Free Republic

Complete interview with Jeb! "Controlling our border." "Less about the past." "Less about all these decisive things that tear us all apart.""It will be a better future if our team wins." "I think he (Donald Trump) should be out of politics and let the next generation emerge.""I think Desantis has a chance. Desantis has a big legion of fans."

September 11, 2021 Jeb Bush RetweetedToday is a day where a certain former President not being on social media is truly a service to society.— ian bremmer (@ianbremmer) September 11, 2021

There is an old axiom in marketing: Good advertising makes a bad product fail faster. If you doubt that, may I submit Exhibit A: The 2016 campaign for the Republican nomination for President of Jeb Bush. It now joins the likes of the Ford Edsel and Coca-Cola's "New Coke" as a bona-fide marketing flop of an enormous magnitude. In each case, be it Edsel, New Coke or Jeb!, logic dictated a winner. Research for all three concluded a marketplace that was theirs for the taking. All three were rooted in strong family brand equity and even carried the brand name...

Jeb Bush began 2015 atop Republican presidential polls and visits West Palm Beach at year’s end in single digits - but his supporters insist there's still time for Bush to rebound. The former Florida governor will speak at Monday's Forum Club of the Palm Beaches lunch at the Palm Beach County Convention Center - within three miles of Republican front runner Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach. Bush is spending the day in his home state, with scheduled appearances in Hialeah and Ocala as well, but Bush backers are increasingly pinning their comeback hopes on New Hampshire. Florida Chief...

Jeb Bush expected to be On Top of the Polls. Instead, he's heading for On Top of the World. The former Florida governor visits the Marion County retirement community on Monday desperate to boost his flagging campaign. Bush boasts a 3 percent share in the latest CNN national poll of Republican and Republican-leaning voters. That's 36 fewer percentage points than Donald Trump. Bush had ample money, experience and supporters when he launched his bid for the GOP presidential nomination. He seemed a lock to lead the pack, or at least be competitive, on the eve of the early primaries and...

During Tuesday's Republican presidential debate, the Washington Post's Matea Gold tweeted this bleak picture of a debate watch party for Jeb Bush in his home state of Florida:

From George Bush to his two political sons, the Bush family has always been squeamish about messy, personal attacks on rivals, preferring to outsource the dirty work to aides. But now, in an election cycle where the Republican Party's grass-roots wing is angry and looking for a presidential candidate who projects a visceral sense of their frustration, some of Jeb Bush's supporters say he may need to learn the fine art of negative campaigning. The Republican debate on Tuesday in Las Vegas provides Mr. Bush with a highly anticipated platform to forcefully take on his rivals.

Jeb Bush on Wednesday called Donald Trump "Barack Obama - the other version of it," as he campaigned in New Hampshire with a surrogate who's said he'd vote for Hillary Clinton over Trump. "It just sends a signal to the world that we're not serious," Bush told reporters after a young professionals event at St. Anselm College. He was making the point Obama has divided the country in a way that's similar to Trump.

Via William Jacobson of Legal Insurrection, who calls this “Willie Horton part two.”Trump clearly does mean to imply that murder is what Bush has in mind when he talks about “acts of love,” which of course is false. The lawbreaking that Jeb’s talking about in the ad is a reference to crossing the border because you can’t find work to feed your family back home. You can read the “act of love” comment in context here. And here’s the thing: If you do, you’ll see that Bush wanted people to notice it and remember it. “I’m going to say...

Three top Jeb Bush fundraisers abruptly parted ways with his presidential campaign on Friday, amid internal personality conflicts and questions about the strength of his candidacy, POLITICO has learned. There are different versions of what transpired. The Florida-based fundraising consultants — Kris Money, Trey McCarley, and Debbie Alexander — have said that they voluntarily quit the campaign and were still working with Bush's super PAC, Right to Rise Super PAC. Others said the three, who worked under the same contract, were let go because they were no longer needed for the current phase of the campaign. None of the three...

Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush has suffered from criticism that he has not fought back against those who sought to diminish his campaign. At the RedState Gathering on Saturday, Bush delivered passionate remarks and named his enemies: Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. Bush went after Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton for her unwillingness to take a stance on whether to construct the Keystone XL pipeline. At a town hall event on the campaign trail in New Hampshire, Clinton avoided providing a yes or no answer about whether she would support construction of the pipeline. "She can't now have an opinion...

When Jeb Bush said last December that the Republican nominee would have to be willing to “lose the primary to win the general without violating your principles,” it sounded like either a starkly realistic assessment of the dynamics of Republican presidential politics or an awfully naïve statement of what was actually possible for a Republican candidate. Most observers — myself included — thought that he’d have no choice but to mirror the anger of committed Republican voters. As the candidate perceived by base voters and the most moderate of the contenders, he’d have to go through the same ritual that...

Good Thursday morning from Washington, where the Senate is set to discuss Iran, and President Obama is packing for Kenya with plans to do the same. And as Donald J. Trump prepares to speak at an event near the Mexican border, the cameras will be watching. And so will his rivals. “I wonder what he’s going to say next.” It’s a phrase that is most often used to describe provocative radio hosts like Howard Stern. These days, it is frequently heard with respect to Mr. Trump, the reality television star and Republican presidential hopeful whose caustic comments and surging support...

A super PAC backing former Florida governor Jeb Bush is likely to fall short of collecting $100 million by the end of this month, despite widespread expectations that the group would hit that record-breaking sum, according to people close to the operation. The exact size of the war chest is closely held, but two individuals familiar with internal discussions believe the total that the Right to Rise super PAC will report in mid-July could be substantially lower than the nine figures that senior Republicans have anticipated. That would be a major psychological blow for Bush’s operation, whose fundraising prowess has...

As his last public act before officially announcing his presidential candidacy next week, former Florida governor Jeb Bush embarked on a five-day swing through Central and Eastern Europe, meeting with leaders in three countries where Russian President Vladimir Putin's aggression has been at the top of security concerns. He is leaving behind turmoil in his campaign operation in Florida, which — in a surprise move — tapped a new campaign manager on Monday. GOP operative Danny Diaz will assume the role, rather than David Kochel, an Iowa veteran, who had been expected to hold that job but will be named...

A leftover from yesterday via Howie Carr and Gravis Marketing. We all knew the great sighing falling-in-line for Bush 8.0 would come eventually. We just didn’t know it would happen this soon.Nah, I’m just kidding. This is an outlier. Isn’t it?Carly Fiorina ahead of Chris Christie and Ted Cruz in New Hampshire? C’mon, I … can totally believe that, actually, given the state’s fondness for outsiders and “mavericks.” In fact, for a supposed outlier, the only number in this poll that’s strikingly out of sync with other recent polls of New Hampshire is Jeb’s. He’s fully 10 points higher...

Jeb's new campaign manager signals that the last few months haven't gone well It's not extraordinary in presidential politics when a campaign manager gets replaced; it frequently happens, especially during tough times. But what IS extraordinary is bringing in a new manager before the campaign officially begins. And that's why yesterday's news that Jeb Bush hired GOP communications strategist Danny Diaz to be his new campaign manager -- after previously tapping David Kochel (who was Mitt Romney's chief Iowa strategist in 2012) to fill the position -- is a big deal. It's a tacit acknowledgement that the last few months...

(CNSNews.com) - Jeb Bush says he would considering pushing back the Social Security retirement age by as many as five years and scaling back benefits for Americans who paid into the system but who also have accumulated wealth. "We need to look over the horizon and begin to phase in, over an extended period of time, going from (age) 65 to 68 or 70. And that by itself will help sustain the retirement system for anybody under the age of 40," Bush, a potential contender for the Republican presidential nomination, told CBS's "Face the Nation" on Sunday. Bush also wants...

Jeb Bush has promised us a presidential campaign premised on the idea that he can become the GOP nominee by speaking directly to the general election electorate — which is to say, by delivering a stiff dose of realism to GOP primary voters, rather than pandering to them. Exhibit A: Immigration, where Bush has argued, outrageously, that we aren’t going to deport 11 million people, so it’s time to embrace some form of legalization as the only answer. Now Bush appears to be ratcheting up the attacks on fellow Republicans — presumably Marco Rubio and Scott Walker — over the...

Not that they have much say in the matter, but if it were up to Democrats, they would like to see Texas Sen. Ted Cruz on the presidential ticket to face their nominee. According to a survey of more than a dozen Democratic lawmakers, former members and strategists conducted by The Hill, Democrats believe that Cruz – a fiercely conservative Texan known for pushing buttons both in and outside of the Beltway – would alienate independent voters along with forcing liberals to the polls and give Hillary Clinton, or whoever is the Democratic nominee, the best shot at winning the...