A senior adviser to President Barack Obama said it will be tough for someone like Jeb Bush, who hasn’t campaigned for elected office in 12 years, to wage a national presidential bid in today’s political climate, adding a comparison of the former Florida governor to a fictional ex-criminal from “The Wire.”
In an interview published Monday by the Huffington Post, Dan Pfeiffer said Bush was like the character “Cutty”, a former drug enforcer who later in life sets up a local gym on the HBO show.
“In his day, big deal. Out of the game for a long time. Gets back in the game. Game’s changed,” Pfeiffer said. “Jeb Bush, it’s been a long time since he’s run for office. Politics has changed dramatically since his last race.”
According to a recent CNN/ORC International Poll, Bush gained frontrunner status after announcing two weeks ago that he’s “actively exploring” a presidential bid for 2016.
Critics argue that Bush will find himself behind other prospective candidates when it comes to maneuvering the fast-paced, social media-driven machine of modern campaigning.
“I think it will be very challenging for someone who has not been in prominent public life in the age of Twitter to go out on the campaign trail,” Pfeiffer said.
Bush has in part tried to counteract those optics. He made his big announcement this month on Twitter and Facebook, and plans to release an e-book as well as thousands of emails from his time as governor. (The emails, however, were obtained earlier this month by the Washington Post through a public records request).
The documents indicate that Bush was an avid fan of email and even responded to hundreds of constituents and job applicants himself.
“I was digital before digital was cool,” Bush told WPLG-10 earlier this month. “I guess, now it’s like commonplace.”