Jeb Bush's campaign is on political deathwatch. He's "had a brutal few weeks," says Bill Scher at Politico Magazine, "and the vultures are circling," but he's essentially in the same sorry position as John Kerry in 2003. And that "was the start of a comeback story." In fact, Scher said, "the parallels between the Kerry and Bush predicaments at this stage of the race are beyond striking," starting with their 4 percent poll numbers just 27 days before the Iowa caucuses. The lesson from John Kerry '04, he adds: "You can be an uninspiring establishment candidate and still win the nomination. How? By being the last candidate left standing." Scher explains:
Kerry's victory was not predicated on getting a personality transplant. He stuck to his boring script, used his personal finances to keep the campaign afloat and waited for everyone else's weaknesses to become apparent. Once the others flopped, voters flocked to him as a safe harbor. Written off a few months earlier, Kerry ended up running the table, winning virtually every primary and caucus. Bush is in the same position Kerry was in November of 2003: floundering with the public yet surrounded by untested candidates and stocked with institutional resources. These are the necessary ingredients for outlasting the competition. [Scher, Politico]
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