Jeb Bush’s sagging campaign
seems like a relic of the past.
LANCONIA, N.H. — When Jeb Bush entered the presidential race, he had a vision of a transformative candidacy that would remake the Republican Party, attracting young people and minorities — especially Latinos — with a vibrant new image based on solid conservative principles.
Now it has come to this: A dismal finish in the Iowa caucuses, a slog through New Hampshire and a growing wish in the party that Bush would step aside or, at least, tone down his campaign so he doesn’t hurt someone more likely to win — like Marco Rubio, the Florida senator who reflects much of what Bush hoped to accomplish when he ran.
It is, he tells audiences, an exciting and joyful experience.
But for others, who know Bush and his family personally, or who witnessed his firm command as Florida’s two-term governor, the spectacle is disheartening to see.
“It bothers people because they believe he deserves better,” said Susan MacManus, who teaches political science at the University of South Florida and has closely followed Bush and his career for decades.
Stepping into a Bush campaign event can seem like a voyage to the past.
The family lineage is evident even without the ritu- al invocation of his mother — who campaigned alongside Bush in New Hampshire on Thursday night — his father and, sometimes, his oldest brother, both former presidents. There is the awkward syntax, the preppy manner and, above all, the unfashionable reverence for elected office and the sanctity of the political process.
The issues he talks about — term limits, a balancedbudget amendment — were moldy when his brother sought the White House 16 years ago and some of his language can sound oddly old-fashioned as he warns against abusing a president’s executive powers or throws a session open to questions with an exuberant, “Give me some doozies!”
There is a hopeful Bush scenario in New Hampshire: a strong finish in Tuesday’s primary, which sends him roaring into the next contest in South Carolina, where he emerges as the favorite of those in the Republican Party desperate to stop the insurgencies of Donald Trump and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz.
It seems improbable, however.
New Hampshire res- cued Bush’s father, then-Vice President George H.W. Bush, after he stumbled in Iowa in 1988. The state tripped up his older brother, George W. Bush, and almost cost him the GOP nomination in 2000.
This time, though, Jeb Bush rests far back among the also-rans, easily overlooked but for the bombardment of TV and radio advertisements savaging Trump and, especially, Rubio, a former protege-turned-campaign-nemesis.
The onslaught has angered many Republicans, who see it as gratuitous, hopeless and, worse, potentially damaging to a candidate some have started to see as their best general election candidate after Rubio’s strong thirdplace finish in Iowa. Bush appears unmoved. “Guess what? This is not beanbag,” he said when a woman in Laconia complained about the pile of attack mailers she has received from a pro-Bush political action committee. “If you think it’s ugly right now, wait ’till you get to the general election.”
The former governor is 62, older than the 44-year-old Rubio but younger than Trump and both Democrats running for president.
In many ways, though, Bush seems like a candidate from an earlier time — one that was more like when he last ran for office, for re-election in Florida in 1998.
“Jeb and his team underestimated the difference from politics from 15 years ago, when he got out,” said a Bush family confidant, who agreed to speak but only anonymously to stay in their good graces. “No one used the word ‘liar.’ Nobody called people ‘stupid,’ or said the president was dumb. You’d get killed.”
Perhaps Bush’s greatest misfortune, though, is seeming like a voice of substance and seriousness at a time many in the GOP prefer more animal instincts.
Nothing seems to energize Bush more than a rigorous discussion of education policy, or his plan to revamp Social Security. But as Bush went on at length in Laconia, at an old-line resort on Lake Winnipesaukee, the crowd of 125 or so sat mute.
The next day in Pittsfield, at a plant that makes clothing for firefighters, Bush’s accompaniment was the hum of refrigerator cases in an employee break room. When he finished outlining a plan to reform the welfare system, he asked his questioner, a troubled single-mother, what she thought of his response.
“Yeah?” she said, with uncertainty.
“I’ll take that as a yes,” Bush replied with a smile.