Jeb Bush's Loss Is Democracy's Gain

[seafan]

Jeb Bush's Loss Is Democracy's Gain, October 29, 2015

If you’re feeling sorry for Jeb Bush after Wednesday night’s CNBC debate, don’t. His defenestration by Marco Rubio should make even those who support neither of them for president smile. It’s a sign that maybe, just maybe, the system still works.

Were America’s presidential elections more democratic, Jeb would never have been a serious candidate to begin with. From the beginning, the strategy behind his candidacy had little to do with actual voters. As Politico reported, it was to leverage his father and brother’s fundraising network to get donors to “write the biggest checks you can and create a massive pile of cash to scare away other candidates.” In January, Jeb launched his campaign by creating a Super PAC designed to raise unlimited amounts of money from the super rich. For seven months, he maintained this “laser focus” on money, holding fundraisers that reached $100,000 per person. All the while, he lied to journalists, telling them he hadn’t decided whether to run because admitting the truth would have made it illegal for him to solicit these vast sums.

.....

But from early on, actual voters resisted. A Bloomberg poll in April found that 42 percent of potential Republican primary voters said they would never vote for Jeb while only 14 percent said they would seriously consider him. In an Iowa focus group in May, a retired saleswoman named Lucy said America “should not be run like a family business.” A retired teacher named Craig said, “It’s just such a negative connotation when you see that Bush name, that people get, they get turned off.”

.....

In the coming days, journalists will gorge themselves on stories about Jeb’s collapse. But collapse implies that Jeb had much real support to begin with. What he had was money. The media crowned him frontrunner on the assumption that he could turn that money into votes. Republicans, it was assumed, are orderly and hierarchical. Once the party elite gets behind someone—even someone like John McCain or Mitt Romney whom grassroots conservatives distrust—the unwashed eventually fall in line.

Not this time. All September, Trump tormented Bush. Now Rubio has flattened him too. On a human level, it’s painful to watch. But structurally, it’s kind of wonderful. Maybe Republican voters are responding to outsiders. Maybe they’re responding to demagogues. Maybe they’re just responding to candidates who put on a good show. But in the process, they are repudiating the elite assumption that the actual primaries are merely an extension of the “invisible primary.” They are insisting that even in the age of Super PACs, money and votes are not the same.

......

seafan's opinion: The last thing to "go" for Jeb Bush will be his family-anointed robe of arrogant entitlement. I fully expect him to stay in this mirage of a campaign for the foreseeable future, clinging to the nasty and petulant rage that it is his for the taking. In his rigid mind, he doesn't need any stinking voters to help him. He thinks he will take the spoils after the others drop out, based on his family name and money connections.

He spent many of his days in the Florida governor's office taking voting rights away from people. We are totally superfluous in his mind. The whole exercise with his $100+ million SuperPAC, aside from its "Shock and Awe" strategy, was to severely curtail face time with voters on the campaign trail by waiting months and months to "declare" he was running. All of that "if I decide" spiel was a lie. He has shown again and again that he despises people, most especially those who "aren't useful" to his grand plans.

Saying he would have invaded Iraq anyway; saying that people 'need to work longer hours'; saying that women's health programs don't need their allotted funding; saying that Medicare needs to be phased out; saying that "stuff happens" when murderers rampage with guns; saying that we should raise the Social Security retirement age; saying that single moms should 'find a husband'; saying that wide swaths of people should have no voting rights;
for vilifying Michael Schiavo after the death of his long-incapacitated wife; for his role in the installment of his brother into the White House in 2000.... Jeb Bush has telegraphed for years what kind of person he is.

Jeb Bush, for his history, should be condemned from all political capacity in the future.


He thought he could cakewalk into this nomination, based on his family name and connections. It's how he has conducted his entire adult life, and most especially, since carpetbagging into Florida in 1980. When you have watched this play out for the past 35 years in Florida, there is no surprise that he finally cannot hide his carefully shrouded character any longer. That it took this long has been excruciatingly painful. But it has happened.

He represents the very worst for the good people of this country. For people outside of Florida, finally, to see this is tremendously empowering for our country.

Jeb Bush is naked. And he is no emperor.

[malaise]

1. And with all that money he still set out to deceive America by

hiding the family name. What a shameless bunch of entitled scumbags. FuggallthefuggingBushes!!

[underpants]

2. That sh|t eating grin from W at Thanksgiving dinner is going to be the worst

[Frustratedlady]

3. I think the Bush family members spend a lot of time justifying their thoughts and actions...

to make themselves believe that their mistakes were due to others' actions, thus, clearing their consciences and freeing themselves to repeat their evil deeds. Sort of like confessing one's sins to clear the slate to sin again.

What was the family meeting about last weekend? Two guesses would be, 1) to goose Jeb! into a Rah, Rah, Rah winning candidate, or, 2) for poppa Bush to chew ass and W to hold Jeb!'s head as he sobbed, "Don't make me do it, Daddy!"

Jeb!'s head hasn't been in it from the get-go...he doesn't have the fire in the belly to be POTUS. I would doubt that ambition has been a strong point for Jeb!. He's more of a Momma's Boy.

[MoonRiver]

4. Yeah cause presidentin is hard.

Just ask elder idiot bro.

[Octafish]

5. Heh heh heh.

Saying he would have invaded Iraq anyway; saying that people 'need to work longer hours'; saying that women's health programs don't need their allotted funding; saying that Medicare needs to be phased out; saying that "stuff happens" when murderers rampage with guns; saying that we should raise the Social Security retirement age; saying that single moms should 'find a husband'; saying that wide swaths of people should have no voting rights; for vilifying Michael Schiavo after the death of his long-incapacitated wife; for his role in the installment of his brother into the White House in 2000.... Jeb Bush has telegraphed for years what kind of person he is.

Keep thinking of what I learned about Jeb! and the Bush family from reading your stuff over the years, seafan. Thank you!

[seafan]

6. No, thank YOU.

I'd been working backward on this member of the BFEE over many years, and, lo and behold, when I ran into your outstanding work along this same path, yet forward from 1963, it blew me away. It is all the same sordid story, 'Fish, with the very same themes and characters. Always has been. Greed. Raw power. Betrayal. Destruction. Theft. War. Indifference to living beings.

These things must be defeated.


Thanks for finding and reporting on so much of our country's lost history. DU wouldn't be the same without you, Octafish.

Peace, my friend.