Saturday, February 27, 2016

James Kirkpatrick - VDare:Conservatism Inc. Has Learned Nothing From The Fall of ¡Jeb!—Too Bad - "If Trump conquers the GOP in the name of frustrated nationalists and patriotic conservatives, the Beltway Right can’t say they weren’t warned."





In retrospect, it all looks so inevitable. Jeb Bush’s campaign failed because he was a “woeful candidate”.  [Who killed Jeb Bush’s Campaign? Jeb Didby John Cassidy, The New Yorker, February 22, 2016] His staff blundered with an “epic misread of a GOP base hostile to any establishment candidate, especially one with hisbaggage-weighted last name”. [Inside Jeb Bush’s $150 Million Failureby Eli Stokols, Politico, February 20, 2016]And Jeb was a “fundamentally miscast” man who never really had a chance [Jeb Bush never really had a chance in the 2016 presidential raceby Chris Cillizza, Washington Post, February 21, 2016].
That’s what they say now. But the truth is that Jeb Bush was an entirely viable frontrunner. The smart-money prediction a year ago was that a center-right candidate with party backing and deep pockets could lock up the nomination. This is traditionally how it works in the Republican Party. As Politico’s Mike Allen memorably put it a year ago, “barring a major disruption in the force field” the candidate would be Jeb Bush. [PlaybookFebruary 25, 2015] ...