Matt Bai: “If you were in Washington watching the Republican debate last night, you might have felt a small tilt in the floor, or heard the plates rattling gently in their cupboards. That was the sound of the Republican establishment shifting its collective weight away from Jeb Bush — and inching a little bit closer to their best available alternative.”
“And no, it’s not Ben Carson or Carly Fiorina.”
“Not to overstate the crisis here, because one poll can change everything at this stage of a race, but the way I saw it, last night was another minor disaster for Bush. He seemed, yet again, oddly tentative and squirmy, the earnest student body president shoved aside by the boorish quarterback at the pep rally. That performance probably didn’t do much to help Bush among the millions of Republicans who tuned in, especially in the early primary states. But make no mistake: His most important audience right now is the one that pushed him onto that stage in the first place.”
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