Thursday, October 29, 2015

DID THE JEB DEATH SPIRAL START BEFORE THE DEBATE?

It's fairly obvious now that Jeb Bush is toast. But did last night's debate kill his chances -- or just make obvious the fact that the campaign has been terminal for a while?

I'm looking at a couple of newly released state polls that were conducted before the debate. The results, for Jeb, aren't pretty.

One was conducted last week in Oklahoma by The Oklahoman. Here are the top finishers:
Carson 25
Trump 19
Rubio 9
Cruz 7
Huckabee 4
Bush 3
There are similar numbers in this Franklin & Marshall poll of Pennsylvania, conducted October 19-25:
Trump 23
Carson 22
Rubio 13
Kasich 6
Cruz 4
Bush 3
Christie 3
Fiorina 3
Yeah, Jeb's been in the doldrums in a lot of polls. But 3%? Seriously? In the Pennsylvania poll at least, that's below the margin of error (+/- 3.9%).

I think it's been over for a while for Jeb. His remaining voters were heading for the exits before last night. Now the pundits finally get it.

6 comments:

  1. Don't say "toast"! Say, rather, that his campaign is in a persistent vegetative state...

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  2. Wait, his campaign just blinked! There, see that? It smiled! It's still there.

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  3. Lots of cross-talk here with Delongians and Kilgorites, methinks.

    IMO there's no Top Six, only a Top Three - Trump, Rubio & Cruz.

    None but those have a plausible route to gaming this nomination. The first and third could run into serious trouble with the GOP ownership class, Charlie Black et al; but the base will mostly come out in the general for whoever regardless, so that comes down to the usual: an extended lie-off in American Thunderdome - a caged & gerrymandered potential vote base in the clutches of state-controlled largely no-paper vote-machine shenanigans, with a delicious topping of outrageous attempts to game the Electoral College.

    Carson's in mental crisis; that "everyone knows I tried to stab someone" story is an iceberg warning. And Kasich is being actively purged like Moscow 1936. Unless & until Mitt parachutes in (which I don't expect), no one else is worth considering.

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  4. I'm pretty sure Mitt is grinning like a Cheshire Cat.

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  5. Ten Bears raises something quantum physics dictates against: rather than Schrodinger's cat in superposition, he envisions merging Erwin's simultaneously alive-&-dead cat with Carroll's ghostly Cheshire.

    TB neglects, however, to even attempt to justify this deviation from Pauli's Principle.

    Is the answer in a tree?
    How, one asks, could that even be?
    If not among its branches thin,
    Does it lie within the grin?

    This could be just the right hypothesis;
    Except he gave all theory a miss.
    We could know more from Everett,
    But for that one last cigarette.

    TB, don't leave us in the dark:
    Does it have to with that third quark?
    One of the ups, or a stranger that's down?
    If one is missing, does the Cheshire frown?

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  6. Jeb's grinning.

    In or out.

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