As my PJ Media and PJTV colleague Scott Ott says, Trump is the only one doing what he’s doing.
For Donald Trump, it wasn’t enough to upstage Jeb Bush by booking a town hall meeting at the same time as the former Florida governor. Trump had to attack him, too.
In a 30-minute press conference in Derry, New Hampshire, that was broadcast live on Fox News and CNN, the real estate mogul ripped into his GOP primary rival, saying, “I don’t think he’s electable.”
“Jeb Bush is a low-energy person. For him to get things done is hard,” a feisty Trump said.
Trump went after the former Florida governor on multiple fronts, dismissing Bush’s positions on education, health care, immigration and foreign policy.
While not an enthusiastic Trump supporter, I am not as dismissive of him as many who aren’t on board the Trump Train. In describing Jeb as “low-energy,” Trump is echoing something that many observers have said about Bush in recent weeks. He did it in a way that regular voters might say it, however, and that has been one of his singular gifts throughout all of this.
Trump’s timing today is a card he can play again and again. If he hits the same part of the campaign trail at the same time as one of the other candidates, the spotlight is swinging his way. He knows how to work the media. The others can try to play his game, but they don’t have the flexibility of spending their own money or the bombastic entertainer/salesman experience. Most of them are merely used to competing for attention against other politicians, which is a lower bar than Trump has had to deal with on network television.
Jeb may be low-energy, but he probably worked up quite a sweat today.
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