On Friday, Mr. Bush’s disavowal of Mr. Trump landed as a bitter blow. The former Florida governor is revered among party veterans and has one of the most powerful fund-raising networks in Republican politics. In a statement, Mr. Bush said his former opponent lacked the “temperament or strength of character” to serve as president.
.. The populist Manhattan businessman responded with a statement savaging Mr. Graham, a senior spokesman for the party on national security. Mr. Trump boasted that he had “destroyed his hapless run for president” and consigned Mr. Graham to the political ash heap.
.. “While I will unify the party, Lindsey Graham has shown himself to be beyond rehabilitation,” Mr. Trump said.
.. Mr. Trump’s belittling attack poses a new challenge for a party already riven by frustration and indecision over his campaign.
.. Mr. Trump conceded in a television interview on Friday morning that he had been surprised by Mr. Ryan’s rebuke, and he sounded exasperated by the party leadership’s unwillingness to rally to his candidacy. “You talk about unity,” Mr. Trump said, “but what is this?”
.. Mr. Trump conceded in a television interview on Friday morning that he had been surprised by Mr. Ryan’s rebuke, and he sounded exasperated by the party leadership’s unwillingness to rally to his candidacy. “You talk about unity,” Mr. Trump said, “but what is this?”
Maureen Dowd: Escape From Bushworld
When Poppy Bush ran against Bill Clinton, he simply assumed that the public would not choose a draft-dodging womanizer over him. “His ambient reality was that a president was above all a figure of dignity and decorum,” Bush senior biographer Jon Meacham said. “Clinton went on Arsenio Hall. Bush 41 probably thought Arsenio Hall was a building at Andover.”
.. Despite all the talk about civility, the Bushes threw out the red meat whenever they had to, from Lee Atwater and Willie Horton in ’88 to W.’s supporters whispering in 2000 that John McCain came home from Hanoi with snakes in his head, to the W. 2004 campaign strategy of encouraging gay marriage ballot initiatives to rile up the evangelicals, to Jeb spending a fortune on ads this winter eviscerating the character of the man he deemed the disloyal protégé, Marco Rubio.
.. Trump stunned everyone by pointing out the obvious: W. and Condi were not on the ball before 9/11, when W. was mountain-biking and ignoring memos headlined, as Bill Maher drily put it, “Osama bin Laden is standing right behind you.” Then, after 9/11, they played right into Osama’s recruiting plans by invading and occupying two Muslim countries, instead of simply going after the guilty party, as W. had promised to do when he yelled through the bullhorn at ground zero.
.. The country is now aflame with anger and disgust about politicians and bankers who conned trusting Americans and never got punished for it. That fury has led to the rise of wildly improbable candidates in both parties. As the Bush dynasty falls, it must watch in horror knowing that it is responsible for the rise of Donald Trump.
The Last Days of the Bush Dynasty?
Bush backers are critical of the campaign, which has focused on high-minded appeals and meaty policy proposals despite abundant evidence there’s no appetite for either. Last week, Bush gave a speech at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York and rolled out a plan for national education reform; at his events, thick, glossy booklets containing page after page of details of his platform are distributed. The campaign seems to think the electorate will suddenly develop a taste for this.
Marco Rubio Sells Out His Principles
Rubio said, “Barack Obama does not believe that America is a great global power. Barack Obama believes that America is a arrogant global power that needs to be cut down to size.” These are lies. Since becoming a national political figure roughly a decade ago, Obama has uttered millions of words about America. In addition to his public statements, his private comments have made it into the media countless times. He’s never said anything remotely like what Rubio suggests.
If he had, Rubio would have quoted him.
.. Earlier this month, he claimed the president has “deliberately weakened America.” Donald Trump said Obama’s passport wasn’t American. Now, to compete with Trump, Rubio is saying Obama’s heart isn’t American.
.. Later in the evening, the moderators asked about Trump’s proposal to ban Muslims from entering the United States. Christie and John Kasich said they disagreed. Jeb Bush disagreed at length. Rubio did not. Instead, he began his answer by praising Trump for having “tapped in to some of that anger that’s out there about this whole issue because this president has consistently underestimated the threat of ISIS.” Then, after talking about how awful ISIS is, Rubio declared that, “When I’m president. If we do not know who you are, and we do not know why you are coming when I am president, you are not getting into the United States of America.” The listener who didn’t already know Rubio’s position might well have thought he supports Trump’s plan.
..Back in 2013, when nativist Iowa Congressman Steve King tried to use the Boston marathon bombing as a pretext to limit legal immigration, Rubio responded that, “We should really be very cautious about using language that links these two things in any way.” Not anymore... In reality, Rubio’s answer has nothing do with ISIS and everything to do with the fact that, having planned to run as the man who could help Republicans embrace multicultural America, he now realizes that most of them want to build a wall to keep it... Unlike Bush, he possesses the political talent to effectively challenge the paranoia and bigotry coursing through today’s GOP. Instead, he’s rolled over. At the debate, he left absolutely no doubt: His strategy for defeating Trump is to ape Trump. Bush may have lost the debate, as he has lost every debate, but he lost with dignity.