Jeb can't shake off his last name

[_Kevin Graham]

About a year ago I asserted that Jeb Bush would never become President mainly because of his last name. I was mocked and ridiculed for saying that without scientific proof to back it up, but it turns out I was right even though he was considered a front runner at the time.

Yesterday in tha car I was listening to the Eric Ericsson radio show and he was asking a group of Republican voters random questions about the candidates and asking them to raise their hands if they agreed.

On the subject of Jeb, he asked if his last name affected their lack of support for him and nearly everyone in the audience raised their hands.

Just sayin...

[_Tobin]

Is kairos your sock puppet?

[_Kevin Graham]

On a related note, there were similar questions asked of voters on MSNBC last night and at least three Republicans said they'd support Hillary or Sanders over Trump, which I thought was interesting.

[_Tobin]

Was it Jeb Bush? I'm sure he'd vote for Clinton over Trump.

[_ajax18]

Jeb Bush lost the race when he called illegal immigration an act of love. Rush Limbaugh said right away, "Just say you don't want to run." If Jeb had come out saying, "We're going to build a wall and make Mexico pay for it," this primary would have looked a lot different.

[_Tobin]

He lost the race when Trump stuck that 'Low Energy' tag on his back.

[_EAllusion]

This is like saying,

"I told everyone that after Benjamin went down that the Carolina Panthers could not win a Superbowl because their receiving core was too thin. Turns out I was right."

No. This just misunderstands how those kind of probability judgments work.

Of course, a bunch of things ultimately did do in Bush. Before his last name, his temperament, the fact that his natural support was split among several "establishment" candidates, and the fact that he is relatively moderate in a primary system designed to reward assertions of radicalism probably played a bigger role. It's a chaotic process.

Every single Republican candidate left has some glaring reasons why they shouldn't win, yet one of them is going to win. The current front-runner questioned John McCain's war-hero status, dismissed a well-liked a Fox News journalist as being on the rag when she asked him a question he didn't like, made fun of a disabled reporter, is blatantly unfamiliar with Christianity, and on and on.

[_Kevin Graham]

This is like saying,
"I told everyone that after Benjamin went down that the Carolina Panthers could not win a Superbowl because their receiving core was too thin. Turns out I was right."

Your analogy is ridiculous. Benjamin and the Super bowl loss, one thing had nothing to do with the other, whereas it is clear by now that the reason Bush lost is because of his last name. Just as I said from the beginning. He had the money, he had the endorsements, he was leading in the polls last Spring, but ultimately it was his last name that did him in.

Last spring I said he would never become President because Americans would never elect another Bush after what the last one did. I never denied that he could win the nomination because Republican stupidity I never underestimate. But it turns out my comment was more true than I realized since he couldn't even finish third with his own party. They were essentially waiting for someone, ANYONE, to jump in so they could elect him instead.

Now, I'm not riding around on a unicycle screaming "I'm king of the world" as you seem to imagine. I know there was nothing scientific behind my claim, but I was still right. Call it a hunch,a gut feeling or whatever. I'll just call it common sense. So much so that his own campaign realized it in June when they deleted his last name from his logo.

Incidentally, I was also right to suggest Sanders could very well win the Democratic nomination, even though you were at the time giving me all kinds of crap for saying that (as if I had somehow declared he was definitely going to win or even likely to win). You threw Nate Silver at me to suggest I was a hypocrite for only relying on him some of the time ... and yet today Silver is saying Sanders could very well win every other caucus.

While Clinton has won the first two caucuses in the Democratic race — while losing New Hampshire, the only primary — it’s possible that Bernie Sanders will win every state caucus from here on out.

Here’s why I say that. The remaining Democratic states to hold caucuses are: Alaska, Colorado, Hawaii, Idaho, Kansas, Maine, Minnesota, Nebraska, Washington and Wyoming. Other than Hawaii — where I’m not going to pretend we have any earthly idea what’s going to happen — those are a bunch of really white states that otherwise look favorable for Sanders and which he could win even if he slightly trails Clinton nationally.

Clinton is probably favored in the territorial caucuses in American Samoa, Guam and the Virgin Islands, however, as territorial caucuses tend to heavily favor “establishment” candidates.

And by the way, Carolina losing the Super Bowl had more to do with a guy named Von Miller and Cam Newton's 70 MPH passes.

[_Themis]

This is like saying,
"I told everyone that after Benjamin went down that the Carolina Panthers could not win a Superbowl because their receiving core was too thin. Turns out I was right."

Your analogy is ridiculous. Benjamin and the Super bowl loss, one thing had nothing to do with the other, whereas it is clear by now that the reason Bush lost is because of his last name. Just as I said from the beginning. He had the money, he had the endorsements, he was leading in the polls last Spring, but ultimately it was his last name that did him in.

If he had the money, endorsements and leading in the polls what happened? Did they suddenly realize his last name was Bush?

[_EAllusion]

My analogy is an example of highlighting a flaw, improperly concluding from it that a win is not remotely likely, then citing the eventual oucome as proof of the still flawed judgement. You can do this with 17 candidates and get to just as plausibly claim to be right on with 16 of em.

Bush's name might be a net negative, but it is not at all clear from the vantage point of 6 months ago that it would prevent him from winning. It's not even clear now as several factors obviously hurt him.