There were tears and confusion at the hotel where Jeb Bush said goodbye once and for all to the presidential dream that his brother and father fulfilled before him, NBC News reported.
Sergio Pino, an old family friend from Miami, couldn't believe the news. Why did he drop out? Surely there was some way Bush could have pressed on with the campaign?
On a narrow level they were watching a failed candidate drop out. But the voters weeping in the hallways knew that this was a broader loss. This was a candidate who stood for an entire generation of Republican Party building, who was the figurative and literal heir to the family brand that had graced nearly every GOP ticket for a generation. And he ceded the race to a candidate whose campaign was a walking insult to his family legacy and everything Bush's supporters told themselves the party stood for.
What went wrong? The easiest explanation — which has the benefit of being true — is that Bush's problems started with his last name.
