I’m struggling to get started today. The youngster is home today, no camp and kindergarten doesn’t start until Wednesday. And I have other work obligations that I need to attend to. When I can get a chance, however, I am going to explore the greater meaning of the following quote:
“Look, Jeb Bush was a very successful governor, he’s a thoughtful man, he was a good, conservative governor. But every day, Donald Trump is emasculating Jeb Bush, and Republican primary voters are not going to default to the establishment candidate who is being weakened by these attacks that go unresponded to.”
— GOP strategist Steve Schmidt, quoted by Politico.
I don’t think I’ve ever seen a candidate as badly emasculated as Jeb Bush has been over the last several months, and he seems uniquely ill-suited to respond.
Sounds like Jeb will have to get his hands dirty. However, he recognizes that as an “establishment figure”, doing so would probably kill his chances in the general.
Begs the question: has he as a candidate been emasculated or is it that the protective wall about him has failed to hold up? I doubt he’s ever had the wherewithal to make it and without a Rove to pull the strings all he is is a flattened puppet.
I thought Jeb!?! was the guy for the 2016 nomination. Yeah, I know Dubya was supposed to have destroyed the Bush name for politics but the reality is that the GOP base never stopped thinking Dubya was great, blaming the economic disaster at the end of his second term on Barney Frank and Jimmy Carter (no, really).
I also thought that Jeb?!? was exactly the candidate the GOP needed. Not having to prove his wingnut bona fides, being brother to Dubya, and with the right handlers he could sleepwalk his way through a campaign like Dubya did never having to say crazy things to get primary votes. Oh, I expected a primary campaign like McCain’s and Romney’s, in which the base flirted with every other candidate under the sun before reluctantly rallying around the establishment guy, but there was no question this was his nomination to lose. Heck, I even thought they’d bring in him at the last minute for 2012, but the GOP elders bought into the skewed polls theory and stuck with Romney.
So seeing Jeb?????!!! flaming out like Fred Thompson is a complete surprise. I think that first his handlers made the mistake of not laying the groundwork years in advance, as Rove did with W?!? – you may remember that W was announced years in advance and by 1998 was polling so far ahead of the pool of candidates that he was a shoo-in long before the real campaigns started. Letting others get traction doesn’t work when your candidate is actually very dull in person and his sole accomplishment was riding a housing bubble.
But in a field like 2012 I think Jeb???….??? still survives to the end unscathed. The Donald has really shaken things up for the GOP. Before The Donald perhaps a big GOP pundit might say some of the same things about Jeb … probably not so severely … but the elders would threaten him with a cutting off of wingnut welfare and he’d get in line fast. No more.
We are in uncharted waters now.
I see that in a new Iowa poll Ben Carson has tied Trump at 23%.
Carson, of course, won’t survive the scrutiny. Like all of the other fad candidates he’ll fade once the spotlight is on him – too many weaknesses, too often he sounds like Sarah Palin. And there is only one The Donald, who can bluster his way past all that.
However, for the GOP elders it’s time to realize that their base has zero interest in a Governor or Senator … or even a Representative. They’ve played the anti-establishment card for so long – plus the GOP elders have done so little of what they’ve promised their base after winning elections – that the base isn’t buying the experience thing any more.
Towards the latter part of George W Bush’s second term, I had my Christmas dinner with a number of my conservative in-laws. To my surprise, they told me they were disappointed with Bush. I was happy, but curious; what had disillusioned them? Was it the Iraq war, which was by then obviously a quagmire (and by then it was obvious there were no wmd)? Was it the staggering economy (not as bad as it was going to get, but still not good). Nope. It wasn’t any of that. They were unhappy because Bush supported immigration reform. That’s all that mattered. So I’m not surprised Trump is able to attack Jeb Bush from the right on this.
Yes, I remember that. Also, when the tide was so firmly against W a lot of conservatives kind of relented, but even then they did the “conservatism can’t fail, it can only be failed” routine and whined about the deficit and the medicare drug benefit deal. But by 2010 those were forgotten by the same conservatives, who were on the “miss me yet?” train.
To conservatives the boom under Bill Clinton was caused by Reagan’s 1981 tax cuts (never mind the 12 tax increases after that which tried to plug the deficit hole that created) and the 2008 crash was caused by Clinton’s 1993 tax increase.
We are not talking about rational people here. Not even close.
As soon as I first heard Trump refer to Jeb Bush as “low energy,” I knew it was one of the best political attacks of my politically conscience life. Trump didn’t use surrogates, didn’t use any dog whistles or implications, he just insulted him in the most potent and unusual way imaginable.
I have been referring to Trump in my circles as the Issac Newton of Republican politics since then. Not that I respect Trump, but it’s like he has the equivalent of the Principia of how to run a Republican campaign in these times, and no else has developed a full understanding of the language yet. Josh Marshal had a couple of articles about tactics that get at the same basic idea.
Expanding out a bit from that premise, I think one of the non-explcitly stated reasons Trump has so upset the GOP and the other candidates specifically is that he has totally disrupted the official established order of operations as to how the Repubican process was supposed to go. By this I mean Jeb Bush and his people had sized up the field and assessed their threats and their plans of action around fundraising, the debates, the first caucuses and primaries, etc. Same for Huckabee, Walker, Rubio down the line. They had their expectations about the order of things, and Trump came in and quickly and shockingly lit the whole thing on fire. That’s what we are seeing with Walker specifically, in my opinion. He and his people had no sense of what was coming, and they have no answer. In contrast, Carson and Fiorina have just ridden the Trump wave, and will do so until the sharp winds of reality blow them akimbo.
The only candidate on the Republican side squarely set to accept the reality Trump brought was Cruz, who stood to lose the most if the establishment order had held.
Lastly, and on a side note, this weekend I listened to both Mark Levin and Michael Saveage’s response to the Republican debate on 8/6/15, and I’m sure now that that is why Megan Kelly had to take a break. Those two junkyard dogs, let alone the countless other talk radio goons gave approval to their awful audiences to go after her, and I bet she received, and continues to receive vileness we cannot fully comprehend in her inbox. Funnily enough, Glenn Beck was the one sounding the voice of reason there. Strange times.
BooTrib is a little buggy today. I couldn’t manage to post a reply to this so I posted it as a comment below.
AG
Your description reminds me of a character in Isaac Asimov’s Foundation and Empire — The Mule.
Honestly, I don’t think a member of the Bush Family has ever considered that they’d be the person being bullied. It’s usually the other way around.
Jeb wouldn’t even stand up for his wife, when she was insulted.
He’s so used to everyone getting out of his way because his last name is Bush…he’s not used to dealing with someone who doesn’t give a phuck what his last name is.
Jeb believes he’s ENTITLED to be President.
And, if there had been just ONE of the Clown Car in 2012 that could match Willard’s resources, Willard never would have made it to the nomination.
My money’s still on the Establishment getting Jeb the nomination…but, I’m wondering how.
Trump better up his protection.
“Jeb wouldn’t even stand up for his wife, when she was insulted. “
Reminds me of Dukakis. More than anything else, I think that’s what doomed him.
I was out of the country when that election happened, but I recall that Dukakis was the close winner of a primary campaign that had many viable candidates. Thus, when it came time for the general election he was a candidate people knew little about – when they got to know him better they shifted to Bush. Of course, this was at a time when swing voters were a large part of the population, and Bush was the last of the pre-Reagan GOP so not as extreme.
Carter had a similar situation, but kept his 3-point lead all the way to election day by simply avoiding talking about issues in detail and making nice platitudes.
Has Jeb ever ran a serious campaign? Meaning actually having to put up a fight? Clinton never did before 2008 and look what that got her. Yeah, Jeb lost his first run as Governor(1994) but won his next two rather easily. I’m curious if Chiles attacked Jeb in 1994 at all, and if so how. Otherwise, he’s had it easy street. That’s the problem with most GOPers, they are often flat-footed if you can attack them the right way, like Trump is doing.
Well, they’re attacked the right way so seldom it’s no wonder they’re not practiced in responding to it.
(narrows eyes at Democrats)
The ‘right way’ includes appeals to tribalism, hierarchy, and domination.
You’re not under the impression that Democrats attacking Republicans on the basis of efficacy, honor, unity, prosperity, or even naked self-interest actually does anything, do you? How droll, to think that tribalists and conservatives (but I repeat myself) respond to anything other than tribal appeal.
By the right way, it obviously is different things for Democrats and Republicans. Of course other GOPers are going to attack Jeb! as being insufficiently racist, among other things. But Trump’s real kicker is attacking Jeb! as the tool of the oligarchs he is.
Trump’s attack only works because he’s more in the tribe than Jeb is. Clinton or Sanders or someone outside of the tribe making the exact same accusations of aristocracy and oligarchy would fall on deaf ears.
Chiles went full on nativist. He Wore a coonskin cap at rallies and took to referring to himself as the “he-coon”.
Bush didn’t have a clue on how to respond.
So Chiles appealed to the worst in people and just barely pulled through. And he was running for his 2nd term!! Ugh!!
I see an article like this one from Andy Borowitz that could have been a strong comeback for Jeb on the Mexican wall Trump proposed but then the Rep record on infrastructure gives the pushback to Sanders and Clinton.
Regardless, the article points out the obvious, how can Trump tout a billion dollar wall when we’re a Country that hasn’t taken care of its existing infrastructure? Can’t fund it to build, then can’t fund it to maintain it. Too bad Jeb, could have been a good argument for you to make.
…how can Trump tout a billion dollar wall when we’re a Country that hasn’t taken care of its existing infrastructure?
More than anything else, this shows that Trump is a True Republican ™. The answer is he’d do what all GOP administrations and Congresses have done under similar circumstances – blow the doors off of the budget, create huge deficits, and blame the “tax and spend Democrats” for the results.
In our local community most of the souls are wingnuts – about 75%, based on electoral results. Most of these people have not earned a dollar that was not paid by the federal government their entire lives, starting first on military welfare (for officers) then on post-military welfare as DoD employees – while simultaneously collecting fat lifetime pensions, incredible government health care (tri-care), etc. But even amongst the wingnuts there are degrees of insanity. When it comes to local governance most are pretty practical. But occasionally a bully takes over the local board who emulates Gingrich or similar. One such bully spend a lot of time blaming previous administrations for financial irresponsibility and poor accounting. And then he would turn around and approve $20k (about 3% of the annual community budget) for an out-of-budget set of park trails and structures. It was this propensity that got him kicked out in a wave election. Meanwhile, while eating into the community reserves he refused to raise fees – the covenants mandate that the maximum fees can be raise in a year is 3%, and thus if you don’t raise them one year you’ve reduced revenue in all future years. So, while spending through the reserves he was also preventing future actions to maintain financial solvency.
Fortunately, most of the community saw right through this and stopped him. Unfortunately, when it’s the federal government and their brains are addled by propoganda about Obummer giving trillions away free to his bruthas in the hood while the military is on a skeleton budget – well, then the common sense dies and they vote Republican.
“Regardless, the article points out the obvious, how can Trump tout a billion dollar wall when we’re a Country that hasn’t taken care of its existing infrastructure? Can’t fund it to build, then can’t fund it to maintain it.”
Trump has a background in WWE wrestling, this is the same idea: – people realize it’s fake, but they are being entertained by being pandered to.
as far as the kid….
videos…
you let him outside to run around, if you can sit on the porch and watch him.
There’s a real danger with Trump, because it’s not like establishment Democrats are so much more compelling and capable of responding than establishment Republicans are.
How would Hillary Clinton (or Bill Clinton) respond to attacks on hedge funds by Trump? Or on big-money contributions? Because we know he’ll attack them on those things if he’s still standing come April.
The danger, from what I’ve learned reading about history of other nations that have gone through periods like this, is that demagogues, even when they seem like clowns at first, tap into an untapped anger against the establishment that allows them to get away with the previously unspeakable. Hedges makes the comparison to Milosevic in the former Yugoslavia, and he’s probably right.
There is a lot of truth here. Most of the legit things you could attack Hillary on (too in bed with Wall Street, too guilty of war crimes) all the GOP candidates are guilty of in spades, which is why they have to fight at the edges like Benghazi! and Email! But Trump can go to whatever issue he wants – even if he’s equally guilty – and score.
war crimes?
As Secretary of State. I know we’re so numbed by what our government does internationally on a routine basis that we’ve stopped really caring about those old-fashioned Geneva Conventions and UN treaties. But technically every President and SoS since the Carter administration could have been successfully prosecuted under the terms of those treaties.
wouldn’t she have had to do something that constitutes a war crime, just being part of the administration isn’t enough
Wouldn’t she have had to order her people to do something that was a crime? I can see putting that on the President and Secretary of Defense, not seeing the connection to the State Department though
To be honest, I’d have to look it up and won’t do it right now. But in the Snowden leaked documents there was plenty covering her (and the State department’s) complicity in supporting various murderous factions for the purpose of increasing US business profits.
Again, not worse – in fact generally better, than any SoS who preceded her for the prior 28 years or so.
If Jeb has any brain matter, he will drop out of this clown show before SNL new season starts in Oct.
Indeed. Compared to Trump, they are all low-energy. Dems too, so far….including Unca Bernie. Warren could stand up to him, though. Biden? I dunno.
Warren would have three things going for her.
1-She actually believes in what she is saying. Never discount the power of the truth.
2-She is a national figure. Name recognition is huge.
3-She appears to be strong enough physically, mentally and emotionally to make it through the grind.
No one else currently in real contention…not HRC, not Trump, not Sanders, not Biden…has all three of those strengths. HRC is running on fumes. She’s just about all used up physically and emotionally. Plus she is caught in a massive web of lies that date back to Bill’s presidency and maybe even further. Every time she opens her mouth she has to check to see if she’s giving away some damaging info. Trump? He doesn’t believe a word of what he is saying. Not really. Most of it has no basis in fact whatsoever. No plans, no nuthin’. Just winging it. Bernie? Sorry…he’s too damned old. End of story. Look what the presidency did to Obama, and he was young and strong when he moved into the White House. Biden? He’s in great shape for his age and he’s a pro, so I think he’d handle the rigors of the presidency pretty well. Plus he has the emotional wherewithal to battle Trump with real joy.
But he has his share of lies with which to deal. <u.More</u> than his share after decades in the Senate and 8 years as VP. Lies a’plenty. Bet on it.
If Trump manages to make it through the convention and is the nominee, only Warren can save the day for the Dems. And she’s not exactly a PermaGov fave.
Is she.
I wonder if she’s having second thoughts about running. If I were her, I would. She’d beat the pants off of Trump.
Like I said…never discount the power of the truth. Especially when the opposition is the King of Lies.
Let us pray.
AG
you have proof of this?
She has had a great deal of national media coverage over the preceding several years, especially when she made that Citigroup crack. Yes, she now has name recognition. What she has done with it? Not much. But it could be amped up by pros in a matter of weeks.
AG
Not that her name recognition is huge. Yet. Bad writing on my part. I meant that name recognition is a huge part of running a national campaign.
AG
It should be easy enough to measure. They do polls on name recognition all the time. I don’t remember if she was ever included in one since she has said repeatedly she is not running in 2016.
I posted the above comment as a stand-alone post.
Who Can Stop Trump? Elizabeth Warren Is the Best Bet.
Comment there is you wish to do so.
Later…
AG
And the genius of the PermaGov is getting you to not discuss Congress at all. Except in the “I hate Congress, but I love my representatives” framework. George W. Bush’s term was devastating because he had control of Congress for four years, and the Democrats never went scorched earth on his horrible policies and appointments like McConnell treated Obama. And it is now locked into many nooks and crannies of law and bureacratic precedents.
It will take a huge wave to clear out all of the Bush brush and the Obama veneer on top of it.
New Poll Out:
When Iowa Republicans are asked who they would support in their local caucus, Ben Carson
(23%) and Donald Trump (23%) tie for the top spot. The next tier of candidates includes Carly Fiorina (10%) and Ted Cruz (9%), followed by Scott Walker (7%), Jeb Bush (5%), John Kasich (4%), Marco Rubio (4%), and Rand Paul (3%). The last two Iowa caucus victors, Mike Huckabee and Rick Santorum, each garner 2% of the vote. None of the other six candidates included in the poll register more than 1% support.
http://www.monmouth.edu/assets/0/32212254770/32212254991/32212254992/32212254994/32212254995/3006477
1087/85775b52-ec99-4ad3-bbee-14826bdf86e5.pdf
People in Iowa are signalling the media to drop Trump and put Carson under the spotlight. Carly’s next up. It looks to me like a crazy vetting process going on through using polls to drive vetting from the least candidates up through the stack.
Weird. At least that keeps all of the candidates spending money.
Trump pulled a Willie Horton Ad on Jeb.
BWA HA HA HA HA HAHA AH AH AH
Jeb looks weak and ineffectual.
But this is the dog days of primary season. Perry and Bachman led in Iowa at this point.
Jeb reminds me of no one so much as John Kerry at this point. But then Kerry wasn’t brother to a failed President.
Carson is actually the bigger threat.
Carson? Really?
I’ll agree that that Carson could be a more dangerous president than Trump (I don’t think so, but its an arguable point).
What ISN’T arguable is that Carson has ZERO chance of being elected in a general election … even if the D candidate dies (Remember Carnahan?). There are not too many people in this country who will refuse to vote for a woman for Pres (some, but I think they are rare). There are LOTS of people who will NOT vote for a black man … I don’t care what his message is. Oddly enough, most of those people live in the states where Carson would be “strongest”. Shift 150K votes in NC and its presidential blue. Forget moving Florida to red, you’ve just lost West Virginia, Virginia is completely out of reach.
Nah, Carson is the bogeyman under the bed. Scary, but totally not believable.