As the Jeb Bush campaign for the presidency winds down, and not in a good way, Jeb Bush shall summon from the depths of an art studio his long-lost brother, who will make one last, pleading case. Even Jeb doesn't sound too into it.
Both Mr. Bush and his sister have said that they expect their older brother, former President George W. Bush, to hit the campaign trail in [South Carolina], where he remains popular with the Republican base. [...]
“The Bush family — this is a family deal, particularly when you get to the beginning of the end,” Mr. Bush said [...]
This is like watching Old Yeller. For those of you who haven't seen Old Yeller, it ends with Old Yeller's brother coming to campaign for him after Old Yeller has had a nasty scrap with a wild billionaire. It's very sad.
The Bush campaign has struggled with how to handle the dynastic clan. Mr. Bush’s older brother, for instance, has high approval ratings with many of the voters Mr. Bush needs to win over — but could upstage Mr. Bush as the more naturally charismatic of the two, and remind voters that Jeb Bush would be the third Bush to win the presidency.
Let's just mull that over for a bit, shall we? Give it a nice, long chew. The concerns here are that George Dubya Bush, a man whose every word seemed to have to fight past stray bits of pretzel in order to escape his mouth, is the "naturally charismatic" brother. The old pro. The popular one.
And it ain't wrong.
I realize we can only watch the dynamics of each campaign from afar, here, but it truly seems that Jeb Bush's heart has not been in this campaign for at least a month. He started to drift off after Trump's bluster so thoroughly flustered him, during the debates; he had carefully planned his campaign, and his pitch, and readied his donors, and along comes a truffle-topped Cabbage Patch Doll From Hell to wreck it all with a few rolls of his eye. At this point he seems flummoxed as to how to even speak to a party that is angrier, and more racist, and more conspiracy-addled, and simply dumber than his campaign advisors had prepared him for.
He's going through the motions, to be sure, but when was the last time Jeb Bush had a debate "moment" that suggested he even cared whether or not he won? What the hell, put Dubya up on that stage and have him act out Jeb's part. It wouldn't even be worse.