US Presidential Contenders

[Buster's Uncle]

That I lost a lot of fake forum money to Uno after the first debate is just depressing, though.

Idiots.  We have idiots on our team.

[vonbach]

I will admit I am truly enjoying the [Sleezebag] steamroll. The more they attack the more they try to ignore him the
stronger he gets. 

[Buster's Uncle]

I may not comment according to my own rules...

[vonbach]

“First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, and then you win.”
[Sleezebag] has discovered one thing all the other politicians have forgotten.
The common folk all the others ignore. And its probably going to see him
get to the white house. 

[Yitzi]

“First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, and then you win.”
[Sleezebag] has discovered one thing all the other politicians have forgotten.
The common folk all the others ignore. And its probably going to see him
get to the white house. 

Not so clear...if Sanders wins the Democratic nomination, he can fight [Sleezebag] on the "common folk" ground...

[Rusty Edge]

I will admit I am truly enjoying the [Sleezebag] steamroll. The more they attack the more they try to ignore him the
stronger he gets. 

You may well be right, but that remains to be seen. 
The last two polls have him getting stronger, then weaker. I suspect one of them is wrong.
The stronger poll of 32%-5.1% = 26.9% is slightly below his current 30 day average of 27.53%
The weaker poll of 17%+5.0% = 22%, well below.

Now it could be that the 17% result is so erroneous that it skews the 30 day average.

Or it could be that people are flipping from [Sleezebag] to Carson on the basis of Carson's remarks about Muslims being unqualified to be president.  If wild remarks can work for [Sleezebag], why not for Carson, too?

Me, I'd like to wait for another poll to confirm a trend one way or another.


Even so, becoming president is not exactly a national popularity contest. It's also a matter of fund-raising, strategic planning, and organizing. First you have to get the nomination, then you have to win the electoral college. If it were easy, everybody would do it.

[Buster's Uncle]

Remember all the braying when the First Oil Crusade was wrapping up in a hurry and the real George Bush's approval ratings were through the roof?  A big (huge, obnoxious right-wing gloating) deal was made of it on the news at the time.

I said -I really did say this out loud and everything to actual people in the room who heard me- "Idiots.  A year-and-a-half is a long time."

(It seems even longer during a campaign.  They haven't even Deaned anyone yet.)

[vonbach]

Not so clear...if Sanders wins the Democratic nomination, he can fight [Sleezebag] on the "common folk" ground...

Rofl. What would Bernie know about the common folk? Bernie is done. Theres a reason Biden is getting tapped.

The last two polls have him getting stronger, then weaker. I suspect one of them is wrong.

The media and establishment machine is dead set against [Sleezebag]. The problem is
the people are dead set against them. So everything they try to do to [Sleezebag] just
makes him stronger. Some people in the know have been waiting for a [Sleezebag] for a
long, long time. Basically he's discovered that 80-90% of the population is getting
totally ignored. All he has to do is deal with the issues they care about and he wins.

[Buster's Uncle]

A Conundrum for Jeb Bush: How to Use George W.
The New York Times
By JONATHAN MARTIN and MATT FLEGENHEIMER  OCT. 4, 2015



Jeb Bush spoke with a reporter at Rice Energy in Canonsburg, Pa., last week. The question of how to use the candidate’s older brother, George W. Bush, is an agonizing one for the campaign. Credit Jeff Swensen for The New York Times



GREENVILLE, S.C. — With Jeb Bush struggling to connect with some Republican activists, his campaign has begun exploring whether to bring in the person it thinks may be best equipped to give him a boost with skeptical conservatives: his brother George W. Bush.

The 43rd president is a very popular figure among Republican voters and could deliver a needed jolt to his brother’s sluggish campaign.

Advisers to Jeb Bush in this crucial early primary state have asked national campaign officials in recent weeks to send in George Bush, 69, who so far has appeared only at private fund-raisers, to vouch for his younger brother on the campaign trail.

The request for reinforcement underlines the growing urgency that backers of Jeb Bush, the former Florida governor, feel as other candidates vault ahead of him by stirring the passions of the party’s base.

But the question of how to use the candidate’s older brother is an agonizing one for the campaign. While dispatching George Bush to a state like South Carolina could shore up his brother’s standing with conservatives, and remind voters there of a political family they still admire, it could also underscore the impression that Jeb Bush is simply a legacy candidate at a time when voters are itching for change.



George W. Bush, center, campaigned with his father, George Bush, in New Hampshire in 2000. The younger former president has so far only appeared at private fund-raisers for Jeb Bush. Credit Stephen Crowley/The New York Times 


What is more, given the former president’s unpopularity among many in the broader electorate, joint appearances by the brothers could provide irresistible footage for Democratic attacks against Jeb Bush if he wins the Republican nomination. The continued instability in the Middle East, in particular, could remind voters of George Bush’s decision to invade Iraq and make joint images of the Bush brothers potent fodder for the opposition.

“It may ruin the race for him down the line, but it could win the race here,” said Katon Dawson, a former chairman of the South Carolina Republican Party.

Still, in this heavily conservative state, which delivered crucial primary wins both to George W. Bush and to his father, the first President George Bush, there is a growing view that Jeb Bush needs to embrace his older brother.

“I do think he’s an asset, and we need him down here — and Barbara, too,” said Sally Atwater, a Republican activist here, referring to the brothers’ mother.

Ms. Atwater, the widow of Lee Atwater, a strategist for the first President Bush, added of the family: “Folks have a relationship with these people already. That’s important. And you need to play off of that.”

Tim Miller, Jeb Bush’s communications director, suggested that the campaign was open to having George Bush appear at rallies for his brother before the state’s primary in February.


Jeb Bush reciting the Pledge of Allegiance at a campaign stop in Bedford, N.H. His brother is seen as an asset in South Carolina. Credit Brian Snyder/Reuters


“To the extent it makes sense on the campaign, we’re going to be happy to have his support, and I know President Bush is willing to help,” Mr. Miller said. “Jeb is running on his record, but there is obviously tremendous respect for and good will toward President Bush in the party and beyond thanks to his leadership in a time of crisis for this country.”

As for the danger of the former president’s undermining his brother’s prospects in a general election, supporters of Jeb Bush believe the Democrats will try to link the two regardless of whether George Bush engages more in the contest.

Even before he announced his candidacy, Jeb Bush wrestled with how much, or how little, to tie himself to his family. He has gone to great lengths to emphasize his own life story and becomes testy when asked about how he differs from his brother, asking voters or reporters if they are precise replicas of their siblings. But he has relied on his family’s fund-raising network to outpace the rest of the Republican field and delivered perhaps his most forceful moment of the debate last month when he defended his brother’s record on terrorism after Donald J. [Sleezebag] ridiculed the former president.

Well before that exchange, some of the former governor’s allies here were pushing for the campaign to make use of George Bush.

Barry Wynn, Jeb Bush’s state co-chairman and a major donor, said he had made two suggestions over the summer to campaign officials about whom to send to Columbia to file the paperwork to be on South Carolina’s primary ballot — a campaign ritual and photo opportunity that is widely covered in local newspapers and political websites.

“I said our first choice is Barbara and our second choice is George W.,” Mr. Wynn recalled. “There’s no question that George W. is probably as popular here as anywhere outside of Texas.”

Jeb Bush’s campaign instead sent his son George P. Bush, who last year was elected to statewide office in Texas.

There has been no recent public polling here measuring George Bush’s standing, but multiple Republicans who have seen private survey data indicate that he is broadly popular among potential South Carolina primary voters. And a New York Times/CBS News survey in May found that, nationally, 71 percent of Republicans had a favorable view of the former president and only 10 percent said they viewed him unfavorably.

At times on the campaign trail, Jeb Bush has acknowledged his predicament. Speaking to voters in New Hampshire last month, he suggested that despite his years in government, he was known widely only because of his last name.

“Around the country they know me as George’s boy and George’s brother, right?” he said. “I’m proud of my family, but I’m not going to get elected by being the third Bush running for president. I got that. I’ve got enough self-awareness to know that that’s the case. I’ve got to go earn it.”

Some of Jeb Bush’s allies are keenly aware of the delicate balance required. Al Cardenas, a longtime Florida Republican Party leader and friend of his, said it was “never a ‘win’ situation” when Jeb Bush was asked about his family.

“Every time you have to face questions about your family’s performance, in some way it interrupts the journey of making sure that your own identity has clarity,” he said.

Jeb Bush has offered mild criticism of his brother’s administration at times. But it is not a role he seems to relish, as was demonstrated when he struggled over the summer to answer questions about whether he would have invaded Iraq, a decision that still weighs down the former president with many voters. The former Florida governor recognizes, however, that for political and symbolic purposes he must create space with his brother.

“My brother didn’t veto bills that he could have vetoed to send a signal that government needs to be reined in,” Mr. Bush said last week in New Hampshire. “Part of that related to the efforts to fight — you know, create the homeland security efforts and to fight the wars and all this. He needed the support to maintain that.”

Jeb Bush’s quandary is reminiscent of the one his brother faced in the 2000 Republican presidential primary. George Bush wanted to prove that he was his own man and, to conservatives, not a replica of his father, who increased taxes and faced a primary challenge from the right in his 1992 re-election bid. But then, as now, there was also considerable good will in Republican ranks toward the Bushes after eight years of having a Democrat in the White House.

“It was an argument we had internally,” recalled Thomas D. Rath, a New Hampshire Republican who supported George Bush in 2000. “We finally decided that if we’re going to pay a price for it with some voters anyway, we may as well get something out of it.”

So the campaign brought George Bush’s parents to a rally in New Hampshire on the Saturday before the state’s primary, and the 41st president said with evident emotion: “This boy — this son of ours — is not going to let you down.”

George Bush was trounced a few days later in the primary for reasons unrelated to that last-minute appearance, but the dynastic overtones were worrisome enough that his parents were largely unseen again until the general election.

But Jeb Bush is not as popular now as his older brother was then among Republican primary voters, and he may not be able to win over conservatives on his own. The question is whether George Bush’s popularity is transferable and if a party that seems hungry for change will respond favorably to a reminder of old family ties.

“They’re probably as fine a people as any on earth,” said Henry McMaster, the lieutenant governor of South Carolina, of the extended Bush clan. “But a lot of folks are in a different mood right now.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/05/us/politics/a-struggling-jeb-bush-may-lean-on-george-w-in-south-carolina.html?_r=0

[Rusty Edge]

I always preferred Jeb to W., both as a person and a politician.

I've also valued experience. I don't want somebody less than 50 years old running a country or corporation in which I have a stake. I want them to  have lived through war and peace, economic adversity and prosperity. I want them to know how things are supposed to work.

The downside of experience is when it comes to wielding power, and the old rule that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. When you bring in a Clinton or a Bush ( as current examples ), rather than bringing in new ideas, ideals, and approaches, you bring in the maximum amount of people who know how to work the system, and feel entitled to do so.

I appreciate Jeb's family problem. It goes against his principles to speak ill of his own family. Comparisons can be unfair.  I really wish he would have learned more from his brother's mistakes, and those of the neocons.

Ultimately I side with another of my favorite sayings- A lot of life is timing.
Jeb sure picked the wrong time to run for president.

[Buster's Uncle]

Do a hitch in either house of congress for minimum qualification, Jeb, and we'll talk.

[vonbach]

No one likes Jeb.  He has all his other issues but mostly its just that he's a Bush
that most people object to.

[Buster's Uncle]

I agree.

[Rusty Edge]

Do a hitch in either house of congress for minimum qualification, Jeb, and we'll talk.

To me, being a governor of a larger state is a better qualification than congressman.

Interesting. As for recent presidents, Obama lost for US congress and won for senate. G.W. Bush lost for US congress and became a Governor. He had Whitehouse staff experience.  Carter, Clinton and Reagan were outsider governors. Ford was House Minority leader and then VP. Nixon was a Congressman, Senator, and VP. Truman was a senator and VP. Ike was a general. FDR was Assistant Secretary of the Navy, and governor of New York.

The standout is of course George Herbert Walker Bush- US Congress, Envoy to China, Ambassador to the UN, Director of the CIA, Chairman of the RNC, VP. He also found time to fit this into his public life-

" After a Democratic administration took power in 1977, Bush became chairman on the Executive Committee of the First International Bank in Houston.[38] He later spent a year as a part-time professor of Administrative Science at Rice University's Jones School of Business beginning in 1978, the year it opened; Bush said of his time there, "I loved my brief time in the world of academia."[39] Between 1977 and 1979, he was a director of the Council on Foreign Relations foreign policy organization.[40]" - Wikipedia

Yes, I knew most of this stuff, but I looked it all up, just to be sure, because I couldn't remember Ford's presidency when I started typing.

[Dio]

Do a hitch in either house of congress for minimum qualification, Jeb, and we'll talk.

To me, being a governor of a larger state is a better qualification than congressman.

With that definition of "qualification," where would Arnold Schwarzenegger rank?