Overall, this Seema Mehta article in the Los Angeles Times is devastating for Jeb Bush. It’s just not the kind of news coverage he needs, at all. The whole piece is unhelpful, but the following excerpt is particularly bad.
On Tuesday, he delivered a foreign policy speech at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, arguing that the withdrawal of troops from Iraq led to the rise of Islamic State. The next day he rolled out endorsements from Sens. Dean Heller of Nevada and Orrin G. Hatch of Utah at a rally in Reno, followed by a town hall meeting in North Las Vegas.
On Thursday, Bush spoke about national security at a forum in Davenport, Iowa, and then at a county GOP fundraiser in Ankeny. On Friday, wearing cowboy boots embroidered with his name, Bush hit the Iowa State Fair. He ditched his Paleo diet and nibbled on a deep-fried Snickers bar, sipped mid-morning beer and flipped pork chops at a grill.
Bush has spent much of his time on the campaign trail trying to establish an identity separate from his father and brother. But his brother’s shadow — and the unpopular Iraq war he launched in 2003 — looms everywhere.
Jeb does need to craft a separate identity from his brother, but I don’t think “sipping” beer and “nibbling” on deep-fried food is moving in the correct direction. The embroidered cowboy boots don’t help, either. He just comes off as an emasculated version of the brush-clearing Crawford rancher.
And he isn’t doing himself any favors by talking about how the president should have spent more money and lives in Iraq. He comes off like a less confident, less cocky version of his brother, and I don’t think that appeals to anyone, even the girls who like bad boys.
As for trotting out endorsements from people like Dean Heller and Orrin Hatch, I hope he realizes that people hate Congress, and the Republican base hates in particular squishes like Heller and Hatch.
Jeb’s PAC is ready to drop a few money bombs, and maybe that will help:
The Right to Rise USA Super PAC, which can accept unlimited donations, will buy $10 million of ad time in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina on Monday, according to the Associated Press.
Yes, America, you all have the right to get out of bed in the morning– exercise your right to rise!
Everything seems at least a little tone-deaf with Team Bush right now.
He’s still set up to win in the same way that McCain and Romney won before him, as the only right-wing candidate who is remotely acceptable to the American people. But McCain and Romney both lost badly. And that’s a lesson the base has learned better than the Establishment.
Romney lost by 4 to an incumbent with a 50% approval rating.
It is a stretch to say he lost “badly”
Nah, he lost badly. Pig-headed, entitled, arrogant, graceless.
He lost badly.
While those numbers are certainly not a blowout by any means, in a more sane and less racist USA, you’d need to add 4 to 5 points to Obama’s margin of victory and to his approval rating had he looked more like his opponent.
The election is decided by the Electoral College. Obama won 61.7% of the Electoral College votes.
That is a bad standard. The EC magnifies small popular vote differences.
2012 was a very competitive election. To argue otherwise is denial.
I agree and disagree.
Competitive in what sense? In the sense that the GOP lost a winnable election because they had a chance to convince voters on the margins of the Democratic party (white urban professions, wealthier non-black racial minorities, college-educated single white women, suburban gays, etc.) that they wouldn’t be so bad and blew it, sure. But in the sense that with some better campaigning and debate performance without changing the overall platform Romney could’ve improved his margin by more than 1 or 2%? Not really. Romney’s death warrant was signed as soon as he voiced support for self-deportation.
Actually, the election was DOA for the GOP once all their candidates were line up which was almost two years from election day.
By that same standard 1960 wasn’t close since Kennedy carried 57% of the electoral college.
Obama won with an unemployment that was barely under 8% at election day. I’m sure that he’d have won by an extra 2% if the economy then was where it was at now, let alone what it was in 2006.
Romney had a very good black swan as a trump card, better than the one that Clinton used to deep six Bush Sr. in fact. But due to demographics and the GOP platform, he couldn’t take advantage of it. And it’s not out of the question that whatever Republican gets nominated for the 2016 won’t even have that.
Exit poll was very clear: people thought the economy was improving, and he had a 54% approval rating in the exit poll.
It appears $Jeb! doesn’t really want to win. He’s the second string highschool football player whose big brother, the quarterback, won all the games. $Jeb! doesn’t even pretend to look enthusiastic at his rallies. He’s got about as much charm and appeal as dirty dishwater.
He backtracks, he flip-flops, and he outright lies about policy plans and platform promises. He just doesn’t want the job and it shows. People called Biden a gaffe machine: $Jeb! is a gaffe factory.
Let him skip the race so he can stop pretending he wants to be the President, because it’s obvious he doesn’t want to.
I agree. Whether it be his lack of enthusiasm, his slip-ups or his body language he projects ‘get me the hell outta here’ in every move.
Just like Hillary! One or the other will be President. The only difference will be the Jeb! shaves.
Jeb is running a campaign for the president of America like its 1999. His current unfavorability rating is 56%. That is a world of trouble. Thus far his response has been to mumble on twitter negative stuff about Hillary. Next response seem to be the Establishment recipe for clearing the field….the dirty tricks, the rumors, and the negative tv ads. It will not work. The Donald will just get stronger.
That weakness you see in Jeb. That is his attempt to get out of the clown car. But, he is still a clown. He is the clown that follows the elephants with a shovel. He shovels and shovels and shovels and finally tosses a load into the front row tea baggers that nothing more that shiny glitter.
Maybe Jeb(?) has always been a poor candidate. Just b/c his mama thought he was smarter and better than his big bro and expected Jeb(?) to become the second Bush POTUS doesn’t make it so. Remember, he lost his first gubernatorial campaign. Sort of like Poppy who lost his two attempts to win a US Senate seat.
Huge advertising/marketing budgets weren’t able to turn the dreadful “John Carter” and “Lone Ranger” movies into winners.
I disagree about him not wanting to win. He wants a coronation and believes it should be handed to him. Maybe you’re right; because to win means that he thinks it should be a race. I don’t believe for a minute that he believes it should be a race. He believes that it’s his RIGHT to be President.
My feeling in ’08 and ’12 was that the Powers That Be wouldn’t allow the Republican Party to nominate a candidate for the presidency that was deranged, since no matter how much the Democratic candidate should lead in the polls, awful events on the campaign trail are an omnipresent possibility. McCain and Romney seemed to be the only possible choices in those years. The same logic would apply to this campaign. However much I disagree with Jeb! on the issues, I don’t think he’s deranged. YMMV.
Thing is, both Jeb’s father and brother have been in the Oval Office and I can’t see the Jebster graciously walking away from the prize when only a small matter of a vote count stands in the way. Seen this movie before. Didn’t enjoy it.
Yeah, I still think the GOP Establishment has enough clout left to insist on or arrange for its chosen candidate. And there are five more months to go before voting starts.
However, while I still have him winning the nom, in the last few days post-debate I’ve decided to downgrade his status from Jeb! to jeb? This is partly due to his poor performance so far and partly due to the Donald’s unexpected popularity. And even my GOP-loyal tenant, who’s worked for 3 of the candidates including a stint in the Shrub WH, is less than enthusiastic about another Bush as president, much as she owes much to the Bushes. She’s strongly considering Kasich.
I have also upgraded Trump from Donaldo to just Donald. But he too has five more months either to maintain his lead or screw up so badly even the ignorant TP base cringes. 50-50 chances for either. OK, he’s turned out to be a little more than an ephemeral summer fling, and appears to be seriously putting together a strong campaign in IA. Long ways to go however.
Trump does not have as good odds as you’re giving him. Trump can command a plurality or even an absolute majority and the GOP party elders can still block him from getting the nom by judicious use of delegates.
Doing that would completely destroy the GOP’s chances of winning in 2016, even if the Obama administration was rocked by scandal or economic calamity, but I’m sure the establishment would rather lose that particular election than nominate a candidate that will completely destroy the party’s brand among racial minorities. A scenario of them pushing an also-ran and Trump almost certainly making good on his promise to run as a third-party candidate is definitely preferable. Because while the Republican Party’s chances of rehabilitating their image in the short-term are bad, they’re not zero. And the GOP has to do it if they want to be anything but a regional rump.
Trump 2016 would do for Latinos and Asians what Goldwater 1964 did for blacks, but there won’t be a convenient Southern Strategy to bail them out this time.
I don’t believe I gave odds on Donald getting the nom, but just on what might happen over the next 5 months. I said elsewhere I still give a slight edge to jeb? for emerging the leader.
As for Bruce Walker’s poor optics, the GOP has handed the banner to the greasy, shifty-eyed Nixon 3 times and to the cranky get-off-my-lawn Goldwater and to the stupid looking and talking Shrub. So the GOP is perfectly capable of embracing the dead shark charm of Bruce if the chum falls his way.
Way too early to count out anyone in the top tier anyway, with the exception of Uncle Ben.
Yup – the time has come for ‘Photo-op’ Jeb’s lifetime quest for the spotlight to end.
Is it wrong that I’m smiling?
OT:
Folks, the birthright citizenship thing is a smokescreen. The Republicans have been after the 14th Amendment ever since Brown v. Board. Please understand – every advancement that this society has made since then is couched in the 14th Amendment.
See the forest for the trees, people. .
LOLGOP
@LOLGOP
In a way, the 14th amendment, which Trump wants to gut, was written to establish that black lives actually matter.
How do you gut an approved constitutional amendment?
There is no way that the proposers of the 14th Amendment would countenance not accepting the citizenship of “anchor babies”. Indeed, they explicitly included Chinese babies born of illegal immigrants (in 1866) as citizens.
I guess that expelling the parents of infants by executive order is getting around the 14th, but that doesn’t invalidate the 14th amendment or the 150 years of judicial review from previously.
Historically, by outright ignoring it and nitpicking it to death with judicial decrees that allow incremental exceptions until it’s robbed of teeth.
You know, like what actually happened with the 14th Amendment between its passage and American Civil Rights.
Or what happened to the 15th Amendment last year – when the wingnut SCOTUS ruled that Congress didn’t have a right to regulate fair voting in the states, and didn’t bother citing the Amendment that gave them that clear right.
The wingnut Constitution has invisible provisions – mostly around religion – and has many valid clauses deleted, including much fo the 1st, 4th, 5th, 6th, and 10th amendments.
Yes, the usual procedures apply. Quote any decisions that support your decision, dismiss any that don’t as judicial activism. If they can’t repeal the 14th Amendment, the next best thing is to insist that it was never meant to grant citizenship to the children of illegal immigrants anyway. Any case that says otherwise was just wrongly decided.
Besides, when you look at who’s most stridently opposed to “birthright citizenship,” there is considerable overlap with the paranoid anti-government community, so you’re basically talking about the kind of people who would insist that Marbury v. Madison was wrongly decided, and every Supreme Court case since then.
But rikyrah is right, revoking “birthright citizenship” is a hideous idea. It wouldn’t necessarily reinstate the Dred Scott decision, although it is worth noting that the 14th Amendment was specifically intended to overturn the most disgraceful court decision in our history.
So the symbolism is bad enough–especially for someone like Rand Paul, who’s got his work cut out for him if we wants to convince us that he’s not a white supremacist–but far worse is that you’d be creating a whole new permanent underclass. You’re saying that not only are the Dream act kids never going to be citizens, their kids are never going to be citizens either.
But fortunately they can be put to good use.
I don’t think he and his SuperPAC have enough money to destroy nearly all the candidacies he needs to destroy to get nominated this time.
“He’s still set up to win in the same way that McCain and Romney won before him, as the only right-wing candidate who is remotely acceptable to the American people.”
But, Martin, he ISN’T the only RW candidate acceptable to Americans.
There’s KASICH!
True, Kasich is an acceptable GOP Establishment alternative to jeb? He’s a little smarter than this Bush, which isn’t saying much, and shows more fire and enthusiasm about running for prez. But he also has those occasional quirky-crazy personality elements that jeb? mostly lacks. Possibly a result of being steeped in so much Republican crazy RW orthodoxy for many years.
But Republicans have sent through as acceptable some crazy-quirky types before — Dick Nixon comes to mind, twice. Although Kasich is not exactly in Nixon’s league as a crazy or a crook.
He’s my pick as the last remaining acceptable candidate for the Establishment if jeb? and Bruce Walker falter, which they’ve been doing a good job of lately just by showing up.
Walker is dead meat walking.
Optics are essential in the current American political scene. As the mathematicians say: “Necessary, but not sufficient”. And Walker’s optics are the pits. I have yet to see a picture of him that I didn’t immediately think: smarmy bastard.
Comparatively speaking Kashich, Trump, Carson, Carly, Jeb! and Santorum come across as relatively normal (if slightly crazed) in their pictures.
I’d say that Walker’s in the pits more because of his hardcore stances towards abortion and him taking up a Trump-like anti-immigration policy. He has no chance of winning the general election now short of the country getting a misery index of 20%.
As for Bruce Walker’s poor optics, the GOP has handed the banner to the greasy, shifty-eyed Nixon 3 times and to the cranky get-off-my-lawn Goldwater and to the stupid looking and talking Shrub. So the GOP is perfectly capable of embracing the dead shark charm of Bruce if the chum falls his way.
It’s the bald spot. Not to mention the charisma of a town clerk.
Kaisch has a bare bones campaign organization and is totally outclassed in campaign contributions and a small group of endorsements compared to JEB!?!.
Kaisch, IMO, if he goes anywhere at all will get the VP nod with the idea of putting the GOP must-win Ohio in play.
He’s still set up to win in the same way that McCain and Romney won before him, as the only right-wing candidate who is remotely acceptable to the American people.
Is the Jebster acceptable to the American people? Is he even ahead of Sanders in the polls at this point?
Right to Rise? are they just trying to be more sexually explicit than the Hillary logo?
let’s hope for a Bush/ Fiorina ticket, it can be called the sneering has beens ticket