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You know it’s bad when the Project 2025 people have to create training videos on “How To Be Normal”.

Every reporter and pundit should have to declare if they ever vacationed with a billionaire.

Red lights blinking on democracy’s dashboard

When do we start airlifting the women and children out of Texas?

Never entrust democracy to any process that requires republicans to act in good faith.

I swear, each month of 2025 will have its own history degree.

Putin must be throwing ketchup at the walls.

This year has been the longest three days of putin’s life.

The fundamental promise of conservatism all over the world is a return to an idealized past that never existed.

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T R E 4 5 O N

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Everybody saw this coming.

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You are here: Home / Elections / Election 2016 / Open Thread: Third Time’s No Charm, JEB!

Open Thread: Third Time’s No Charm, JEB!

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And yet — this being the Republican party — there’s still a more-than-zero chance this mope will end up as the eventual nominee…

From the NYTimes, “Jeb Bush’s New Show of Confidence Is Failing to Connect With Republicans“:

WATERLOO, Iowa — This ought to be Jeb Bush’s time.

He laid out a detailed plan to crush the Islamic State three months before the Paris terrorist attacks. He gave a well-received speech on rebuilding America’s military at the Citadel two weeks ago. He has shown new confidence discussing terrorism, the Syrian refugee crisis and American values, and how they intertwine.

But instead of winning a second look from voters, Mr. Bush continues to be ignored, and to languish in the polls, even as the nation contends with what he calls “serious times that require serious leadership.”

In an appearance at an Iowa military museum here on Tuesday, where a World War II-era P-51 Mustang was suspended overhead, the stage was set for Mr. Bush, the former Florida governor, to highlight his credentials to be commander in chief. He detailed his positions on defeating the Islamic State, and invoked his father’s waging of the 1991 Persian Gulf war.

Yet the crowd of 150 mostly older voters was scarcely stirred to applaud…

Mr. Bush has been the beneficiary of $30 million in television ads in the early voting states, more than any other candidate. One commercial, “Leader,” featured footage from his speech at the Citadel military college in South Carolina calling for a United States-led coalition to destroy the Islamic State “with overwhelming force.”

But the ads have not budged Mr. Bush’s low standing in polls. Of Republicans who named terrorism and foreign policy as their top concerns in a Quinnipiac University survey of Iowa last week, only 4 percent picked Mr. Bush as their top candidate. A national survey by the same pollster on Wednesday gave Mr. Bush 5 percent over all…

From the Mother Jones article:

In February, a limited liability company called TH Holdings LLC donated $100,000 to Right to Rise, the super-PAC supporting Jeb Bush’s bid for the GOP presidential nomination. That’s not extraordinary; quite a few LLCs have donated to the super-PAC, which has so far raised more than $103 million. But TH Holdings is a special case—one that represents the worst-case scenario in the post-Citizens United campaign finance landscape: untraceable corporations shoveling untraceable cash into the political system. Beyond this six-figure contribution, the company appears to have no history of doing business anywhere. And its incorporation records reveal no owners, managers, or officers…

That NYTimes article, again:

…Mr. Bush’s team acknowledges that he has had a rough patch, but expects improvement. “Everybody will have their ups and downs,” said Al Cardenas, an adviser and friend of Mr. Bush’s. “Our hope is the governor has gotten pounded as hard as anybody has possibly gotten pounded.” Hopefully Mr. Bush’s narrative will improve, Mr. Cardenas added, and “a comeback story is pretty good.”

“It worked for McCain in 2008, and I think the governor has the resources and talent to make it work for him,” he said….

And for us Democrats, of course, the salient fact is that McCain went on to lose. I wonder if JEB! is ever visited by the ghost of Nelson Rockefeller, another extremely GOP-Establishment ex-governor who could never quite manage to buy his way into the Oval Office.

Reader Interactions

121Comments

  1. 1.

    catclub

    Anybody following the posts at WaMonthly on political tectonics? Relevant here to Bush being rejected as the establishment.

  3. 3.

    Baud

    Mr. Bush has tried to improve his performance: He recently hired a speech coach, and has seized on last month’s Paris attacks to portray himself as the best prepared to be commander in chief.

    I’m sorry I won’t get the opportunity to treat him like his brother treated Al Gore.

  6. 6.

    RaflW

    “serious times that require serious leadership.”

    Obviously Jeb hasn’t the faintest idea who the GOP base is. Serious times call for moronic, ultra-egotistical blowhardism.

    No wonder he is such a loser.

  8. 8.

    J R in WV

    Between his last name, which means he can’t even use his whole name in campaign literature or ads, and his horrible governance in Florida, Jeb? is just not a winner.

    People remember his attack on the Schiavo family, too.

    Plus he seems drugged or comatose on the stump, as bad nearly as Dr. Carson.

    It would be sad if it wasn’t so funny.

  9. 9.

    Baud

    OT. Both sides issue executive orders (via kos)

    What a difference an election makes! Louisiana’s governor-elect, Democrat John Bel Edwards, will reportedly be issuing nondiscrimination protections for the state’s lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender workers, reports Julia O’Donoghue.
    ….
    Louisiana’s two most recent Democratic governors — Edwin Edwards and Kathleen Blanco — signed similar directives to prohibit discrimination when they were in office.

    Governors Mike Foster and Bobby Jindal, both Republicans, declined to offer those protections. Jindal called Blanco’s executive order to protect LGBT state workers and contractors “unnecessary” when he took office in 2007.

  14. 14.

    Suzanne

    Spawn the Younger is still sick, cuddled up on the couch, STILL refusing to take medicine. ARGHHH.

  20. 20.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Betty Cracker: Among other things, three back-ups playing on the O-line and the two remaining starters are banged up. The loss of Nelson was a bigger thing than it seemed. As for the rest, who knows?

  22. 22.

    Betty Cracker

    @Omnes Omnibus: Weh-heh-hell! My complaint seems to have changed the juju!

    ETA: Can’t believe Julius Peppers is still playing. I remember him back when he was on the Panthers ages ago. Still has arms like tree trunks.

  28. 28.

    Mike in NC

    JEB! remains a sorry loser asshole with zero personality and charisma. His ideas about people working longer hours and the need to phase out Medicare have failed to catch on, oddly enough. Plus, his neocon sycophants all worked for his dry drunk brother and wimp dad. Time to regroup Team JEB!

  31. 31.

    Anoniminous

    HuffPost Poll of Polls:

    Donald Trump 35.4%
    Ben Carson 15.2%
    Marco Rubio 13.8%
    Ted Cruz 12.4%
    Jeb Bush 6.9%

    On March 15th Jeb reached the heights of 14.9% and it’s been downhill ever since.

  32. 32.

    Tripod

    He’s a loser.

    Booman has a long winded post up today, in support of his eternal and quixotic quest for a Democratic landslide. That’s bosh, but the idea that the GOP is facing some core demographic and generational shifts holds quite a bit of weight. The old school, blue blazer, button down collar, khaki and penny loafer wearin’ dickheads are fading into the past, and they were the GOP core of the last forty years.

    What’s now is considerably more downmarket and reactionary.

  33. 33.

    dmsilev

    I just hope that !Jeb does a Ahab-esque “with my last dying breath I spit at thee” exit from the campaign, unleashing all of the dirty tricks his family is known for, only to find that it wasn’t enough.

    Root for injuries, is what I’m saying.

  34. 34.

    ThresherK (GPad)

    @Baud: I dunno if it’s all the football talk, but this reminds me of Tim Tebow getting mechanics coaching after he was a pro for a year or so. The cake is baked.

    That reminds me, I gotta make a cake.

  35. 35.

    Corner Stone

    @Tripod:

    Booman has a long winded post up today, in support of his eternal and quixotic quest for a Democratic landslide.

    Does it involve the traditional Booman kneepads for Obama?

  36. 36.

    David Koch

    NYT: “He gave a well-received speech on rebuilding America’s military at the Citadel two weeks ago.”

    Adjusted for inflation, the defense budget is 50% higher today then it was in 2000 and higher then the combined budgets of the next 13 nations, yet the Times thinks it needs to be “rebuilt”

    They should ask bin Laden if the military needs to be rebuilt.

  37. 37.

    NotMax

    “with overwhelming force”

    “Shock and awe” 2.0.

    Guessing “pivot of malice” didn’t test as well as “axis of evil.”

  40. 40.

    Redshift

    he had been struck in 2012 by hire much coarser and crasser and crazier the political circus now seemed

    Gosh, I wonder who was responsible for that, Jebbie? Your brother’s campaign, spreading rumors of an illegitimate black child to win a primary? Or his Supreme Court justices ignoring precedent to decide that unlimited corporate cash wasn’t corrupting? I could go on…

    What an asshole, whining because the “right sort of people” can’t anoint him as nominee any more.

  41. 41.

    PhoenixRising

    @Suzanne: Respectfully, do you give your offspring choices about medication? I fed my 16yo a cup of too-hot tea and boiling Cambodian noodle broth for dinner, and I did not in fact ask what she wanted because I *don’t care*.

    What *I* want is for her to fight off the cold that has produced 2 dramatic full-abdomen sneezes, before the parade she’s in 46 hours from now. And I’m substituting my judgment for hers, until her frontal lobes are fully developed (est. 4-7 years from now).

    ETA: ¡Jeb! bores me into using the ‘open’ part of the thread. Christ, what an asshole. MoJo’s story about the dark money is important, but not interesting, because he literally can’t buy 3rd place.

  43. 43.

    Fair Economist

    @joes527:

    @Gin & Tonic: seems to be working for Hillary.

    That’s not it for Hillary. Hillary is getting the job because she’s gotten a heck of a resume, a huge base of supporters, good relations with the vast majority of top elected officials, incredible self-control and discipline, and the most detailed set of policy proposals I’ve ever seen.

  44. 44.

    PhoenixRising

    @Suzanne: Oh, those were the days. I miss grape flavor as a deal-breaker. Now we get push-back on the truly vile, and the truly necessary, as if they were all Satan-flavored. This too shall pass, or so my mama assures me.

  48. 48.

    MomSense

    @Suzanne:

    Ugh. Sorry to hear it. It really stinks when the kids are sick.

    My youngest told me a silly joke. Maybe it will cheer up your daughter.

    Why did the chicken cross the road?

    To sing Hello From the Other Side.

  52. 52.

    ? Martin

    @PhoenixRising: We give our kids choices. Our view is that by the time they are in high school they need to be treated as adults. They’ll make bad decisions, but that’s why we’re still here to give guidance and bail them out of those decisions. But they need the experience and independence of making their own decisions. Too many college students with no ability to make good decisions for themselves because they have no experience doing it.

  53. 53.

    Roger Moore

    @benw:

    there should be an html code jeb and /jeb that renders the enclosed text extremely uninteresting to any reader.

    Balloon-Juice can achieve that without requiring any special tags.

  55. 55.

    lamh36

    The Wiz was awesome.

    Best of the 3 musicals on NBC…HANDS DOWN.

    All the major names had solos, including Miss Stephanie Mills. NBC is slowly releasing video from certaina performances, and the DVD is available for pre-order already.

    ICYMI:Ms Amber Riley gurl…sang da hell out of “He’s The Wiz”

    From production, to choreo, to singing, to acting, it really was fantastic.

    I can tell ya what…with all the shit lately, LaQuan, Sandar, Eric, Tamir…and the week that’s been going on since Paris…I needed this one.

    Anyone hope ya’ll can catch it later.

  70. 70.

    PurpleGirl

    I’m glad I decided to watch The Wiz. I thought it was great.

    My computer hard drive is making weird noises. I may go off-line for a while. I’ll have to look at some new computers and decide what to do. Everything happens at once. Argh!.

  73. 73.

    Tissue Thin Pseudonym

    Oh, Lions. It will be years more before we win our second playoff game of the Super Bowl era.

    @ThresherK (GPad): The Browns have been significantly more successful than the Lions over the last 50 years.

  74. 74.

    frosty

    @catclub: That’s the Booman, who’s been writing brilliantly on his own blog for years. I’m really pleased that he’s moving up at WaMo too. Just think, getting ahead through skills and talent! What a concept.

  75. 75.

    Betty Cracker

    Sweet babby Jeebus! Someone made Michael Irvin a suit out of my old granny’s boudoir curtains!

  77. 77.

    J R in WV

    That was quite a comeback, and an amazing throw, a real bomb. In Dallas it would have hit the jumbotron, what’s the rulebook on that?

  86. 86.

    a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)

    @Suzanne: Can you mix it into something strongly flavored that she likes? Says the one who is most used to dosing liquids with an oral syringe, often at 20-30ml. Can you do that with kids (In appropriate ml dosage size).

  89. 89.

    Roger Moore

    @redshirt:

    Since the Superbowl era, who are the worst teams?

    You missed the Cardinals. They have the second worst record of any existing team after the Buccaneers, who at least managed to win the Superbowl once. They have the fewest playoff appearances of any team that’s been in the NFL for the whole Superbowl era, and fewer than many teams that haven’t. If they manage to win three more games this year, it will give them the first 12 win season in franchise history.

  90. 90.

    Jeffro

    @redshirt: Teams that have never been to a Super Bowl in the SB Era: Houston Texans, Cleveland Browns, Jacksonville Jaguars, and Detroit Lions.

    Teams that have been to the Super Bowl but have never won one in the SB Era: Arizona, Carolina, Tennessee, Atlanta, San Diego, Buffalo (4), Cincinnati (2), Philadelphia (2), Minnesota (4).

    The flip side of course is who has been to the most? 3-way tie with Pittsburg, Dallas, and New England having gone to 8 of them. Pittsburgh has won 6, the most SB wins of any NFL team.

    I think that with this season culminating in SB 50, the NFL tried to schedule a high number of SB rematches. It’s been kind of interesting.

  92. 92.

    lamh36

    Le sigh…Rule of thumb white people (hell ALL people actually), If you don’t understand a culture, or don’t come from that culture, maybe try to find some understanding before being condescending.

    @youngsinick Michael Arceneaux Retweeted Slate
    White writer writes about Black thing she has no idea about (see correction) only to trash it. Typical.

    @Slate
    The marching band cover of “Hello” is terrible, which is why you should watch it: http://slate.me/1XBMdzZ

    It’s not about the writer not liking the performance, but it’s obvious from reading the article, that the person has no idea of the HBCU band performance culture, nor does she understand that SU is probably the largest public HBCU in the US and ALOT of people know of it, so she’s getting dragged mercilessly on twitter, so much so, she issues a caveat/apology of sorts, that she has NO real experience with HBCU band and arrangements…smh.

  93. 93.

    Tommy

    @Roger Moore: Oh the Cards. As a dude that lives in St. Louis when the team left we didn’t really care that much. We are about to lose the Rams to LA and I can’t really find anybody that is worried about it. We are very good at fielding a bad, terrible football team here.

  95. 95.

    NotMax

    @Mike J

    Dunno what her techie said, but it may not have been the hard drive. Have worked on people’s machines where they complain about funny noises they thought were coming from the hard drive and it turned out to be a dying power supply.

  96. 96.

    lamh36

    Le sigh…Rule of thumb white people (hell ALL people actually), If you don’t understand a culture, or don’t come from that culture, maybe try to find some understanding before being condescending.

    @youngsinick Michael Arceneaux Retweeted Slate
    White writer writes about Black thing she has no idea about (see correction) only to trash it. Typical.

    @Slate
    The marching band cover of “Hello” is terrible, which is why you should watch it:

    It’s not about the writer not liking the performance, but it’s obvious from reading the article, that the person has no idea of the HBCU band performance culture, nor does she understand that SU is probably the largest public HBCU in the US and ALOT of people know of it, so she’s getting dragged mercilessly on twitter, so much so, she issues a caveat/apology of sorts, that she has NO real experience with HBCU band and arrangements…smh.

  97. 97.

    Mike G

    Err, if a $30 million ad blitz can’t move Jeb! out of single digits, maybe Republican voters just don’t want him?

    What could be more emblematic of the American business community than selling a shit product through a massively expensive marketing campaign?

  99. 99.

    ThresherK (GPad)

    @efgoldman: Bengals were in 2 Superb Owls, each one lost to SF closely. My memory is of one Jax playoff win, Cleveland in two AFC title games. Carolina had a Super Bowl loss, but until Newton that seemed to be the peak.

    I don’t ignore the titles,Cleve and Det had ages ago, but I understand it when fans like to see things without asking their grandparents what happiness was.

    By some accounts, the Cardinals are the oldest extant NFL team.

    On the other end, Jacksonville seems to be in a Sisyphean 4 year rebuilding cycle restarting every 3 years.

  100. 100.

    Tommy

    @lamh36: Amen. When I was at grad school at LSU in the early 90s there were budget cuts, seems there are always budget cuts, and I had to take a class at Southern. Made some friends and went to a few games. There might IMHO be no group of students that love their band more than Southern.

  102. 102.

    ThresherK (GPad)

    PS Houston taught us to not draft a QB for an expansion team in order to destroy him by having him start him behind an expansion O line.

    PPS Wasn’t that big SF win over Denver? I sorta remember Cincy’s two being pretty good games.

  103. 103.

    redshirt

    @Jeffro: Good way to recap. For example, Bucs fans have mostly been in utter misery, but by the power of “This Guy” they won the Superbowl and thus enter the pantheon of Champions. Can any fan really complain thereafter?

  105. 105.

    lamh36

    @Omnes Omnibus: Sure, as I said, the writer does NOT profess to hate the song, and I don’t even care if she does’t like the performance.

    But read the article is pretty darn condescending to alot of folks and dripping with ignorance. I just can’t imagine if Slate was a more diverse writing room, that any person of color who knows a it about and the subject wouldn’t have told her about her tone.

    But I know some people won’t get where folks are coming from …

  106. 106.

    Tommy

    @ThresherK (GPad): Well you could be me. I can’t even type the name of my team because it is racist. Oh and I live in a town where we gave away like a generation of draft picks for a QB that doesn’t even start. But at 5-6 we’re winning our division so I guess I got that going for me :)!

  107. 107.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @lamh36: I get where you are coming from. I just really can’t stand the song. FWIW I really don’t like Adele. Heavy but attractive soul singer? White people last did that with Alison Moyet in 80s. Black people have done it it forever. Adele is nothing special.

    I am going to go back to being happy about the Packers now and you can’t stop me.

  108. 108.

    ThresherK (GPad)

    @efgoldman: Yeah, Plunkett. But there has to be some difference between the Pats who drafted him (or Cowboys when they got Aikman) and absolute, brand new , nobody knows nobody organisations. Unless the Pats then were really that hapless, which is something I might be peruaded of.

  109. 109.

    Tommy

    @Omnes Omnibus: Based on my taste in music you’d think Adele would be about the last person I’d listen to. But I flat out love her and don’t mind saying that.

  110. 110.

    lamh36

    @Omnes Omnibus: Fine, fine, I’ll let you be happy :-)

    Besides, I was happy after seeing the Wiz broadcast (early reviews are great so far) but got sideline by that Slate writer…

    Now off to rewatch my fav performances and then to bedf

  111. 111.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @Tommy: Dude, you like jam bands..

    @lamh36: I would have watched the Wiz, but events got in the way. I will catch a rebroadcast. It was good?

    Interesting note… At Thanksgiving, my 14 y/o nephew was appalled at some of the relatives who were unfamiliar with the original. He quickly popped off bits of several songs. I like him.

  113. 113.

    Tommy

    @Omnes Omnibus: Yes I do so Adele would not be somebody I would generally listen to. I of course knew who she was but thought she was like a Kate Perry type person which I’d never listen to. Then I heard her sing and was like wait a minute, that is not what I expected.

  116. 116.

    cckids

    @lamh36: Still watching The Wiz here on the left coast, and loving it. The costumes are beyond incredible.

    And I agree, miles better than that wretched “Sound of Music.”

  117. 117.

    Mnemosyne (tablet)

    @cckids:

    We just got home from a couple of events outside the house, but the DVR is recording it. G is much less enthusiastic than I am, but his taste in classic musicals is pretty much Sondheim and that’s it.

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