Former strategist to both of President George W. Bush’s presidential campaigns, Matthew Dowd, told the Washington Post that Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush’s campaign was all but dead in the water.
Dowd believes that Bush’s chances of winning the GOP nomination for president are “incredibly low” and doubts he can “run an effective campaign.”Big ouch!
Dowd: I had always doubted Jeb’s ability to run an effective campaign in this environment for a few reasons: He is not as good of a retail politician as his brother, he has been away from elective office for too long, and times have changed. The voters were going to look for anyone other than an establishment pol with a dynastic last name, and the whole premise of their campaign was based around fundraising [while] today money matters way less. While there is an outside shot he can surface sometime next year, the odds are incredibly low and it will take the five candidates ahead of him falling apart.
Do you think the 2nd Amendment will be destroyed by the Biden Administration?(2)
FIX: This was your assessment of the Republicans Hillary Clinton would most want to run against: “Trump, Jeb, Carson, Cruz, Kasich, Rubio.” Jeb in second surprised me. Explain.
Dowd: Taking a look at Jeb’s standing in a general election, the only candidate more unelectable is Trump. Jeb’s unfavorables are higher than his favorables, the conservative base won’t turn out for him, independents want change and the Bush name won’t help him with that. And, Hillary Clinton’s weaknesses are actually bolstered by Jeb running (two insiders with dynasticnames). (source)
Bush’s Right to Rise Super PAC is spending millions of dollars on ads depicting Jeb Bush as being tough on foreign policy, but voters who know Bush see the ads as being forced propaganda. The ads do seem forced, and are struggling to affect polling. Since the ads started running, Bush’s poll numbers have only risen about 1-2 percentage points, and seemed to have plateau around 5 percentage point.