Colbert Points Out That the More Confident Jeb! Tries to Be, the Sadder the Results Are

Republican Presidential Candidate Jeb Bush Campaigns in New Hampshire
Photo: Brooks Kraft/Corbis

Jeb Bush hasn’t been doing so hot in the polls, and his supporters have been clamoring for the presidential candidate to start acting more like a winner. In response, Bush unveiled a new motto, and he’s even got himself a new image coach. (“He’s telling me to be me. He’s telling me to own what I believe,” Bush told ABC News on Wednesday.)

But the more effort Bush makes to sound confident, the more depressing the results are, Stephen Colbert observed last night on The Late Show. The comedian showed clips of the candidate halfheartedly saying, “I eat nails when I wake up, and then I eat breakfast,” and admitting to a reporter, “I have enough humility to know that I have to get better.”

Colbert went on to imagine what a State of the Union address would look like if Jeb Bush delivered it:

The State of our Union is … look, I know it’s gotta get better, I mean, c’mon. It has to, right? And don’t underestimate, America, but I hope you do because I eat nails for breakfast. God bless you, and God bless — you know what? I’ll just see myself out.”

Bush would likely defend himself with the argument that actions speak louder than words, as he told a crowd Wednesday in Hollis, New Hampshire: “I don’t think leadership’s about being the big personality on stage. The volume in your voice is not a measurement of strength. It’s how you serve that is a measurement of strength.”

Still, it’s a hard message to push when your chief political antagonist is the loudest man in the world.

Colbert: Jeb’s Forced Confidence Is a Little Sad