Jeb Bush goes to Europe this week to test out some hawkish foreign policy lines:

Former Governor Jeb Bush will call for a more assertive and united front against Russia and President Vladimir Putin when he arrives Tuesday in Germany, the first stop of Bush’s three-country tour of Europe.

If the survey of German opinion Pew conducted earlier this year is right, Bush’s message will mostly fall on deaf ears. There is very little support in Germany for a “more assertive” response to Russia, and there is some significant opposition to the measures that the U.S. and EU have already taken:

So Bush will likely get a polite but cool reception from his German hosts, but he won’t care about that. It’s true that he is a terrible messenger for persuading Germans to agree to taking a harder line on Russia, but that isn’t the purpose of his going there. The point of Bush’s trip is not to please European audiences or persuade them to adopt different policies, but to be seen by Republican voters as an acceptable standard-bearer and plausible president. Provided that he avoids insulting his hosts or embarrassing himself with a display of rank ignorance, the trip should help him to repair the damage from his many Iraq-related self-inflicted wounds.