Why is Jeb Bush still running?

Washington, DC

The Bush family hates to lose. Yet Jeb Bush — child of one president; brother of another — must know that, barring a miracle, his bid for the White House has failed. In fact, it has been a disaster. Bush started out as overwhelming favourite. He had the Grand Old Party top brass behind him. He had all the money a candidate could wish for. But his candidacy just would not take off. His biggest problem, as everyone knows, is his name. After Iraq and the financial crash, the Bush brand is toxic. Bush tried reinventing himself as ‘Jeb!’, but that was a naff PR stunt. Jeb! was monstered by Donald Trump, who called him the ‘low-energy’ candidate. On Monday in Iowa, he got only 3 per cent of the vote. It’s estimated his campaign spent more than $5000 for each vote. Bush’s campaign is perhaps best summed up by a tragicomic moment in New Hampshire on Tuesday, when he had to beg his audience to clap: The question after Iowa is, why is Bush still running? For several weeks, his campaign seems to have had one purpose: to hurt his former protégé, Marco Rubio, who after last week’s caucuses is now overwhelming favourite of the so-called establishment candidates. Jeb insists he still has love for Marco, but there must be bad blood between them and their camps. Bush’s candidacy has rightly been described as an ‘anti-Rubio zombie campaign’. Bush’s Right to Rise political action committee has spent millions running TV ads against Rubio. Bush isn’t the only establishment candidate with a vendetta against Rubio. Chris Christie seems to loathe him. He calls him the ‘boy in the bubble’ and says Rubio is ‘constantly scripted’. Christie is thought to be setting himself up for a ‘showdown moment’ with Rubio in the crunch TV debate on Saturday. That would seem to be his only hope of reviving his dying candidacy. But the animosity is not only tactical: it is bitter. Rubio succeeded in wooing some major New York donors, whom Christie had spent years trying to impress, and Rubio’s campaign crippled Christie in the early stages with some vicious attack ads. As the New York Times reports this morning, Christie and Bush’s campaigns are now ’teaming up’ to expose Rubio’s weaknesses. Neither Christie nor Bush would appear to be doing themselves many favours by targeting the man doing better than them. But the level of rancour suggests that, far from settling on Rubio, the Grand Old Party is determined to tear itself apart. And it shows that Rubio might not be the conservative-Republican ‘unity candidate’ after all.