Ballot Boxing: Servant leadership vs. Saturday Night Live

Welcome to Ballot Boxing, WORLD’s weekly roundup of political news and views from the presidential campaign trail.

LEXINGTON, S.C.—At a VFW post in South Carolina, Jeb Bush pressed on with his struggling presidential campaign Tuesday, battling the narrative that he’s down for the count as his poll numbers flag.

But the Republican contender seemed more energized than deflated in this early primary state, as he told voters he won’t sink to raw anger and raucous showmanship to win the nomination.

Bush didn’t mention opponent Donald Trump by name, but the punch directed at the GOP front-runner slated to host Saturday Night Live this weekend landed squarely. In early promos for Saturday night’s program, Trump called himself “the absolute best” and taunted opponent Ben Carson as “a complete and total loser.”

SNL has since pulled the Carson jab, but the joke may be on Trump: National polls from RealClearPolitics show the former neurosurgeon in a dead heat with Trump for the GOP lead: Carson (24.8 percent), Trump (24.6), followed by Sen. Marco Rubio (11.0), Sen.Ted Cruz (8.8), and Bush (5.8).

Bush avoided low blows or grandiosity in his VFW appearance but touted his record as the governor of Florida. During a Q&A session, an audience member mentioned he lived in Florida when Bush was governor and recalled him mentoring a student at his daughter’s middle school.

“Oh yeah,” Bush said. “Mrs. Calloway gave me the toughest kid.”

The former governor described weekly visits with the struggling middle school student. “The first week, we spent an hour just organizing his backpack,” Bush said. “He didn’t have a dad to help with those kinds of things.”

Bush went on to talk about “the joy of service” that makes a good leader: “Maybe that’s nerdy, but I think it’s true.”

Actually, it’s not nerdy at all.

It follows the example of the greatest leader of all time, who probably didn’t organize backpacks but who definitely washed His disciples’ feet.

Mentoring a needy kid doesn’t necessarily qualify a man for the presidency, but during an otherwise circus-like presidential campaign season full of pomp and strange circumstances, it does bring a welcome reminder of the kind of leadership the Bible commends:

“For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”