Jeb? Can't Fix This

So here I am, trying to claim I won't go blogging this month of November because of my NaNoWriMo efforts - P.S. please visit the Writing page on here and support a fellow American by purchasing a few ebooks... ow stop hitting me, what, a guy can't market his ebooks out here? - and while I'm pretty good on my word count so far on the novel effort, I just had to come back and blog about this ridiculous hare-brained marketing idea that the Jeb? Bush people have decided to go with to relaunch their troubled campaign.

(If you're worried about poor sentence structure just now, relax, this happens a lot when you're rushing out a 50,000 writing project)

Anyway.  The Jeb* people have come out with a brand new slogan for their boy to campaign on:

Jeb Can Fix It

Cough.  Heh.  Heeehahaha.  Snerk.  Guffaw.  BWHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHHAHHHAHAHA gasp wheeze HAHAHAAHAHAHAAHAAAAA.

I am thinking back to that book about campaigning, the classic Selling of the President tome about the 1968 Nixon run for the White House.  Advertising is all about branding, about creating loyalty and love for a product, and intermixing that to political campaigning it means creating an identity for a politician that people can immediately use to picture who that candidate is and what he/she stands for.

Which is part of Jeb?'s problem right now.  His early attempts this 2015 to create an identity - starting off as The Front-Runner Establishment Guy that could not impress anybody, then as The Heir To the Bush Legacy by selling the "my brother Kept Us Safe" lie - have gone nowhere.

So here we are at Attempt Number Three to get Jeb><'s campaign "back on track"... by going with a quickie ebook release of materials - his political emails - already ten years old, and by crafting a slogan that sounds like someone watched Wreck-It Ralph or Bob The Builder too many times.

Just going by Twitter - a method of tracking the current mindset of the public awareness - this relaunch phrase is a disaster.

In a serious examination here: claiming that Jeb "can fix it" in a vague manner opens up that slogan to a myriad of interpretations.  It also allows for his critics to bring forth all the flaws and errors of his previous works - his broken promises as Governor, the sorry shape of the state of Florida as he left it, the terrible education record, his criminal repression of voting rights for minorities, his screwed involvement in the Election 2000 debacle, the Terri Schiavo fiasco...

Claiming Jeb "can fix it" while his poll numbers keep slipping is a joke of a premise, a disaster of a promise.

Trying to change a political persona this late in a campaign cycle after a public slide in voter confidence and support reeks of desperation.

And yet the Jeb? Bush Zombie Campaign slogs on.

In the Jeb! Said What? Category Today (And It's August 2015)

Caught over the weekend using the derogatory term "anchor babies" to rail against immigration, Jeb Bush spent today trying to clarify what he actually meant by that (quote via Washington Post):

Former Florida governor Jeb Bush on Monday dismissed the controversy surrounding his use of the term “anchor baby” during a visit to this U.S.-Mexico border town, saying that he merely used the term to describe instances in which non-Americans abuse the law to gain citizenship for their children, and that it is more prevalent among Asians.

“What I was talking about was the specific case of fraud being committed where there is organized efforts — and frankly it’s more related to Asian people — coming into our country, having children in that organized effort, taking advantage of a noble concept, which is birthright citizenship,” Bush told reporters during a press conference at Palenque Grill in McAllen (TX).

So... Jeb! is taking a term that applies often to Hispanic families coming into the United States - legally as well as illegally - and applying them to other ethnic groups - Chinese, Japanese, Indian - that deals with the same amount of racist hostility from Caucasian-American a-holes.

Interestingly enough, the insult "anchor baby" originally applied to Vietnamese refugees coming to the United States after the fall of South Vietnam in the 1970s.  So in a way Jeb! is kind of right.  He's just still incredibly racist about it.

Jeb! has pretty much insulted two massive ethnic voting blocs - even as they are in reality culturally diverse within their own ranks - with one blow.  The tone-deafness of this act points to two things: 1) Jeb! really doesn't know how to campaign on a national stage, and 2) The point-of-view of the epistemic bubble Jeb! lives in does not look kindly upon ANY ethnic group that's not rich and Eurocentric.

At this rate, I wouldn't be surprised if Jeb! goes out of his way to insult Greek-Americans next.  I would love to see Jeb! burned in effigy along the streets of Tarpon Springs FL.

This is your Republican Party, America: even the "Establishment" candidates are talking the language of hate and discrimination.

It's JEB! The Musical

Remember how I griped about the bad logo idea Hillary Clinton's people decided to use for marketing their 2016 campaign?

Leave it to her main competitor Jeb "Third Time's The Charm" Bush to go even sillier.  Per Balloon Juice, it's:

Via Huffington Post tweet.

The comments on Balloon Juice have gotten pretty snarky.  Then again, it's not a Bush-friendly blog over there.

Oliver Willis over on his Twitter account noted how it's the same damn logo Jeb! used back in 1998 for his governorship run: "jeb couldn't even be bothered to come up with a new logo for his presidential run?"

For me, it comes down to just one thing: BWHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.

I have to admit there's a bunch of other peeps on the tweets who are thinking the same thing I am: this is just the banner title of a brand new off-off-Broadway musical: Jeb!

Ah yes, the brand new crowd favorite of old old rehashed Republican campaign platitudes: Cut taxes!  Cut Social Security!  Invade the same countries again!  With hit songs guaranteed to win Tonys and Grammys as the nation gets marched over the cliffs of Republican doom!

The fans will rave to such hit tunes as "Blame It On The Willie," "Invading Iraq (A Father's Lament)," "In Grover's Bathtub," "How Low to Death Row/Pretending To Be Hard On Crime," "Who Needs Voters/Purging the Rolls," "Invading Iraq (A Brother's Lament)," "To All The Schiavos I've Humiliated Before," "Making Money On The Last Name," "I Can't Run On The Last Name," "The Recession That Killed Our Legacy," "How Obama Ruined My Brother's War," "Who Invited Fifteen Clowns To My Coronation," and the show-stopping finale "Invading Iraq (Third Reprise)."

Puts me in the mood to make more Honest Bumper Stickers, but I'm nowhere near my graphics editing program at the moment.  I'll save that for tomorrow.

In the meanwhile, BWHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!