February 21, 2016

This is why they pay him the big bucks folks. It must be nice to continue to be paid week after week when you're into Bloody Bill Kristol territory with continually being wrong about everything.

Here's Bobo on this Friday's PBS Newshour, still hoping for a miracle for poor old Jeb!:

JUDY WOODRUFF: I have to ask you both about Jeb Bush, one of the so-called establishment trio. David, he had his brother the former president in there. He had his mother, Barbara Bush, as we just reported, in there. What’s going on with Jeb Bush? Is this helping him?

DAVID BROOKS: The press thought Bush was coming back until — and he’s — I think if he hangs around 10, he can stay in until Florida. He’s got the money.

JUDY WOODRUFF: Ten percent. Yes.

DAVID BROOKS: I think he’s performing well.

People have sort of closed their mind, but if he falls down to around 5 or 6, you know, then, nationally, he’s at 4, so that’s not good. And so I think he can hang around, just because I — he may feel…

(CROSSTALK)

JUDY WOODRUFF: Even if he comes in fourth or fifth?

DAVID BROOKS: Well, I see Mark frowning at me. And I hate to — now I have the lord judgment upon me.

(LAUGHTER)

DAVID BROOKS: But I still think he feels called to hit back at Trump. I think he would hate to think that he wasn’t there to hit back at Trump.

He, of course, would help the anti-Trump cause by getting out, but I’m sure that’s not how he feels in his heart.

Mark Shields pointed out the obvious, which apparently wasn't lost on Bush either, given the fact that he suspended his campaign after his fourth place finish in South Carolina.

MARK SHIELDS: Yes.

That Wall Street Journal/NBC poll that David cited did an interesting thing. They did matchups if it did come down to two candidates, if it were Marco Rubio against Trump, or it were Ted Cruz against Trump. And both of them would beat Trump by 16 points, which is pretty impressive, 56-40.

So there is a real ceiling Donald Trump has. The one candidate Donald Trump did beat in a matchup was Jeb Bush. And I just think, at some point, it becomes just obvious.

JUDY WOODRUFF: You mean in a head-on-head, head-to-head.

(CROSSTALK)

MARK SHIELDS: Do you want to go home to Florida, where you were a successful and popular two-term governor, and lose, and especially if Marco Rubio, the mentee, gets the boost out of South Carolina, and the mentor — having finished sixth in Iowa, fourth in New Hampshire, I mean, do you really continue with another fourth in South Carolina?

I think it becomes awfully difficult, almost painful.

UPDATE: The post and headline have been corrected along with the transcript from PBS. Brooks said it helps the anti-Trump cause dropping out of the race, not hurts. It doesn't make it any less ridiculous that he believed that Bush could have hung in there until the primary in Florida. I apologize for the error.

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