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Jeb Should Drop Out of the GOP Primary
Moderates in the GOP establishment class introduced Jeb Bush to Republican voters as a fait accompli. No other candidate could compete with his zillion-dollar war chest. No one else could field competitive organizations in so many early primary states. No grassroots-fueled insurgent could best Team Jeb’s coalition of Wall Street money, Beltway insiders, and seasoned consultants.
Considering these massive advantages, Jeb viewed the primary race as a formality to endure until he faced his friendly rival Hillary late next summer. Considering himself the most conservative Bush family member, the aggressively pro-life and pro-school choice Florida governor tacked sharply to the center two years before the general election. Having sat on the sidelines for the entire Obama era, Bush had completely lost touch with his own party.
Out in the states, Republican voters loathed the top-down bureaucracy of Common Core. Bush proudly reaffirmed his support for the DC mandate. Conservatives criticized the elites’ enthusiasm for comprehensive immigration reform, suggesting it was amnesty by a different name. Bush defiantly promised he wouldn’t change his immigration positions one iota. “Are we supposed to just cower because at the moment people are all upset about something?” Jeb asked at a Club for Growth meeting. “No way, no how.”
There’s an old saying in marketing that no matter how great your ad campaign or how vast your budget, the product will fail if the dogs won’t eat the dog food. Watching Jeb flail over the past few months, he looks a lot like a bad bag of Alpo.
In May, journalists asked if Jeb agreed with his brother’s Iraq policy. This is the most obvious question for any GOP candidate running, let alone a guy with the last name Bush. Yes! I mean, no! Wait… it depends! Every day he switched his answer, dragging the pain over several news cycles and causing collateral damage to the Republican brand.
In July, Jeb asserted that “people have to work longer hours and, through productivity, gain more income for their families.” When attacked for the Scrooge-like line, he complained to the press that the quote was taken out of context. Of course the media took it out of context; that’s what they do to Republican candidates, especially post-Obama. He was bewildered when the MSM didn’t correct the record to help him. Why, it’s as if these reporters aren’t objective!
In August, religious conservatives asked Jeb if he would defund Planned Parenthood, following the release of several grisly sting videos. “I’m not sure we need half a billion dollars for women’s health issues,” Jeb replied, using the pro-abortion lobby’s euphemism for killing babies and selling the parts. Again surprised at the backlash, Jeb apologized, and reiterated his decades-old pro-life record. Democrats gleefully promoted the Jeb quote as another example of the GOP’s “war on women.”
Then, at the first GOP debate, the mighty Jeb steamroller seemed almost a non-factor despite getting more airtime than everyone but the bombastic Donald Trump. Bush blandly recited talking points over a weak smile as other candidates sparred with each other, tangled with the moderators, and dropped devastating quips at the expense of the Democrats. Jeb would have seemed more at home in the B-team debate, reading white papers alongside low-wattage also-rans George Pataki and Jim Gilmore.
After donor concerns about Jeb’s weak polling, he belatedly decided to take swings at the frontrunner Trump. His attempt to play the alpha male might as well have included the stage direction “Message: I fight.” Jeb’s opening attack criticized the reality-show populist for not being a doctrinaire Republican. Does Bush not realize this is why people support The Donald?
Then, with the media freaking out over the offensive-as-of-yesterday term “anchor baby,” Jeb finally decided to stand tough. To prove the term wasn’t anti-Hispanic he said, “frankly it’s more related to Asian people coming into our country — having children in that organized effort, taking advantage of a noble concept, which is birthright citizenship.” Mexicans aren’t the issue; it’s those darn Asians I have a problem with!
Trump, who never met a subgroup he wasn’t eager to offend, chastised Jeb for the intolerant rhetoric. Again, Bush whined he was being taken out of context, having learned nothing from the past decade of identity politics and increasingly activist newsrooms.
The issue with Jeb isn’t that he’s the choice of the reviled GOP establishment, but that he doesn’t realize the establishment is reviled. It’s not that Jeb’s political skills are rusty, but that, despite all his missteps, he still doesn’t realize he’s a decade out of step. It’s not that Jeb was blindsided by the Trump phenomenon, but that he is unable to adapt to the unexpected.
Jeb seems like a nice man. He had an excellent tenure as governor many years ago. But it’s obvious that his heart is not in this race, he doesn’t understand our Alinskyite political climate, and he is confused by both his base and modern media. The longer he vies for the nomination, the more he hurts himself and the GOP.
For the good of his country and his party, Bush needs to sit 2016 out.
Published in General
Because Jeb Bush is really a conservative and John Kasich is most definitely a moderate if not a Liberal Republican. Bush is a pro growth on economics and Kasich is a Bob Dole budget hawk. Bush i a social conservative and Kasich is not.
Does anyone really look at their positions or do they just go by intuition?
I think we both know the answer to that question…
Obama always promised to bring the country together, but of course never did. I think a joint press conference with Jeb! and Hillary dropping out of the race though might just do the trick.
Not intuition, but I’ve not looked into Kasich’s history in sufficient detail to confirm he is really so far moderate to liberal — only enough to put him pretty far down my list. My impression was he’d been a rather conservative congressman. That would be an answer, at least for some of those donors.
This argument should be qualified. Jeb Bush never stood a chance at convincing a majority of Primary voters to make him the nominee, but that is not quite the same as no chance at being the nominee. There is more than one way to skin a cat. Bush cannot attain a majority, but under the proper circumstances he could manage a plurality and I suspect this is what he and his backers have in mind.
OK, I’m actually going to halfway defend Bush on this one.
Bush defends Common Core. He does not defend the DC mandate (which is not absolutely a mandate — Texas and Virginia have been able to get away with defying it just fine). Bush says the federal government should have stayed out of it and that states should be free to set their own standards.
Now that’s arguably disingenuous — I don’t know the history of his involvement sufficiently to say to what extent he was aware of or content with federal meddling early on. And if it’s not disingenuous, the failure to ask “what could go wrong” is a big problem — it taking very little imagination for a conservative to guess some things that could go wrong.
But he doesn’t actually defend federal imposition of national standards, and that’s a difference that — if he doesn’t drop out, and did become President — might matter, and one we should hold him to.
And Bush has the money to subsidize a few minor candidates to split the vote.
Great post. My initial stance on Jeb was, to say “look, let the man speak and let’s see what he’s about.” Then he spoke and I saw that he is yet another one of these conservative Einstein’s who adapts the strategy of trying to out PC the left. We are facing a strain of communism that adapted from the failed, original virus that focused primarily on class warfare. Political correctness and cultural Marxism theorizes that the most successful way to spread communism is to focus primarily on deconstructing a people’s culture and social mores. Any conservative who supports the “clever” strategy of combatting liberalism by surrendering on social issues is a moron. This is the equivalent of responding to a navel assault by calling for cavalry. When you’re being attacked, as America has been by the cultural Marxists you do not have the luxury of choosing the battle ground. If you can’t understand such a simple concept you have no business in the political arena.
So yeah, I’m done with Jeb. Thankfully, I’m not too concerned about his candidacy at this point. The size of the field is the only thing keeping him in the top 4. My question is which of the lower tier candidate’s voters would migrate to Bush when they drop out? The only voters who I could see having Jeb as their 2nd choice are Rubio, Walker and Kasich supporters none of whom i see leaving
Therefore the guy has a ceiling of about 15-22% and is reviled by what, two thirds of the rest of the voters? I don’t see it panning out for him as the herd is trimmed. This turkey’s done says I.
Bush seems to do well in the current polls. The last national poll had him and Rubio beating Clinton and Trump and Fiorina losing to her. Normally polls this far out don’t mean much, but both Bush and Clinton have the proxy name recognition today that will still be their chief source of familiarity in November next year.
Bush might win, he might lose, but I don’t see the evidence that he would be certain to lose. If Bush does win the nomination (which I see as most likely to be the outcome if Trump wins Iowa; in a two horse race against Trump, Bush would win handily, and Trump would take out the conservative opposition until it was too late), Ricochet will become intolerable, we’ll lose a bunch of races down ticket, and all sorts of disasters will befall us, but losing the White House might not be one of them. Neither Bush nor Clinton are magnificent debaters. Neither are in a good position to “other” the other. Bush’s conservative record being dated is upsetting to a lot of conservatives, but it helps reduce the sting for moderates and for their base.
I think that we should oppose Bush, and do so with vigor, but we should do so on a firm foundation, rather than simply discussing the world as we would wish it to be.
With no Bush the base might coalesce around someone other than Trump. (I doubt if there is much overlap between camps.) If it comes down to Bush vs Trump, I’ll be conflicted.
At first I was very frustrated with both mens’ presence in the race, and hoped they would bow out and allow the other, more serious candidates room to be discovered. However, now that their candidacies have gone this far, I think they should leave by the traditional route of staying in until their support withers and they slowly fade into the the background.
When a candidate leaves a campaign on a high note, it gives him a form of martyrdom among his supporters and lets them believe he was unfairly forced out. When he leaves at or near the bottom of the polls after stagnating for a while, there is a healthy finality to the matter.
Lots of good reading here. Great post, great comments.
The reason Trump is the only Bush-buster is he’s the only one with the same weapon — unlimited funds.
Between Huckabee splitting off Romney to pass McCain, and Romneys own carpet-bombing of Gingrich and cultivation of Paul as splitter, there’s a clear recipe, and some folks are convinced that politics as usual will just result in the GOP’s chosen guy, as usual.
Hence Trump.
Seconded.
From what I remember he was a moderate congressman (proudly speaking his father was a union mailman), prefered budget tightening to pro growth supply side economics, and was close to being anti military.
I think Jeb still has a very good shot at winning the nomination, and he knows it. The 2015 primary is very similar to the 2012 primary. No conservatives likes Romney, but they could not solidify around one conservative candidate. Each week (much closer to the actual primaries), there would be a new conservative flavor of the week. But in the end Mitt still won the nomination. This is Bush’s path to the nomination. The good news is that Bush is more conservative than Romney. The bad news is that he won’t reduce the size and scope of government in any meaningful way.
Bush could still win a battle of attrition. The number of candidates dilutes their individual chances, and presents a picture of disorganization to the general electorate. I don’t rate Republican chances too high despite Hillary’s vulnerability. They’d be worse off against Biden, a good campaigner who is conversant on the issues. Before Bush, I can think of 11 or 12 candidates who should get out of the race. I can’t say who is running for vice president, attorney general, assistant secretary of HUD or what. I”m certain many want and/or need a job in a Republican administration. That’s why they hang on until, hopefully, offered something in exchange for dropping out. Put Trump at the top of that list. The rest are there because God has encouraged them to lead us out Gomorrah.
Generally, politics is about patronage. This seems lost on many contributors to this site. Sure, there are idealists who want a cabinet or sub-cabinet spot to advance their policies, but I wouldn’t underestimate the sheer lure of a job on the pad. It”s like welfare for washed up politicians. No, make that all of them, regardless of party.
I hold no brief for Bush and agree with the criticisms of his campaign. Nevertheless, why drop out when your polling in the top tier? And not this early.
You know what would be great? A cage match between the “there is no establishment” Bush-and-Trump-both-lose-guaranteed crowd and those who say that Trump’s 25% means a hard 75% against and therefore El Necesario the inevitable Bush wins.
Oops, make that 30-ish % and so forth.
Yes, I’d venture that much of Walker’s appeal stems from his getting rid of things.
Once again Jon, the Hot Air commentators are onto your Establishment trickery:
The author, Jon Gabriel, is a GOPe/RINO type.
The reason why he wants Jeb to drop out is because Jeb staying in the race virtually ensures that anyone in the establishment bracket (Jeb, Jebio, Walker, Kasich & Fiorina) will be stuck in low 10s at best, thus giving Trump and/or a conservative (Cruz/Carson) the upper hand at the nomination.
Norwegian on August 26, 2015 at 11:35 AM
You do realize you just contradicted yourself, don’t you?
How so?
Hot Air is promoting Jon’s post, and I am just quoting a Hot Air commentator because I thought it was amusingly absurd.
Sorry if my formatting leaves that unclear.
Wheels within wheels, my friend. I only type what The Illuminati tells me.
No president including Ronald Reagan reduced the size of government. It’s not in their power to do so. That is strictly a congressional function.
I’ll admit it. I voted for John Anderson. Was my first presidental election and I was young and stupid. Yet another reason the voting age should be raised ;-)
OK, I get it now.
You think that’s bad? Ed Clark.
Not unlike, as we found out afterwards, Romney ’12.
If a candidate’s positions are things I’d think I’d need to “hold him/her to” were he/she to become president, that’s an automatic disqualifier for me. If I cannot trust the candidate to follow through on something when president, absent somehow being “held” to it, then I’ll never vote for that person, neither primary nor general.
Because what leverage do we have, really, to hold any of them to anything? If we did actually have leverage post-election, the 2010 and 2014 midterms would’ve actually accomplished something.
If I do not trust implicitly a candidate, he will never, ever get my vote, under any circumstance.
Oh brother.