Discussion: Jeb Bush Takes Trump Head On

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Discussion for article #243821

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I wish they had just given everyone nerf paddles and just let em’ go at it —

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Wow. Lauren Fox misses the actual story just the way Jeb! misses his shot at making Trump implode.

Actual story: Jeb had his moment there. That was his moment for the debate, probably the entire campaign. He could’ve turned everything around there. And he blew it.

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Someone actually watched this?

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Wow, what a lousy group of candidates. They all subscribe to a list of made up “facts” and treat us like idiots who can’t see through them. They give Hillary responsibility for the entire 7 years of Obama’s presidency, while arguing that she is incapable of handling the office. Each of them seems to have been assigned one real fact that they can use to prove they aren’t totally insane, but, with that exception they manage to be wrong about every single thing they talk about. Barf!!

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Agreed. Pathetic by Bush.

He could have said something like this:
"Donald Trump talks tough as if he knows anything about national security. as if he knows anything about keeping a country safe. The biggest decisions Donald Trump has had to make in his life are deciding what color drapes to hang in the lobby of his hotel. Whether the 18th hole should be par four or five. Whether he should fire Omarosa or Gary Busey. What did you decide Donald, solid gold toilet seats or just gold plating?

Donald Trump has made exactly one life or death decision in his life and that was to pretend that he was too unhealthy to serve his country in Vietnam. Thats not the person I would trust to fight the bad guys."

Then he could have just walked off stage.

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Sunshine, lemon drops and Trump. He loved it, had a fabulous time. JEB’s great, bit of a pussy, but great.

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The caviar cowboy came into the debate desperate to score some points and cut Trump down. The only thing he accomplished was score points for shrillness. Fail.

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Jeb Bush had one aim Tuesday night and it was to take down Donald Trump.
…
Snicker
Why send in Goofy when you need the Terminator.
If bush wants to “take down” Trump he can do it but it would take Trump unknowingly walking into a prearranged and carefully practiced retort he could not respond to Much like Lloyd Bentsen’s take down of Dan Quayle. Watch Bentsen’s face as Quayle is speaking. He knows he’s got a fish out of water.

This is a take down by a professional

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Brilliant. So true. I think that retort might even have shut donald up for, ohhhh, maybe 5 seconds. But a glorious 5 seconds it would be.

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Jeb Bush is a terrible, terrible candidate. When he’s not phumphering every sentence, he’s trying to act tough while coming across as completely bland.

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Baseball bats. And not the nerf ones…

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I am going to disagree with people on Bush’s performance here.

What he did do, was get under Trump’s skin. And for anybody else watching, which includes all over the other candidates, he did so pretty easily. Trump got flustered and reacted like a 5 year old.

If Bush can pull it off, somebody with any skill at all will make him explode.

It might have stopped Bush from falling, and he may even pick up a few points. Mostly because I think Rubio had a bad night…and the Establishment lane just got muddier. So as people start drifting around a bit…they are going to give Bush another look.

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The neo-nazi guy wants to build higher walls. The two Cuban-Americans want everyone to know they hate foreigners. The candidate with the baby pacifier wants everyone to know that he learned how to fight a war from his older brother. The governor who hopes his former staff won’t turn against him wants to project integrity. The former presidential candidate who was a former governor who was a former preacher says he’ll support the candidate no matter how irrational he is. The former executive who sent jobs to China says send her $3 so she can tell China what to do. The former brain surgeon wants you to elect him president and buy his book. The libertarian candidate is getting strong support from marijuana supporters, which begs the question of how many marijuana supporters will even vote Republican.

At the end of the debate no one seemed to notice the obvious: This generation of Republicans is still incapable of governing.

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Donald Trump also thinks being sent to military school for discipline problems is equivalent to having military experience.

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Trump’s reply was respect this, respect that blah blah. He was visibly irate and having trouble with his temper. Jeb should’ve come back hard on ‘respect is the one thing you’ll never have, not even from the people up here who kiss your ass, Donald’. Take the damned gloves off and go. Nope.

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He started to, but he didn’t go for the kill shot. He had Trump. He had him, and it was obvious just watching the split screen… and Jeb couldn’t seal the deal.

That’s the takeaway here: Trump called Jeb ‘nice’ to imply weakness as a retort, and Jeb proved him right. He showed he doesn’t have the killer instinct, and he doesn’t have the judgment that’d let him poke an opponent into a self-immolating mistake.

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I totally agree with that assessment. Bush actually broke into his hurt puppy face over the “nice, but not strong” comment.

Bush doesn’t have the skill to deliver the kill shot. But somebody like Rubio could. Or Cruz, though I suspect that Cruz and Trump have come to an “agreement”. And that “agreement” was probably the biggest news story that isn’t being reported in this campaign so far.

They played nice with each other, giving out backslaps, complimenting each other. Cruz basically retracted his taped comment and gave Trump a virtual handjob in the process. Trump said no 3rd party run.

My guess is they have decided to join forces…Cruz will be VP. But Mr “Big Deal” Trump is dealing with a snake in the grass. If Cruz wins Iowa, shows strong in NH and possibly wins SC…Cruz will drop the deal. And then all bets are off.

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Yeah I agree with you that there is some deal or understanding between Cruz and Trump. It’s to both of their advantages to be the top candidates – if one of the Establishment candidates takes over Cruz’s spot in the polls then they might gain enough traction to ultimately clinch the nomination (and totally marginalize Cruz and Trump in the GOP going forward). Additionally, if they believe there is a credible threat that the Establishment will try to pull shenanigans at the convention – presumably against both Cruz and Trump – then the two might want to band together to insulate themselves from those shenanigans. Lastly, they are a natural POTUS/VP pairing for each other compared to the other candidates, so there may be some talk of that going on.

No idea why no one else picked up on it yet though, like you said. The “ah-hah” moment for me came when Trump totally walked away from his criticism of Cruz this weekend. That was very un-Trump-like. Which suggests that there was some kind of an agreement.

The only alternative to that is maybe just that Trump realized it was bad politics for him to attack Cruz, and visa versa, so they were only nice to each other for optics.

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