Jeb Bush seems finally to have figured out what his campaign should be about. The problem for the former Florida governor and one-time presumed Republican nominee is that it took him a year.
After a stuttering start, scrambling to find the right answer to his brother’s war record, and a lethargic campaign, Bush strode into the final town hall meeting of his New Hampshire campaign in Portsmouth with an energy that was absent from most of the TV debates.
"Low energy" is Donald Trump's regular and effective digs at the candidate trying to be the third Bush to make the White House home.
The Bush that appeared through Monday night’s snowstorm, on the eve of the first primary elections in the US presidential race, didn’t match the businessman’s description.
Beforehand, he even helped staff bring chairs into a conference centre to accommodate the 450 people who trudged through in the snow to hear him.
Although his posters have dropped the politically toxic Bush name for the upbeat “Jeb!”, the 62-year-old starts his event with an unwavering embrace of his dynastic pedigree, to cheers from the crowd.
“Look, I am a Bush. I am proud of it – let’s get this out of the way real quick: I love my mother, I love my dad, I love my brother,” he said.
“If anyone has a problem with that, they are just going to get over it.”
Many among the mainstream Republicans thought they had a winner in Bush. This was reflected in vast sums of money he raised.
Jeb has the second biggest campaign war chest after Hillary Clinton. By the end of January, he had $155 million – just $8 million short of Clinton's haul.
Right to Rise, the Bush-affiliated super political action committee (PAC), has spent more than $65 million on attack ads mostly against his one-time protegé, Florida senator Marco Rubio (44), resurgent Ohio governor John Kasich and New Jersey governor Chris Christie in a bid to win the establishment heat of the Republican race in a state where more moderate candidates fare better.
Donor investments have suffered a poor return. Nationally, Bush is languishing at fifth in the polls, 25 points behind Trump and 12 behind Rubio.
In New Hampshire, though, he seemed to hit his stride, benefiting from a stronger 11 per cent fifth-place before the primary.
He came close to the running the “joyful” campaign he had hoped to run.
“You watch the debates,” says Patti Evans (62), speaking after Bush’s rally in Portsmouth.
“He is very soft, he is not spirited. He is not full of it, but he has got a lot to him.”
Bush has promised to stay in the race until his home state primary in Florida on March 15th and he can afford to stay in until then.
In Portsmouth, he hit out at Rubio and Cruz, questioning their record and their capacity to lead.
“This is not aspiring to the backbench of the US Senate where people literally brag about filing amendments and calling it success.”
He jabbed Trump – “the front-running candidate who believes it’s all about him” – and the more eloquent candidates who have outshone his mostly stuttering performances in the debates.
Intimate discussions
Bush is the policy wonk of the Republican field and, while it didn’t pay off under the debate TV cameras, he won fans in New Hampshire in intimate discussions where voters like face-to-face engagement.
"The national debate stages hasn't suited him well," says Dante Scala, a politics professor at the University of New Hampshire.
“He has been overshadowed and there have been a lot of expectations and how does he take down The Donald, which wasn’t his bag.
“In a town hall meeting in New Hampshire, he is not the showman . . . he is very earnest and wonky and has shown a real willingness to answer people’s questions in detail. He exudes kind of a mastery of policy which may help him a bit.”
Some in Portsmouth believe being a Bush has handicapped him but not enough to knock him out of the race.
“If his name wasn’t Bush, he would be ahead,” says James Betti (58), a physician from Rye, a town about a 15-minute drive away.
“He will go on. He has a lot of money.”
Gale Richard (55), from Rye, shudders at the thought of New Hampshire marking the end of the Bush presidential dynasty.
“No, don’t say that,” she says, preferring Bush to the bandwagon effect of frontrunner Trump or a surging Rubio or Kasich as independently spirited New Hampshire voters often do.
“You can’t just go with the winner. You have to vote for who you think is going to do a good job.”
