Maddow: If Jeb Keeps ‘Failing’ at Running, It Boosts Otherwise ‘Fringe’ Candidates

Rachel Maddow put Jeb Bush‘s pretty bad campaign week in some important context: if he continues “failing” and doing so incredibly poorly, it gives a boost to candidates who would otherwise be dismissed as “fringe.”

Maddow was talking about Bush continuing to stumble day after day on the question of whether the Iraq War was wise, a “totally predictable basic qualifying question for his candidacy.”

“If Jeb Bush, the purported frontrunner,” Maddow said, “is already failing the basic stuff he knows he has to get right, what that does is that makes the whole huge field of Republican candidates who aren’t Jeb Bush not just interestng for being such a big field, it makes it potentially important who’s in that field.”

And because of that, she pointed out, these other candidates “can’t just be dismissed as cranks or protest candidates or folks on the fringe, these are all folks who legitimately have a shot.”

And just like she did Tuesday, Maddow continued to hammer Bush for skipping the Iowa Straw Poll, saying it’s indicative of either a “secretly genius move” or Bush “surprisingly failing the basics of what it means to run for president.”

Watch the video below, via MSNBC:

[image via screengrab]

— —

Follow Josh Feldman on Twitter: @feldmaniac

New: The Mediaite One-Sheet "Newsletter of Newsletters"
Your daily summary and analysis of what the many, many media newsletters are saying and reporting. Subscribe now!