A.B. Stoddard: Jeb has to sink or swim

Jeb! You are not living up to your peppy red logo, and the “joyous” campaign for the presidency that you promised is now just a sad laugh line. 

You have all the money but no fun, your poll numbers are tumbling, and four months from the first contest, your campaign has already reached the dreaded panic-and-patience period: We’re not panicked, your staff tells donors, this requires patience.

{mosads}Your supporters are not just alarmed that Donald Trump has held his lead for more than 80 days — the other outsiders in the race, Ben Carson and Carly Fiorina, have also pushed past you in polls. Now Junior is threatening to eclipse you too — your friend Marco Rubio is ahead in national polling as well as in your mutual home state of Florida. 

In presidential campaigns we call this “not good.”

Once you spoke of losing the primary to win the general. You are surely putting that unprecedented notion to the test. Got any comfort for the people who shelled out more than $100 million to you so far who fear that losing the primary means you actually don’t win the primary?

It’s time to accept you can’t throw white papers and endorsements at this primary electorate and win. You did well at the CNN debate earlier this month. You were gutsy enough to take on Trump on numerous subjects, including your wife, and your best moment was the unplanned confession and apology to your mother for smoking marijuana 40 years ago. 

But a bit more fire will be required to get out of fifth place.

You are counting on being the last man standing in a delegate slog after the outsider bubble bursts, as are most of the candidates in the field. 

To that end, stop trying to win over anti-immigration conservatives by saying things like multiculturalism is the “wrong approach.” You won’t get those votes. You are living in our multicultural society and have joined in the diversification of this country by marrying a Mexican woman. Own it. You had three children your own dad referred to as “the little brown ones.” Explain that you are your own man because you dared to go your own way. Everyone knows that in your family this was no easy path.

Go to more universities and speak to more young people — in Spanish — about your record in Florida and about how the country, and our economy, is changing. Tell them what path you see for them and why you are hopeful. 

Get your wife, Columba, out campaigning with you. Even if she just stands there, she is a real asset. You can tell the story of finding her, falling in love and creating a bilingual, bicultural family in the greatest country on earth. 

You don’t have to change — we all know you are earnest and professorial and dorky — but if there is something in you that’s more than just a cookie-cutter child of patrician privilege, you need to let that guy out. Soon.

Sell your strength, which is electability, to the millions of Republicans who are so tired of losing the presidency. Explain why novices won’t cut it next year against even a wounded Hillary Clinton and why talking about Muslims being unfit for the presidency or rounding up 11 million people who are in the country illegally won’t win the White House. Don’t say forced deportation is “simplistic” or “violates civil liberties,” say what it is: a general election loser. You can talk about foreign policy just like Rubio does, you will just have to match his enthusiasm.

Finally, find a way to appear as if you actually want this nomination, instead of looking miserable. Reach beyond your comfort zone and find new settings or outlets for your message. It can be done without shameless pandering.

Believe or leave, Jeb — I mean, Jeb!

Stoddard is an associate editor of The Hill.