Faith in Jeb Bush's chances at becoming the Republican presidential nominee seems even more unrealistic to me, an agnostic, than the embodied return of Jesus Christ.  Why is he running?  His popularity among Republicans has declined steadily since last July.  He seems to be the main cause of his own fall.  Trump's jabs haven't helped him, of course, but Bush has proven he's not the kind of public figure who thrives on adversity and challenges from others.
     Why is he running?
     Bush's father, a CIA director in the 1970s and vice president in the 1980s, a U.S. Navy pilot shot down over the Pacific Ocean in World War Two, a Skull and Bones Fraternity member (like his father Prescott before him and son George after), a man who increased Manuel Noriega's CIA asset salary and later sent a 23,000 man force to Panama to arrest him with approximately 4,000 civilians dying as "collateral damage," has said he doesn't understand Donald Trump.  "Poppy" Bush, an old school politician and mass murderer, never resorted to elementary school bullying tactics while he ran for political office.  There was a time in televised political races when no one wanted to appear rude and nasty.  Television cameras and microphones pick up what's said, what's expressed on faces.
     This relatively polite discourse ended in the last decade or so.  Sarah Palin, who's currently kind to Trump (he's her type of no-brain appeal candidate), took steps in the direction of appealing to the mass idiot mind.  Her political message was recycled Reaganism.  She was pro-military, pro-guns, nationalistic, xenophobic, anti-intellectual, pro-American flag, Christian.  Although well-off (and later a millionaire from her bestselling ghost-written autobiography) she convinced middle class citizens (using the "Soccer Mom" and "Mama grizzly bear protecting her cubs" motifs) that she was one of them.
     Only seven years after John McCain unleashed Palin on America, another rich unqualified politician began to seek high office.  Donald Trump, like Palin, also pro-military, pro-guns, nationalistic, xenophobic, anti-intellectual, pro-American flag, claims he's Christian, and he's very rich.  That last "qualification" somehow doesn't deter his followers (almost all of them not rich) from not "identifying" with him and his rich man's values.  When a politician claims he's "just like you," he's full of shit.  In Jeb Bush's case, voters perceive he's not like them.  They haven't been raised in a  successful political dynasty with deep international connections to Middle East billionaires (including the bin Laden family).  Bush's first mistake was the campaign slogan, "Jeb!"  The exclamation point, came at the start of the campaign, before anyone could know the man might truly prove to be exciting--the kind of grass roots politician who, like Bernie Sanders, builds up from a base with a consistent message ordinary people can relate to.  The exclamation point seemed like a new band releasing a debut album called We're Amazing!
     The exclamation point has vanished from the signs.  Bush has no catchy slogan, like Trump's Orwellian "Make America Great Again."  He's far behind in the Iowa and New Hampshire polls.  I wonder if he could even come in third place in Florida, the state he once governed.  Yet, his campaign, a huge chestful of money from faithful rich fucks who must think in old school terms while America's political landscape has obviously become the domain of cutthroats, moves onward, its awkward candidate, lacking even the exclamation point, addressing gatherings in restaurants like it's all the way back in 2004.
     I saw a clip of Jeb Bush a few days ago, interviewed briefly in a restaurant by an MSNBC reporter.  Joking about something, he smiled and looked around, expecting laughter, but only one person in the camera's view looked at him, and her face was Greta Garbo stony.

                                                                            Vic Neptune