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Friday, August 21, 2015

The Rachel Maddow Theory of Jeb Bush's Campaign

I think she;s on  to it: maybe Jeb is just bad at his job as a presidential candidate.

It's got to be frustrating for Jeb. It is in fact and he looked mightily frustrated with all the reporters asking him why he keeps saying 'anchor babies.' Especially when his wife is an immigrant with whom he has several children, I should add.

http://lastmenandovermen.blogspot.com/2015/08/jeb-bush-is-now-right-of-mitt-romney-on.html?showComment=1440067906650#c1786109798872912918

I guess we've learned something about saying 'anchor babies' a lot. When Trump uses it everyone finds it kind of cute, certainly no one criticizes him for it.

But Jeb Bush can't say it. When he uses it this leads to lots of criticism.

"Jeb Bush has presented himself as a Republican capable of winning over Hispanic voters — the fluent Spanish speaker who married a Mexican woman when he was 21 and chaired a conservative group that advised GOP candidates on the do’s and don’ts of talking about immigration reform."

"On Thursday, he allowed himself to be pulled into the mud with Donald Trump."

"Trump, who continues to lead early-state and national polls of the Republican presidential race, offered an immigration plan this week that called for repealing birthright citizenship under the 14th Amendment to crack down on undocumented people who illegally immigrate to the U.S. to have what he termed “anchor babies.”

"In Keene, New Hampshire on Thursday, Bush defended his own use of that term in a Wednesday radio interview."

“You give me a better term and I’ll use it,” Bush snapped at reporters. “Give me another word.”

The flash of anger marked a noticeable change in tone for the candidate who describes himself as a “joyful tortoise,” a sign that Trump may be getting under his skin.

”This is what I feared Jeb would do,” said one long-time Bush confidant, speaking privately. “He sounded angry, like a guy who doesn’t understand why he’s not ahead. I think today was his worst day so far.”

Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2015/08/jeb-bush-anchor-babies-not-offensive-121565.html#ixzz3jRrMQQJZ
I think the real problem is that Trump is winning. Not just in the polls but on the terrain this campaign is being waged on.

Think of Jeb as post-up player in basektball terms while Trump makes lots of three point shots that are crowd pleasers. Jeb has gotten trapped into trying to beat Trump at his own game.

Trump is dictating the tempo,But unlike a basketball game you can't ignore the crowd as in politics it's their opinion that matters.

I still hear talk among the media-Lawrence O'Donnell in particular has been very stubborn in trying to call a ceiling for Trump every night.

http://lastmenandovermen.blogspot.com/2015/08/are-you-listening-lawrence-odonnell.html

 He loves to say that 75 percent of Republicans are saying no to Trump. But that means 90 percent are saying no to Jeb. And when you add up the establishment vote against the anti-establishment vote, the establishment is losing.

It's true that based on recent history we would expect Jeb-or maybe Rubio or Walker-though Walker is much more partisan than his reputation-to end up winning. The GOP normally ends up following William F. Buckley and nominating the most electable conservative.

Historically going back to Nixon in 1968 the relatively ore moderate establishment candidate wins.

But it really has looked different this time-even if it does at some point revert.

O'Donnell points out that lots of candidates had their few minutes leading the GOP primary in 2012. We had Rick Perry, Herman Cain, Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum.

But the time these various candidates lead the field was much shorter. Trump has consistently led the field the entire summer which is much more than a few minutes.

O'Donnell is just determined to call the peak. So he'll point out that some of these candidates from 2012 got over 30 percent and some even got close to 40 percent.

Yet, but Mitt Romney was always right there. Jeb hasn't taken off yet.

And this is a much larger field than 2012 so in this field 25% is more impressive. Last night he semed to be hanging his hat on Ted Cruz to the rescue. Sure Cruz also wants to end birthright citizenship plus on a lot of issues he's much further to the Right and worse than Trump. At least Trump isn't saying he'll rip up the Iran deal on 'Day one' and wanting to shutdown the government over Planned Parenthood; Trump clearly unlike anyone else in the field doesn't want to privatize Social Security and Medicare.

Ted Cruz is a total crank. Why exactly should we hope he takes Trump's 25% of the vote?

Incidentally this Cruz story is making the rounds at Politico.

http://www.politico.com/story/2015/08/ted-cruzs-plan-to-dethrone-trump-121580.html?hp=t2_r

But why can't Trump wait until Ben Carson leaves and take his 10 percent? Lawrence falls back on the fact that 38% think Trump is electable while 58% don't.

This seems to presume that these numbers are purely static. I mean a recent poll showed him within six points of Hillary-you don't think some will see that and change their mind?

In any case, 38% is a pretty high number. It's clearly higher than 25% so he has room to grow even if he stays at 38%. .

Lawrence isn't seeing the forest for the trees. I think he's so turned off by the personal vulgarity of Trump that he's missing the big picture. Trump has been a godsend. I know big claims but I'm totally serious. Just imagine how boring this race is without The Donald. Why on earth would you want to replace Trump with Ted Cruz?

"Before Donald Trump, Republican presidential candidates could deflect tough questions on immigration with vague promises to secure the border and oppose all “amnesty” for illegal immigrants."

- See more at: http://lastmenandovermen.blogspot.com/search?updated-max=2015-08-20T06:33:00-07:00&max-results=7#sthash.vKrEePVy.dpuf

Is that really what Lawrence wants to go back to? Enabling the GOP to deflect and conceal just how anti-immigration and anti-Latino they really are?









10 comments:

  1. "Just imagine how boring this race is without The Donald."

    Imagine how much more exciting it would be if Adolf Hitler were running, and was in the lead! Maybe even had a legitimate shot at winning the general. That would be tough to beat on the excitement scale.

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    1. But the point is that Trump hasn't changed GOP policy. He just takes away their ability to deflect on immigration. He hasn't changed their policies just put them out in the open.

      If he weren't here they could play the usual game and then in the general eelction some might think 'Yeah, Jeb at least is reasonable on immigration. He's got a Mexican wife. '

      Then he wins the election and we get the same exact anti immigrant policies. We don't get any reform 'until the border is secure.'

      Now Jeb can't do this as we have him on record giving the idea of ending birthright citizenship some thought if it will keep out the anchor babies.

      By your analogy GOP policy is already Hitlerite but now we have a guy being explicit.

      By Trump admitting that he's Hitler there's a better chance the GOP won't be elected and enact Hitler's policies

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    2. Mike, Lol, yes I know... It's just that sometimes I wonder how far you'll go in thinking it's exciting. Sometimes there no evidence that you have a limit. I KNOW you do, but sometimes I have to laugh because I can't detect any.

      What comes to mind is an old South Park episode about a talking killer whale... there's kind of a side plot about two jokers who work for the park and like to fool kids into thinking the whale can talk. I think they're poking fun at themselves with those characters. These two characters are so dedicated to getting a good laugh that they go WAY over the line with it.

      Don't worry, I don't think you've lost it, but like I say sometimes I do laugh to myself thinking how far you'd go advocating excitement in the campaign.

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    3. Well it's not just for the sake of excitement. This is the point. The preference for excitement itself is strategic. I don't want to go back to this:"

      Before Donald Trump, Republican presidential candidates could deflect tough questions on immigration with vague promises to secure the border and oppose all “amnesty” for illegal immigrants."

      Now they can't deflect about their immigration policies whereas before Trump they were able to. That's what it's about.

      Excitement is what Jeb doesn't want so he can spin his nonsense. Trump is knocking him off his game and that's a good thing.

      I'm not sure what you mean by limits. LOL. I mean I have the nomral moral and ethical limits of a decent person but this is politics and there's a lot at stake.

      I mean there is no limit to how much I want a Democratic Administration in 2017. Then we can go back to a a liberal SJC for the first time since the early 1980s.

      To me Trump's buffoonery helps in the effort even though he probably won't win.

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    4. But now Tom you got me going! What do you mean by limits?

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    5. Mike, I'm on board with all that. I'm not criticizing you. I'm just poking fun. I like to take things to extremes in my imagination (for my own entertainment). I know this won't be the case, but sometimes I can imagine reading a post here someday on Trump's inauguration, defending his choice to invite the Klan because it "shows just how far the GOP has gone: No more deception. No more deflecting questions and double speak about what they're all about!" Lol

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    6. BTW, by the rules of the internet I would have lost any "debate" from the get go by bringing up Hitler (if that's what I was trying to do), ... still I can't get the phrase "laughing all the way to the gas chamber" out of my head. :^D

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    7. Of course that's just it. The KKK is already here. In the GOP House the third man is Steve Scalise who was buddies with David Duke.

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    8. In a way the truth is more crazy than imagination these days. Truth is stranger than fiction

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  2. I agree that I can't fathom why anyone would want Cruz to take Trump's place though. Or Carson.

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