Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Republicans firmly believe having an abortion is a very personal, very private decision between a woman and J.D. Vance.

Teach a man to fish, and he’ll sit in a boat all day drinking beer.

New McCarthy, same old McCarthyism.

After dobbs, women are no longer free.

Oh FFS you might as well trust a 6-year-old with a flamethrower.

If you voted for Trump, you don’t get to speak about ethics, morals, or rule of law.

Our job is not to persuade republicans but to defeat them.

Republicans cannot even be trusted with their own money.

Only Democrats have agency, apparently.

Today’s gop: why go just far enough when too far is right there?

Every decision we make has lots of baggage with it, known or unknown.

Let me eat cake. The rest of you could stand to lose some weight, frankly.

Consistently wrong since 2002

Their boy Ron is an empty plastic cup that will never know pudding.

We still have time to mess this up!

Radicalized white males who support Trump are pitching a tent in the abyss.

Putting aside our relentless self-interest because the moral imperative is crystal clear.

Some judge needs to shut this circus down soon.

The fight for our country is always worth it. ~Kamala Harris

It’s a good piece. click on over. but then come back!!

Peak wingnut was a lie.

Not all heroes wear capes.

Is it negotiation when the other party actually wants to shoot the hostage?

Sometimes the world just tells you your cat is here.

You are here: Home / Archives for Politics / Politicans / JEB! = John Ellis Not-Bush 2016

JEB! = John Ellis Not-Bush 2016

Thursday Morning Open Thread: Under-Ripe to Rise?

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I don’t remember US News & World Report as a left-leaning publication (/snark), but here’s David Catanese’s report on “The Demise of Jeb Bush“:

… Less than four months before primary voting begins, Bush has sunk into second-tier status in the GOP nominating bout. He’s stuck in a single-digit polling slump, idling between fourth and fifth place in the 15-candidate field, even after his allies have blitzed the television airwaves with more than $5 million in advertising. His much heralded fundraising prowess has also been neutralized, as he’s raised essentially as much money as Sen. Ted Cruz this last quarter and saved less than the rogue upstart Ben Carson.

“What gave [Bush] the status of front-runner is the money that was known that he had raised. But this year, with the field this large, I’m not sure that money will dictate the outcome,” says Iowa state Rep. Mary Ann Hanusa, who attended an early Bush event before endorsing Ohio Gov. John Kasich. “The media called [Bush] the front-runner, but sometimes the voters have other ideas.”…

Even among Bush’s admirers, there’s a gathering sense he can’t win this race anymore – that in order for him to become the nominee, his rivals have to lose it…

Bush’s path to victory seems more elusive each day. And by most standards, his most viable track should have already begun to take shape. Sure, in late October 2011, there were polls that showed Herman Cain holding a small lead for the GOP nomination. But what’s less cited is that eventual nominee Mitt Romney remained consistently in second place, always polling in double-digits and usually in the 20s.

From that barometer, Bush isn’t even close to where Romney was. His current polling looks most like that of Ron Paul, who stayed in the ongoing race until May 2012 but came in fourth place in terms of delegates…

Being classed with the likes of Ron Paul has got to be the most unkindest cut of all. Well, apart from the “he’ll totally be ready for 2020!” remark…

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Apart from wishing further confusion to our Repub enemies (same as every day, Pinky!), what’s on the agenda for the day?

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Open Thread: Reset the “Days Since JEB! Said Something Inexplicably Tone-Deaf” Sign… Again…

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I’m beginning to believe the theory that John Ellis is deliberately attempting to sabotage his own campaign. Possibly to spite his mother, the Shelob of Kennebunkport.

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Open Thread: Tap-Dancing Towards Bethlehem Bedlam

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trumps pet goat jeb luckovich

(Mike Luckovich via GoComics.com)
.

Sasha Issenberg, at Bloomberg Politics, scored a long interview with the man who seems to stand in as JEB!’s version of Karl Rove. There has not been this much willful detachment from political reality on display since Baghdad Bob went on hiatus:

When Mike Murphy in June took the helm of his longtime friend and client Jeb Bush’s super-PAC, Right to Rise USA, he disappeared from the media, part of a concerted effort not to draw attention away from the candidate. In mid-August, Murphy—a witty narrator of presidential politics who has also guided campaigns by John McCain, Mitt Romney, and Arnold Schwarzenegger—broke that uncharacteristic silence. “If other campaigns wish that we’re going to uncork money on Donald Trump, they’ll be disappointed,” Murphy told the Washington Post in August. “Trump is, frankly, other people’s problem.”…

The political landscape is now very different. After four months of Trump’s dominating both news coverage and polls, advisers to Bush—at least one of whom anonymously promised a “shock and awe” launch of his candidacy—find themselves where they never expected to be: struggling to reach fifth place in many national and early-state polls. Earlier this month, Murphy welcomed Bloomberg Politics’s Sasha Issenberg to his corner office in an unmarked suite in a Los Angeles office building for a candid and wide-ranging conversation about the super-PAC’s activities, plans, and the newly critical mission it has taken on: the Committee to Save Jeb…

Has the tempo of the race been different than what you had anticipated when you first developed a campaign plan?

Well, I knew it would be kind of hyper because that’s the business now. But one thing in hindsight is we got this paper crown of front-runner early that we didn’t want and I don’t think realistically we should have had. Because what happens is when the punditocracy says, “You’re the front-runner,” then they take a bunch of meaningless polls and a Donald Trump or a Kardashian or whatever jumps in and they say, “Now you’re not the front-runner.” So they put you on trial for them being wrong at the beginning. I think we’re getting a little bit of a bad rap on all that stuff but, you know, who cares? We’re going to power through it.

But the pledge of “shock and awe”—your side contributed to that front-runner designation. Things haven’t quite worked out that way.

I’m going to hunt down whoever came up with that. The bigger story was: we showed a lot of financial strength but we always said the voter strength would build slowly because we had to go tell the story. And somehow the punditocracy said, “Well, financial strength means you have to lead every poll and if you don’t you’re a loser.” I think them being wrong about that is something that we’ve been held accountable. I don’t take it too seriously because I keep saying I think the polls are completely meaningless on a national basis, but it’s irritating noise…

How has Trump’s entry changed the race?

It created a false zombie front-runner. He’s dead politically, he’ll never be president of the United States, ever. By definition I don’t think you can be a front-runner if you’re totally un-electable. I think there’s there an a-priori logic problem in that.

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Open Thread: PUTZ! JAB!… er, JEB!!!

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Open Thread: Jeb Bush Is A Deeply Weird Entity

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Guy seems to be turning into Willard Romney before our very eyes, falling into the Uncanny Valley where a close-but-not-perfect simulacra of humanity disturbs our identification. If he weren’t a member of the Bush crime syndicate clan, one might wonder if his heart was in this campaign. This was the NYTimes, last week — “Jeb Bush Says Campaign Attacks on Him Are Keeping His Ailing Father Strong“:

… Chatting with voters at a coffee shop here on Wednesday morning, Jeb Bush was asked how his parents were doing. His mother Barbara remained the matriarch, he said — a “blessing from God” who is nonetheless “not always right.” (Mrs. Bush famously said there had been “enough Bushes” in the White House, before coming around on the idea of a third one.)

Mr. Bush’s father, George H.W. Bush, is “91 years old, but he’s just as strong as a goat,” he said. The elder Mr. Bush now wears a neck brace and cannot walk. And yet, Mr. Bush suggested, for his father — and by all accounts, no one else — the 2016 presidential campaign had proved a health boon.

“I feel like I’m participating in this a little bit because my candidacy has lifted his spirits,” he said. “I notice he’s not watching ‘CSI’ reruns anymore. He’s watching Fox, getting mad at people that attack me and stuff like that. I feel like I’m making a contribution to keep him strong.”

The Bush family has taken an active role in fund-raising for the campaign, but aides to Mr. Bush have weighed the merits and pitfalls of featuring George W. Bush as a public surrogate. Asked about a New York Times article this week outlining his campaign’s dilemma, Mr. Bush offered a shrug to reporters, saying there was “no grappling going on.”

“There may be a lot of grappling going on outside of my realm,” he said. “My realm on the road is maybe different than people in the campaign. You have to ask them.”

He repeated that he was happy to have his brother’s support, though another endorsement seemed to have required more handiwork.

“I’m happy I got my mom’s support,” he said. “That was huge. That was a big first step.”

And then, those vast “GOP Establishment” cash reserves don’t seem to be doing him much good, per TPM:

The $4.8 million TV and radio ad blitz in New Hampshire by former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and his associated super Pacs has done little to bump up his polling in the state, which is considered crucial to his campaign.
A report by Politico Thursday notes that in the weeks since the ad buy — which has pro-Bush ads taking up 60 percent of the political airspace in the state — the former governor’s average poll numbers have actually dipped down, from 9 percent to 8.7 percent…

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The soft bigotry of no expectations

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(Trigger Warning: Politico link)

Bush can tweak his message on a day to day basis, cut costs around the margins and even reduce or reallocate staff. But he remains committed to the large campaign infrastructure he has built to run a national campaign, staff members say. What’s changed is the desire to avoid any appearance of extravagence…..the campaign’s early state organizations do surpass those of most rivals, Bush’s other major investments — in paid advertising and a policy shop that’s churning out his speeches — have yet to pay real dividends….

Bush is also pitching serious policy proposals. He has close to 10 staffers working in his campaign’s policy shop

The “wonky”, “serious”, “smart” “technocratic” Republican campaign is making “major” investments in his policy shop. That major investment is under 10 full time employees. I am betting it is eight or nine people including the 23 year old making $23,000 to buy binders, collate TPS reports and fetch coffee. It costs the Bush campaign under $1 million a quarter (my bet is under $300K/quarter) or the price of a mid-level fundraising manager.

Truly the soft bigotry of no expectations of policy competence is at play here.

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Open Thread: JEB!, Ripe to Rot

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Universally beloved commentor Amir Khalid flags a Daily Beast article by (former Daily Caller star) Will Rahn, “Jeb Bush Should Face Facts: It’s Time to Drop Out“…

… After all that money spent, you’re still sagging nationally and in fourth place in New Hampshire, a state you need to win. You’ve had nearly a year to make your case. It isn’t working. You should pack it in.

The conventional wisdom a few months ago was that your brother’s catastrophic presidency would be your bid’s biggest hurdle. Now, in a fit of desperation, it looks like you’re about to draft him to stump for you. Putting aside that George W. is still despised by a not-insignificant swath of the Republican electorate, how is that going to play in the general should you somehow win the nomination? You’re making the Democrats’ job easy, Jeb. They’ll be more than happy to attach you to his legacy, and you’re doing that for them.

Speaking of the Democrats, we know what will happen if you drag this out through next spring. The going thinking right now is that the guys really low in the polls—your Rand Pauls and George Patakis—should be next to drop out. But what damage do they do to the GOP by staying in? You Bushes, meanwhile, for all your patrician aloofness, are some of the dirtiest campaigners out there, and every jab you get in at your fellow establishmentarians like Marco Rubio is going to be used against them by the left. It’s one thing to toughen up a nominee in a primary fight—it’s another to make them damaged goods, unready to lead. If you’ve got some golden piece of oppo that will take Rubio or John Kasich out of consideration, by all means use it now. Otherwise, time to step aside…

Yeah, like Bar Bush would ever permit John Ellis to jump off this train before it jumps the tracks. He’ll never be her favorite son, but he does seem to be the one who inherited the most from her — all the stolid, cruel, uncaring “patrician” contempt for everyone in the world that is not of the Bush clan.

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