For a few months now, Jeb Bush's campaign has been insisting that the Jeb! Comeback is on, and that the media should get in on the ground floor of this amazing narrative. Today, that narrative is channeling Percy Bysshe Shelley. Here's how the comeback is going.
I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed:
And on the pedestal these words (from The New York Times) appear:
Speaking to a crowd at the Hanover Inn near the Vermont border during his final stop of the day, Mr. Bush finished a fiery riff about protecting the country as commander in chief — “I won’t be out here blowharding, talking a big game without backing it up,” he said — and was met with total silence.
“Please clap,” he said, sounding defeated.
The crowd laughed — and then, finally, clapped.
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away."
This has been the Jeb! Comeback Watch for Feb. 3. Jeb Bush finished in sixth place in Iowa (2.8 percent). He is currently in fifth place in New Hampshire (8.9 percent), fourth place in South Carolina (8.7 percent), and fifth place nationally (5.4 percent).
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Jason Linkins edits "Eat The Press" for The Huffington Post and co-hosts the HuffPost politics podcast, "So, That Happened." Subscribe here. Listen to the latest episode below.