My friend John, at Crooks and Liars, keeps hassling me that the DWT posts are too long and that I should break them up into a few posts. It's not like I'm trying to appeal to Trumpf-level readers but I think I'll try that today with a post about-- what else?-- the Republican brawl for their party's worthless presidential nomination. I'll start with the simple part: how horrible is this stupid ad by Jeb's biggest single donor, Cuban-born Florida billionaire Mike Fernandez? Mike's frustrated that his longtime pal Jeb has been turned to sand by Herr Trumpf. He even said he'd vote for Hillary-- as many of the GOP 1%ers will no doubt do-- if Trumpf gets the nomination. We'll take that thread up again in the next half of what would have been one post if not for John though.Ferandez, who already spent $3 million of his own money on Jeb's listless, failing campaign-- you know, it's not all Trumpf's fault-- decided calling Trumpf "an insecure narcissistic BULLYionaire with a hunger to be adored" (emphasis is entirely Mr. Fernandez's) in an unattractive full page ad couple in a couple of newspapers in Miami, Las Vegas and Des Moines is the way to obliterate Trumpf's 33 point lead-- Trumpf with 36% in the latest CNN poll, to Jeb's 3%. The cockamamie ad starts off comparing Trumpf to Lincoln-- would the Jebster fare well in a comparison test? Not from what I saw of him as a third rate governor of Florida. He then launches into a diatribe-- that most GOP primary voters might find obtuse-- comparing Trumpf to Hitler, Mussolini and Peron. And he reminds whoever he thinks his audience will be that "One hundred and sixty years ago, Mr. Lincoln wrote, 'When the Know-Nothings get control, it will read, "All men are created equal, except Negroes and foreigners and Catholics,"'" a message that isn't just dangerous for Trumpf but for Cruz, Rubio and the other plausible GOP nominees as well.The ad goes on and on and on and is unlikely to change a single vote, although it may remind some voters in Florida, Nevada and Iowa that the Republican Party has gone off the rails and it's time to vote for a Democrat. Meanwhile, many more casual observers of the process are wondering why Jeb doesn't just pack it in and allow a more popular establishment Republican to take on the fascist menace that has his party facing its very own eve of destruction. Let's face it, Jeb has proven he can't fix it. He's already spent an incredible $30 million on one worthless ad after another. In fact, the ads are less than worthless since each one does nothing but drive down his polling numbers. Real Clear Politics shows him tumbling from a nice respectable from 15% in Fox's first August poll to just 3% in the new CNN poll released Friday. His RealClearPolitics polling average now puts him in 5th place with 4.8%, way behind the 4 frontrunners in the first tier. He's not competing with Trumpf. He's competing with Carly Fiorina, Chris Christie, John Kasich and Mike Huckabee. Time it pack it in and just vote for Hillary or Bernie. But he is so loaded with establishment money that... well, why not spend it? Maybe Trumpf's plane will fall out of the sky and land on Rubio and Cruz and kill them both... you never know. Short of that, though... well, there's nothing for Jeb other than just going to the family fundraising list and begging for more.Writing for Politico yesterday, Eli Stokols and Marc Caputo seem astounded that Jeb has persuaded otherwise rationale men and women-- mostly men-- that GOP primary voters will come to their senses sooner or later and see Trumpf for what he is. (Apparently Fernandez thinks he's going to help that along with his newspaper ads.) Their pitch never changes: "National polls aren’t predictive of primary success and the campaign’s organizational efforts will bear fruit. More privately, Bush’s team says there’s still time to engineer an unlikely comeback."Inconvenient reminder: Latest poll in Iowa shows Bush in 6th place with 4%. Latest poll in New Hampshire shows Bush in 8th place with 5% (not just behind Trumpf, Cruz, Rubio and Dr. Ben, but also eating dust from Christie, Kasich and Fiorina. The Jebster--who has spent more money on New Hampshire media than any other campaign-- is still leading Rand Paul, Mike Huckabee, George Pataki and the candidates with zero percent, like Lindsey Graham and Rick Santorum. Lastest poll in South Carolina has Jeb in fifth place with 5% but with Trumpf, Dr. Ben, Cruz and Rubio ahead of him with a combined 83%. So... yeah national polls might not be "predictive of primary success," but Bush is worse off in the early state polls than he is nationally!They're still counting on New Hampshire (remember, 8th place). "It's a total jump ball... and we are right in the mix," said a campaign advisor whose fat weekly salary check would end if Jeb were to fold up his tent and go home. In the mix? He's at 5%. Trump's at 27%; Cruz is at 13%, Rubio at 11%, even Christie is at 10% there now. What mix? He's competitive with Fiorina at 6%, Rand Paul at 4%, maybe Kasich at 8%? These folks are delusional. No one likes Jeb; in fact, they positively hate him. But this campaign-- like every campaign-- claims it has "the best ground game." Notice this, from the Politico story is spoken in the past tense: "Jeb just isn’t very talented at this. And the problem is that Jeb has been coddled by a group of people who worship Jeb,” said one high-level Republican strategist, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. “They ran a campaign based on what they wanted the party to be, instead of what the party was."Before they started running the millions of dollars in TV and radio ads that have sent his polling numbers down the toilet, one of his longtime DC bundlers said, back in October, "We’ll know by Thanksgiving whether we’ve got a candidate or a turkey." So they know but it's in the interests of all the staffers to pretend they don't. And then Mike Murphy, the crook that runs Right to Rise, the SuperPAC Jeb raised over $100 million for "before he was a candidate," is preparing a 15-minute Jeb bio. I guess it could work... on Comedy Central. But it gets better; this has got to be the most insane waste of money I've ever heard of in politics:
According to another source close to Right to Rise, Murphy has been floating another tactical shift to potential supporters, suggesting that he might spend the bulk of the $75 million to carpet bomb Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, Ben Carson, Chris Christie-- everyone but Trump. The thinking: Making the race into a binary choice between Bush and Trump might be the only way a majority of primary voters go with Bush.Inside Bush’s Miami headquarters, which was hollowed out in the fall as the campaign downsized and shifted resources to New Hampshire, partly in response to fundraising struggles, hope is getting harder to come by.Senior staffers like Diaz and Bradshaw continue to project confidence that things will turn around. The communications team continues to aggressively push its narrative, while the opposition research shop is churning out data points for reporters to weaponize against other GOP candidates.But in more private conversations, many on Bush’s payroll are turning to resignation and even gallows humor. One lamented to friends about not getting to spend the entire winter in Miami; others have been wondering aloud if the campaign will even make it through January to the first in the nation Iowa caucuses on Feb. 1.“I think staff morale is exceedingly low,” said a Bush donor based in New York City. “I suspect they know they’re in a death spiral now. There’s no getting out of this.”In spite of those worries starting to bubble to the surface, Bush appears resolved to fight on, still expressing steely confidence to close associates and anyone who questions his viability: “I’m going to win this damn thing,” he’ll often say.
They should get that into the Comedy Central bio Murphy is making. And now they say he can't pull out before March1 or it'll damage the family business. I mean who would ever take George P. Bush seriously if Jeb tries to leave with a shred of dignity?
