Jeb Goes from Fragile Frontrunner to Underdog

[brooklynite]

Cook Political Report:


With each passing day, Jeb Bush looks weaker and weaker. While he has a top notch political team and (reportedly) tons of cash, he is dropping, not, rising in the polls. For a party desperate to win back the White House, Bush is looking more and more like a risky bet.

The latest Washington Post/ABC and CNN/ORC polls paint a grim picture of Bush's general election hopes. In the CNN poll, Bush is the only candidate tested - besides Ted Cruz - that Hillary beats handily. She leads Bush 51 percent to 43 percent. Meanwhile, Clinton is under 50 percent when tested against Rand Paul, Marco Rubio and Scott Walker. In the Washington Post/ABC poll, 55 percent said they expected that Clinton would win a match-up against Bush.

While both Hillary and Jeb suffer with the "dynasty" label, the Bush name is more toxic. In the CNN poll, 62 percent of voters said that Jeb Bush represents the past, while just 34 percent thought he represented the future. Meanwhile, 45 percent of respondents thought Hillary Clinton represents the past while a slight majority (51 percent) think she represents the future. A whopping 56 percent of voters said the fact that Jeb Bush is "the son and brother of former presidents" makes them less likely to vote for him. The Washington Post/ABC poll found similar results, with 40 percent saying they thought Jeb would "mainly follow the same policies" as his brother, and just 51 percent saying he'd come up with new policies. Meanwhile, just 24 percent thought Hillary Clinton would follow the same policies as her husband, and 66 percent thought she'd "come up with new policies."

Bush's numbers among the GOP electorate aren't much better. In December of 2014, Bush was at 23 percent. Today, he's dropped to 13 percent. The Washington Post/ABC poll finds that he's dropped seven points since March - from 20 percent to 13 percent. In the CNN poll, more than one-third of GOPers - and 62 percent of those who identify as Tea Party - say that they are "less likely" to vote for him because he's the brother/son of former presidents. Just 18 percent of Democrats say that they are inclined to vote against Hillary Clinton because she's the wife of the former president.

[Nay]

1. Frankly, Jeb Bush acts like a very reluctant presidential candidate. When he makes

those odd statements, trips over his own tongue, says one thing and reverses it the next day (even about easy softball questions like "would you start the Iraq war like your brother did?&quot , he gives the impression to me that he really isn't interested in running. Maybe he's doing it because his family wants it, because he'd like to keep a chunk of campaign money after he loses, because his ego wants him to -- who knows. He just seems so uninterested that he can't even begin to weave a coherent narrative.

Then again, maybe he sounds stupid because he IS stupid. As stupid as his brother.