Jeb Bush launches a December offensive. Is he too late?
The Bush team's anti-Trump web ad, 'Chaos Candidate,' aims to build on what they see as their candidate鈥檚 strong performance in this week鈥檚 debate.聽
The Bush team's anti-Trump web ad, 'Chaos Candidate,' aims to build on what they see as their candidate鈥檚 strong performance in this week鈥檚 debate.聽
Jeb Bush is making a late December push to climb back into relevance in the GOP presidential race. His problem is that he has fallen so far behind it may be too late, even if he is able to rebuild a bit of momentum.
The Bush team is trying to move onward from what they think was their candidate鈥檚 strong performance in this week鈥檚 debate. At the Las Vegas word-off, Bush went hard after Donald Trump and, by some accounts, actually got under the Donald鈥檚 rhino-tough skin. At least a bit.
The campaign has compiled some of these moments into a sort of greatest-hits page on its web site. And it鈥檚 produced a web ad called 鈥淐haos Candidate鈥 that matches comic Trump faces with actual Trumpian pronouncements, such as 鈥淚SIS is not our fight," and that he gets foreign policy advice from 鈥渢he shows." (He meant 鈥淢eet the Press鈥 and other Sunday news shows like that.)
The ad is pretty good. It paints Trump as a buffoon and shows Bush acting in what for him is a high-energy manner.
鈥淲e need someone that thinks this through, that can lead our country,鈥 Bush concludes in the spot.
The punditocracy鈥檚 Mr. Savvy 鈥 Chris Cillizza of The Washington Post blog The Fix 鈥 judged the one-minute ad Bush鈥檚 鈥渟ingle most effective moment of the 2016 campaign."
Too bad the ad is only scheduled to run on the Internet at the moment, instead of actually appearing on聽television in a key place like New Hampshire, where Bush is in fifth place with 8.7 percent of the vote, according to RealClearPolitics.
In addition to all this, the Bushes have unleashed their family Kraken, meaning that they have begin edging George W. Bush into the campaign.
On Friday, President W. took part in a conference call with top donors, according to The New York Times. Bush 43 said that he was 鈥渦pbeat鈥 about the chances of his brother winning and that Jeb had displayed 鈥渧ision鈥 in last Tuesday鈥檚 debate.
鈥淛eb is a candidate who is peaking at the right time, I guess is the best way to put it,鈥 said brother George, before excusing himself to go shop for Christmas presents.
Does Jeb Bush still have a path to winning the nomination? Well, if you squint, and imagine that Mr. Trump implodes while Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz fatally damage each other, and Chris Christie proves too liberal for Republican primary voters, then you can just see a winning path. It鈥檚 pretty narrow though.
But maximizing his chances of winning may no longer be Bush鈥檚 goal 鈥 or to be more accurate, may no longer be the goal of his top donors. That鈥檚 the view from right-leaning pundit Ed Morrissey at Hot Air.
He suggests they are more interested in a possible kamikaze mission against Trump.
Establishment donors 鈥渕ay see taking down Trump as the imperative now, and hoping to catch a ride with another candidate when the right moment emerges."