Looking through the final Des Moines Register polling numbers, I’m struck first of all by how stunningly unsuccessful Jeb Bush has been in winning support. He’s polling at 2%, which means that one out of every fifty people say that they intend to caucus for him. He’s the second choice of 4% (or one in every twenty-five respondents). His 53% unfavorable rating is higher than anyone else polled, including Sarah Palin. His net favorable rating is minus 12%, which is only surpassed by Palin’s minus 13% rating.
When asked how enthusiastic they would be to vote for a candidate in the general, only John Kasich has a lower rating, and that’s because Kasich appears to be largely unknown in the Hawkeye state after having focused all his efforts on winning in New Hampshire.
We really need to stop and savor this complete collapse of the House of Bush.
The numbers are hard to explain if you restrict yourself to looking at Jeb without considering the family legacy. Jeb hasn’t been a particularly negative or divisive campaigner. He’s tried to be more of a sunny optimist, at least until it became clear that that tact wasn’t going to work. If he’d been savaging people left and right, it’d be easier to understand his sky-high unfavorables.
Considering how poorly credentialed the other leading contenders are to take over the job of the leader of the free world, you’d also think that Jeb would be the second choice of more voters.
With Bush’s enormous budget, you’d think he’d break through with some people through advertising and also through pure organizing power. Neither seems to have happened, which can’t be explained away as simply poor messaging or resourcing. This is more of a situation where it doesn’t matter what Team Bush does, there’s simply no way to get people to consider going back to their family for leadership.
