Milwaukee, Wis. – “I’m not good at playing like I’m something I’m not,” Jeb Bush told a crowd gathered at the Ohio Chamber of Commerce. “I am his friend, and he is mine. I am never going to disparage him.”
That was in mid April, just six months ago, and he, of course, is Florida senator and Bush protégé Marco Rubio, who in recent weeks has bested Bush in presidential debates and surpassed him in early state polls. It’s an indicator of how much things have changed for Bush, once considered the race’s frontrunner, as the Republican primary has gotten underway in earnest, and a reflection of the fact that Bush and his advisers, who once operated by the dictum, “Let Jeb be Jeb,” have come to realize that Bush may have to change in substantial ways if he is to become the Republican party’s standard bearer.
The campaign’s strategic shift comes as many Bush donors, themselves a keystone of a campaign that has publicly boasted of its overwhelming financial strength, say that the pressure is on for the former Florida governor as he goes into Tuesday’s debate in Milwaukee. Following a campaign reboot, they want to see a solid performance both to buoy dispirited donors and quell media criticism.
“Normally, in instances like this, you don’t want to raise expectations so high on a singular event,” says another Bush donor. But due to the “unique set of circumstances” that have developed in the campaign – Bush’s underperformance and Rubio’s rise – “Jeb does need to perform on Tuesday night.”
“He doesn’t need to hit a home run,” says the donor, “ he just needs to hit some singles.”
Even those who know him best concede that the pressure is on.
“He has a lot at stake in this debate. Clearly as the field winnows down and you get closer to [primary season], Governor Bush has to step up,” says Jim Towey, who led George W. Bush’s Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives and is now president of Ave Maria University in Florida. “Everyone involved in the Bush campaign — including the governor — knows the last debate didn’t go well. And they understand that this debate obviously has to go better.”
Towey is one of the former governor’s closest friends; their families share Thanksgiving dinner together, and Towey landed the White House job at the former Florida governor’s recommendation. He says Bush admits he has struggled to “connect with people” in the debates, despite his command of the issues.
The explanation for Bush’s struggle, according to members of his inner circle, is simple: Bush loathes the gameshow-like environment of presidential debates and thrives in policy forums and roundtable formats where substance trumps presentation. In the immediate aftermath of the Colorado debate, Bush vented to friends that his “bad night” owed to aesthetic assessments rather than evaluations of his preparedness and his ideas.
Yet the subsequent outpouring of exasperation from members of Bush’s financial network — arguing that running for president is a performance, and that his wonkery will be irrelevant unless his stagecraft improves — seems to have penetrated Bush’s thinking and awoken him to the panic that has percolated inside his operation since the first debate in August.
#share#So the Bush team is ready for change. Some indications: A $20 million investment in television advertisements from Right to Rise, the super PAC supporting Bush’s bid, reportedly intended to damage Rubio’s reputation, and the hiring of a top-notch media trainer to hone his debate skills. The moves, to redouble a decision to attack the former governor and to make an investment in improving Bush’s showmanship, indicate the campaign’s acknowledgment of what needs to change if Bush is to win the nomination: They’ll have to take out Rubio, and their candidate will need to embrace some of the drama and theater that animates modern politics.
Bush and his team have tried to jab Rubio but have been unsuccessful thus far. Bush is not a natural attack dog. When he criticized Rubio for missing key Senate votes during the third Republican debate earlier this month, his criticisms fell flat. And given the praise he has heaped on Rubio over the years, and his avowals not to attack him during the campaign cycle, he risks looking like a cynic in choosing to do so now. That’s the case the Rubio campaign is making in a YouTube video released Tuesday morning titled, “Before the Phony Attacks.” It features Bush heaping praise on Rubio over the years, including during the 2012 campaign, when he said that Rubio would make an able president.
On the subject of presidential debates, Bush is fully aware of the stakes, and he has been telling supporters at every turn, “I have to get better.” And as a symbol of his commitment to self-improvement, Bush even agreed to hire famed Fox News media coach Jon Kraushar to help refine his presentation.
“Hiring the Fox guy showed us something,” says one prominent D.C. donor who is committed to Bush for the long haul but, like a growing number of Bush loyalists, had been growing anxious about the lethargic approach to debate season.
“The campaign folks were hearing from donors: ‘Like it or not the governor is being judged on these debates and needs to take his game to a higher level,’ Towey says “So while the debate formats look more like beauty contests than auditions for the presidency, he knows he still has to make a credible showing there. And I think he will.”
Members of the Bush family have something a tradition of backing themselves into corners and finding their way out. In 1988, George H.W. Bush, then the sitting vice president, delivered a shocking third-place finish in the Iowa caucuses, but came back to win the nomination. A dozen years later, George W. Bush lost the New Hampshire primary to John McCain and thanks to the deployment of some vicious campaign tactics, clawed out a critical victory in South Carolina and eventually won the nomination.
#related#So while some in Bush’s orbit view Tuesday’s debate as a make-or-break moment, others continue to take the long view, insisting that his steady approach – Bush has referred to himself as a “grinder”— not to mention the campaign’s considerable resources and infrastructure, will allow him to survive a marathon primary season.
Fritz Brogan, a D.C.-based Bush bundler who has also organized events for the campaign, says, “Look, the debate is important. But regardless of what happens the governor has the most accomplished conservative record in the race, a superior political organization, and a base of loyal supporters who will keep fighting for him.” Says another top donor: “He’s insanely competitive, he’s gonna crank it through all the way to March 1, for sure,” the date of the so-called SEC primary in which eight Southern states go to the polls.
And that’s the case whether the campaign lets Jeb be Jeb, or fashions a new and improved version.