Implosion in JebLand! Via the NYT:
Jeb Bush has ordered across-the-board pay cuts and slashed staff positions at his Miami headquarters — a drastic shake-up for a campaign that has performed far short of early expectations.
According to an internal memo, Mr. Bush plans to reduce payroll costs by 40 percent this week, cut salaries for all but the most entry level staff members, cut travel costs by 20 percent and significantly reduce headquarters staff.
Bloomberg News got ahold of the memo that went out to campaign staffers. It was snippy!
“It’s no secret that the contours of this race have changed from what was anticipated at the start,” the memo said, adding, somewhat defensively, ”We would be less than forthcoming if we said we predicted in June that a reality television star supporting Canadian-style single-payer health care and partial-birth abortion would be leading the G.O.P. primary.”
Meow! More:
Friday’s changes were discussed on a conference call with donors led by Mr. Diaz and Sally Bradshaw, Mr. Bush’s top adviser.
Still, party leaders who had great hopes for Mr. Bush – who entered the race hoping to intimidate other rivals into abandoning the field – expressed dismay and confusion at what has become of his campaign.
“By any honest analysis, the first 10 months of this year have been a political disaster. Candidates need to understand this and make changes,” said one senior Republican in Washington, who frequently speaks with the Bush campaign and asked for anonymity to speak candidly about the position the candidate now finds himself in.
It is “an unbelievable position to be twisted into from ‘shock and awe’ to aw, shucks,” this person said.
But others with close ties to Mr. Bush’s campaign questioned whether it needed to make more fundamental changes to his campaign’s message and leadership.
“Belt tightening is one thing, but sometimes you need to change pants,” said a Republican strategist who insisted on anonymity to speak candidly.
Dayum! I’ve been thinking all along that the Trump, Carson and Fiorina boomlets would follow the Giuliani and Fred Thompson model toward a reverse-mortgage infomercial gig and that Jeb would have the money and connections to choke out the real candidates. It may still shake out that way. But it’s looking more like the Shitstain Campaign everyday.
The Moar You Know
Trump will be the last one standing. The GOP base wants a rich fat white guy who will take a podium and scream “no niggers” until he turns purple, and who won’t apologize afterwards.
Trump’s that guy.
I think Carson stays in until the end, likely veep pick. Fiorina is done, just like all the rest.
Gin & Tonic
Brinks. Trucks.
Comrade Luke
The guy is completely incompetent, he’s blaming everyone and everything else other than himself, and he’s cutting back on the people below him who…you know…do the actual work.
Sounds like the perfect Republican candidate.
SRW1
Does this mean RtR was bullshitting!?
No can be!
JMG
Republicans may not know much, but they do know that they have no chance if the names on the ballot are Clinton and Bush.
Snarki, child of Loki
Sounds like Jeb! is calling for his brown pants
He might want to try a Clown Nose, also too.
Betty Cracker
@The Moar You Know: I don’t know — someone in an earlier thread brought up a great point: Since Trump acquired a huge megaphone as the frontrunner, he hasn’t had to campaign as a trailing candidate. All he does at his rallies is talk about how great he is and how he’s killing it. He’s a petty, vain, thin-skinned dick, and that type does not perform with grace when conditions turn adverse.
Amir Khalid
@The Moar You Know:
Racist white guy for prez and weird black guy for veep. What could possibly go wrong?
Punchy
Off-shore oddsmakers now have Rubio the (slight) fav for the nommy, but Jeb (1/!) is still second, ahead of Trump. Carson is waaaaaaaaayyyy behind these 4, incredibly. I’m guessing they’re anticipating a huge flameout.
raven
@Amir Khalid: Carson is a racist as well (as you know).
Amir Khalid
@SRW1:
He’s Rising Above it all now.
dedc79
Anyone know whether a campaign has ever had to make this drastic a cut and still won the nomination?
Joel
@Snarki, child of Loki: Meanwhile, Trump’s got a steering wheel sticking out of his pants.
Richard Fox
Maybe they need another candidate and just swap them out, then count on success. They ARE are all nuts, so no biggie
Mark B.
I think the new bumper stickers are:
Trump: Not afraid to be racist.
Carson: Not your grandfather’s Uncle Tom
Anoniminous
The JEB! campaign has to take a deep breathe and go with the obvious: fire JEB! and bring in Trump to reinvigorate the company with fresh ideas and mass market appeal.
elmo
@dedc79: Not sure, but I suspect McCain in 2008 had to do something similar. he was all but written off before Iowa.
Amir Khalid
@raven:
I am indeed aware of that. I’m convinced a Trump/Carson ticket will have, um, an eventful campaign.
pete
Nice
Tom Q
@dedc79: I can’t recall if the details were quite as drastic, but I remember the McCain campaign going through something similar in late 2007.
Tom Q
@elmo: Two great minds with an identical thought (even agreeing that we don’t quite remember).
Ruckus
@The Moar You Know:
Pretty much my take as well.
Although tRump seems to step on his genitalia on a semi regular basis, the other day he may have been wearing golf spikes when he did so. This may weaken his standings. And I have no idea what makes people think that Carson is worthy of anything but a wrap around jacket and a quiet room to contemplate his navel.
Mark B.
@Amir Khalid: I think most American white racists are OK with a soft-spoken not uppity black man as a vice presidential candidate. As long as the guy on top of the ticket is down with racism.
Germy Shoemangler
@Comrade Luke:
Sounds like every republican boss I’ve ever had.
SRW1
They want him to sink even lower in the polls before he’s allowed to tuck tail?
Ruckus
@Amir Khalid: What could possibly go wrong?
I’ve calculated it out and it’s the first time I’ve seen a calculator spell out….. everything.
peach flavored shampoo
And yet some of the craziest, most batshit insane GOP basers are the Iowa kind, and they’ll take their dark skinned Negro over said racist cracker blowhard by 8%. So it all cant be about race, right? How else can you explain the Carson Effect?
Gin & Tonic
Since this is tagged “open thread” I will go off-topic to call attention (with great regret) to the fact that the separatists in control of Donetsk (Ukraine) have ordered MSF (Doctors Without Borders) to cease operations there and to leave. Given the state of infrastructure there, this will deprive many people of health care, provided by a courageous and scrupulously apolitical group. I cannot see the motivation here.
SRW1
@Amir Khalid:
In a quiet room, I suspect.
Oh, you mean his monniker.
Alex
@dedc79: McCain in 2008 needed a loan in to get through December. His promised collateral was that he would eventually make it to the point where public funds were handed out. He then did not accept public funding because that would limit how much money he could raise and was the effective nominee by that point.
McCain also had to cut staff and several people volunteered to work for no pay.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/03/us/politics/03cnd-mccain.html
Amir Khalid
@Comrade Luke:
I found it strange that Jeb was reportedly cutting back on fundraising activity too. Doesn’t he get that his campaign needs more income, rather than less?
Anoniminous
Iowa GOP caucus attendees are old, ignorant, white, fat, and have various forms of cancers and heart diseases. Once they learn Carson wants to axe Medicare and Medicaid they’ll drop him and move on to another candidate.
Davebo
Reading the article at TPM a 40% staff cut at Miami headquarters produces a million dollars per month in savings.
Am I reading that right? Over 2 million per month in payroll just at campaign HQ??
raven
@Alex: Fuck I need a loan to get through December my damn self!
SiubhanDuinne
@Betty Cracker:
Yeah! Wouldn’t you love to have seen him face that
snarling pack of jackalsBenghazi Committee yesterday!?Ruckus
@Amir Khalid:
I see that you also can not comprehend the inner workings of a conservative mind.
Elizabelle
Pants.
As in, Jeb! is likely to get pantsed. Sooner rather than later.
Pants.
As in, Hillary and Donald are wearing them. Get used to it.
lgerard
@Amir Khalid:
I found it strange that Jeb was reportedly cutting back on fundraising activity too. Doesn’t he get that his campaign needs more income, rather than less?
It is republican economics. Just like when you lower taxes you miraculously end up with more revenue, if you do less fundraising you somehow raise more funds. Right?
collin
Maybe Jeb goal is to follow Fred Thompson model toward a reverse-mortgage infomercial gig
srv
John Cole’s of the Left favorite cartoonist and Snowden graphic biographer – Ted Rall is doing a IAmA on reddit right now!
https://www.reddit.com/r/books/comments/3pxexc/hi_im_ted_rall_controversial_leftie_political/
Clearly, probably one of the people lining up to threaten men like Carson:
Anoniminous
@peach flavored shampoo:
Religion. Carson spouts the Fundie/Evangelical horseshit they believe. Unless you’ve hung around Iowa it’s hard to understand just how mind-numbingly ignorant and stupid the GOP types are.
Betty Cracker
@dedc79: McCain.
Waldo
I know McCain looked finished before retooling and coming back in ’08, but this sure seems like the start of a downward spiral for Jeb. Starting out, his main assets were his war chest and air of invincibility. Now, not so much. The fact that he’s cutting corners is only going to accentuate the loser stank.
Comrade Luke
@Amir Khalid: Isn’t this what candidates normally do before quitting altogether?
At this point, I have no idea who will be the candidate. My only high-level guess is that it will be someone who got in more for the money, or to get experience for a future run, but who suddenly finds an open field for 2016. In other words, not someone who was seriously going to run this time, but fell into it.
SRW1
@Amir Khalid
Bush’s campaign did some dynamic scoring on their budget.
Ruckus
@Betty Cracker:
He’s a petty, vain, thin-skinned dick, and that type does not perform with grace when conditions turn adverse.
I thought that was his appeal to his supporters. Thin-skinned dick, vain, no grace.
Turgidson
I look forward to Rising Above (Bobby Jindal)’s explanation for why this is actually excellent news for Jeb!. Something about how he’s demonstrating his acute business acumen, I trust.
Also look forward to more of his enlightened thoughts about how President Obama and Ta-Nehisi Coates are “mediocrities” whose successes can be attributed entirely to white guilt. Said, apparently, without a hint of irony, as he fluffs, of all the people in the fucking universe, Jeb f’ing Bush.
Turgidson
@Betty Cracker:
His reaction to Ben Carson taking the lead in an Iowa poll was to accuse Iowa voters of having brain damage. If he does start sinking more broadly, his efforts to explain and reverse it are going to be absolutely epic.
lgerard
@Anoniminous:
Faith healing fraud Pat Robertson won in Iowa in 1988, that is all you need to know about Iowa republicans
Betty Cracker
@Ruckus: They won’t like it if he starts insulting Republican voters for not grokking his greatness. That tweet about Iowa (and subsequent embussening of a “young intern”) was the sort of petty dickishness I had in mind.
dedc79
@Alex: @elmo: @Tom Q: @Betty Cracker:
Thanks all. Don’t know how I’d forgotten about McCain’s early struggles in the 2008 campaign. The 2015/6 dynamic seems quite different. I don’t see Jeb making a similar rebound.
gf120581
I guess the Brinks Trucks got stopped at the border.
Amir Khalid
@Comrade Luke:
The only way it makes sense to cut back fundraising activity is if it’s running at a loss, i.e. bringing in less than it’s spending. Which, if true of Jeb’s outfit, would mean the campaign was indeed circling the drain.
RSA
@Ruckus:
Isn’t it weird to know that he’s really, really good with sharp objects?
Elizabelle
@Amir Khalid: I wondered if that was the campaign concluding they weren’t getting the bucks, so stop using the candidate’s time that way.
They’ve promised to roll him out at voter meet and greets. Sounds inexpensive. If you don’t get out of the way fast enough, here comes Jeb! to shake your hand and tell you how he’s going to rescue the US from Obama’s record of failure and Shrillary’s “disastrous” turn as Sec of State.
Trying to make their own reality.
srv
It’s time we had leaders who do not rule from weakness:
yellowdog
@Betty Cracker: Embussening is a word that I didn’t know we needed until now. Attention internets! Betty Cracker is the originator of this perfect term
Jim, Foolish Literalist
is Mitt Romney still available to ride in on his White Horse?
The found of Staples, Thomas Sternberg, has died, and that is Mitt Romney’s tribute to him.
Ruckus
@Betty Cracker:
My comment about him wearing golf spikes was about the Iowa tweet. I agree that if he keeps stepping on himself he will fail fairly spectacularly. However….. as much as we think we understand how the conservative mind selects candidates, I think we are just throwing out guesses as to why any of their candidates has support. Not one of them is running for president. I know that’s what they say they are doing but from the “ideas” they espouse I’d say it’s Jr High class president. And they don’t deserve be elected to that position either.
srv
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
Just one of the wonderful things Bain Capital has helped create.
Amir Khalid
Another thought: If Jeb’s campaign goes broke and he has to quit, what do his super and regular PACs do with their money? There’s no campaign left for the UNLIMITED CORPORATE CASH to support. Do they pocket it? Refund it to donors? Attach themselves to some other candidate?
Humboldtblue
@The Moar You Know:
I have to admit that among conversations with my more liberal friends and even some more sensible conservative friends, we all thought the Trump bubble was just that a big ol’ blustery bubble that would burst once the big money boys started paying attention.
Nope, it appears more and more likely you are correct.
Calouste
Giuliani was polling well nationally in 2007, but never led in Iowa or New Hampshire except for a poll or two. Trump and Ben Carson, a moron, have been 1 & 2 both nationally and in the early states for quite a while now. (Fiorina has gone back into irrelevance.) Thing is, a candidate has to win either Iowa or New Hampshire, or they are not going to win. Bill Clinton is the only one who has won the nomination without winning either Iowa or New Hampshire, but he was up against a former governor of Iowa and a sitting Senator from Massachusetts, the largest media market in New Hampshire.
For the Republicans, it’s all about New Hampshire, because Iowa votes for a religious nut these days (Huckabee in 2008, Santorum in 2012, and dollars to donuts it will be Ben Carson, a moron, in 2016). Whoever wins New Hampshire is going to be the GOP nominee. Trump has been comfortably in the lead there for a long time, with Bush now in 5th. It’s also Kasich’s path to the nomination, because he’s been around 3rd there for a while, despite being within the Margin of Error of zero nationally.
Paul in KY
@Amir Khalid: Profit!!!!
Ruckus
@RSA:
I understand it’s WAS good. He’s retired, wonder if it was his idea? One must speculate.
Not That Guy
@peach flavored shampoo:
Sure it can. Nothing makes a racist tingle like a black man willing to blame black people.
Kay
It’s like a reward for getting thru that. Or…wages.
Paul in KY
@Mark B.: Carson: Crazy Ideas in a Reasonable Tone of Voice!
Need to make it pithier.
Paul in KY
@Anoniminous: I’d like to see the meeting where they tell Jeb?
That would make a great SNL skit!
MomSense
They are going to end up pleading with Rmoney if things keep going this way.
Calouste
@yellowdog: Shouldn’t that be subbussening? Embussening would mean that the throw someone in the bus, not under it.
Paul in KY
@Davebo: Repubs like to grift everything, even their own campaigns.
It’s a feature!
JPL
Jeb’s the smart one. He’s got this.
(depends on the meaning of this, though)
Bill
@Paul in KY: Carson: Crazy but Calm!
AnotherBruce
@Amir Khalid: Like a fart in an elevator.
randy khan
@Amir Khalid: My read is that Jeb! is seeing less yield from fundraising because he’s being told his polls are stinky and he doesn’t look like he’s going to win. (His donors are more likely pragmatists looking for a return on investment than true believers.) So the reason that he’s de-emphasizing fundraising is that he needs to do more actual campaigning in Iowa and New Hampshire in hopes of getting a bump in the polls, which he expects would make the donors open their wallets wider.
Regardless, it’s not a good sign for his campaign.
Surreal American
Witnessing Jeb’s cratering campaign, I wonder if Mitt Romney has ordered his man servant to junk-punch him repeatedly for not jumping into the 2016 race.
Ruckus
@Amir Khalid:
Ever pull your keys out of your pocket and lose a coin? That’s what most of his large sponsors will feel about that pac money. They will be pissed, every quarter that gets away and rolls down a storm drain is a major issue. But they have more, lots more.
Secondly, I believe the Pac can spend the money however they see fit, as long as they don’t coordinate with a campaign. So they will probably switch to someone else, with the largest donors selecting the new puppet. After all they aren’t really selecting candidates as much as employees.
Calouste
@Ruckus: Ben Carson, a moron, retired as a neurosurgeon at 61, which seems a tad early for someone at the top of his profession like he was. These people usually are really obsessed with their profession and just go on and on. The charitable explanation is that he realized that doing actual work got in the way of his grifting opportunities, which were making him multiple times what he was making as a surgeon.
Humboldtblue
Just a sampling of comments from Red State (don’t judge, it was an impulsive click while checking the reactions on memeorandum) where the smart money is on a Cruz resurrection …
JSobieski indylawyer • 10 minutes ago
Yeah, but 2016 is vastly different in terms of the candidates (far better roster) and voters (much less defensive oriented)..
I think in many ways that it is good that people like Rubio and Ryan are classified as RINOs now. It shows that there is some movement in the critical mass of voters.
gunner305 • an hour ago
Who wanna bet that Jeb! will make it to Iowa? I don’t think so. He’ll run out of cash before then and leave the stage for Cruz move. All thanks to Trump.
Trubador • 2 hours ago
“Cruz 1:1.6”
And THAT’S why Cruz will be the nominee. Raking in big money, with an almost even split between big and small donors, plus a huge grassroots in Iowa, SC, and the early SEC Primaries (including his own TX). He may even pull off FL because Jeb & Rubio will split the GOPe vote there.
Feel the Ted-mentum, no RINOS this time around. Who knew Rubio was just another wishy-washy McCain clone unable and unwilling to cleave to the hard right platform that has been so successful over the past 12 years?
Capri
@Amir Khalid: I think Jeb? pockets the cash. Evan Bayh still has 10 million in the bank for future use.
IMHO, you don’t have to racist to support Trump. You just have to desire a candidate who appears to have even a glancing familiarity with reality. If supporting a Democrat is the equivalent to drinking plutonium, which is the case for many Republicans, what other choice do you have? Sure Trump says more offensive things than not, but the “traditional” republican candidates say nothing but bald-face lies. And then they use one’s belief in those lies as proof of their purity. Who needs that?
Ruckus
@Calouste:
It is also possible that his hand-eye coordination or his study hands no longer are. It happens to many of us when we get older. Me for example. I can no longer do some things at work with my hands that I could do 2 short years ago. And I’m no neurosurgeon.
Paul in KY
@Bill: Sounds better than mine. Good job!
Amir Khalid
@randy khan:
If I were Jeb (shudder) I’d improve my polling numbers by campaigning less, and improve my campaign’s finances by doing more fundraising.
Offering advice like that is probably why I don’t work as a political consultant.
Comrade Dread
I guess JEB was the dumb one after all. At least his brother managed to run a competent losing campaign that somehow resulted in him winning anyway.
bystander
Is it too soon to call “Right to Rise” the “Viagra Campaign”?
Amir Khalid
@Capri:
Can Jeb do that? I was asking about PAC money, which must remain entirely separate from a campaign’s funds. And even with campaign funds, I understand there are restrictions against personal use thereof by a candidate.
Calouste
@Ruckus: Most people who are really into their field would move to (more) teaching and research if they were no longer able to do the actual work.
Fair Economist
@srv:
Maybe there’s some truth to the conspiracy theory that Bill Clinton talked Trump into running? Which if true, would probably be the greatest American rat-f***ing operation of all time.
Poopyman
@Surreal American: Until the Republican Convention is over, Mitt! is a valid threat to be the nominee, whether announced yet or not.
Applejinx
@Betty Cracker: I think that was me. I’ve been saying that.
Trump is out the instant he’s seriously considered to be second, or a loser. Not one of the other Rs is able to take him out, and if he can summon enough selfdelusion to truly believe that he is always winning (hey, Romney managed it) then he’ll stay in for the duration, but if he thinks he’s actually coming in second, he’s going to take his ball and go home.
Not for Trump the humiliation being shoveled onto Bush. He’d have quit in a huff, not even a minute and a huff.
Two weeks ago a friend of mine was asked to set up microphones for Jeb Bush at a private presentation at Smith Medical, where he’d come to presumably ask for money. He tried to open with a joke and nobody laughed, and he generally sucked. Jeb is really having a rough time out there, doing worse than you think.
Just today I was talking with a non-moonbat friend in the middle of the country and was startled by her take on the Benghazi hearings, and she was just as startled by mine (or Balloon Juice’s). We mocked all the clowns and were generally stomping about insisting Hillary had the biggest balls on the block and was a sure WINRAR, which I find unsettling because I don’t think she’s properly steerable unless she’s a bit worried about failing. If she’s too full of herself I’m worried she’s not going to tack left enough, especially re: war and economics.
My friend liked Gowdy a great deal because he seemed, to her, like an earnest prosecutor, even Jimmy Stewart-like, doggedly trying to get at the facts. She did notice that Clinton telegraphed her opinion of the questioners by either beaming smiles or going stony and hostile, which my friend didn’t like at all. Clearly there are people out there who saw the whole Benghazi thing very differently, and aren’t particularly charmed by end-zone dances and the total mocking of the committee members.
Interestingly, turns out she’s been familiar with Ben Carson for years. Says she’s read several of his books, and that she knew of him and trusted him. That’s past tense: he’s blown it so severely with her that she’s like AW HELL NO at this point, largely because he’s suddenly come off all biblethumpy evangelistical and it affects his platform.
It hadn’t occurred to me that anybody would even know about that clown, much less have known him for years and then get turned off to him in recent months. The world’s bigger and stranger than we know.
WaterGirl
@lgerard:
I wonder if that gives him a certain amount of cover since (I’m betting) his fundraising isn’t going very well at the moment.
Poopyman
@Calouste: I’m 61 and my eyes are going. It’s not that they aren’t being well corrected, and it’s not macular degeneration, but something ain’t the way it used to be. They tire much more easily.
Anyway, I’m just sayin’ it could be anything. My own vote is on early onset of dementia.
Betty Cracker
@Capri: Agreed. I know people who aren’t hard-core racist assholes who are thinking about voting for Trump. (One of my uncles, for example, and sundry neighbors and acquaintances.) They’re fed up with bullshit from politicians, have witnessed the decades-long hosing of the middle-class and are ready to drop a stink bomb on the process. Trump is that stink bomb.
Booger
Seems like !Jeb!’s! campaign has all been one long f-u to the Shelob of Kennebunkport. I don’t recall ever seeing anyone who seems more joyless in campaigning. And with the weight loss from the days of “jolly plump Jeb,” he has the air of someone with cancer.
low-tech cyclist
I guess one needs to change pants after taking a crap in them.
Roger Moore
@Amir Khalid:
There’s no fundamental problem with a SuperPAC attaching itself to a new candidate. They’re nominally supposed to be independent, so that’s the logical thing for them to do. It also allows them to continue paying themselves fat salaries and agency fees for buying media time, i.e. grifting, which is the really important goal for the people running them.
RSA
At least he’ll be able to give up that stupid paleo diet he’s on.
Paul in KY
@Fair Economist: Unless he wins! (God forbid)
Villago Delenda Est
@Humboldtblue: That would be the SMRT money.
Wonder how Reich to Rise is going to try to spin this development? It’s only a temporary setback? You know, like the Red Army taking Berlin?
trollhattan
@Amir Khalid:
In the last cycle Colbert, working with Trevor Potter, showed with disturbing precision how a candidate can move his super PAC money in such a way as to end up with it string-free, to spend as he wishes. While Colbert donated the money he could just as well have bought a yacht.
Paul in KY
@Applejinx: What opinion would you have of those Republican paragons who wasted her time for 11 hours?
Have to think as if you were in her shoes, because I know you are OK with her time being wasted for 11 hours.
jl
Jeb? campaign has pants? Who knew?
Read the intertubes and you learn something every damn day.
trollhattan
@Villago Delenda Est:
This is his serene tortoise doing his hardshell wizardry in front of our very eyes, setting himself up to astound us in several months by revealing the True Winning Plan and spending UNLIMITED CASH on Just One Jawdropping Ad (see these shocking pics).
It will be his daisy/Mac-1984 winning stroke. Just you wait.
Heliopause
By the way, Jeb’s got a time share in Puerto Vallarta that he’s willing to sell for cheap. If you’re interested give him a call.
Betty Cracker
@Applejinx:
That’s for sure.
I’m not surprised at the gulf in perceptions about the hearing between your friend and yourself. If there’s one known quantity about HRC, it’s that she’s an incredibly polarizing figure. I’ve read with interest your theories about HRC’s malleability. I think you’re onto something, though I suspect I give her more credit than you do for sincerity.
If she’s the nominee, I think she’ll tack slightly center during the general election (as would any Democratic candidate), but I don’t think she’ll abandon her stated economic platform or go warmongery on us as you seem to fear.
I think Bill Clinton would have gladly joined the Republican Party if that were the easier path to the presidency in his day. I think HRC’s default position is Democratic centrism. She’ll tack into the wind if she thinks it helps her, but I don’t believe she’s a wholly conviction-free triangulator in the mold of the mister.
Iowa Old Lady
For talk from a different universe, don’t miss Digby transcript of a conversation between Trump and Hugh Hewitt (that’s his name right? The RW radio guy)
Trump wasn’t watching yesterday hearing and HH was feeding him what he should think. HRC was doing terribly. She was incompetent and guilty and now everyone was going to see that. etc. Trump was eating it up with a spoon.
Gin & Tonic
@trollhattan: It will be his daisy/Mac-1984 winning stroke
If anyone ever questions the power of television advertising, those two ads, which are known by nearly everyone, despite being over 50 and over 30 years old respectively, each aired on a national TV broadcast precisely once.
RSA
@Applejinx:
That’s how I felt when I discovered, on Netflix, Gifted Hands: The Ben Carson Story, starring Cuba Gooding, Jr.
Cervantes
@Betty Cracker:
She won’t do those latter things during the campaign or she won’t do them as President?
Gravenstone
@Amir Khalid: Fundraisers don’t work for free, there. Suppose they have to balance that expense against the return.
hedgehog the occasional commenter
@srv: “Rule”? You do realize this isn’t a monarchy?
NonyNony
@Calouste:
I don’t think it’s quite that pat. The early states are all proportional as far as delegates go – so if enough clowns stay in the clown car and Trump wins NH with 25% of the vote, well, he only gets a share of the delegates based on that. If he’s “winning” the early states with between 25 and 33% of the vote, the press might actually get the “brokered convention” that they dream about every single goddamn presidential election cycle.
I still refuse to believe that this is going to happen – I think somehow when we get close to NH Trump is going to screw it up. But I will admit I thought he’d be out of it by now. I figured that once the silly season ended Jeb! would roll out the attack ads against Trump and level him. Turns out that the Bush Machine was only capable of writing scary attack ads against politicians and they are utterly ineffective at fighting someone who basically has no record at all. Who knew?
Bill
@Betty Cracker: The Trump candidacy reminds me of Ventura’s run for Governor of Minnesota. He’s tapped in to a deep seeded resentment for “business as usual,” and a weird idea that “if we just had a stronger personality in charge everything will be fine.” I’m not sure much of the Trump electorate is going to vote for anyone else if he gets out of the race.
I invite any of our participants from The Land Of 10,000 Lakes to remind us how the Ventura Governorship worked out.
Citizen_X
Heh. Reminds me of what Hirohito said when he announced he was ready to hand over the katana:
trollhattan
@RSA:
I would vote for Carson if he would limit himself at each and every campaign event to the following:
“Damn it Jim, I’m just a country doctor!”
And, scene.
Betty Cracker
@Cervantes: Both, I guess. If HRC gets the nomination, I think she’ll run — and govern, if elected — much as PBO did / does, as a garden-variety Democrat.
@Bill: Exactly right.
Waldo
@Calouste:
Or to put it another way: Carson used to heal people with brain problems in exchange for money. Now he just takes their money.
Central Planning
@Amir Khalid:
They will cut their way to prosperity and greatness!
bemused
Trump drawing yooge crowds, Jeb getting no enthusiasm and now funding woes, Barbara must be loads of fun to be around these days.
Calouste
@NonyNony: The early states are not about the delegates. It’s all about momentum, the press, the narrative. McCain was at 19% nationwide in the last poll before he won the New Hampshire primary in 2008, and 34% in the first poll after.
Hal
Was McCain doing as poorly as Jeb in the polls in 2008? It’s not just the money issue, it’s the fact that he’s gone from presumed front runner to single digits. Still, I’m finding any of these other candidates equally as unlikely, so some unlikely candidate is bound to get the nomination. Why not Jeb?
jibeaux
@Humboldtblue: Other R politicians can’t stand Ted Cruz. I would enjoy watching the gritted teeth 20 second endorsements.
WaterGirl
@bemused: I wonder if the words I TOLD YOU SO are getting a workout in the Bush family. Thanksgiving should be fun for them!
bemused
@WaterGirl:
I have this mental picture of Barbara breathing fire and brimstone and Poppy Bush weeping uncontrollably.
Carl Nyberg
There are two problems with Jeb Bush’s candidacy.
The first problem is the Bush part.
The second problem is the Jeb part.
NonyNony
@Calouste:
In a normal election, sure. But we’re in weird uncharted territory here. If Trump is predicted to win NH and then does actually win NH with like 25% of the vote, and say Carson has a strong showing with 20% of the vote, then how does that play out this time around? Or if someone like Kasich comes in second with a strong 20% showing?
None of this is normal – typically the winner of the GOP NH primary takes 50% of the vote, it becomes obvious that they’re going to bigfoot their way to the win, and that’s that. Romney got less than 40% of the vote last time and had to struggle a bit longer, but he was the establishment candidate.
In fact, looking over the NH Republican results for the past 15 years the winner of NH has been the establishment candidate every single time and then they went on to win the nomination. The only one where this didn’t happen was in 2000 when McCain beat W but W got the nomination. But Trump’s candidacy is nothing like W’s was.
If Trump actually takes NH, but with less than 40% of the vote, then this really is unprecedented as far as at least the last 15 years goes – even him winning with more than 40% would be uncharted waters, because he isn’t the establishment candidate by any stretch of the imagination. Who knows what could happen at that point – the proportional delegate rules might become very important.
NonyNony
@Hal:
I don’t think that this is true – neither Rubio nor Kasich nor Cruz have Bush’s baggage, and at least Rubio is not as bad a campaigner as Jeb! is (I mean, he’s no W and he’s no Obama and he’s not really even a Hillary Clinton, but he’s better than Jeb!). Any of the three of them would be better horses to back at this point for billionaires looking to try to outmaneuver Trump than Jeb! has proven to be. And so Jeb!’s fundraising will continue to dry up unless he can do something – anything – to get his poll numbers to rise. I think he’s in a vicious cycle now – Trump knocked him down and every time he tries to do something to get back up again he bumbles it and makes it worse. The donors have to be figuring that at this point giving him more money would just be throwing away their money and will be looking for someone else to back.
(Unlike in 2012, where it was clear that there was Romney and then there were the clowns, this year Jeb was not the obvious “only guy running who could possibly make the establishment happy” the way Romney was. That’s hurting Jeb a lot – if he could have gotten Rubio to drop out and kept Kasich out entirely he’d probably be doing somewhat better now. But the Bush name is hurting him a lot more with conservative Republicans than anyone imagined it would. I think all of them took those “Miss Me Yet” billboards with W’s smirking face on them more seriously than the people who put them up did.)
gelfling545
@peach flavored shampoo:
Doesn’t look like a cartoon character?
gelfling545
@Betty Cracker: Funny how the GOP always get such incompetent (and probably fictional) “interns”.
hoodie
Bushes are vampires, and it’s way too long time before the first primaries to write Jeb’s obituary. As crappy a candidate as he is, Jeb! may be smart to cut his burn rate now because Trump and Carson are not going to be killed off by shock and awe but long term have some severe vulnerabilities because of Trump’s bombast and Carson’s craziness. It’s becoming pretty likely that Hillary will be the Dem nominee after that command performance at the Benghazi hearing, so the GOP voters may start worrying that clowns like Trump and Carson are not going to be well-positioned to take on the Hillary that swatted away the lunatic game of those flailing GOP congresscritters at the hearing. It’s not like any of the other candidates are setting the world on fire, e.g., Carly! is fading and guys like Rubio and Kasich aren’t positioned much better than Bush. He may be hoping for an opening if Trump/Carson swoon in the early part of next year and wants to have resources to scale back up. Normally, it would be a loser if there were more conventional candidates in the race that right now were vying with Bush for supremacy, but all those guys are stuck in a stopped elevator together. This is such a weird set of GOP candidates, who the hell knows.
WaterGirl
@hoodie: I’m not sure the hearing yesterday will have that much impact on what people think of Hillary Clinton, except that if you liked her to begin with, you may well like her more after yesterday.
If you didn’t like Hillary in the first place, the chances of your having watched that hearing are approximately zero.
gelfling545
@jibeaux: Picture the speeches at the convention. “As far as I know, Ted Cruz has never set fire to a nursing home. Probably”
Capri
@Amir Khalid: My understanding is that you can’t use it for your personnal use, to buy a car or something like that. But the money can be banked for a future campaign, either yours or someone else. Bayh doles his out in small amounts, which keeps him relevant in Democratic circles.
RaflW
But, remember:
Bwahahahaha, part II.
amk
@Applejinx:
Of course, there are and they are called hillary hating mouthbreathers. So what if they are pissed off (aren’t they pissed off at one thing or other 24/7 ?) ?
Betty Cracker
@hoodie: Good points. I still say it’s way too early to write Bush off, particularly if it comes down to Bush vs. Rubio for the establishment nod, which seems to be the way it’s shaping up. I’d never underestimate the Bush clan’s willingness and ability to slime Rubio if they want him out of the way. Their tentacles extend throughout the Florida GOP establishment, which is where Rubio came up, and I’m sure they can make skeletons tumble out of his closet on command.
feebog
So, all this talk about the early primaries made me do some actual research into the 2016 Republican primary nominating process. It is every bit as fucked up as anyone could possibly imagine. First, all the states who hold primaries before April 1 are supposed to be proportional. Except, there are hybrid states, where some can be proportional and some can be awarded to a single candidate. In some cases, proportional states could still choose to award all their delegates to one candidate if that candidate won all the congressional districts. Plus there are bonus delegates that are heavily weighted toward the red states. Alabama and Arizona will have far more influence than say Illinois or Minnesota, because the former get a shitload of bonus delegates. On one map I looked at the only big states who are winner take all was Ohio, Florida and New Jersey. Also Arizona, not a big state, but they get so many bonus delegates, they have the influence of a big state. Apparently, nothing is set in stone yet insofar as when each state will hold their primary. FUBAR does not begin to describe this process.
Applejinx
@Betty Cracker:
I’m more worried about the economic thing, really. To some extent I think the perception of her being super hawky would help her maintain whatever geopolitical gains Obama’s managed to pull off, without escalating. The downside is, Obama’s freakin’ warmongery too. Drone-boy’s killing a lot of people. Even that isn’t so much ‘escalating’ as it’s ‘for pete’s sake, does the US EVER get tired of poking the rest of the world with sticks??’ and neither Obama nor Clinton are likely to tone that down. So they aren’t going to war with Iran. Yay us, but we’re still constantly reminding everyone we have nukes and drones and like to bomb you on the sly.
I don’t see Clinton changing that, anymore than Obama has given himself over to pacifism. As near as I can tell he’s solidified US control of a number of things like the Malacca Strait, presumably because it’s strategically necessary. So, too, would Clinton be nailing down control of that stuff. I’m not certain that’s wrong but I’d like the consequences considered too.
Economically, Sanders vs. Clinton is a hell of a stark difference. Sanders represents the kind of change Krugman’s just written about, that Canada’s voted in. He represents full-on Keynsianism and the total repudiation of austerity and trickle-down. You can call it socialism but we know we won’t see REAL socialism, democratic or otherwise: but we might well see extremely heavy investment in infrastructure and rebuilding, and an economic boom. It’s almost like the Laffer curve: we’re so far gone towards austerity and budget-balancing that we might see a real significant boom from putting shitloads of Americans to work in government jobs.
I’m far more worried that Hillary won’t put tons of people to work in government jobs. There are many things where I think she’d hold strong for them because she believes in them AND thinks there’s popular support. That’s the easy part. I see progressive, demand-side economics as something where there’s huge popular support but I don’t think she actually believes in it. I wish I could stick Mark Blyth in her back pocket so he can, in an adorable Scottish accent, continually badger her about firing up the economy by taking advantage of the super-low interest rates and doing some truly epic deficit spending so the US economy roars to life and expands much faster than the amount it loses to the deficit spending.
The opposite’s true in practice: everyone who’s gone full austeritard has ended up owing MORE because their GDP collapsed. We’re totally in a position to do the opposite, quick, before the Eurozone beats us to it, and we’d end up thriving and bailing out the Eurozone and cementing an incredibly powerful strategic position.
But I’m just not sure Hillary is prepared to give the finger to the right-wing austerians that hardcore. She should be. It amazes me that she’s not! But right now the centrist position is still way out of line and obsessed with deficit reducing, and it takes a leap of faith and a hard look at real-world interconnectedness to truly discard the austerity fantasy. You have to believe in the power of growing your GDP, which means you can’t be supporting the guys (banks, mostly) who are just leeching money out of all the governments.
Mike G
@Comrade Luke:
Corporate America in a nutshell. Bush is the ultimate corporate candidate in behavior as well as ideology.
Commenting at Balloon Juice since 1937
@dedc79: McCain 2008
FlipYrWhig
@Applejinx:
And as with Obama and the stimulus, getting full-Monty Keynesianism past a gauntlet of center-right Democrats who only grudgingly believe in deficit spending when all other options have been exhausted is well nigh impossible. I don’t have any faith that Pres. Sanders would be able to do it, with or without the “political revolution” that’s supposed to get people to hold their representatives’ feet to the proverbial fire. Mark Warner and Tom Carper and Heidi Heitkamp and Bill Nelson and Jon Tester et al just aren’t going to go for it.
rikyrah
@Applejinx:
I’ve been following Carson for years. Like many other Black folks, I had respect for him before he revealed himself to be a tap dancing slave catcher, in the vein of Clarence Thomas.
He got everything he has because of a GOVERNMENT PROGRAM, and now spouts the nonsense that he does?
Hell no.
psychobroad
@Comrade Luke: He’s a Bush, what did you expect?