Presidential campaigns—like genre fiction—tend to conform to a simple set of rules and tropes.

Reporters keep the vigil for a longshot candidate that’s about to catch fire. They bird-dog the front-runner’s campaign for signs that he’s stumbling. “Establishment” candidates are cast against “outsider” and “insurgent” candidates. Other checkboxes: In almost every campaign, a young candidate calls for generational change, and he is usually pitted against the aging political stock of vice presidents, losers in previous presidential campaigns, and members of political dynasties, all of whom brag about their experience. Everybody campaigns against the media. And everybody campaigns against Washington.

But no presidential campaign script is complete until an underperforming candidate attempts to restart his candidacy by revealing his previously obscured human, folksy personality.

In 1968, Richard Nixon’s handlers repackaged their man as the “New Nixon.” Former CIA director George H.W. Bush promised a “kinder and gentler” America. Mitt Romney retooled himself between the 2012 convention and the general election. Hillary Clinton has refurbished her image several times in recent months in an effort to soften her persona. And this week, Jeb Bush outdid them all by inviting reporters to aboard his “Jeb Can Fix It” bus in New Hampshire to watch as he gave himself a political face-lift.

As a career politician who hails from a family of politicians, Bush must have good reason to think the reset button can save a campaign. Having none of the natural charisma of that barking rooster Donald Trump or even a smidgen of Ben Carson’s freaky serenity, Bush must first discover who he is before he can invent who he should be. He has exuded a “to the manner born” stench since he entered politics, acting like the presidency should be his by dynastic right. His strategy—as best as I can glean so far—is a confusing mix of fake sincerity and the proletarian earthiness of low-voltage cuss words (he tossed “damn it” into a couple of recent speeches). The “New Bush” seems to thinks that by removing his princely crown and donning the mask of humility, he will win over the masses. This is going to be fun to watch.

An early step in Bush’s rehabilitation has been to purloin an appealing political artifact from the past—John McCain’s “Straight Talk Express” bus—and milk it. McCain, who was short on campaign funds in 2000, charmed the press with miles and miles of candor on the bus. The strategy didn’t win him the nomination, something Jeb knows, seeing how George W. Bush won it by a mudslide that year. But as a symbol of a desire for détente with the press, commissioning a campaign bus can still work wonders for a candidate. If you invite reporters onto your bus, you’re announcing that you’re no longer in hiding. You’re accessible. And you’ll probably give them good copy.

The only thing a political reporter enjoys more than dinging the front-runner is charting a comeback candidate’s rise. With Bush scoring only 4 percent in the latest poll of Republican voters, he has the potential to become the press corps’ perfect comeback candidate. He’s now a character in development, his contradictions, ambitions, and successes make him much more interesting than the candidates suspended between the top and the bottom. (I’m looking at you, Marco Rubio.) As the member of a political dynasty, his story resonates across the decades, giving reporters additional leverage for their stories about him. (See also Al Gore and Edward Kennedy. And Hillary Clinton.)

The bus gesture indicates a commitment on Bush’s part to say newsworthy things, although he’s yet to deliver on that potential. But he’s still tossing off great meta-material, talking about regrets and shortcomings in his optimistic manner. “I’ve learned to accept the simple fact that I’m imperfect under God’s watchful eye,” Bush said on the bus. The Washington Post’s Philip Rucker likened the bus ride to a Bush “therapy session” in which a “wounded” Bush wrestles “with his identity both as a political performer and as heir to the Bush family dynasty.”

One difference between the McCain bus and the Bush bus is that McCain professed to enjoy the press corps. But like some political Eeyore, Bush has not adopted McCain’s joviality, and expresses no delight at hanging out with reporters. He has a “low regard for the press,” POLITICO’s Kyle Cheney wrote after sharing a bus ride with him, adding that Bush’s frustrations with the debate process and politicking against his less-experienced opponents seem to have soured him with the campaign.

Who exactly is the “New Bush”? After hiring media coach Jon Kraushar this week, Bush shared with ABC News Kraushar’s instructions: “He’s telling me to be me. He’s telling me to own what I believe.”

When a candidate says his media consultant tells him to be himself, an unnavigable hall of mirrors presents itself. Was this Bush’s way of confessing that he wasn’t being himself before, and that he will be now? Was he saying that he hadn’t previously owned what he believes? Was hiring Kraushar—a media trainer for Fox News Channel pundits and other Republican candidates, as well as a former business partner of Fox chief Roger Ailes—Bush’s way of saying that his new authenticity will be as synthetic as anything you see on Fox?

When you have as limited a political wardrobe as Jeb Bush, it takes more than a costume change to refresh your image.