How to beat JEB!

NO ONE will deny me what is rightfully mine!

The answer, for the Hildabeast, is probably just to show up.

(PMSNBC) - First, the good news for Jeb Bush: Even his rivals concede he’s about to post the monster first quarter of fundraising that has been his goal. Also, the candidate who emerged as Bush’s chief threat, Scott Walker, is now struggling under the glare of sudden national scrutiny, stalling his early momentum and raising doubts about his long-term durability. 

Now, the bad news: The opening for another Republican to knock Bush off is still as big as ever. The question is whether someone in this crowded field is capable of rising up and taking advantage of it – or if Bush will catch the same break of a lifetime that Mitt Romney did four years ago when one comically inept rival after another tried and failed to seize on a similar opening.

All of the latest data confirm that Bush’s aggressive behind-the-scenes maneuvering – coupled with press coverage that tends to treat him as the obvious front-runner – has so far failed to erode the significant resistance to him that exists among his party’s rank-and-file. He leads the latest, national GOP poll with a meager 16% of the vote, runs far back in Iowa, and struggles in other early-voting states. Nor can he make much of a pragmatic argument about electability to Republicans – not when he’s less popular among all voters than even his brother, George W., and not when he’s running 15 points behind Hillary Clinton in trial heats, worse than Rand Paul, Marco Rubio and even Mike Huckabee. 

The lack of excitement among Republican voters, as I’ve written, can be traced to the right’s reading of the last Bush presidency, the idea that in embracing “compassionate conservatism,” Republican elected officials sacrificed principle and enabled the rise of Barack Obama. Thus is today’s conservative grassroots supremely suspicious of leaders with establishment connections and insider connections – like, say, Jeb Bush.