But even at home, Trump wasn’t far from Bush’s mind as he continued to call the Republican front-runner a “chaos candidate” who “fills space” but lacks seriousness.
“I’m the only candidate that has gone after him because everybody else seems to be intimidated by the bully — I’m not,” he said.
Bush’s willingness to go after Trump in recent weeks appears to even be filtering into his own assessment of the race: “We will win and when we do we will restore America’s greatness again,” he said seeming to channel Trump’s key phrases. “This primary is gonna be huge.”
Of the forty or fifty rebooted campaign strategies Team Jeb! has tried since Halloween, this may be the only one that makes even a little sense. Let’s face it, when Bush isn’t talking about Trump like an obsessive, scorned lover, the press just doesn’t pay much attention to him. The once presumptive favorite in this race now can’t get anyone to glance in his direction unless he plays satellite and revolves around Trump.
For his part, Trump seems to be streamlining his approach to the daily media battles. He’s not saying much about Jeb’s recent digs because he knows Bush isn’t much of a threat. Mr. and Mrs. Bill are threats, however, so Trump has been going after them.
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