“They Love You When You’re Gone”: Jeb Broke The Cardinal Rule Of Well-Liked Ex-oliticians; He Came Out Of Retirement
Some people are already waxing nostalgic about Rep. John Boehner, who has resigned as the Speaker of the House and leaving Congress.
Testy and stiff, the hard-drinking Ohio Republican wasn’t exactly a beloved fixture on the national scene. Sniffling over the pope helped soften Boehner’s image, but the main thing that’s made him more likable is the fact he’ll be gone soon.
It’s a strange American phenomenon. No matter how low they get in the polls, politicians start becoming more popular the minute they leave office.
Blamed for high gas prices and the Iran hostage crisis, Jimmy Carter got booted from the White House after four years. Today he is cheered wherever he goes. This is partly because of the charitable work he’s done since leaving government, and partly because Americans have a soft spot for the politically departed.
Saddled with Ronald Reagan’s sputtering economy, George H.W. Bush also lost the presidency after one anemic term. He’s never been more popular than he is today.
Same for Bill Clinton who, despite his impeachment saga, draws crowds like a rock star. Even George W. Bush, the brains behind the disastrous U.S. occupation of Iraq, is more fondly regarded now than during his last few years in the Oval Office.
Which brings us to his younger brother, Jeb, whose popularity has been creeping in the wrong direction ever since he announced his candidacy for president.
A mind-bending new Quinnipiac University poll shows Jeb running fourth among Republicans in Florida, behind Donald Trump, Ben Carson, and Marco Rubio.
For those of you too young, too old, or too new to the Sunshine State, John Ellis Bush doesn’t just happen to reside in Florida. He was the governor for eight years, elected and re-elected with the crossover support of conservative Democrats.
His entire presidential campaign has been crafted around his self-buffed legacy as Florida’s chief executive, touting it in every stump speech and in every debate. Yet now, only 13 months before Election Day, he’s mired in fourth place in the one state where it was supposed to be a slam dunk. How is this possible?
The explanation might be simpler than you think: Jeb broke the cardinal rule of well-liked ex-politicians. He came out of retirement.
Not so long ago, when he was still a private Coral Gables businessman, he was a venerated and unassailable figure among Florida Republicans.
Check out the latest numbers:
Trump leads the pack in Florida with 28 percent. Next comes Carson at 16 percent, followed by Rubio with 14 percent.
Jeb is hanging on at 12 percent.
It’s one thing to be trailing a silly character like Trump in places like Iowa or New Hampshire, but to be 16 points down in a critical swing state, your home state, is truly shocking.
Rubio’s a legit contender, but Carson is a loony bird who can’t go more than a week without babbling something that requires a hasty “clarification.” His recent comment suggesting that the victims of the Oregon college massacre were too passive during the shootings was particularly idiotic.
It’s astounding that Jeb is lagging behind even this guy in Florida.
Sure, the former governor didn’t show much fire during the two televised debates. He’s also had some stumbles of his own, including that appalling “stuff happens” remark about the Oregon killings.
But stacked up beside the insult-belching Trump and the spacey Carson, Jeb should be looking like Winston Churchill.
Imagine if you were one of the wealthy donors who wrote a six- or even a seven-figure check to the Bush Super PAC early this year, thinking you were betting on a sure winner. Now you’re looking at the headlines and lunging for the bourbon.
The situation is so serious that Jeb is considering taking his ex-president brother on the fundraising trail, a once-unthinkable strategy. He risks reminding voters about Iraq and the 2008 financial meltdown that left the country with a Bush hangover. A seven-year absence from the scene is what has boosted George W’s numbers.
It’s too early for Jeb’s supporters to panic, because the race is far from over. He has collected more money than any other Republican, and he’s finally starting to spend some on advertising.
Jeb hopes that the conservative infatuation with Donald Trump will fade, Ben Carson will go home to Mars and other long-shot candidates will go broke and drop out. That’s the only path back to the top of the polls.
Where he would probably still be, if only he’d stayed retired.
By: Carl Hiaasen, Columnist for The Miami Herald: The National Memo, October 13, 2015
“Ben Carson Gives New Meaning To Crazy”: He’s Managed To Prove He Has Lost More Than A Few Shingles Off His Roof
For more than a few months many campaign experts and pundits have been trying to figure out how and why semi-prominent surgeon and political nut-boy Ben Carson has been doing so well in the Republican race for president. He has maintained healthy numbers in the polls and seems locked into a strong second place position in a field of candidates where experience and common sense are viewed as huge liabilities.
But it wasn’t until last week that Carson managed to prove he has lost more than a few shingles off his roof. Ben has his own space program going and he’s out there on the fringe talking nonsense in a soft, nonthreatening manner that is quite similar to the voice level heard among so many sitting sadly by themselves today in Day Rooms of mental institutions, off in a corner, wearing paper slippers, slowly eating apple sauce, unaware that nobody is listening.
Somewhat incredibly though, a small percentage of people are listening to Gentle Ben. And he is indeed running for president of the United States. And each day he takes the field and gives new meaning to crazy.
A few days ago, Ben was asked about the latest mass shooting on a college campus in Oregon where nine died because a mentally deranged young guy had 14 guns and no girlfriend. WWBD: What would Ben do?
“I’m glad you asked that question,” one of the two leading presidential candidates of the Republican Party replied. “because not only would I not probably not co-operate with him, I would not just stand there and let him shoot me. I would say, ‘Hey guys, everybody attack him. He may shoot me, but he can’t get us all.’”
And there it is. Ben is clearly a movie buff.
Ben probably saw himself as Little Bill in Unforgiven who was confronted by William Munny in a saloon showdown. Little Bill was a bad-ass sheriff, a bully who had beaten to death Munny’s only friend, Ned, and hung the body outside the saloon.
In the scene that perhaps excited Ben, Little Bill is promising free drinks and prattling an empty-headed moron, a guy the crowd listens to because he’s wearing a badge. Little Bill is surprised though as Munny arrives, rifle in hand and shoots the skinny bar owner. Then Little Bill and William Munny confront one another.
“Well, sir, “ Little Bill says, “You are a cowardly son of a bitch because you have just shot down an unarmed man.”
“He should have armed himself if he was gonna’ decorate his saloon with the body of my friend,” Munny tells Little Bill.
At that moment, Little Bill seems to recognize Munny and says, “I guess you are Three-Fingered Jack out of Missouri, killer of women and children,” And Munny tells him, “I have done that…killed women and children. I have killed most everything that walks or crawls and now I have come to kill you, Little Bill, for what you done to Ned.”
Right here is where Ben Carson starts taking notes. He must have been mesmerized because, clearly, it has had a huge impact on his outlook.
“He’s got one barrel left, gentlemen, “ Little Bill announces to his saloon pals who are either cowering or heading for the nearest exit. “After he has used it, pull your pistols and shoot him down like the cowardly, drunken scoundrel he is.”
Ben wanted the students at that Oregon Community College to charge the shooter. After all, he only had four weapons on him. If Ben had more time to think he probably would have woven a few scenes from Saving Private Ryan into his answer. After all, the Germans on the bluff above Omaha Beach had multiple weapons but they were beaten back because we charged them.
A few days later, Ben was on CNN where he insisted that the number of Holocaust victims would have been greatly reduced if more Jewish people in Europe owned guns. Here he is on that topic: “I think the likelihood of Hitler being able to accomplish his goals would have been greatly diminished if the people had been armed.”
(We pause here for a quick, commercial-free reminder: This guy, Ben Carson, is running for president of the United States and according to many polls is placing second to Donald Trump as the potential candidate of one of two major American political parties, the Republican Party.)
His supporters list several reasons why they would consider voting for him: “He seems like a nice man. He speaks softly. He is a fine Christian. He speaks his mind.”
He is also a few quarts short of a gallon. But when it comes to Ben Carson’s preposterous campaign, count me in with Chauncey Gardiner who said in Being There: “I like to watch.”
By: Mike Barnicle, The Daily Beast, October 11, 2015
“A Sad Window Into Our Political Dysfunction”: 3 Peerless Republicans For President; Trump, Carson And Fiorina
The leading contenders for the Republican nomination for president tell us three interesting things about America.
First, many G.O.P. voters are so disenchanted they’re willing to entrust the country to candidates — Donald Trump, Ben Carson and Carly Fiorina — with zero experience in elective office or military command. Only two men without previous time in major elective office or the military have been president, Herbert Hoover and William Howard Taft, and both had held cabinet posts. No president has ever been as inexperienced as any of these three leading Republican candidates.
Second, the public feels an odd awe for C.E.O.s and presumes they know how to run things, even if their records suggest otherwise. This cultural reverence for C.E.O.s perhaps also explains why pay packages have increased — and why Fiorina was allowed to take home a $21 million severance package after she was fired as Hewlett-Packard’s chief executive for incompetence.
Third, the only kind of welfare that carries no stigma in America is corporate welfare. For all Trump’s criticisms of government, his family wealth came from feeding at the government trough. His father, Fred Trump, leveraged government housing programs into a construction business; the empire was founded on public money.
My bet is that Trump, Fiorina and Carson will fade, and that voters will eventually turn to a more conventional candidate, perhaps Senator Marco Rubio. From the Democrats’ point of view, the scariest Republican ticket might pair Rubio with John Kasich. Rubio has natural political skills, projects youth and change, and would signal that the Republican Party is ready to expand its demographic base. Rubio and Kasich would also have a decent chance of winning their home states, Florida and Ohio — and any ticket that could win Florida and Ohio would be a strong contender.
But instead, Republican primary voters for now are pursuing a bizarre flirtation with three candidates who are the least qualified since, well, maybe since Trump put his toe in the waters before the 2000 election.
In that sense, they offer a window into the American psyche — part of which is our adulation of the C.E.O.
There’s something to be said for C.E.O.s’ entering politics: In theory, they have management expertise and financial savvy. Then again, it didn’t work so well with Dick Cheney.
More broadly, the United States has overdone the cult of the C.E.O., partly explaining why at the largest companies the ratio of C.E.O. compensation to typical worker pay rose from 20 to one in 1965 to 303 to one in 2014, according to the Economic Policy Institute.
In any case, even if you were conducting a job search for a great C.E.O. to lead the free world, you wouldn’t turn to either Trump or Fiorina.
My sense is that Trump isn’t the idiot that critics often claim (the most common words voters used to describe him in a recent poll were “idiot,” “jerk,” “stupid” and “dumb”). This is a man who is near the top of diverse fields: real estate, book writing, television and now presidential politics. He’s a born showman, a master of branding and marketing. But he doesn’t seem a master of investing.
Back in 1976, Trump said he was worth “more than $200 million.” If he had simply put $200 million in an index fund and reinvested dividends, he would be worth $12 billion today, notes Max Ehrenfreund of The Washington Post. In fact, he’s worth $4.5 billion, according to Forbes.
In other words, Trump’s business acumen seems less than half as impressive as that of an ordinary Joe who parks his savings in an index fund.
An index fund might also have been less ethically problematic. In the 1970s, the Justice Department accused Trump of refusing to rent to blacks. And in 2013, New York State’s attorney general sued him, alleging “persistent fraudulent, illegal and deceptive conduct”; Trump denied the charges.
If Trump’s performance as a business executive was problematic, Fiorina’s was exceptional. Exceptionally bad.
Put aside the fact that she’s the C.E.O. who fired thousands of workers while raking in more than $100 million in compensation and pushing H.P. to acquire five corporate jets. Just looking at the bottom line, she earned her place on those “worst C.E.O.” lists she appeared on.
As Steven Rattner wrote in The Times, Hewlett-Packard’s share price fell 52 percent in the nearly six years she was at the helm. H.P. did worse than its peers: IBM fell 27.5 percent, and Dell, 3 percent.
Oh, and on the day she was fired, the stock market celebrated: H.P. shares soared 7 percent.
If I wanted a circus ringmaster, I’d hire Trump. If I wanted advice on brain surgery or hospital management, I’d turn to Carson. Fiorina would make an articulate television pundit. But for president?
The fact that these tyros are the three leading presidential contenders for a major political party is a sad window into our political dysfunction.
By: Nicholas Kristof, Op-Ed Columnist, The New York Times, October 8, 2015
“Chaos Is The GOP’s New Normal”: Trembling And Moaning, Republicans Now Saying “Make It Stop, Make It Stop, Make It Stop”
At this point, I worry we’re going to start finding members of the Republican establishment curled up in their beds, eyes clenched shut and ears covered with trembling hands, moaning “make it stop, make it stop, make it stop.”
Pity their suffering, but remember that they brought it on themselves.
The insurrection that propelled billionaire Donald Trump into the lead for the GOP nomination and ultimately made House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) surrender his gavel in frustration rages on unabated. This was no mere summer skirmish. If anything, the rebellion is gaining strength.
It is dawning on the party grandees that their most recent predictions of Trump’s demise, like earlier ones, were wrong. He lost some ground after a lackluster performance in the second debate, to be sure. But he still has a healthy lead, with his slide halted or even reversed, and continues to enjoy — astonishingly — more than double the support of any Republican candidate who has held elective office.
More incredible is that in second and third place are retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson and businesswoman Carly Fiorina, both of whom share Trump’s distinction of never having been elected even dogcatcher. According to the Real Clear Politics average of polls, Trump is at 23 percent, Carson at 17 percent and Fiorina at 10 percent. That adds up to fully half of GOP voters defiantly thumbing their noses at all the senators, governors and former-somebodies who are languishing down there in single-digit limbo. Jeb Bush, for all his money and pedigree, is at 8 percent.
Imagine what assumptions the political cognoscenti would be making if it were Bush, not Trump, who had maintained such an impressive lead since July, both nationally and in the early primary states. The smart money — which seems pretty dumb this year — would surely anoint him the odds-on favorite to win the nomination. Yet it is taken as an article of faith by Republican wise men and women that Trump will surely lose. Somehow.
He might, of course. Running for president is hard, and Trump has already made some rookie mistakes. But after getting where he is on bluster, charisma and personal energy, he is now putting together an organization capable of performing the nuts and bolts work of a viable campaign. He even shows new self-awareness, acknowledging to interviewers that the last debate may not have been his best outing.
And there is a reason for Trump’s success that goes beyond his skill at burnishing his personal brand: He is saying what much of the GOP base wants to hear.
The party establishment has only itself to blame. From the moment President Obama took office, Republicans in Congress have been selling the base a bill of goods. They demonized Obamacare and cynically swore to repeal it, knowing they could not. They balked at sensible immigration reform, deciding instead to do nothing. They engaged in Pyrrhic brinkmanship over the budget and the debt ceiling, fully aware that in the end they would have to back down.
Promising to do the impossible was an effective short-term strategy for raising money and winning midterm elections. But if you keep firing up your supporters and letting them down, they become disillusioned. They begin to think the problem might not be Obama and the Democrats. It might be you.
That same dynamic is happening in the House, where Boehner’s decision to walk away has emboldened, not chastened, the ultraconservative revolutionaries in the GOP ranks. Look at the way they chased out hapless Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), who on Thursday abandoned his bid to succeed Boehner because of opposition from the radical Freedom Caucus.
If he chooses, Boehner can use his remaining weeks in office to keep his party from further injuring itself by shutting down the government or playing chicken with the debt ceiling. But it will only be a matter of time before the next speaker has to quell some far-right tantrum.
In the Democratic Party, the conflict is ideological — left vs. center-left. In the GOP, the struggle looks existential.
Put another way, it’s not hard to imagine a party in which there’s room for both Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, and you can easily imagine one supporting the other as standard-bearer. But a tent that can hold, say, both Trump’s view on undocumented immigrants — hunt them down and kick them out — and Bush’s support for compassionate reform? That’s not a political party, it’s a food fight.
The Republican establishment may ultimately find some way to drag one of its presidential candidates through the primaries. But chaos, Trump has shown, is the GOP’s new normal.
By: Eugene Robinson, Opinion Writer, The Washington Post, October 8, 2015
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