How Jeb Bush missed his big opportunity in Milwaukee

How Jeb Bush missed his big opportunity in Milwaukee
The big question heading into Tuesday night’s Republican debate in Milwaukee was whether former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush  would be able to deliver a performance strong enough to arrest his decline in the polls and turn his flagging campaign around. The previous debate did not go well for Bush; the next one is a full five weeks away. Without some sort of “moment” in Milwaukee, the thinking went, the perception of Bush as an also-ran would harden into reality, and it would be difficult, if not impossible, for him to recover.

Bush failed to create such a moment in Milwaukee. To understand why, it’s worth looking at how he missed the best opportunity he had all evening — and how he immediately let three of his rivals upstage him instead.
Bush’s opening came about halfway through the second hour of the debate. Pivoting from economic concerns to foreign policy, Fox Business moderator Maria Bartiromo asked the mogul Donald Trump, who replaced Bush atop the polls in July, and has remained there ever since, what he would “do in response to Russia’s aggression” in Ukraine and Syria.
It was an interesting question, not necessarily because of how Bartiromo asked it, but because there is no subject on which the Republican field disagrees more than the subject of how and when to intervene overseas. In the wake of the disastrous Iraq War, some Republicans have revived the cautious, consensus-seeking foreign policy approach of George H.W. Bush; others, worried about the rise of ISIS, have doubled down on the more bellicose rhetoric of his son, George W. Unlike much of what the Fox moderators asked the candidates Tuesday night, this was actually worthy of debate.