Looking up, but not in the good way...

Jeb Bush's view from the bottom

No, he's not quitting. But the former Florida governor has a long climb back to the top tier. 

By Kyle Cheney

If Jeb Bush hasn't hit rock bottom, he's close — or at least as close as a son and brother of presidents and keeper of a $100 million war chest can get.

His campaign has been forced to scale back its free-spending ways, he's blown three prime time debate performances, he trails badly in polls of his home state, and now, a Quinnipiac Poll out Wednesday morning suggests the former Florida governor is stuck in the basement with the other longshots and bit-players.

Yet, amid the gloom, Bush stepped off a campaign bus in this coastal town Tuesday and delivered one of the sunniest performances of his campaign.

In a pair of town-hall style events here and in the nearby community of Raymond, Bush gave no sign of his predicament. He joked that one questioner who quizzed him on the economy could be his Treasury secretary. He cracked that he'd like to be buddies with actor Ben Affleck. He compared the U.S. debt to the ransoms demanded by Dr. Evil in the Austin Powers movies and encouraged locals to persuade popular New England Patriots tight end Rob Gronkowski to come stump for him. All the while, Bush campaign advisers beamed at their boss's newfound energy and reporters openly wondered whether he'd chugged Red Bull before showing up.

"Live free or die, brothers and sisters!" Jeb exclaimed as he wrapped up his Rye appearance in a spare, spacious wooden bar jammed with prospective voters.

The events marked the start of a three-day New Hampshire swing that Bush advisers concede is an attempted comeback for the governor, a one-time frontrunner who's plummeted so far in the polls that he's been forced to explain that he's not planning to quit the race.

Evidence of his campaign's infirmity was everywhere, even as a light-hearted Bush bantered with voters.

The first state legislator to greet Bush as he stepped off his campaign bus, Doug Thomas, said that Bush wouldn't be his first choice in the GOP primary. "Or second. Or third." The Bush name, he said, had grown tiresome to New Hampshire, which craves new blood in politics.

State Sen. Russell Prescott, who supports Bush, agreed that the Bush name has a branding problem, one that he said would take time to overcome.

"People will change their mind once they know who Jeb is," he said.

But it will take a considerable amount of persuading. Wednesday's Quinnipiac Poll gave Bush just 4 percent support nationally -- a statistical tie with Rick Santorum, Rand Paul, Chris Christie, John Kasich and Carly Fiorina. Donald Trump and Ben Carson, meanwhile, are tied for first place, with nearly 50 percent support between them. Bush's Florida rival, Sen. Marco Rubio, laps Bush several times too, drawing 14 percent support, and he's tied with Texas Sen. Ted Cruz.

Bush spokesman Tim Miller foreshadowed the dire poll numbers with a tweet Tuesday that seemed to acknowledge the steep climb back to contention: "FYI political press corps. Jeb's going to have a few weeks of bad polls. Comebacks take time, we recognize and are prepared for that."

Former Massachusetts senator (and failed New Hampshire Senate candidate) Scott Brown, who emceed the Rye event, offered his own supportive take: "The election’s not tomorrow."

"You all know that in New Hampshire in particular, people make up their minds four, five, six days away. And Governor Bush is working hard, as is every other candidate, to try to get out and answer your questions," he said.

And so he did. Bush fielded questions about why women are sometimes excluded from pharmaceutical studies (Bush said he didn't believe the questioner's point, though reports have noted the disparity); about his decision to give Hillary Clinton a nonpartisan award when he headed the National Constitution Center ("the Constitution shouldn't be a partisan thing"); and three separate questions about the town of Raymond's septic tank woes.

When one questioner pleaded with Bush to preserve Obamacare's protection for people with preexisting conditions, as well as a provision allowing young people to stay on their parent's health insurance through age 26, his answer was firm and unequivocal: "Totally agree."

"We’ve actually laid out a plan to replace Obamacare and the two provisions that would be mandated from Washington would be those two," he said.

Throughout it all Bush played several roles: the soothing healer who would unite the country's warring political factions, the policy wonk who talked about debt and the federal budget as "numerators" and "denominators" and the principle of "subsidiarity," and the red meat conservative who decried government as "a parasite."

Bush was careful at both events to praise President Barack Obama as "talented" while insisting that those talents were wasted on being a "divider in chief," a refrain Bush constantly returned to throughout both events. He also took shots at Trump, whose message he characterized as a strain of pessimism that has engulfed portions of the Republican Party.

"This still is the greatest country on the face of the Earth," he said. He repeatedly emphasized leading with "heart," and he offered soothing rhetoric and pledges for bipartisan cooperation he said has eluded Obama.

At the same time, Bush managed to repeatedly remind voters of just how long it's been since he actually held public office. He recalled his unsuccessful effort over a decade ago to keep Terri Schiavo's feeding tube in place. He rattled off Florida's abysmal education statistics when he first took office -- in 1999, four presidential elections ago.