Unintentionally funny. After detailing Jeb Bush's possibly smoother-than-once-imagined road to his party's presidential nomination, based on the latest CNN/ORC poll, CNN Politics ends with this:
Out of all of the seven head-to-head GOP match-ups with Clinton tested, Bush fares the best, trailing her by just 13 points.
By just 13 points.
On average, Romney trailed Obama by only 3 or 4 points throughout the general, and finished 64 Electoral College votes shy of his rather mandatory target.
Now obviously Bush's (or whoever's) gap will close somewhat as the presidential season goes into full bloom β and Lord knows Hillary's habitually impolitic, I-just-can't-help-myself utterances would help close it β but losing by only 64 EC votes would be among Jeb's greater challenges.
Parenthetically, CNN omitted Romney-cum-candidate from this latest poll, which, in my opinion, renders it pretty much useless. As you know, I'm betting on Romney to run, and Bush's early entry into the money race has likely increased the odds of an emergent Romney campaign β soon, as in early 2015 soon. And once Mitt is in, Jeb's in even deeper trouble.