And Jeb also said, “Our message is one that is uplifting – that says you can achieve earned success.”
Now who could possibly be less qualified to talk about “earned success” than a Bush? It’s hard to think of anyone, really.
He’s making a calculated risk that the base gains he’ll receive from the comment are larger than the flacking he’ll take in the general election.
And he’d be wrong.
“Uplifting”? “Achieve”? What, has he stopped trying to awkwardly fit the word ‘rise’ in everywhere?
The Daughters of the Texas Republic saved the Alamo & had overseen it since 1905–in recent years, in partnership with the Land Office. Just after taking office, Bush announced the partnership would end & he was starting a “nationwide search” for somebody else to run the place.
Musician Phil Collins has donated his collection of Alamo artifacts–on condition that a museum is built. Even as kids, we knew the Alamo gift shop was a bit tacky. And old buildings are constantly in need of upkeep.
But do the new plans involve more sensitive handling of the full history of that property? Or will there be Disneyfication, handled by Bush family cronies, with admission being charged?
Many Texans are concerned. (That word “upgrades” is worrisome.) Especially with Baby Bush in charge, using his office as a stepping stone to a political career…
I’ve never understood how proud Texans are of having gotten their butts kicked.
I wouldn’t underestimate Jeb Bush. He’s playing the long game. He has endorsements, which translate into winning primaries, major corporations have already bankrolled him, he has been raising money easily, is heavily connected with the GOP, and is a safe, moderate Neo-Conservative that the majority of conservatives wind up backing.
I still see Clinton vs Bush in 2016 until one of them drop out.
My take on Jeb is that he’s not out for one simple reason: somebody has to win this thing. And it’s not going to be Carson or Fiorina, and it’s not going to be any of the group that’s in the lower single digits. So that leaves Trump, Cruz, Bush, and Rubio.
For each one of them, there’s all sorts of reasons why that one can’t win. But they’re going to have a nominee, one way or another. (Though I haven’t entirely discounted the possibility that nobody goes into the convention with enough delegates to win outright, and they beg Romney to be the nominee.) So Jeb’s not out, no matter how bad he looks. And with the pile of money he’s got, he probably won’t fold until after the first batch of winner-take-all primaries on March 15.
If both Bush and Rubio are still in it March 15th only one is still in March 16th. One of them won’t carry Florida and that one will fold.
Bush is playing the long game. My impression is that his team thinks he can bide time waiting for the field to winnow and will do better in a less crowded format. He has enough in SuperPacs to last until then and the less insane money will center between him and Rubio (and so far more him). They may be right. Being at the top of the polls right now does not matter too much. Winning enough delegates when the time comes to win them does.
IMHO, Bush can only be said to be playing the long game because (a) he’s got enough resources that you can’t kick him out of the long game, and (b) since he’s so far screwed up the short and medium term games, the long game is all he’s got left.
Other than having raised enough money early on to be effectively unsinkable, he’s done nothing to bolster his long-term chances since. He’s been a gaffe machine, he’s demonstrated an almost pathetic inability to connect with voters, he hasn’t really known how to respond to Trump changing the nature of the game, GOP insiders are getting nervous about him and wondering if it’s time to get behind Rubio, and even his electability argument is down the toilet as he polls worse than his rivals do against Hillary. None of this helps set up the long game, and some of it hurts it.
You know who’s playing a good long game? Marco Rubio. He’s basically stayed under the radar as the media spotlight has shone on others - first Bush and Walker, then Trump and the other outsiders. Meanwhile, his poll numbers haven’t gone through the ceiling, but haven’t gone through the floor either. And he’s run a largely gaffe-free campaign. He’s well-positioned to be the Establishment guy if and when the GOP insiders decide Jeb just doesn’t have it. He’s where he should be, and well-positioned to take advantage when he gets a crack at the spotlight.
Entirely correct and Rubio does have a lot of things going for him. Too bad his surname ends in a vowel and the GOP still seems to be the party of Self-Deportation, Walls*, and Joe Arpaio with no way to change that before 2016 has come and gone.
*(No Stonewalls, though, or Lees.)
Here’s a hint, John. A pol who has to resort to saying “These polls really don’t matter. . . . They don’t filter out the people that aren’t going to vote, it’s just — I know it’s an obsession because it kind of frames the debate for people for that week" is already done for.
I agree with those thoughts, but a scroll on GMA this morning said that Bush’s supporters are thinking about pulling out if his poll numbers don’t increase.
Where would his supporters go?
He’s the best bet for a level headed person to be the next POTUS against Hillary at least.
Carson is good, but how many would vote for another black man in the general election?
Florina is good, but not as good as Hillary.
Trump has the lead, but it wouldn’t take long for the whole world to rise up and laugh at the good ole USA if he became POTUS.
Leaves like you said Bush, Rubio and Cruz in a tight race to face the democrats.
Fun to watch, but trying to figure it out is frustrating, uh?
Oh, the irony.
Reading this thread, I’m shocked that some of you treat Trump as a serious possibility for the nomination. Even ignoring that the Establishment would never let him aboard, he could never get a large plurality of voters. Even in the infantile GOP, many look with disdain at a sixth-grader’s insults against women.
I can’t decide whether Trump has something like Tourette syndrome, or he just thinks his publicity stunt has gone on long enough and is looking for an exit with giggles.
But that’s all the Tea Party is: inchoate anger and disgust. Does anyone really think Teabaggers are policy geeks? 
… as BobLibDem points out:
Yes, he’s a very pale imitation of his older brother and is farther to the right. The main quality GWB had was charisma; Jeb! has so little charisma as to make the exclamation point look sarcastic. And as we’ve seen, the idea that Jeb! has the higher IQ seems mistaken as well.
You can scratch Trump off that short list of course. Ted Cruz is so far right he makes Goldwater (who was thought a joke extremist at the time) appear liberal; one would pity an America with Cruz as candidate. Rubio is a real possibility – he’s too young and too right-wing but the Koch brothers like him – but I think it would make much more sense to present him as the Vice Presidential candidate. Thus, if the Kochs et al look ahead, the same-state issue is why they’ll reject Jeb.
What about John Kasich? The GOP field has a token black and a token woman … why not a token sane person? But he scores only about 3% in the polls; I guess that gives a pretty good indication of how the GOP feels about sanity.
As long as he’s leading in all the polls, it has to be considered possible he’ll continue to do so. And as long as the ego boost of leading the polls continues, he’ll stay in it.
You may be conflating possibility with desirability.
Have you read much by Sinclair Lewis?
Hey, everyone knows the most ardent haters are the closet cases.
See? Like I said, there are reasons why each of them can’t possibly win it. But almost surely one of them will.
I really thought the most recent debate was his make-or-break moment, and he didn’t make much of an impact. But given the stalemate among the GOP candidates, he may get another chance or two. Still, I haven’t seen any evidence that he’s been able to take advantage of what increased visibility he’s gotten since making the cut for the first debate. So I really don’t see Kasich winning, even given the semi-vacuum at the top of the race.
They’re talking about his supporters among the donor class, and they’d probably go to Rubio if they go anywhere.
The thing is, Bush has already raised plenty of money. He can get by for the next four months even if his donors shut their wallets. And if he wins somewhere in February, he’s back in the game, still with a pile of money, and with more on the way.
Can’t beat something with nothing, even if that ‘something’ is an empty suit, as long as the ‘something’ has a hundred million dollars to play with.
Via Krgthulu:
Gimme a fucking break, Jeb. After it became clear in 2010 that the stimulus bill of 2009 had been sufficient in preventing a major depression, but wasn’t big enough to get an actual recovery going, the Dems tried to pass a bunch of stuff to further stimulate the economy. And everything got 59 damned votes for cloture in the Senate. And there was another big bill in 2011 to try to put people back to work and get the economy going. And again, the Dems were for it, and the GOP was against it. So fuck that shit.
Jeb, you’re a liar. Your party has wanted slow growth for these past six years, and done everything they could to prevent faster growth, because it would make the Dems look good if Obama saved the economy, and then people would vote for them. I’m only sorry I won’t get the chance to tell you this to your face.
I love how the GOP blocked almost every attempt in all shapes and sizes to expand upon the original stimulus package and now they’re pointing fingers at the Dems for not growing the country enough. It’s almost like this was their plan all along…