Like a company whose investors are unhappy with its performance, the Jeb Bush campaign is trying to revamp itself by that tried and true strategy: cutting jobs. Of course, it's rarely the mark of a winner when you're axing staff, but whoever said Jeb was a winner?
In fact, he's now doubly a loser, because this is actually the second time in recent months that he's tried to shed payroll. According to an analysis of Jeb's most recent FEC report, as many as 60 staffers saw their salaries reduced, by as much as $900,000 over the last fundraising quarter—all to calm donors whom one nameless Bush fundraiser described as "really nervous."
But that evidently wasn't enough, because Jeb's taking out the chainsaw again: He's implementing "across-the-board" pay cuts, canning a whole bunch of consultants, and trying to cajole others into working for him for free. (I guess the idea of having the third Bush White House owe you a favor is supposed to be an inducement?) And this, this is going to be what'll save the campaign—for real, this time:
One Bush adviser told Bloomberg Politics in an interview Friday morning that the team was "unapologetic" about the changes, saying the moves were from a "position of strength." "This is about winning the race," the adviser said. "We're doing it now and making the shifts with confidence. We expect to win."
You gotta love it. If this were truly being done from a "position of strength," then why did this Bush flack insist on speaking off the record? The fact is, Bush's problems go way, way deeper than who he's employing or how much he's spending. These changes will at most save $1 million a month, which may sound like a lot, but is really marginal—after all, the super PAC backing him
collected $103 million in the first half of the year.
Bush's problems, really, begin and end with the one staffer he can't cut: the guy at the very top. Bush is a lousy campaigner who simply is not and cannot offer conservatives what they want. Could he still emerge at the end of a bruising campaign as the establishment pick after more exotic candidates flame out? Sure. But for the one-time frontrunner, this is a sad spot to find himself in, and no amount of payroll slicing can fix Jeb.