If Republicans want stale, JEB! is their man

Like me or not GOP voters, you're stuck with me!

(Chicago Tribune) - It’s definitely possible that Bush will be the nominee. He is raising a mind-boggling amount of money. He’s doing well in the polls right now, though how much of that has to do with name recognition or the media-constructed aura of inevitability is unknowable. Some people like to back the winner early. Many in the press have been treating Jeb like the inevitable nominee for months. Maybe some of that rubbed off?

Still, Bush is not doing that great. He may be running nearly neck and neck with the front-runner, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, but Walker and Florida Sen. Marco Rubio have much more room to grow. A recent Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll found that 42 percent of Republicans “couldn’t see” themselves supporting Bush. That’s not quite Donald Trump territory (74 percent of Republicans said they couldn’t back him), but when nearly half of primary voters say they can’t imagine supporting you, it’s not an auspicious start.

Jeb lacks three advantages his brother had. First, the name “Bush” tested much, much better in the late 1990s. Second, as Bloomberg’s David Weigel recently noted, George W. Bush was simply crushing Al Gore, the presumptive 2000 Democratic nominee, in head-to-head polling matchups — often by double digits. When the goal is winning, people like to support the candidate most likely to win. But they also like to support someone who isn’t hostile to them, which is the third problem for Jeb. Unlike his father and his brother, Jeb has done next to nothing to court the base of the party. And, fair or not, many assume he’s hostile to that base.

But let’s say he manages to get the nomination. Is he the best candidate to run against Hillary Clinton? Jeb’s losing to her in the polls right now (as are all the Republicans). The Clinton name unifies Democrats while the Bush name divides Republicans. Moreover, Hillary’s private email fiasco notwithstanding, the Clinton brand and Clinton era are more popular with most Americans than the Bush brand and the Bush era. 

Jeb, it seems to me, is the one Republican candidate who makes the Clinton brand name an asset rather than a liability. Read more.