team that is only starting to take shape. And they argue that there will always be holdovers given that anyone with experience in a Republican administration these days served under a president named Bush.

But outside observers say Bush is going to need to go heavy on new blood in the coming months in order to meet some huge policy and political challenges for a candidate who is raising money in massive sums from elite Wall Street financiers and takes criticism on both the right and left for his establishment credentials. In the coming months, Bush will have to appease a conservative primary audience eager for ambitious tax relief while keeping an eye on a general electorate worried about rising inequality and the disproportionate influence of big banks.

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