# Jeb Bush campaign for POTUS thread **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [June 16, 2015, 1:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jeb-bush-campaign-for-potus-thread/722672 "2015-06-16T13:58:22Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 15
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2015, 2:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jeb-bush-campaign-for-potus-thread/722672/281 "2015-10-26T02:39:16Z")
> [@ElvisL1ves](#): > > So let’s see … losing three fourths of your support is \*not \*free fall if you’re a Republican, but effectively clinching the nomination \*is \*if you’re a Democrat. Is that how it works? First let’s see if she can win IA and/or NH. Biden’s exit from the race doesn’t seem to have improved her standing in the two states that are actually paying attention. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2015, 5:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jeb-bush-campaign-for-potus-thread/722672/282 "2015-10-26T05:44:14Z")
Sanders is still playing an important role, especially for those of us who still distrust the whole Clintonista…thing. She is and has been publicly atoning for the errors therein, as well she should. Only mouthing platitudes? Yes, probably, but that only means she _has_ to. In politics, public hypocrisy often precedes virtue. More often, of course, it replaces it. But not always, the good guys _do_ win, once in a while. If Horndog Bill had sat down and written out a campaign strategy for Hillary, it would look a lot like this. I’m thinking he did, and I’m thinking it is. The Benghazi hearings were simply a Sign of the approval of a just and loving Goddess… ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2015, 12:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jeb-bush-campaign-for-potus-thread/722672/283 "2015-10-26T12:38:24Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > First let’s see if she can win IA and/or NH. Biden’s exit from the race doesn’t seem to have improved her standing in the two states that are actually paying attention. So you’re sticking with the “Hillary’s in free fall” line. By now you have to, right? ---
**Author:** ![Frank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Frank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frank)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2015, 12:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jeb-bush-campaign-for-potus-thread/722672/284 "2015-10-26T12:44:32Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > First let’s see if she can win IA and/or NH. Biden’s exit from the race doesn’t seem to have improved her standing in the two states that are actually paying attention. I won’t be a bit surprised if Sanders wins New Hampshire, not one bit. It won’t make a dimes worth of difference in the eventual nomination. Assuming that she doesn’t get hit by a truck crossing the street, Clinton will be the Democratic nominee for president. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2015, 12:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jeb-bush-campaign-for-potus-thread/722672/285 "2015-10-26T12:46:04Z")
Maybe she should pick Jeb as her running mate. Then she’d lock down the entitled vote. ---
**Author:** ![Frank](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Frank](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frank)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2015, 12:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jeb-bush-campaign-for-potus-thread/722672/286 "2015-10-26T12:51:33Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > Maybe she should pick Jeb as her running mate. Then she’d lock down the entitled vote. I don’t understand this at all. There are any number of Democrats who could have run for the nomination. They didn’t. Of the ones that did, Clinton is defeating them even before the primaries start. She’s got one realistic opponent, and she is campaigning to win against him. Yet somehow you manage to spin as she feels entitled to the nomination? If she wins the nomination, she will have earned it. Same goes for Bush, by the way, since he’s the subject of this thread. ---
**Author:** ![adaher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dec6dc/32.png) [@adaher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/adaher)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2015, 12:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jeb-bush-campaign-for-potus-thread/722672/287 "2015-10-26T12:55:22Z")
Clinton, unlike Jeb, didn’t draw the best of the field. Biden, Warren, Warner, Booker, Patrick, all stayed out. Practically every plausible Republican is in there with Bush. ---
**Author:** ![BobLibDem](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boblibdem/32/3149_2.png) [@BobLibDem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobLibDem)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2015, 1:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jeb-bush-campaign-for-potus-thread/722672/288 "2015-10-26T13:18:11Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > Clinton, unlike Jeb, didn’t draw the best of the field. Biden, Warren, Warner, Booker, Patrick, all stayed out. Practically every plausible Republican is in there with Bush. “Plausible Republican” is an oxymoron. Santorum, Huckabee, Jindal, Trump, Carson, Perry, Cruz, and Paul are not now, never have been, and never will be plausible. The only things missing from the whack-a-doodle bingo card are Bachmann and Palin. Bush’s troubles remind me of the dog food company that was having trouble selling. They tried several advertisers, switched packaging a few times, and lowered the price. Nothing worked. Finally they hired a consultant to find the cause. The report came back “Dogs don’t like it”. Much the same with Bush. Doesn’t matter who you hold him up against, he’s still Jeb. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2015, 1:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jeb-bush-campaign-for-potus-thread/722672/289 "2015-10-26T13:23:22Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > Clinton, unlike Jeb, didn’t draw the best of the field. Biden, Warren, Warner, Booker, Patrick, all stayed out. Even assuming that’s “the best of the field” (in the estimation of, well, you), just why do you think it is that they \*all \*stayed out? ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2015, 2:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jeb-bush-campaign-for-potus-thread/722672/290 "2015-10-26T14:05:05Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > First let’s see if she can win IA and/or NH. Biden’s exit from the race doesn’t seem to have improved her standing in the two states that are actually paying attention. OK, let’s look at Iowa. [Three polls have been taken in Iowa](http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2016/president/ia/iowa_democratic_presidential_caucus-3195.html) since Biden dropped out: CBS/YouGov, Quinnipiac, and Des Moines Register. All three also polled Iowa in the last 10 days of August and/or the first 10 days of September. Let’s compare (Hillary’s numbers first, then Bernie’s, in all cases): CBS then: 33-43. Now: 46-43. Hillary goes from -10 to +3. Q then: 40-41. Now: 51-40. Hillary goes from -1 to +11. DMR then: 37-30. Now: 48-41. Hillary stays at +7. Looks like an improvement to me. [In NH](http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2016/president/nh/new_hampshire_democratic_presidential_primary-3351.html), there’s been only one post-Biden poll, also by CBS/YouGov, and they polled NH in early September also. CBS then: 30-52. Now: 39-54. Hillary goes from -22 to -15. That also looks like an improvement. And before you say the obvious “Hillary’s still behind by 15 in NH,” she’s really not, except for this one poll. No other poll since the beginning of July had Bernie up by more than 16 in NH, so CBS was an outlier for having Bernie up by 22. And the other polls now in RCP’s NH average have Hillary and Bernie essentially tied there, even with Biden in all the numbers, so once again CBS is an outlier. Anyway, as best as we can tell, Biden’s exit seems to have helped Hillary in Iowa and NH. She’s got a clear lead in Iowa, and is competitive in NH. And the effects of her _Benghazi!_ testimony have yet to affect the polls. Not sure why we’re discussing this in the Jeb! thread, but whatever. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2015, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jeb-bush-campaign-for-potus-thread/722672/291 "2015-10-26T15:23:15Z")
She’s just free-falling _upward_. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Try2B\_Comprehensive](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/try2b_comprehensive/32/65_2.png) [@Try2B\_Comprehensive](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Try2B_Comprehensive)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2015, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jeb-bush-campaign-for-potus-thread/722672/292 "2015-10-26T16:44:45Z")
> [@not\_what\_you\_d\_expect](#): > > Jeb does not come across as joyful No, but from the neck up he does kind of resemble a tortise. Can’t you imagine him verrry slowly and tentatively taking a hands-free bite out of an enormous head of lettuce? ---
**Author:** ![up\_the\_junction](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/f1d935/32.png) [@up\_the\_junction](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/up_the_junction)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2015, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jeb-bush-campaign-for-potus-thread/722672/293 "2015-10-26T16:58:57Z")
> [@adaher](#): > > It’s not like his brother or father were any more exciting. Jeb actually sounds a hell of a lot better than both of them, IMO. But he’s not up against Al Bore. ---
**Author:** ![BobLibDem](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boblibdem/32/3149_2.png) [@BobLibDem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobLibDem)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2015, 5:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jeb-bush-campaign-for-potus-thread/722672/294 "2015-10-26T17:29:53Z")
> [@Try2B\_Comprehensive](#): > > No, but from the neck up he does kind of resemble a tortise. Can’t you imagine him verrry slowly and tentatively taking a hands-free bite out of an enormous head of lettuce? Nobody will ever conjure up that image in my mind the way McConnell does. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2015, 9:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jeb-bush-campaign-for-potus-thread/722672/295 "2015-10-26T21:02:59Z")
[He’s starting to get cranky](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2015/10/26/jeb-bush-isnt-running-joyfully-anymore/) about not being handed the nomination like Poppy promised: > [@¡Jeb!](#): > > If this election is about how we’re going to fight to get nothing done, then I don’t want anything – I don’t want any part of it. I don’t want to be elected president to sit around and see gridlock just become so dominant that people literally are in decline in their lives. That is not my motivation. I’ve got a lot of really cool things I could do other than sit around, being miserable, listening to people demonize me and feeling compelled to demonize them. That is a joke. Elect Trump if you want that. Expect that bluff to be called, on a massive scale. ---
**Author:** ![GrandWino](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/grandwino/32/67_2.png) [@GrandWino](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GrandWino)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2015, 9:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jeb-bush-campaign-for-potus-thread/722672/296 "2015-10-26T21:10:11Z")
Pappy Bush has called a family meeting so the Bush’s will be hunkering down this weekend to discuss Jeb’s campaign. GHWB, GWB, Barbara…and of course, Jeb!, will all be there. > **[Jeb Bush hunkers down with family to assess his candidacy](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/jeb-bush-hunkers-down-with-family-to-assess-where-his-candidacy-stands/)** > > A GOP source says there is a "donor revolt in progress" over Bush's struggling campaign ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2015, 10:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jeb-bush-campaign-for-potus-thread/722672/297 "2015-10-26T22:08:29Z")
> [@ElvisL1ves](#): > > [He’s starting to get cranky](https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2015/10/26/jeb-bush-isnt-running-joyfully-anymore/) about not being handed the nomination like Poppy promised:Expect that bluff to be called, on a massive scale. Ninja’d about 30 posts back. 🙂 > [@GrandWino](#): > > Pappy Bush has called a family meeting so the Bush’s will be hunkering down this weekend to discuss Jeb’s campaign. GHWB, GWB, Barbara…and of course, Jeb!, will all be there. Late of Pablo Fanques fair - what a scene. ---
**Author:** ![2ManyTacos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/2/3da27b/32.png) [@2ManyTacos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/2ManyTacos)\ **Post date:** [October 26, 2015, 10:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jeb-bush-campaign-for-potus-thread/722672/298 "2015-10-26T22:30:43Z")
I love every single thing about Jeb!'s flailing candidacy. The fact that it’s dumbfounded his entire family is just icing on the cake. And yes, that means I’m resoundingly indebted to Trump. I want him in this thing as long as humanly possible. ---
**Author:** ![Kolak\_of\_Twilo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kolak_of_twilo/32/73_2.png) [@Kolak\_of\_Twilo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kolak_of_Twilo)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2015, 12:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jeb-bush-campaign-for-potus-thread/722672/299 "2015-10-27T00:21:44Z")
So the family meeting is over and [Politico has an interesting write up about it.](http://www.politico.com/story/2015/10/bush-family-jeb-george-barbara-215151) Some of my favorite bits: > [@](#): > > “The patient is either in intensive care and in need of some good doctors who can save him or being put into hospice and we’re going to see a slow death," said one K Street lobbyist supporting Bush. > [@](#): > > “Having 41 around helps take the edge off, but we all read the same newspapers and look at the same polls and it’s tough right now. There are a lot of people we thought would have written checks who aren’t on board yet,” one donor said. > [@](#): > > “I look at this party now, and I hardly recognize it,” one Florida-based donor said. “I never would have thought there would be so much mistrust of the establishment that we would prefer candidates who are angry over those who can actually lead.” Oh lordy, lordy, lordy! Poor JEB! is on the ropes and none of the Bushies can figure out why this has happened! I gotta say JEB!'s little snit is typical of the patrician mindset of the entire family. “How dare these low-class upstarts dare challenge the accepted order! OFF with their heads!” ---
**Author:** ![Try2B\_Comprehensive](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/try2b_comprehensive/32/65_2.png) [@Try2B\_Comprehensive](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Try2B_Comprehensive)\ **Post date:** [October 27, 2015, 3:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jeb-bush-campaign-for-potus-thread/722672/300 "2015-10-27T03:07:23Z")
> [@BobLibDem](#): > > Nobody will ever conjure up that image in my mind the way McConnell does. True, McConnell is a contender at the Turtlesque Congresscritter Pageant, but has he ever[identified himself as a tortoise](http://www.miamiherald.com/news/politics-government/elections-2016/jeb-bush/article29074546.html) like Jeb! has? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jeb-bush-campaign-for-potus-thread/722672.md?page=14) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/jeb-bush-campaign-for-potus-thread/722672.md?page=16)