Free Republic

There was a time in my life when I was a campaign communications consultant, responsible for helping political campaigns come up with new and intriguing ways to engage voters using digital media. There is a reason I don't do it anymore, and that reason is, because no matter how many times I or any of my colleages explained that most Republican consultants had the pop culture knowledge of 80 year old men and couldn't find a connection to Millennials if they were accosted by an entire room of Urban Outfitters employees, they still produced things like this. Though, in fairness,...

Right to Rise, the "super PAC" supporting Jeb Bush, has released its third advertisement criticizing Senator Marco Rubio, this time attacking him over immigration. The ad is called "Vane" - no doubt a deliberate homophone. On Screen The ad opens on a picture-perfect scene of a rural barn, then zooms in on a weather vane on the roof, in the form of a smiling Mr. Rubio, one hand insouciantly in his pocket, the other pointing west - or is it east? As a swirling wind blows this way and that, Mr. Rubio reverses himself again and again. Over the faint...

Political consultant Mike Murphy's Pro-Jeb Super PAC released an ad today hitting the freshman senator for his fancy boots - and his political record. In a video titled "Boots," the Right To Rise Super PAC highlights Rubio's record on Syria, Immigration, Cap-And-Trade, and Iran as a man wearing fancy boots struts across the screen to the tune of Nancy Sinatra's "Boots" song.

Marco Rubio's boots have the lead role in a new attack video from the Jeb Bush super PAC. The video asserts that Rubio has changed positions on key issues, from immigration to Syria. The aggressive attacks by Right to Rise in the past couple weeks -- including a new TV ad released yesterday -- have provoked a back and forth between the Bush and Rubio camps.

The super PAC supporting Jeb Bush released a new TV ad entitled "Vane" on Monday - a 30-second spot that attacks Sen. Marco Rubio for changing his position on immigration reform and supporting "amnesty." Politico reports that the ad was first reported by the Washington Examiner on Monday and noted that the spot opened with an animation of Rubio shown as weathervane atop a barn who shifts with the "political winds." "Marco Rubio: He ran for Senate saying he opposed amnesty," the ad says. "Then he flipped and worked with liberal Chuck Schumer to co-author the path to citizenship. He...

To be precise, it's his Super PAC, Right to Rise, that's responsible for this. One of the criticisms of Jeb after he feebly attacked Rubio for his Senate absences was that he was forced to hit Rubio on a minor liability because he wasn't well positioned to hit him on a major one. After all, how could Jeb Bush, who (in)famously described border-hopping as an "act of love" and who so identifies with Hispanic Americans that he once erroneously described himself as one on a voter registration form, possibly go after Rubio for his Gang of Eight work? Poor Jeb...

Jeb Bush's super PAC is slamming Republican rival Marco Rubio on the contentious issue of illegal immigration and amnesty. The 30-second ad by Right to Rise USA, called "Vane," depicts Rubio as a weather vane turning in the wind.

Donald Trump said Thursday that Marco Rubio might have been better off not rocking the shiny black boots with a heel that has had his opponents cracking jokes all week. "Well, I can't quite, I don't, you won't see me wearing them," Trump said on the The Howie Carr Show. "I don't know what to think of those boots." "It helps to be tall," added Trump. "I don't know, they're big heels. They're big heels. I mean, those heels were really up there.

Marco Rubio isn't taking a shining to all the attention being directed to his footwear. The Republican candidate defended his choice of slick, heeled boots when someone pointed them out during a town hall in Nashua, New Hampshire, on Thursday, amid a fashion frenzy now known as "Bootgate." -snip- "A vote for Marco Rubio Is a Vote for Men's High-Heeled Booties," tweeted Rick Tyler, Cruz's communications director.

Looks like Donald Trump's expecting a big crowd in his Pensacola rally next week. Trump will appear Wednesday at the Pensacola Bay Center. The arena's website boasts it can seat "between 5,001 and 10,000" people, though large venues can usually be set up to accommodate smaller audiences.

Marco Rubio on Tuesday officially won the endorsement of Rep. Trey Gowdy, the chairman of the Select Committee on Benghazi, as the two hit the stump together in Iowa. "It's not my job to tell you who to vote for, but I'm going to tell you who I'm going to vote for," the South Carolina congressman said while introducing Rubio at a town hall event. "I'm going to vote for Marco Rubio, and I'll tell you why. National security and public safety are the most important issues to me and there is nobody better on those two issues than Marco...

For days, Sen. Marco Rubio's presidential campaign has been touting an end-of-the-year, multi-day bus tour across Iowa, the first state in the nation to vote. But one key element will be missing from the first day of the campaign swing: a bus. When the Republican candidate travels today between three cities across Iowa, hundreds of miles apart, he’ll traverse the distances on a private plane, with no bus to meet him along the way for day one, according to his campaign

Jeb Bush has virtually no chance of winning the Iowa caucuses - but his team wants to make sure Marco Rubio doesn't do too well there either. On Tuesday, the Bush-allied Super PAC Right to Rise USA released a new negative ad attacking Rubio - and, according to the Des Moines Register's Jennifer Jacobs, the ad will air on Iowa television. The ad itself is a pretty misleading attack on Rubio for missing a Senate briefing on terrorism to fundraise (Rubio actually attended a similar briefing days earlier, one that included classified information). What is interesting about the ad, though,...

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie lashed out at Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) on Tuesday for missing votes in the Senate. Speaking at a town-hall event in Iowa, Christie singled out Rubio for missing a vote on the $1.8 trillion end-of-the-year spending bill and tax package. Rubio said he opposed the bill and late in the process threatened to block it, but ultimately missed the vote because he was campaigning for president.

A super PAC alligned with Jeb Bush has launched a direct assault on Marco Rubio's national security record, accusing the Florida senator of missing a top-secret briefing to fundraise for his presidential campaign. The assualt has triggered a furious pushback from Rubio's campaign, which says the Bush super PAC's charge is unfounded and accuses Bush of taking a page from Democrats. Both Rubio and Bush are vying for support in Iowa and New Hampshire, two critical early-voting states where voters will go to the polls next month. Bush has been lagging behind Rubio, but the latest ad signals the former...

-snip- Rubio's campaign spokesman, Alex Conant, also called the pro-Bush ad "sad" and factually incorrect on one of the national-security hearings it highlighted. "Bush's team dishonestly omits that Marco is on the Senate's Intelligence Committee, where he attended the highest-level briefings on the Paris attacks," Conant said in a statement. "No other candidate for president has received more classified Intelligence briefings or better understands the threats facing our nation today than Marco. It's sad to see Jeb's 'joyful' campaign reduced to such intellectual dishonesty." Bush's super PAC, or political action committee, is legally required to be independent of his campaign,...

A new ad from the Jeb Bush super PAC hits Marco Rubio for missing votes and key national security meetings in Washington. "Politics first, that's the Rubio way," a narrator says. The ad will run in Iowa for the next two weeks at a cost of $1.4 million, according to Right to Rise. The ad is the hardest-hitting yet from Right to Rise and is bound to stir new tension between the opposing camps. Rubio has one of the worst attendance records of any current senator.

Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and Florida Senator Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) share a complicated political history, with Rubio a one-time protege of Bush the younger. In the 2016 presidential race they share another distinction as the two candidates most dominating the airwaves with paid political ads. Jeb Bush has spent a massive $35 million on paid advertising so far this campaign, with $17 million spent in New Hampshire and $9 million devoted to Iowa. The money has come from both his individual campaign and the Right to Rise super pac allied with his candidacy. In spite of this ad...

ST. LEO UNIVERSITY FLORIDA PRESIDENTIAL POLL OUT SHOWS DONALD TRUMP WITH 30.5 % - MARCO RUBIO 15% - JEB BUSH 14%. Donald Trump continues to lead in the GOP presidential race in Florida, according to a new poll released Wednesday by St. Leo University Polling Institute. The NYC businessman is at 30.6 percent, up nearly 5 percent points from a similar survey conducted in October. Marco Rubio is in second place with 15 percent, a drop of over 6 points over the past two months. Jeb Bush is at 14.3 percent, a drop of 1 percent since October. Ben Carson...

Whisper Campaigns and "Zipper Problems": How Jeb Bush's Allies Tried - and Failed - to Stop Marco Rubio. An adaption from the forthcoming book, The Wilderness: Deep Inside the Republican Party's Combative, Contentious, Chaotic Quest to Take Back the White House. On the night of the 2010 midterm elections, a portly, silver-haired Jeb Bush stood on a stage in the courtyard of Miami's luxe Biltmore Hotel, appearing to choke back tears. The beloved former governor of Florida was there to introduce the young conservative insurgent who had just pulled off a remarkable underdog victory in the U.S. Senate race. "Bushes...