Yes, we know it’s still early in the presidential-campaign season and this time four years ago Rick Perry, Herman Cain and Michelle Bachman were being taken seriously. We also know that polling, especially in the era of cell phones, noncompliant subjects and push polls, can be misleading.
But at some point Jeb Bush will need encouragement from somebody other than Barb, James Baker and Ana Navarro. He’ll need something tangible to show for all his money and staffing. While various candidates juggle positions behind Donald Trump, Bush continues to slide.
An increasingly nervous establishment won’t wax publicly optimistic for too much longer. And an increasingly unimpressed anti-establishment wonders what’s behind the “joy.”
We’ll know that Right To Rise funding and being in for the “long haul” is not consoling enough to Jeb Bush when we see him prove that he is, indeed, his “own man” and not the next Bush up. We’ll know it when we hear it. It will be the sound of u-turn politics–and panic.
“As much as I love my brother,” he would have to say, “I don’t love him more than truth. And truth be told, he was a disaster. He outsourced foreign policy to Dick Cheney and economic policy to Henry Paulson. I’m not a fan of Barack Obama, but he inherited a mess from my brother.
“He owns it. Now I have to disown it. America deserves better.
“I’m not entitled to anyone’s vote, but I am entitled to make the case for earning it. The family that counts most is America’s middle class.
“And, by the way, Trump really, really wanted those casinos in Florida. But not as much as I wanted no part of it. I took great joy in that outcome.”