To most observers, most notably the Republican base and primary voters, Jeb Bush has shown more money than momentum. In fact, his 100 million Right to Rise dollars are five times what Mitt Romney had this time four years ago. JebTide has been showing up in decent but eroding poll numbers. And so, “Jeb!” (yes, those exclamatory signs sans surname are back) is finally and formally addressing this credibility deficit.
We saw it in his well-orchestrated, diversity-backdropped, presidential-candidate announcement speech on Monday from Miami. He referenced the need for reinvigorated military strength and resultant respect, as well as an economy that should be able to grow by 4 percent annually–and produce 19 million new jobs. As well as potshots at both Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. And we heard numerous pull-quote lines. To wit:
* “The economy’s more than the stock market.”
* “Washington is the static capital of this dynamic country.”
* “I know we can fix this, because I’ve done it.”
* “I will run with heart, and I will run to win.”
* “It’s nobody’s ‘turn.’ It’s everybody’s test.”
We saw it in recent staff changes that reshuffled key personnel. That includes the well-chronicled appointment of the aggressive Danny Diaz as campaign manager.
We saw it in last week’s requisite European trip that provided key photo ops and a forum to reference and praise his respected dad, George H.W. Bush–not his gaffe-prone, Iraq-invasion-reviled brother, George W. Bush.
And we saw it earlier this week when he did his first “official”-candidate interview with Fox News kingmaker Sean Hannity. And we also saw, more pragmatically, that he did “The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon.”
The former appearance was must-do conservative pandering. The latter was a page out of John F. Kennedy’s 1960 playbook. That’s when candidate Kennedy went on “The Tonight Show” with Jack Paar to appeal to a demographic different from party faithful and political junkies.
But that was then–and this is not. Jeb is no Dubya, but he’s also no JFK.
And then it was off to New Hampshire.