Jeb Bush criticizes Obama policies, pledges bipartisanship in Washington

U.S. Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush on Friday criticized the Obama administration for the dysfunctional political system, pledging to restore bipartisanship in Washington to get things done.

"I know how to fix things because I was a governor, a reform-minded governor... we could grow our economy far faster and it would lift people's spirits up," the former Florida governor said in a speech during his visit to the Iowa State Fair, one of the oldest and largest agricultural and industrial expositions in the United States, which kicked off Thursday in Des Moines.

"But we have to fix these things in Washington and right now we have a president that pushes down anybody that disagrees with him and he elevates himself with this sophisticated, nuanced view and the net result is nothing gets done," Bush said before hundreds of people gathering around the presidential soapbox hosted by the Des Moines Register, Iowa's largest newspaper.

The Republican front-runner, citing a long list of accomplishments as the Florida governor, pledged to be a president that would forge a new bipartisan consensus on important issues.

"I got to be governor of a purple state, Florida. It's not red like Texas, and it's not blue like California," Bush said. "It's right there in the middle, half a million more Democrats than Republicans. I was the most conservative governor in the state's history, but I had a reformer's heart."

The former Florida governor has promised a 4 percent annual growth rate for the U.S. economy if elected as the country's next president. That would be a very ambitious goal, according to economists, as the economy has grown at an average of about 2.2 percent a year following the end of the recent recession in June 2009.

Bush also vowed to pursue an aggressive strategy against the extremist group, the Islamic State (IS), if elected. "We'll have a strategy on Day One to take out this great threat to our national security and to the world," he said.