Joe: Trump ‘Defined Jeb Bush’ and ‘in So Doing ... May Have Destroyed His Candidacy’
RUSH TRANSCRIPT:
BARNICLE: “Joe, one of the more amazing things that I think has happened in this political year whether you agree with me or not, Donald Trump from the beginning on Jeb Bush, low energy, it stuck. It stuck. It’s with him every time. As Donny just alluded to, every time you see Jeb Bush on TV, the thought comes into mind, low energy.”
SCARBOROUGH: “And it is. I mean, it will be taught in political courses in the future talking about defining your opponent. You always want to define your opponent. The first campaign management school I ever went to I was told that the key was to define your opponent and to draw distinctions between you and the president you were running against. Donald Trump has done that. He said it on the stage last night in Springfield, Illinois. He’s defined Jeb Bush. In so doing that may have destroyed his candidacy.”
GEIST: “When you try to go out and prove that you’re not the thing you’ve been defined as, it looks unnatural. Jeb Bush as having been defined as low energy tries to come out and show he has energy and it looks manufactured. I would caution though his right to rise super pac has $100 million to spend. He’s not going to go away.”
DEUTSCH: “If you were advising Jeb tonight and Willie has a point where you have to stay authentic. He should go over the top at trump and say I’m mad as hell. I’ve been low key at this point. I wasn’t going to engage. The American public, this is unacceptable. You need a grown-up. You are a fool. You want to talk about your ‘Saturday Night Live’ — get angry. People would relish that. What does he have to lose at this point?
SCARBOROUGH: “I don’t know if he can do it. The question is to Willie’s point is that who Jeb Bush is? Is Jeb joyous to be in this race? He said he would run a joyful campaign. Nothing looks joyful about this campaign. He appears to be in the words of Elvis Costello a man out of time. His time may have passed him up. I hoped he would have ran in 2015 and it’s a funny thing about politics. The window opens up. Your window of opportunity opens up. And it closes just as quickly. It’s looking now like that may have happened with Jeb. Donny, let me ask you, I’ll put the question back to you. You’ve got a Super PAC with $100 million. You have a candidate that seems to be underperforming at every turn. What do you do with th$100 million? It’s the famous statement that you can make the dog food but can’t make the dog eat the dog food. What do you do if you have $100 million and the Jeb Bush problem?”
DEUTSCH: “You scare voters with the other candidate. We all know the only political ads that are effective are negative ones because you can play with facts. It’s hard for any of these guys to come up with positive facts. You do basically a Barry Goldwater campaign against the other two guys. You don’t even talk about Jeb. You make it about oh my god we could have nuclear war with Donald Trump and Putin will assassinate Ben Carson. And you know what? Just stay safe. You do the Lyndon johnson/barry Goldwater ad.”
GEIST: “In that “The New York Times” today the message is that Marco is a risky bet. Someone who has never been in charge of anything larger than two dozen people. So that’s clearly the direction Jeb is headed.”
DEUTCH: “There’s a logic. If you really think about it, let’s just go on saying he is born. He is just all this stuff. But what could actually happen if any of these other guys got their hands on the lever? That’s where the $100 million is going to go.”
