I'm sure Jeb is calling up those potential 2016 donors even as we speak, now that it's likely that we're not going to get an immigration bill identified with Marco Rubio, and now that he's seen the results of this new ABC/Washington Post poll about his brother George:
Days before his second term ended in 2009, Bush's approval rating among all adults was 33 percent positive and 66 percent negative. The new poll found 47 percent saying they approve and 50 percent saying they disapprove. Among registered voters, his approval rating today is equal to President Obama's, at 47 percent, according to the latest Post-ABC surveys.Memo to Anthony Weiner and Mark Sanford: Don't try to come back in a year or two -- go off, do nothing, paint kitschy puppy pictures, and seem genuinely harmless for five years. Then wander back into the limelight. Oh, and coming back after an inventively embarrassing, highly public sex scandal is apparently impossible. Coming back after destroying the global economy and starting two ruinous wars you couldn't win on money we didn't have? A minor offense by comparison. Pity about all those dead soldiers, but at least you didn't post pictures of your wing-wang.
I'm amused by this, from the Post's write-up of the poll:
But on fiscal issues, Bush draws criticism from both left and right. Tea party Republicans regard him as a reckless spender.Really? They do?
Teabag Republicans are so disgusted by Bush's profligate spending that only 93% of Republicans approve of him.
Well, the notion that tea party types hate big spenders regardless of party affiliation was always a crock -- as was the notion that they have a Ron Paul disgust at Republican military adventurism.
So a Hillary/Jeb race in 2016 is seeming quite possible. If so, talk about being stuck in a moment we can't get out of.
