Jeb Gives a Shirt

For Jeb Bush, it’s been a long trip from a post-election pizza party in 2009 to 8 percent in the presidential polls today.

Back in 2009, Jeb Bush held court at an Arlington, Va., pie joint, advising Republicans — who’d lost a second consecutive presidential election — to stop being nostalgic for the past, to just move on.

The former Florida governor unbuttoned his shirt to reveal a T-shirt with the classic Reagan-Bush ’84 logo.

On Saturday, Bush made a 180-degree turn.

At a campaign stop in hometown Miami, before a throng of supporters, the former Florida governor unbuttoned his shirt to reveal a T-shirt with the classic Reagan-Bush ’84 logo. That Bush was his father, George H.W. Bush.

“The party that I believe in …” he said, but broke off as the crowd drowned him out with cheers.

When the applause faded, he continued: “That’s the party I believe in: Reagan and Bush. With Ronald Reagan, our friends knew that we had their backs and our enemies feared us. And we were strong and resolute, and the end of the Cold War happened because of great leadership.”

What a difference six years makes. More, what a difference plummeting in the polls has made on the third Bush who hopes to live in the White House.

[lz_ndn video=29695340]

Jeb has plunged from a field-topping 21 percent in March to just 8 percent in the latest ABC/Washington Post polls this cycle.

For those who are too young to remember, 1984 was the last election that deserved a real exclamation point for conservatives. The ultimate anti-establishment Republican Ronald Reagan won 525 electoral votes — the highest total ever by a presidential candidate — beating Walter Mondale with 97.58 percent of the electoral votes. The Gipper came within 3,761 votes of winning all 50 states.

Four decades ago, the economy was booming. Reaganism was changing the world. The Soviets were still pounding their chests but sputtering with dictators who seemed to die every five minutes. After a dismal and depressing period in the 1970s, the U.S. was prosperous, patriotic, dominant.

Looking back at photos of our ’84 college election night party at the Hanover Inn in New Hampshire, everyone seemed to glow. And it wasn’t just the beverages we were imbibing.

America!

Twenty years later, President George W. Bush, Jeb’s brother, pulled out his own re-election victory. Vigorously “swift-boated,” John Kerry capsized. But far different from the Reagan-Bush ’84 landslide, this Bush was re-elected with only 50.73 percent to Kerry’s 48.27 percent of the popular vote, and 286 electoral votes to Kerry’s 251.

Is it any wonder that after being buffeted in the polls and ridiculed mercilessly by GOP front-runner Donald Trump in this season’s best reality show not listed on the Nielsen’s chart, Jeb Bush needs to recast himself?

America.

So is it any wonder that after being buffeted in the polls and ridiculed mercilessly by GOP front-runner Donald Trump in this season’s best reality show not listed on the Nielsen’s chart, Jeb Bush needs to recast himself?

That’s what he did as he pulled his best Superman impression.

“We’re on the verge of the greatest time to be alive,” he said, doing his best to channel Reagan’s optimism. “This is the greatest country on the face of the earth, and I don’t know about you, but I’m tired of people tearing down this country and dividing us. I believe we need to unite behind a common purpose. And that purpose is a strong America, because America’s leadership in the world matters. When we’re strong, we’re secure.”

On Tuesday, he sent out an email titled: “JEB BUSH: A REAGAN-INSPIRED TAX REFORM PLAN,” and said: “As president, I will be committed to leading in the Reagan spirit and ensuring that families will no longer struggle to pay their bills to pay for a government that is already overfed.”

Quite a turnaround from Jeb 2009. After his brother left office with approval numbers in the high 20s, a nation in economic turmoil, and the historic election of Barack Obama a fact of life, Jeb’s diagnosis for the GOP was that we all needed to get over our Reagan obsession.

Appearing with former Virginia U.S. Rep. Eric Cantor (stop laughing), Bush told the pizza eaters present in 2009, “I felt like there was a lot of nostalgia and the good old days in the (Republican) messaging. I mean, it’s great, but it doesn’t draw people toward your cause.”

“You can’t beat something with nothing, and the other side has something. I don’t like it, but they have it, and we have to be respectful and mindful of that,” Bush said. “From the conservative side, it’s time for us to listen first, to learn a little bit, to upgrade our message a little bit, to not be nostalgic about the past because, you know, things do ebb and flow.”

So his brother’s stewardship of the economy, the handling of 2005’s Hurricane Katrina, the failed push for immigration amnesty, and the country’s war-weariness weren’t the problems. The problem was “messaging,” and our Reagan nostalgia.

To Jeb, at least 2009 Jeb, the answer to the Democratic shellacking was to change course, hard. Throw out the old, bring in the new — and maybe tack toward the liberal message, so Republicans could be like Democrats, who clearly “have something.”

Now, though, crumbling in the polls, Jeb has seen the light — at least, according to his T-shirt that he no doubt suddenly dug out of a box in the attic and dusted off. The question remains, though: Does the shirt even fit?