The Republican Presidential Candidates, Part 2: Jeb Bush

And so I continue on with my own personal take on the Republican presidential candidates for 2016.  Today I consider Jeb Bush...

At the start of this presidential campaign season, I expected Jeb Bush to coast to his party's nomination, much in the same way that Hillary Clinton is currently reasonably ahead in her Democratic race over chief opponent Bernie Sanders.  I reasoned that, as in 2000 when Jeb's brother George W. faced off a single potentially formidable challenger in John McCain (while Democrat Al Gore was contending with Bill Bradley), Jeb would have some kind of offbeat populist GOP opponent like Ted Cruz or Rand Paul and then take over from there.  While this type of scenario seems to have happened with Clinton and Sanders, Jeb Bush has found himself sliding further and further back in the polls...to the point where now he has only 3-5 % support nationwide among Republican voters.  What happened?

Jeb Bush was already in trouble, even before his nemesis Donald Trump entered the race later than most of the other opponents. Bush was ostracized by the Tea Party faction of the party as being too "establishment", plus he had to contend with fellow Floridian polician, Senator Marco Rubio, upstaging him even in his home state.  But the way I look at it, Jeb Bush didn't do himself any favors with his own words...

I have expressed in this blog that I thought that Jeb Bush was a pretty decent governor and that he seemed to be the only candidate in the Republican field that I felt I might support for president in 2016...not that I liked everything he did while he was leading my home state...not by a long shot.  Unfortunately, throughout this campaign I have heard very little from this individual that expresses the more inclusionary vision he had as governor for eight years, his lucid and compelling speech and arguments from that era, or his sense of confidence he once had in abundance.  Instead, he's been saying a lot of weird stuff and seems to have a delusional opinion of the candidacy of the current GOP leader, Donald Trump.  One of the first weird things I heard from him in this campaign was that he was proud of being called "Jeb"...and that he had earned this privilege. Well, he's obviously a better man than me, for no one's ever called ME "Jeb"!  As for Trump, in an interview right after a nationwide poll gave the real estate tycoon 36% Republican support...in contrast to Bush's meager 3%...Jeb flatly stated that there was no need to worry about whether he would support Trump if he were nominated.  The reason, according to Jeb Bush, is that, in his opinion, Donald Trump is only an entertainer and not a serious candidate...

These types of comments reveal to me that Jeb Bush has sunk deeply into delusion and, as such, no longer merits my former high opinion of him as a politician with a good sense of discernment.  He probably just needs quietly make his exit from the scene, something that fellow Republican Lindsey Graham has shown the good sense and wisdom to do.  He'd probably do quite well for himself in the future as a high-paid lobbyist for some foreign country...