Whenever I see Jeb, I get the sense I’m seeing a incompetent corporate spokesman who’s trying to remember what the focus group told him to say in each situation. He does not seem natural in this role and is trying on different personalities to try to find one that sticks. His brother seemed much more comfortable in the role and was being more true to himself. The president GW is probably pretty similar to the GW at home. Jeb, on the other hand, I’m not sure who he is.
Oh, I think he’s in for the long haul. Hard to imagine him leaving the race until the writing is not only on the wall, but the floor, the ceiling, and the toilet seat. Given his dad’s and especially his brother’s successes, I don’t see how he can.
And I’m not convinced he’s out of it, anyway. Stranger things have happened.
I am no fan of the Bushes, but I did have some sympathy for him at first when he failed to get traction and was beginning to flounder. He had gotten into the race with every expectation that he would be Mr. Inevitable, but the party had changed since brother W had run back in 2000, and the rules had changed, and he clearly didn’t know how to cope. I have known that kind of feeling, and I found myself feeling oddly sorry for him.
I don’t feel sorry for him any more.* He’s just become petulant and crabby, which as others have mentioned does not wear well. If the rules have changed, adapt or get out.
*There was also the “he kept us safe” comment, which just frosted my doughnuts no end.
In the future please put such profanity in a spoiler box and clearly mark it NSFW.
I’ve only seen a bit and have it saved off to watch. Now I am going to have to pay careful attention to some of his micro-expressions. The eyes will get some special attention during the attempts at smiling.
Yeah, even after the big 9/11 mulligan, there were the anthrax attacks of late 2001, the 4,500 troop deaths in Iraq, and the 2,000 dead in Katrina. Plus he blew any chance of our getting a clean exit from Afghanistan by switching the military’s focus to Iraq from the beginning of 2002 on.
That could be overcoaching, not a natural behaviorism. It would be pretty far down on my list of reasons not to be confident in him.
He really *can *be enthusiastic and animated. He showed it in talking about his fantasy football team.
I’d have to see a few more polls with more respondents before I’d consider W.'s awful (and well-deserved) reputation is rehabilitated. It may be that it reaches a point where it’s a neutral factor on Jeb!, but I’d be amazed if it every became a net positive for him.
I myself have a highly favorable view of the fact that he is no longer President.
And don’t make it so delicious sounding.
The elder Bush and Carter both had the same rebound in favorability in the years after their presidencies, as noted in the last paragraph. In fact they were viewed more favorably than GW Bush currently is, yet still lost their re-election bids.
These post-presidency favorability polls seem meaningless as an indicator of actual present electability, and are perhaps more reflective of a spirit of public forgiveness.
Don’t forget his final parting gift – the huge economic meltdown that he left to his successor. It was a presidency that began with 9/11, ended with economic catastrophe, and in between had just about every imaginable disaster and demonstration of incompetence. And don’t forget his magnificent VP, a sort of cross between Darth Vader and Attila the Hun, a founding member of the Project for a New American Century, the guy who was put in charge of the VP search committee and decided there was no better candidate than himself. And then later, along with his buddy Rumsfeld and other PNAC cronies, was the principal architect of the Iraq war. You mentioned Katrina but don’t forget Michael “heckuvajob” Brown, who was just one of many utterly incompetent cronies that Bush appointed to important positions. This presidency was a disaster from beginning to end.
I really think that a major problem with Jeb is that he has done very little to distance himself from that disaster. Whether he lacks perspective or is failing to do it for some other reason I don’t know, but he hasn’t done it. “He kept us safe” — Jesus H. Christ on a unicycle! When Colbert asked him what distinguishes him from his brother his answer wasn’t memorable, as in, I actually don’t remember what he said. And probably neither does anyone else.
Maybe someday we’ll see **adaher **sadly pronouncing that his candidacy is in free fall.
I get the opposite impression. I get an impression of a man who’s never had to consider that George made any mistakes and who doesn’t seem to understand why we keep harping on them. I get an impression that he thought he’d roll right up with the same ideas and the same people and that everything would follow the same script.
He thinks Karl Rove is still controlling the conversation for him. He’s never had to think otherwise. He’s not handling it well.
I think Jeb:( knows he can’t win. I don’t think he wants it that bad to begin with. The question is how much he cares whether it’s a graceful exit or just an exit. For a graceful exit, he’s out after NH. For just an exit, he’s out sometime before then. My suggestion would be in the next couple weeks so he gets to enjoy the holiday season. There’s nothing left for him in this race. But I suspect pride will keep him in through the first couple primaries.
Sort of like that death rictus that passes for a smile for Fiorina, I guess.
I suspect it’s less about personal pride than internal family dynamics. He’s running because Poppy and the sibs (especially Poppy) expect him to, and maybe it chafes him that his dim-bulb brother made it and he has to hear all this presidenting talk at the Thanksgiving table.
And I mostly agree. We’re talking about whether he’s a negative in the minds of Republican voters, though. It’s hard to claim a negative effect when almost 9 out of 10 Republicans like both W and HW Bush.
…and Democrats hate him. Arguing that Republicans should think he was a disaster is different than them actually thinking that he was. W, IME, is mostly of the lukewarm “better than Obama” level of support among Republicans. That doesn’t earn Jeb any big bonuses but it doesn’t necessarily weigh him down all that much.
The voters he’s trying to get right now are a lot less likely to call it a disaster than you are. If they did they’d need a new word for Obama. Jeb has done an awful job dealing with the specific bad things when asked though. He gets all flummoxed, ties himself in knots, and then digs in deeper with corrections over the following days. He misses the chance to be his own man and present his own vision. He simply looks incompetent and over his head. It worse because literally everybody paying attention knew the questions were coming. He probably doesn’t need to get a lot of distance to get the nomination. An assertive step anywhere would show he’s his own man. Tap dancing around it before tripping… hasn’t.
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Jeb has the air of someone who’s always had things go his way with very little effort. He seems completely flummoxed by the idea of having to fight for the nomination.
If you can stand to listen to/watch the condescending lesbian, she reports that the broadest possible spectrum of punditry agreed the Jebya’s performance at the most recent debate was gawdawful and he is basically done dancin’. Even his [del]investors[/del] donors are not optimistic about him as a candidate.
The comparison with Fred Thompson in '08 that someone made earlier was particularly apt. Fred was like, “I’ll accept the nomination if someone gives it to me, and now if you’ll excuse me, I need to take a nap.” Jeb is a little better, but not much. His attitude seemed to be that all he had to do was say the word, and the dynasty would continue. There is no other explanation and certainly no excuse for his complete unpreparedness to address the issues of Dubya’s presidency. Regardless of one’s politics and beliefs, some really bad things indisputably happened.