Conservative Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan says in her latest op-ed that Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush has the same sense of “entitlement” found in Hillary Clinton, and that he’s failing to excite Republican voters.
“I realized Jeb is a Democrat’s idea of what a Republican contender should be,” she wrote. “Among Republicans of course he has some supporters, but the only really rabid pro-Jebbers I’ve met the past few months are former Bush 41 and 43 ambassadors who want back in the game. Of more immediate possible import, talks with Jeb donors suggest theirs was not passion money but canny financial bets placed when he was inevitable.”
“Neither Jeb nor Hillary embodies the current spirit of their party,” she continued. “Among Republicans that spirit includes hunger, anger, joyful aggression, a mood of ‘tear it down’ competing with a mood of ‘build something up.’ Among Democrats there’s a tilt leftward, against power centers, rebelling against inevitabilities. Neither party seems all that invested in continuing dynasties.”
Bush officially announced that he would run for the GOP presidential nomination in June. At the time, he was leading the party by a large margin in national polls. But after Donald Trump announced his own campaign shortly after, he has consistently bested Bush in subsequent polls, often by double digits.
A RealClearPolitics average of national polls currently shows Bush at 9.2 percent, 18 points behind Trump.
