It's harder to find two lazier, less inspiring candidates for President than Jeb! Bush and Marco Rubio. (Although the rest certainly fit the mold as well.)
Both seemed to think they would just ascend to frontrunner status out of their sheer awesomeness, and Jeb! additionally because he thinks, as a Bush, it's his right to be President.
Wrong.
In fact, their comments recently concerning their campaigns lead one to question why they're even in the race at all? Granted, I'm sure they think the job is a cakewalk, and they certainly see political power over the rest of us as a plus, and no doubt a profitable one. But really, they have no respect for the office itself, nor the people they would govern, and it shows. They aren't the low men in the polls for nothing.
Let's start with Rubio.
Finally the national media noticed that he's never there, and they questioned him on it. His answer was pretty revealing, and it shows just another reason why he has no business running for, or getting anywhere near, the White House. He's missing votes because he's running for POTUS, don't you know:
Marco Rubio is a U.S. senator. And he just can’t stand it anymore.
“I don’t know that ‘hate’ is the right word,” Rubio said in an interview. “I’m frustrated.”
This year, as Rubio runs for president, he has cast the Senate — the very place that cemented him as a national politician — as a place he’s given up on, after less than one term. It’s too slow. Too rule-bound. So Rubio, 44, has decided not to run for his seat again. It’s the White House or bust.
“That’s why I’m missing votes. Because I am leaving the Senate. I am not running for reelection,” Rubio said in the last Republican debate, after Donald Trump had mocked him for his unusual number of absences during Senate votes.
Before one "gives up on" the Senate, being there long enough to do something would help. But this is not for Rubio. Never has been. He heard the "Tea Party Darling" and "Golden Boy" hype and he never looked back. He's a firm believer in his own BS and it shows. He thinks he's too good for the Senate and deserving of the Presidency based on that very BS and nothing more. Zip.
Rubio has often used the tired and baseless phrase "leading from behind" to rant against President Obama, yet he's leading from behind by jumping on board the last losing GOP Presidential nominee Mitt Romney to borrow the phrase "free stuff" to demonize anyone benefitting from a social safety net. Yet he's relying on the "free stuff" paycheck provided by his own safety net, Floridians, and they're getting nothing in return. Just ask him, he's happily admitting it. This isn't new. He's been ignoring them since he was elected, and when he claims he's doing hard work for his constituents back home, don't believe it. No one back home ever sees him. If he's here, he's fundraising with the only constituency that matter to him, millionaires and billionaires with agendas.
While Rubio may claim to be frustrated with "gridlock" in Washington, look no further than to those who created the gridlock in the first place, the Republican Party and Marco Rubio. After all, the only meaningful legislation he ever signed onto was his own immigration bill, and when it came time to vote for it, he voted against it. "No votes" or no vote at all is earning him at the least $174,000 a year (not to mention that Obamacare subsidy he chose to take advantage of) and Floridans are sick of paying him for nothing. Now a government watchdog is joining them to say enough is enough, and calling for his resignation as is the Sun Sentinel. I agree. Since he's adopted so many of the same qualities of Sarah Palin before him, he should follow her lead and quit.
Then we have Jeb-(!)-His-Own-Man-Bush. In just a few short months, he's blown the myths that he's the smart Bush, that he's the inevitable frontrunner, and that with all the money, the great advisors, and the campaign staff, he was going to blow all the others out of the water. Wrong. And while Bush is languishing in the polls, he's trying to blame this all on the ego that ate the Republican Party, Donald Trump. That may be part of it, but Bush has only himself to blame. He's a bad candidate. That's one of his biggest problems. I would venture to say that even without Trump nipping at his heels, he would still be doing poorly, because he's tone-deaf, he's a Bush, and he's just awful.
Worse, he's shown total disregard for everyday Americans. He responded to mass shootings with "stuff happens." The Voting Rights Act? He sees no need to reauthorize it. One of his latest ideas was to "create another recession." He's against abortion, saying we spend too much on women's health, wants to repeal Obamacare and give all your health choices (and money) back to the insurance companies. And then there's his whole mythical 9-11 revisionist history, how "his brother kept us safe" and how his brother's response to 9-11, like attacking the wrong country and costing thousands of innocent lives in the process, was "awe inspiring." And those are just a few examples.
In spite of all the fundraising he did with Super PACs before he announced, and bragging that having all of the money was going to crush the rest, he may have learned that money doesn't buy you poll numbers, especially when you have a message as bad as his, and you're just as bad at delivering it to the masses. He responded to calls for minimum wage by saying instead people just have to work harder with longer hours to prosper, and now he's practicing that theory on his own campaign staff by cutting the salaries of some while dismissing others. Yet if you ask Jeb!, he will tell you this too is just part of his awesome plan. He dismissed concerns that the wheels were coming off his campaign in George W. Bush fashion: “Blah blah blah blah, that’s my answer, blah blah blah.” So presidential!
While he began his campaign trying to distance himself from his brother, he's hired the same advisors, has virtually the same policies, and turned to his brother and the rest of his family for fundraising and counsel. He's downright angry that voters haven't responded to his awesomeness, as are the rest of his family, and they're letting it show. They're also "perplexed" at the electorate, who seem to be angry that policies employed by the Bush family and the GOP have done so much damage to the country. How dare they not exist in the old days and prescribe to the old ways of trickle down fantasies and tax cuts for the rich at the little guy's expense? And how is it that this blowhard Trump is taking advantage of that anger while daring to point out the obvious that Bushes are bad for the country?
They, and Jeb! are having none of that, which lead Jeb! to say things like this:
“If this election is about how we’re going to fight to get nothing done,” Mr. Bush said, then “I don’t want any part of it. I don’t want to be elected president to sit around and see gridlock just become so dominant that people literally are in decline in their lives. That is not my motivation.”
He added, “I’ve got a lot of really cool things I could do other than sit around, being miserable, listening to people demonize me and me feeling compelled to demonize them. That is a joke. Elect Trump if you want that.”
Shorter Jeb!: If you can't see how awesome I am, you don't deserve me, nor my time.
As one who fully loathes the Bush family in general, and Dubya and Jeb! in particular, let me say don't let the door hit you.
In spite of the Republican Party who decided on the night of his inauguration that they would try to block everything he did, and indeed brought us the gridlock we now have, President Obama has still become one of, if not the best President we've ever had, and he's done more amid this GOP induced chaos than the Bush family and the Republicans combined. Jeb! Bush not only isn't up for the job, he's not fit to shine President Obama's shoes.
If he indeed has something "cooler" to do than run for President, Jeb! needs to get out of the race along with Marco Rubio, the Sarah Palin of the Senate, who has better things to do than his job.
These two are the GOP in a nutshell: Do very little while reaping the benefits of the office, an office they have no respect for, and "governing" people they really couldn't care less about.
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