JEB! Bush Seeks To Escape Humiliation In New Hampshire

How could you let the family down, Jebbie?  Your brother
managed to buy the presidency, and he is dumb as a rock. You're
not tough enough, boy! Why didn't you call in Karl?
Couldn't you have put Marco in bed with a
live boy or a dead woman? What's wrong with you?

(Huffington Post) - A New Hampshire-style barbecue featuring an array of Dunkin Donuts Munchkins and a Box O’ Joe rested untouched on a folding table next to the subdued primary voters seated in neat rows. 

Most in the crowd of a couple hundred were of the gray-haired persuasion, and they listened intently and politely as Jeb Bush wrapped up another wonky, sprawling stump speech here earlier this week.

The energy in the basement conference room of the Margate Hotel was as flat as the funeral home-style wallpapering, but the former Florida governor appeared unbowed as always. It’s a sunny disposition he's carried with him day in and day out, even as he struggles to revive a candidacy that has been moribund for months and is now on life support.

“I trust you entirely,” Bush told his steely faced New Hampshire audience. “I totally trust you. The pundits have already written the story. They’re already saying it’s over. They’re talking about this in the past tense. That’s not true. You all have a chance to decide next Tuesday how you want our country to look.”

After “humbly” asking for the support of everyone in the room -- and further pleading with them to convince a few of their neighbors to vote for him, too -- Bush had one more thing to add before opening the floor to questions.

“I’m excited about this,” he said. “And I honestly believe you’re looking at the next president of the United States.”

It was a striking proclamation for a man who has almost a half-dozen fellow Republican candidates to leapfrog in the polls before he can even get back into contention.

But according to the people who work for his campaign, Bush does indeed remain almost entirely unperturbed by his diminished prospects. He thinks he's still got this, even if almost no one else does. 

In interviews, public events and debates, Bush has resisted any major adjustments to the solemn and subdued posture he has brought to the campaign trail since day one, even as it has been clear for the better part of a year that the electorate is responding to the shinier objects in the field.

He began the campaign as the consensus favorite to win the Republican nomination and raised more than $100 million through his super PAC before even officially entering the race. But since then, Bush’s decline in relevance has been as steady as it has been disconcerting for a storied GOP clan that has already produced two commanders-in-chief and isn’t used to being embarrassed in the family business of presidential politics.

In an effort to help salvage any signs of life from the wreckage, former first lady Barbara Bush hit the campaign trail here in New Hampshire on Thursday night on behalf of her son. And the famously frank nonagenarian had no compunctions about expressing how dumbfounded she is over the current state of affairs regarding Jeb's diminished role in GOP presidential politics -- an outrage that her husband has expressed more privately, according to sources.  Read more.