Shields: ‘On Paper’ Jeb ‘Had the Best Record Going in; He ‘Just Hasn’t Connected’

WOODRUFF: “Right. Does one or another of them, Mark, have an advantage in some way, as you see it?”
SHIELDS: “I think Christie is the best candidate. He’s the best natural candidate.”
WOODRUFF: “As a campaigner.”
SHIELDS: “As a campaigner, he’s the best. But what all of them face, Judy, is — at this point is that they’re starting to get — as they pop their head up, whether it’s Marco Rubio and his absenteeism from the Senate, or it’s Chris Christie and it’s nine times the credit rating of New Jersey has been lowered, or if it’s John Kasich, and the Bush people are now — or the Bush PAC, at least, is raising the fact that, in 1994, John Kasich in the House, as a House member, voted for the assault weapons ban, and that this is now a disqualification, with all that has happened in this country. But you start to see, they realize that only one of them probably can really survive New Hampshire and Iowa. And so the sniping at each other is going on. I would say Bush is just the anomaly. I mean, Bush had the best record going in. He was — he had the best peer review. He had a record as a conservative in a reasonably conservative party, a swing state, a Latino wife. He spoke Spanish. You know, on paper — but he just hasn’t connected, basically. And he’s now down to he’s got to win Peterborough, he’s got to win Keene.” [crosstalk]