Jeb Bush and CPAC: how he answered some questions…

…and how you should ask them.

I suspect that these answers (via the Daily Signal) by Jeb Bush on immigration and Common Core questions will not much move the needle, one way or the other.

Jeb Bush is clearly a capable public speaker… but. He has some unpopular opinions on the subject, and that is the meat of it. Whether that hurts Jeb Bush in the primary any more than it has already is going to be the big question.

Moe Lane (crosspost)

PS: As you can see from the format, Sean Hannity asked the questions, Jeb answered them (some of my colleagues muttered that Jeb ‘answered’ them). I… well, there is no nice way to say this: having somebody there to ask the questions is often a good idea, because many (if not most) people don’t know how to ask questions. Far be it from me to criticize people for something without offering some advice in the process, so here goes:

How to ask questions.

  1. Keep it straightforward. This is not an opportunity to match wits with your opponent; if for no other reason than your opponent will likely win, because he or she is not your opponent: he or she is the person who will have the last word. So avoid going for a ‘gotcha,’ because you’re not going to get it anyway. Limited exception: you just want to see the politician squirm a little.  Fine, but remember the two rules below.
  2. Keep it simple. Multi-sentence, complicated scenarios – besides violating Rule #3 below – will just confuse everybody involved. I understand that this may be somebody’s only chance to speak to a particular politician, but that merely means that you have to strip your questions down to the bare essentials. You might actually get an answer to your core inquiry that way, instead of an answer to the irrelevant tangent that you inexplicably included.
  3. Keep it short. This is honestly the big one: most questions go on forever, to the secret annoyance of everybody who isn’t asking the question (or planning to duck it). Let me just use a hard number: for the average town hall or conference, no question should be longer than fifteen seconds. Ten would be better. So… time yourself. Repeat the question in front of a friend, and encourage them to give you critical feedback on how to tighten it up.  Do that, and you give the politician more time to respond.  More importantly, everybody else waiting to ask a question will get a slightly better chance to ask theirs.

Seriously, politicians love getting long, rambling questions that go nowhere, while also attempting to trip that particular politician up.  Much easier to obfuscate those; it’s the simple, yet deadly questions that a politician dreads. No reason to make it easier for them.

29 thoughts on “Jeb Bush and CPAC: how he answered some questions…”

  1. Pointed, but not openly hostile.
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    And yeah, Jeb (or his proxy) stacked the deck – as predicted. He remains dead to me.
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    Mew

  2. So .. explain just one thing to me.
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    You’re Jeb Bush’s campaign manager. You spent bucks bussing in ringers to ask softball questions at CPAC.
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    Why the hell didn’t you pay them to stick around long enough to vote in the straw poll!
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    Mew
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    p.s. Rand Paul came in first – no surprise, long Randian influence at CPAC. Walker came in 2nd.

    1. possibly 40 percent for Jeb would have been too obvious? regardless, the possibility exists that he will be the nominee. we could do a lot worse. like Rand, for instance.

        1. he has not disengaged nearly enough from his father’s positions. and going turtle is not the answer the the foreign policy mess Dear Leader has put us in.

          1. I agree with every bit of that.
            And yet he is still vastly preferable to Bush.
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            I could hold my nose and vote for Paul if I absolutely had to.
            But there is no way in hell that I ever would for Bush.

          2. …. If turning turtle gets the border enforced and some domestic problems fixed, I’m down with it.
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            I disagree with Rand on quite a few points, but I find your assertion that Bush 3.0 would be better on foreign policy to be .. unsubstantial.
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            Mew

        1. Agreed. Bush 3.0 is officially where I vote 3rd Party for the 1st time in my life in a Presidential election.

          Not negotiable. Nothing he can do will change that. I’ll support Walker, Rand, or Cruz (who I think are the other possibles at this point) without hesitation. But the Establishment can screw itself if it thinks the Presidency is a dynastic office.

          1. The gutless DC wing of the party can go find someone not named Bush to run… They found McCain and Romney…
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            Mew

  3. i want a conservative to win. No Bushes, no Clintons. and positions aside, i don’t think any first-term senator with no major executive experience is a good bet. but – half a loaf is better than the other side. i am not willing to sit on my hands due to a lack of *PURITY* in our candidate. we almost certainly will not get that unless Phil Robertson is elected. 🙂

    1. I know that song and dance, frankly I used to do it better than you are.
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      This is simple. The only way to get the GOP to stop nominating losers is to stop voting for losers. Period.
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      Voting for a loser gets you, at best, a loser. I decline to play that anymore. I have thrown away my noseplugs.
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      The GOP can nominate a competent, conservative executive, or they can go pound sand.
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      Mew

      1. p.s. I wouldn’t describe Phil Robertson as a competent executive, although he or Willy is pretty slick at marketing…. not willing to vote for Santorum-with-a-beard either.
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        Meq

          1. There are a number of candidates I consider as having sufficient executive experience and sufficient conservative** cred in the race. Jindal, Perry, Walker (in alphabetiical order) would be just fine.
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            Mew
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            ** conservatism in religion is quite different from conservatism in politics, a Venn diagram contains a small overlap,,

          2. Any other of the big 4. Without question. I’m not after purity. But I am after someone who at least ATTEMPTS to reflect our values, and is honest about where he has a distinct position.

            I can accept that. Politics isn’t a game of monoliths. But I will NOT accept a Dynastic Elitist masquerading as a miquetoast conservative. If the choice for President is a freaking Game of Thrones episode, I will vote Third Party. Period.

            Walker, Cruz, or Rand, no problem. That’s not even ‘holding my nose.’ But the Establishment has shown it not only stacks the deck, it does so for the LEAST viable candidate. If it insists on doing that again, it can pack sand and lose 49-1. Maybe THEN the message will get through.

          3. I would take Jindal and Perry as well. No question. But I don’t think either of them can beat out the Throne of Skulls.

          4. The argument “for” Bush is apparently that he’ll carry Florida.
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            He hasn’t done so in close to a decade, the politics of Florida have changed (and I defer to Big Gator to describe how) so.. I do not see this as a serious argument… but for those who insist on it, Jeb’d make an adequate veep.
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            Mew

          5. I don’t think Jindal or Perry could take the primary on their own merits, but either is preferable to Bush…. and one must allow for the low-order chance of Walker becoming tragically unavailable.
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            Mew

          6. I will enthusiastically support Jindal, Perry or Walker.
            Then there are some like Paul I could hold my nose and vote for, despite their glaring flaws.
            But I will not vote for Christie. I will not vote for Rubio. I will not vote for Carson. And I will not vote for Bush.
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            I believe the Venn overlap is a lot bigger than you’re giving credit for.
            The whole limited government/self-reliance scheme is predicated on strong families. Those don’t just happen. They have to be supported by society and religion to be the societal norm.

          7. (since this is getting long, this reply is for Luke)
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            Do you include Jesus-Statists like Santorum in that overlap?
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            Mew

          8. I don’t even consider Christie viable at this point, or he would be on my ‘No Go’ list as well.

            I will, at the moment, give the benefit of the doubt to Rubio. But I don’t think he has a chance compared to the other Senatorial candidates. Another gaffe like his immigration debacle, and he’s dead to me.

            I can’t bring myself to take Carson seriously enough to rate.

          9. Short version: Hell no.

            Longer version: as far as I’m concerned, anyone wanting to take power for the sake of immentizing the eschaton is a hard core leftist with whom I will not truck. Santorum and Huckabee are poster children of this phenomenon.
            Their vision of utopia is just as unachievable, and will accumulate nearly as many corpses.

          10. *this reply is to RangerSG regarding Christie*
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            Said it before, it remains true, Christie is the New Jersey Dems’ Valkyrie.
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            Valkyrie is “chooser of the slain”, the angel of death that roams the battlefield deciding which of the wounded live, and which die.
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            That is exactly the role Christie is serving as governor of New Jersey – he’s there to choose which of the Dem leeches live, and which die ..
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            There is *no way* Christie would be governor of New Jersey if the Dems wanted him gone – it’s not really a good resume-build, eh?
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            Mew
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            p.s. Christie’s better than Rubio – at least Christie has a clue about how to fight .. Rubio completely failed to study his opponents prior to his immigration charlie-foxtrot, until he corrects this (*his lack of understanding of the intellectual battle-space, not his positions*) he remains dead to me.

      2. This is simple. The only way to get the GOP to stop nominating losers is to stop voting for losers. Period.
         
        Yes! And that strategy works! Case in point: the Whig Party no longer nominates losers.
         
        However much may I agree with your sentiment, the many people who voted using that strategy ensured that Barack Hussein Obama was awarded a second term as president.
         
        I go by Buckley’s Rule: Vote for the most conservative/libertarian candidate who can win.

        1. That’s great, Herp.
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          Let me know when you’ve had a chance to personally visit and persuade each Iowan to embrace that idea…
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          Mew

    2. I think Christie only survives because there’s no viable Dem Gubernatorial candidate at present.

      I think he’d have a better chance running AS a Dem than the GOP right now. After all, Gun Control, Climate Change, Schools, he’s essentially one of them. In this, he’s a useful foil, because he gave the Dems an excuse for throwing the Public Sector Unions over the side when everyone knew what the budget killer was, but couldn’t fix it.

      But really, Union-busting alone doesn’t qualify you for President. Not when you sabotage your party at the 11th hour in 2012, and then indulge in snide remarks about the people who elected you in the 2 years since on a routine basis. Ann Coulter can go all Chris Matthews tingly about him if she wants. He’s still useless.

      1. I would politely suggest reading Moe Lane’s reporting on the most recent New Jersey gubernatorial ..
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        Mew

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