Jeb Bush learned a lesson during his runs for governor of Florida in the 1990s that he may carry into the 2016 presidential race: focus less on being a “head-banging conservative” and more on reaching across both sides of the aisle, according to his advisers and former aides.

Jeb Bush lost the election for governor in 1994 when he came into the campaign with bluster, calling himself a “head-banging conservative” with promises to “club this government into submission.” But after losing that election, and beginning a new one in 1998 that would ultimately prove to be successful, he voice changed to a more compassionate tone, according to the Associated Press.

It’s also prompting critics to call him a flip-flopper, or that he’s too moderate for the modern Republican Party, but Bush says it’s just about building consensus and offering a more optimistic vision. He frequently criticizes the GOP for rhetoric that he considers too strong and damaging.

Still, his advisers and aids insist he is just as conservative as he always was, it’s just that he isn’t as hard-charging before and is more focused on selling his views to voters who aren’t necessarily among his supporters.

Bush described his campaign on the site of the political action committee Right to Rise in moderate terms, reaching out to citizens who feel that “the American dream is not out of their reach,” and that politics are “petty and broken,” with a playing field that is not as level as it should be — not a typical tone for a dyed-in-the-wool conservative.

When he was a gubernatorial candidate back in 1994 in a seven-way battle for the GOP nomination, he tried to make a name for himself as a gladiator for conservative values, even going so far as to denounce the incumbent Democratic governor for not signing death warrants quickly enough. He also argued that women on welfare needed to get their lives together and “find a husband,” or support themselves on their own. He took a similar tone with gays and African-Americans, saying of the latter he would do “probably nothing” for them.

After the loss, Bush attempted to find himself, reaching out to some of the groups of people he had written off in the past.

It’s a strategy that is likely to follow him into his presidential campaign in 2016. However, it does leave him vulnerable in the GOP primary to accusations that he’s not conservative enough, meaning he will have to find a way to balance his conservative values with a more inclusive campaign platform that could win over independents in the main election.