On the heels of uninspired reactions from an Iowa focus group, “Morning Joe” co-host Joe Scarborough sounded the lack-of-enthusiasm alarm Thursday for former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush among potential Republican primary voters.
Scarborough, along with Bloomberg’s Mark Halperin, remarked that voters they’ve come in contact with at GOP events, unlike other candidates, are not coming to events to see Bush. The MSNBC host said that voters are simply not “talking about him,” adding further that excitement surrounding the potential candidate is “non-existent.”
“Nobody’s running around with their hair on fire going ‘I just hate Jeb Bush’ — it’s worse than that,” Scarborough said. “Nobody’s talking about him. I have yet to find the first person in all the Republican events I’ve been to come up to me and go ‘I’m here for Jeb.’ It’s non-existent.”
“Have you ever had anybody come up to you in any of these Republican events saying, ‘I came here, I drove here specifically for Jeb?'” Scarborough asked Halperin. “You hear that for everybody else. Have you ever heard that for Jeb?”
“No passion and not top of mind,” Halperin told the “Morning Joe” co-host. “And again, this [Iowa focus] group, the voices are just loud and clear, just they’re not interested in another Bush.”
“I do think that he would be the strongest general election candidate. And I think he would be a great president. That’s me personally,” Scarborough admitted. “But, boy, I don’t see how gets through a primary process where people — again, it’s not anger or rage. They just don’t connect to him.”
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[h/t: RCP]