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The sudden end to Jeb Bush’s presidential campaign this month appeared to bring another chapter to a close: his long and fruitful partnership with Republican admaker Mike Murphy, the brash strategist who has been at his side for nearly two decades. Since 1998, when Murphy helped Bush remake his image and win the Florida governor’s office after an earlier failed bid, the strategist’s firms have received nearly $36 million from Bush’s campaigns, allied political committees and educational foundation, according to campaign finance and tax records compiled by The Washington Post. While the vast majority of the money went to purchase...

OP consultant Mike Murphy - who was last seen flying the well-funded Jeb super PAC Right-to-Rise USA into a mountain - has some thoughts on Marco Rubio's chances against Ted Cruz and Donald Trump. First up, don't use the Nevada results showing a blowout victory from Donald Trump "as a model" for the rest of the Republican primaries coming up:

In the unsparing judgment of the Twittersphere, there was one clear loser after Jeb's Bush's graceful exit from the Republican presidential race Saturday night: political strategist Mike Murphy and the Bush-allied super PAC Right to Rise USA, which he directed. Murphy has long been one of Bush's closest advisers -- and the political world was in awe last year when Right to Rise raised $100 million just as Bush was launching his candidacy. Now, the super PAC will go down in history as yet another failed Murphy juggernaut. -snip- "He made minimum of $14 million," the bundler said, requesting anonymity...

Mike Murphy, who runs Jeb Bush's super PAC, has a lousy record in getting presidents elected-which makes Bush's faltering campaign a very personal crusade. "This campaign is not dead," Jeb Bush assured supporters Tuesday night as the results of the New Hampshire primary rolled in-a tentative diagnosis of political viability, perhaps, but hardly a ringing call to arms as the Republican presidential battlefield shifts to the Feb. 20 South Carolina primary. Bush's wan declaration was especially poignant given that his Right to Rise Super PAC, for which the former Florida governor expended blood, sweat and tears to raise more than...

The super PAC backing Jeb Bush's Republican presidential campaign is planning to increase its ad buy in South Carolina ahead of the Feb. 20 primary. Right to Rise USA is pouring another $1.7 million into the Palmetto State in the next 10 days on top of the more than $10 million the group has already spent in the state, according to people familiar with the plans. The money will be spent primarily on television, radio and digital advertising. The cash infusion is coming as the PAC is postponing the start of ad buys in seven states holding contests in March....

With just hours to go until primary votes are cast here, a new poll conducted by Jeb Bush’s super PAC finds him moving into third place. The poll, which was conducted after the end of Saturday night's debate and concluded before the start of the Super Bowl on Sunday evening, shows Donald Trump with a wide lead over the field with 29 percent. John Kasich follows with 14 percent, followed by Bush at 12 percent. Ted Cruz, the winner of the Iowa caucuses, notches 10 percent. The one-day survey of 300 likely New Hampshire voters found Marco Rubio at just...

Right to Rise raised $85 million less in second half of 2015. The super PAC dedicated to former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush-s flagging campaign for the GOP presidential nomination raised $15 million in the second half of the year - a massive drop-off from the $103 million it raised in the first half - according to a report filed Sunday night with the Federal Election Commission. The super PAC, Right to Rise, spent $54 million between the beginning of July and the end of last year, leaving it with $59 million in the bank at the beginning of this year,...

If Donald Trump ends up on stage this July formally accepting the GOP presidential nomination, don't be surprised if everyone from Washington Republicans to Twitter conservatives gathers outside the convention arena in Cleveland to burn Mike Murphy in effigy. -snip- Perhaps unsurprisingly, some disgruntled donors have struggled to keep their displeasure with Murphy to themselves. As one nameless Bush backer grumbled to Politico during the latest round of venting in the media, "You might as well light all this money on fire." -snip- Now, with the spectre of the Trumpocalypse looming over the GOP on the eve of the Iowa...

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...

If repeat business is the top sign of a success, then Karl Rove is now the poster boy for campaign strategy failure. According to a report by Gabriel Sherman in New York Magazine, Rove's fund raising for the 2016 campaign is currently at less than 1 per cent of what he ended up with in 2012, and indications are it's not going to get much better. Do the math: he's down more than 99 percent. Even if he eventually raises ten fold what he's pulled in so far, he's still likely to be down 90 percent plus. That's because many...

Former Florida Jeb Bush on Sunday night was the "special guest" at an event hosted by Right to Rise, the super PAC supporting Bush's 2016 campaign. Bush's appearance at the event illustrated just how closely a candidate can work alongside a super PAC campaigning on his behalf, even though any official "coordination" between a super PAC and an electoral candidate is illegal. The Right to Rise event, a retreat for its top donors, was incidentally held in the same Houston hotel where the Bush campaign was hunkered down for the weekend. "We have our own invitations, they're in different spots,"...

The news that Jeb Bush’s official presidential campaign account is running out of money may have been taken as bad news by some in the Republican Party. -snip- Thus, “Right to Rise” really isn’t Jeb Bush’s Super PAC. It is rather an independent expenditure committee of operatives and donors that Trump sarcastically refers to as the “puppeteers” who favor Bush right now. And since it is indeed legally independent of Jeb Bush, it is not legally committed to support him. An amount like $103 million is not a sum to be invested unwisely. The “Right to Rise” PAC could decide...