Another swing state poll, another disaster for JEB!

The Crown Prince remains the "40 percent man," or in this case the "36 percent man."  In the latest Quinnipiac poll in Colorado, JEB! is trounced by the Hildabeast, 44 percent to 36 percent.

While JEB! is certainly within striking distance of being able to muscle and buy the GOP nomination (if you believe the media), general election polls unanimously and relentlessly point to a historic disaster for the Republican Party in 2016 if it allows itself to succumb to Bush Family entitlement a third time.

Inside JEB!'s ‘shock and awe’ launch

(Politico) - In November 2013, Jeb Bush took to the rostrum at New York’s Marriott Marquis for the annual meeting of the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association, alongside such industry stars as Goldman Sachs’ Lloyd Blankfein and Blackrock’s Larry Fink. Bush’s remarks, and his chatting afterwards, left many attendees convinced he was preparing to run for president. Word of Bush’s interest ricocheted around the political world.

But Bush, a private citizen for eight years since leaving the Florida governor’s mansion, had no real infrastructure to handle such an endeavor. And as the third member of a storied political family to seek the presidency, just five years after his brother left office with near record-low approval ratings, he had no clear message or answer to the inevitable questions about why he was the right man for 2016. “He just got way out there beyond his capacity to manage and he consciously decided to take his profile down while thinking through how to make a run,” one friend said.

So while even close Bush watchers began to doubt whether he was really serious about running, he and a close-knit group of advisers were following a careful plan aimed at maximizing his chances of winning the nomination, if and when he gave the thumbs-up.
Their strategy was to publicly downplay his interest in the race and avoid media attention, while quietly laying the groundwork for a launch that would catch much of Washington — and many of his potential rivals — flat-footed. Read more.

In a royal hubris shot at Huckabee and the GOP base, JEB! to pick an openly gay man as communications / "dirty tricks" director for possible 2016 presidential run

Bush-Portman 2016

The  Crown Price has vowed to try and buy the White House on his own terms, as his "own man," and expects the Republican Party apparently to acquiesce to this pretense out of homage to his family's legacy and sense of entitlement.

Towelroad and Politico report that JEB! (head of the putative JEB!-Portman 2016 GOP ticket) will pick Tim Miller, who currently serves as the executive director of the America Rising PAC targeting Hillary Clinton and other Democrats, as his top communications aide for the expected JEB! 2016 presidential run. The National Journal also adds that the 33-year old is openly gay and previously worked on John McCain's 2008 presidential bid, and John Huntsman's 2012 campaign. He has also served as a spokesman for the Republican National Committee.

This follows (then closeted) Ken Mehlman's tenure as George W. Bush's national campaign director in 2004, a campaign premised on a national anti-gay marriage platform.  Mehlman later served as GOP national chairman of a party recently rocked by the Foley and Schrock gay sex scandals, and the Jeff Gannon male prostitute White House scandal, a period which had witnessed the terms "gay" and "velvet" mafia jocularly applied to the Bush White House coterie, and GOP become a snarky acronym for "Gay Ole Party" among the left. Mehlman later came out as gay in 2010, after serving his term as chairman, and then endorsed gay marriage.

Miller could be expected to mastermind JEB!'s character assassination and dirty tricks operations (under Rove's direction most likely) as what the left would likely label a "self loathing biach-slapper." The National Journal characterizes him as "an opposition research bulldog," and according to the article:

"Miller has quickly become a formidable peddler of oppo research, both through his group and on his Twitter feed. Last June, America Rising published a 112-page e-book essentially outlining the conservative playbook against Hillary Clinton in 2016. America Rising's website is rife with clicky headlines and slick in-house graphics detailing Clinton's peccadilloes, most recently her Clinton Foundation flap. They even sell anti-Clinton merchandise, like this T-shirt that reads, "I wish I was as broke as the Clintons".

Compare that with other potential Republican candidates' attempted attacks on Clinton.                     Sen. Rand Paul's political operation created a fake Pinterest account for Clinton. Pinterest quickly removed the account, saying it violated the company's terms of use. In 2016,               Republicans are going to have to do better to troll Clinton, the presumed Democratic               frontrunner, and Miller has shown he knows just how to do that."

JEB! 2016 Attack Ad: Conservatives Say He's 'Unelectable' In Video Showing Hillary Clinton Award Ceremony

(International Business Times) - A grassroots conservative group is hammering potential 2016 GOP hopeful Jeb Bush as “unelectable” in an attack ad released Thursday. The group, For America, uses C-SPAN footage of the former Florida governor giving former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton a public service award at the National Constitution Center’s 2013 Liberty Medal Ceremony, and claims the event will be used by Clinton “to blunt any criticism that Bush levels against her.” In the new ad, For America notes that the ceremony was held on Sept. 10, 2013, almost exactly one year after the Sept. 11, 2012, attacks on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi, Libya, for which Clinton remains under scrutiny by some Republicans. The group suggests Clinton was unfit for the award. In the footage, Bush thanks Clinton and former President Bill Clinton “for your service to our country. We’re united by love of country and public service.” Read more.

JEB! adds to the quotable-Bush malapropism canon

"Three generations of imbeciles are enough" Oliver Wendell Holmes

(Washington Post) - Jeb Bush was mere seconds into his speech Wednesday informing the world that he’s his “own man,” and not his brother or his dad, when he did something reminiscent of both. He flubbed his line. “We definitely no longer inspire fear in our enemies,” the nominal front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination said at the start of his ballyhooed address. “The problem is perhaps best demonstrated by this administration’s approach to Iraq.” Whoa! He’s going there — right into the failure that pretty much destroyed his brother’s presidency? Bush continued reading from his text, as if for the first time. “We’ve had 35 years of experience with Iran,” he went on, then realized his earlier mistake. “Excuse me, Iran. Thirty-five years’ experience with Iran’s rulers.” Dr. Freud would have been amused.

New (NeoCon) World Order: JEB!'s foreign policy vision is sound confident and compliment his brother

The Crown Prince is a champion of both an imperial and aggressive foreign policy in the Middle East, and of the National Security Spy State at home.

(Slate) - If there were questions about whether Jeb Bush is like his brother, he dispelled some of them on Wednesday at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs. In November 1999, candidate George Bush scored only 25 percent when a Boston television political reporter gave him a pop quiz on world leaders. Jeb Bush, on the other hand, displayed a command of the world on topics from Cuba to ISIS to the relationship between energy and American security. He surpassed his brother at a far earlier period in this cycle. He also surpassed his 2016 rivals Govs. Chris Christie and Scott Walker, who have had trouble clearing the foreign policy hurdle easily. Jeb Bush may or may not have wise opinions, but as David Axelrod writes in his recent book about Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential race, a candidate can convey strength by passing confidently through the tests on the campaign trail. For some voters that may be enough. Bush showing he knows the name of the president of Egypt, can correct his questioner about events in Tunisia, and can name the precise location of the Iraqi prison that once held the current leader of ISIS will be sufficient. More important for the coming Republican primary, Bush was optimistic. “We are a country in its ascendancy," he said. "We just need to start acting like it.” If sustained, confidence mixed with optimism is an attractive combination in a candidate. 

Here’s the bottom line: In foreign policy positions and posture, Jeb Bush is indistinguishable from his father or brother because he’s indistinguishable from the general GOP line. If he is challenging the Republican Party on domestic issues, he’s not doing anything to challenge Republicans on foreign policy. His positions are indistinguishable from all but Sen. Rand Paul in the GOP’s 2016 field. No doubt Paul will be attacking him shortly, as Bush articulated the mainstream Republican view on surveillance. He said the National Security Agency's metadata collection is “a hugely important program.” Read more.

(Despite money and connections) JEB! can be beaten

Is JEB! the "John Connally" of 2016?

(Daily Caller) - On the same Chicago trip where he gave his “I am my own man” foreign policy speech, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush was set to raise “north of $4 million.” That’s in one day. Jeb Bush’s team denied reports they planned to raise $100 million in the first quarter to scare other potential candidates out of the 2016 Republican primaries. But there is no denying that they are raising money and snapping up staff at a fevered clip. They seem to have only gathered steam since muscling Mitt Romney out of the presidential race. Now Jeb is setting himself up nicely to be the Republican Party’s inevitable nominee, according to the conventional wisdom. Don’t believe it. Jeb Bush certainly can win, but he’s arguably the weakest Republican frontrunner since Nelson Rockfeller in 1964 — the year Barry Goldwater won the nomination. Read more.