Anyone following the candidacy of Jeb Bush knows the poor little guy’s been having a rough go of it. First he was considered a likely frontrunner, then he dropped to third place, then to fifth, and by now it wouldn’t be surprising if a new poll put him somewhere between the Newsboys and a Blu-ray of God’s Not Dead. As a result, the candidate has been resorting to a series of increasingly desperate-looking moves in an effort to inject some excitement into his campaign. And a couple of days ago, the presidential hopeful let loose the dogs of war, also known as giving out an email address he himself was supposedly answering:
The internet quickly moved to do what it does best: Embrace the democratic process, and turn this into an opportunity to commune on the subjects that have nothing to do with the candidate’s policies. As New York Magazine reports, some media folks moved quickly to see if the email request would actually work—specifically, Weird Twitter:
This guy’s good @dogboner @boring_as_heck pic.twitter.com/zyckup4Qlu
— Jahlil OkaFoFoFo (@VojBomb) November 5, 2015
It’s the speed of these responses that is particularly noteworthy. It’s almost as though the flailing candidate, spiraling downward out of contention, has the time to sit on his campaign bus and instantly respond to emails with brief, tossed-off replies. As though the campaign process in this country mostly consisted of a ritualized farce involving media-orchestrated meet-and-greets punctuated by long stretches of idle dithering in which candidates could easily interact directly with the public, but normally choose to avoid the hoi polloi with the assiduousness of a Victorian-era gentleman. Thank you, Jeb Bush, for pulling back the veil on this process, but especially for revealing your thoughts on the state of Texas football and your bedtime in one fell swoop.
If you email Jeb Bush about anything (like I did about Texas football) he responds in less than 45 seconds. pic.twitter.com/Kr8R1bbceh
— Curry Shoff (@CurryShoff) November 5, 2015