Early in 2008, before she was overtaken by Obama, the media hyped the idea of Hillary as the first female president breaking a "glass ceiling" for women in politics and formerly male centers of power, a point of no retreat for them.
The metaphor of a "glass ceiling" may very well be useful for 2016, but in a very different way. The latest Washington Post-ABC News poll shows what most all polls have shown. Hillary shellacks Jeb Bush in a national matchup, in this case 53 to 41 percent. In all Jeb-Hillary matchups, she consistently gets near or just over 50 percent, and he never gets more than 45 percent. The Clintons smoke Jeb for favorability even among Hispanics, 79 to 53 percent.
The plutocracy supporting Jeb may not see his "glass jaw" as another presidential Bush, but Jeb has a "glass ceiling" problem he can't bust through: 41-45 percent is probably the best he can possibly hope to get in a national election, against Hillary or any likely opponent.
He won't do better for at least two reasons. He will never get the nativist hard right (which includes a good deal of the religious right) to fully embrace the new fraudulent "compassionate conservative" image Rove will craft for him, given Jeb's unbridgeable disconnect from them over open borders in the interests of big business, and the right wing paranoia about Common Core. He will manage to get most of them reluctantly show up when Hannity, O'Reilly and the Fox machine frames the election as Jeb or the "Butcher of Benghazi," but not all them will accept that falsely framed Hobson's Choice.
Likewise, there probably will be an element of right wing talk radio, with no financial connection to Fox and Murdoch, who will refuse to reluctantly endorse Jeb, sensing they can get a ratings boost among the disaffected base by not doing it. Michael Savage (who does have a definite and growing following on the hard right) comes to mind. It also will be very interesting to follow how Mark Levin, currently one of Jeb's most virulent detractors among the "constitutional conservative" right, peddles and triangulates the election if Jeb is his only "alternative." If Levin (a longtime ally of Hannity) flips wholesale after Jeb buys the nomination, and then tells his flock to vote for Jeb because he isn't so bad after all, he risks losing ratings ground to those talking heads who won't flip, like Savage.
The independent middle will likewise be very skeptical of another Bush "compassion" scam redux. W. as Texas governor in 2000 was packaged in exactly the same way the right wing plutocracy is packaging Jeb: as a "moderate" problem solver who worked across the aisle, and who advocated for a "humble" role for the US in the world.
Whatever most people think of Hillary, most people know, going in, what they will get with her and Bill, warts and all. In the case of the Bushes, it's a crap shot with a dangerous track record, and most people don't won't to get fooled again by another Bush zonk behind curtain number one, and another avoidable war.
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