Steve Sailer tweets: “¡Jeb¡ campaign strategy of appealing to Mexicans more than Americans more appreciated by reporters than voters.”
Reporters love lovable Republican losers like John McCain and Jeb Bush.
Voters Might Not Miss Jeb Bush, but…
COLUMBIA, S.C. — By the time I was assigned to cover Jeb Bush, he was already becoming the exclamation point that couldn’t.
Even his gait — long-limbed and newly gangly courtesy of the Paleo diet — and the way he seemed to curl slightly into his 6-foot-4 frame told the story: A campaign that was supposed to be “joyful” had become a slog.
He had taken to handing out small toy turtles to children he met along the way, in what often felt like a parable intended just for him — maybe slow and steady could, still, win the race.
Ultimately, the end came painfully, as he finished fourth in the South Carolina primary on Saturday, yet another disappointment in a year full of them. The nation, simply, did not want what he was selling.
But his presence will be missed in the 2016 race among those of us who covered him.
Even as he stumbled as a candidate, he was, in many ways, a reporter’s dream.
He held news conferences so frequently — nearly daily — that their absence felt newsworthy. And he seemed constitutionally incapable of not answering questions, even those he should not have. As aides tried to hustle him away, he would often pause and turn back, or roll down his car window, to give a final response, throwing political caution to the wind.
