Note to Jeb Bush, who must be perplexed by his substandard standings in the first two electoral tests: For years I roamed around the United States with television news camera crews. Because the big camera made us pretty visible, we often got stopped by people pointing fingers (and sometimes jabbing them), saying stuff like, “You guys are making the president out to be … ” and depending on who the president was at the time, you can fill in the blank: “a liar,” “a crook,” “a klutz,” “a fool.” It happened a lot when Nixon was president, but he wasn’t the only one. The accusation came from right and left alike.
My response to the charge that we were making a president seem like something he wasn’t was always pretty much the same: “Mister,” (or Madam), “we can’t make him look like a liar” (or a crook, or a klutz, or a fool) “without his help.”
Which brings me to the plight of the once-aspirational Bush Dynasty. Not so long ago, Jeb Bush was expected to dominate the nominating process. But Iowa, then New Hampshire, essentially became contests between candidates not-named-Bush. In Iowa, Jeb scored less than 3 percent of caucus support; it can’t feel good when news organizations name the post-caucus leaders but you’re listed with “others” (especially if you’re a Bush). In New Hampshire, he came in fourth; his percentage of the vote barely made it into double-digits.
As one analyst put it, “It is not a good sign (for a campaign) when you have to drag in your 90-year-old mother.” Especially since the plain-spoken matriarch already had publicly proclaimed, “We’ve had enough Bushes.” Well, she might be getting her wish.
And that brings me to a New York Times report last month, when Jeb’s campaign already was teetering, headlined, “As Jeb Bush Struggles, Some Allies Blame His ‘Super Pac.’ ” Critics of the pro-Bush Political Action Committee said it had gone too far attacking some opponents with its $100 million war chest, and not far enough attacking others.
Translation: an often anemic aspirant like Jeb Bush can’t gain a grip, but somehow it’s someone else’s fault, not Jeb’s. Look, personally I find Bush the most capable and maybe most likable of Republican candidates (although that’s not a high bar to meet in this field), while frontrunner Donald Trump is the most shallow and offensive. But it’s hard to deny that Trump’s oft-repeated anti-Bush attack-line seems accurate: “Jeb is low energy.”
Which brings me to my point here: Jeb can’t look “low energy” without his own help; the rest of us are just the messengers. After the GOP debate before Iowa, Politico’s chief political correspondent drew this unflattering picture: “Jeb Bush is like a Shakespeare protagonist wandering through a Charlie Sheen sitcom.” A week later, a friend and I were skiing but she wasn’t feeling her strongest, so she joked that she was having “a Jeb day.” Once the stigma starts to stick, it’s hard to shake it.
The race obviously isn’t over, but Jeb’s momentum might be because times have changed. Candidates have to reflect their audience, a lot of it anyway. Sadly, today’s audience lives in a short-attention-span, quick-fix, celebrity-centric, high-energy society. Low energy just doesn’t cut it. Stirring simplicity — “It’s gonna be great” — evidently does.
Critics rail against the news media for putting the obnoxiously egocentric billionaire Trump center stage. But you know what? We can’t make him interesting (like a car wreck is interesting) without his help.
I’ll give Trump credit for that one thing: he makes his own breaks.
Jeb Bush doesn’t. Don’t blame his PAC, don’t blame the media, don’t blame his mother, don’t even blame his brother. Just blame Jeb.
So, note to all politicians: We can’t make you look poor in the eyes of voters without your help.
Greg Dobbs of Evergreen was a correspondent for ABC News for 23 years, then for HDNet television’s “World Report.”
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