Who wins if Jeb Bush flames out early?

[yellowcanine]

Jeb, after prompting from a political ally now says, he "missheard" the Iraq War question - of course making that claim only creates more problems - the obvious question is "How could you possibly "misshear" "Knowing what we know now, would you have authorized the invasion?" Pretty strait forward question for a Fox News person, I dare say. Jeb also says he would not cancel Obama's immigration executive order "right away." That must be going down well with the right wingers, fence builders and self deporters in the GOP (which just about covers all of them).

Jeb would have been the last GOP candidate I would have thought would get into a bind like this. But he IS in a bind and it is not clear he will recover. He managed to remind everyone that he IS the brother of George W. Bush and people cannot be faulted for thinking he is more like brother George than Poppy Bush. The wing nuts haven't forgiven W for making war unpopular and now here comes Jeb to his brother's defense. It boggles the mind. It may not be a mortal wound, but imo Jebbies Presidential campaign is on the verge of going into shock and it is still a half hour to the shock trauma unit.

So who benefits? Rubio?

[TlalocW]

1. America?

Just a thought.

TlalocW

[Journeyman]

4. Too limited. Remember, his brother wanted to fund a mission to Mars. I think the universe wins...

[John Poet]

15. Aw, you beat me to it!!!

When a Bush loses, America wins.

And an angel gets their wings!

[Jackpine Radical]

2. Really interesting watching the jockeying.

I don't think Rubio's going anywhere. Like Jeb, he's too soft on immigration to get past the Tea Party. That REALLY seems to be a big-deal issue for them.

[EL34x4]

23. Rubio's running for the VP nod

In the event Jeb Bush isn't the nominee. Republicans have no path to victory that doesn't include Florida. I think Rubio's strong polling is as much a surprise to him as anyone.

My money says it'll be Walker/Rubio on the GOP ticket come election day.

[unblock]

3. jeb bush does.

i don't think "losing to a girl" will go over well in republican circles. he'd be better of it that happened to someone else.

[elfin]

5. Cheese Weasel Walker

Even tho much unrest in Wisconsin over his draconian budget whacking education and environment even more. It has been surmised that he won't formally announce in order to both get more PAC dough and to have the state budget passed with some of the dust settled.

As bad as Jeb is, I would rather have him instead of Walker.

However, Kasich is watching avidly from the wings.

All choices are horrible, but in case Clinton implodes for some horrible reason, we just cannot have Walker, Cruz etc.

[monmouth4]

6. I honestly think about five minutes after he got into this race he no longer wanted it...n/t

[FSogol]

7. The Kochs have annointed Walker. Jeb will be the Cheney-esque veteran adviser/VP candidate.

[Rosa Luxemburg]

14. Walker is light-weight so he will do

[CTyankee]

17. I dunno. I have a good friend who is a strong Dem in WI and he's been revealing lots

Walker stuff on Facebook. There's more than we see on Walker that Dems there are only too happy to share with us. All this will come out. Walker has some really bad baggage...

[lutefisk]

19. George W. Bush had really bad baggage, too

And he was our President for 8 years!

Sure, he was more intelligent than Walker is, but his baggage was real life stuff- AWOL, shady business deals, drugs, drunk driving, scrubbed records, etc.

Walker's baggage is just major political corruption and an amazing documented record of pathological lying. Loyal Republicans let that stuff slide.

[Lil Missy]

8. Several of them will have their 15 minutes as frontrunner and it will end up Walker. n/t

[Cosmocat]

12. Yep

a replay of the 08 and 12.

The most carnival like candidates will make a run, fuck up or fizzle out when they are in a state that isn't in their basic region, Walker being the most bland candidate will maybe win a few, but be second or third in most and come out as the nominee.

Most likely scenario.

[DFW]

9. HRC, Martin O'Malley, Bernie Sanders, Jim Webb?

But don't forget that the rest of the Republican "hot prospects" are even worse losers than Jeb is, so don't count him out just yet. None of the rest of them are known for their rock solid consistency on anything, either.

[bigwillq]

10. Walker or Rubio

IMO

[Yupster]

11. Rubio

The benefit of not having to fight for every county chairman in Florida's support.

[Beacool]

13. I agree with those who said Walker.

Scott Walker is their best chance.

[Sunlei]

16. he won't flame out, all republican(leaders)have to do is get him enough primary votes.

keep him away from public questions and any media who dare ask the wrong questions of him.

[John Poet]

18. Never count out the Bushes until

all the votes have been counted-- if they all CAN BE counted...

I remember being pretty confident of victory over his father, back in 1988, who had been fumbling around for the previous eight years (in public, anyway, when he wasn't busy running the illegal arms to Iran and the Nicaraguan contras operations)--- then Poppy managed one of the greatest comebacks in recent political history, based mostly on raising the negatives of his opponent beyond his own (and yeah, Dukakis blew it by choosing to ignore the attacks until it was too late.)

Then of course there was 2000, when they managed to take possession of the White House without having actually won the election. The same thing arguably happened again in 2004, if you take the Ohio anomalies into account--- not to mention all the other states where exit polls were only "wrong" in cases where there was electronic voting with NO PAPER TRAIL...

Most of this preliminary fumbling will be water long under the bridge by the time the actual voting and ballot doctoring gets started. By that time, I expect Jeb's PACs will have been carpet-bombing his primary opponents with up to $100 million in negative ads-- and there are no prizes in THAT crowd, either. GOP primary voters may end up in agreement with a fake Jeb Twitter account which recently opined, "Sooner or later you will realize that I am the least horrible option".

Of course if they DO manage to deny Jeb the nomination, I will celebrate... until 2019.

[quadrature]

20. Jeb has no chance. his voters are lukewarm toward him ...

so they won't turn out in
sufficient number.

It will be
Walker or Rubio

[davidpdx]

21. I think this will easily blow over given how early it is and he will not be harmed by it too much

Some people have short memories and those people are the ones that vote Republican. Whether it is brain damage or stupidity I'm not sure.

[Arkana]

22. Governor Sleepy Baby.

He's got the money and he's dumb enough to play the part of "empty vessel".

[Hortensis]

24. Agree with those who think he'll come through fine. Just think how conservatives, wingnuts to

moderates, group-hug around whoever wins the primary, all hurriedly forgotten in their passion to save the nation from the Democrats. And, of course, there're all that campaign money and the Bush family's carefully-maintained reputation of never forgetting to repay a favor...