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Apart from the stunning success of Donald Trump, the biggest surprise in the 2016 presidential election campaign — on the Republican side at least — has been the failure of Jeb Bush’s once vaunted campaign. The former Florida governor and his supporters raised $150 million in what was billed as a “shock and awe” campaign, only to see the onetime favorite drop out Saturday after finishing in single digits in the South Carolina primary.

That’s too bad for Bush, and perhaps even worse for the GOP. Big chunks of the party are in an all-out revolt against experienced, even-keeled leaders who understand that most political battles and foreign policy challenges present a complex array of issues, few of which can be addressed with anger or simplistic answers.

Bush's lopsided loss in South Carolina, on the heels of weak showings in Iowa and New Hampshire, marked the end of the road for the son of the nation's 41st president and the brother of the 43rd. It would also seem to mark an end to the family's dynasty (though some might point to Bush’s son, Texas Land Commissioner George P. Bush, as a rising star in Republican circles).

For Jeb Bush, running for the White House nine years after stepping down as Florida governor, the trajectory of his own family’s conservative migration might have provided some clues of how to run in 2016. To win, he would have had to position himself further to the right and further out of the mainstream.

There was just one problem. It’s all but impossible to imagine Jeb, or any other Bush for that matter, running against Muslims and immigrants or in favor of government shutdowns. The Bushes have too much history and are too rooted in reality for an electorate that wants its candidates to wage political warfare and take no prisoners. Jeb's upbringing and reserved personality simply weren't suited to a nominating process that turned into a Survivor-like reality show. (“I congratulate my competitors that are remaining on the island,” he said as he dropped out of the race Saturday night.)

There are many things, to be sure, that Jeb Bush might have done differently. Early in the campaign, he fumbled questions about the wisdom of his brother's 2003 invasion of Iraq. His hokey use of "Jeb!" left him open to Trump's devastating "low energy" insult. A subsequent slogan — "Jeb can fix it" — made the candidate sound like either a machine politician or a washing-machine repairman.

He could have taken the Trump candidacy more seriously from the beginning and spent more of his vast resources to take down the billionaire businessman. He could have done a better job of pushing his outsider bonafides as a politician who had never served in Washington. The reality is, however, much of today's Republican Party is ill-suited for Bush.

Conservatives are lining up behind Trump and Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas. And voters amenable to a more mainstream candidate were hardly pining for Bush. The candidate most likely to occupy the "establishment lane," Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, a former Bush protégé, was considered a Tea Party insurgent just a few years ago.

Any party can do just fine without dynasties. As Jeb’s mother, Barbara Bush, said three years ago, in a comment that seems as prophetic now as it did candid then: “We’ve had enough Bushes.” The electorate apparently agreed.

But the demise of Jeb Bush’s candidacy is more than a party simply tiring of one family fielding too many candidates for too long. It’s a symbol of a party on the verge of migrating too far from the political mainstream for its own good.

Wrong candidate for this moment: Other views

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