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Bush was one of several likely Republican presidential candidates to avoid an event Saturday hosted by immigration hardliner and Iowa congressman Steve King.When Jeb Bush said that to win the presidential election a Republican candidate might have to lose the primary, he probably had a weekend like this one in mind. In Iowa, a host of second-tier possible presidential candidates — and a few big names — flocked to the first major event of the Republicans’ 2016 cycle: a cattle call of party speakers hosted by western Iowa congressman Steve King. King, whose often personal and derogatory criticism of undocumented...

There are enough potential candidates for president (on the GOP side at least) that you need an Excel spreadsheet just to keep them all straight. Instead of a complicated algorithm, I've boiled each candidate down to his/her most basic elements. At the end of the day, these are the things more likely to define a presidential wannabe. It's also important to distinguish between durable traits and those that are more ephemeral. For example, low name ID is something easily overcome. But, being on the "wrong side" of the base on key issues can be a campaign killer. This is by...

Former Gov. Jeb Bush, considering a run for president in 2016, looks to be returning to his political roots -- and a place of political influence -- by helping to host an education conference next month in Tallahassee. The conference is to focus on education policies he pushed while in the Governor's mansion. Gov. Rick Scott, Florida Senate President Andy Gardiner and Florida House Speaker Steve Crisfulli will take part, too, one of Bush's education foundations announced today. That suggests that conference aims to impact legislation that will be debated in the upcoming session of the Florida Legislature. Bush's Foundation...

Jeb Bush and Mitt Romney did not reach an agreement during a Salt Lake City lunch meeting on Thursday on how to reconcile their competing plans to run for the White House next year, advisers to both men indicated after the talk. “Governor Bush enjoyed visiting with Governor Romney today in Salt Lake,” Kristy Campbell, Mr. Bush’s spokeswoman, said, declining to elaborate. Republicans close to both Mr. Romney and Mr. Bush were notably tight-lipped about the long-planned meeting, which the two would-be candidates and their advisers were unhappy had been revealed publicly.

DUBAI - A Saudi journalist and a member of the royal family denied rumors on Thursday that King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz, in hospital since December suffering from pneumonia, had died, according to messages on social media. "All that is being reported about King Abdullah's death is far from the truth," Ibrahem al-Rawsa, identified as a journalist at state-run Saudi Press Agency, wrote on his Twitter account. A member of the royal family wrote: "I give you good news. The Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques is fine and there is no truth to the rumors going around." He was referring...

http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2015-01-22/revving-up-jeb-bush-rolls-through-washington

One thing you can say about Sen. Rand Paul’s burgeoning presidential campaign – he’s not scaring anybody out of the race. The Republican National Committee reports that the 2016 primary field has mushroomed to about 25 legitimate contenders — the size of a major league baseball roster — and growing, which certainly could make for an interesting party debate where you quite literally won’t be able to tell the players without a scorecard. Despite the RNC’s claims of legitimacy there are a few apples in the barrel who have about as much chance of moving into the Oval Office two...

Just read that Romney and Jeb are meeting in Utah to discuss how best to ram one of them down our throats so their campaigns don't compete against one another. NO MORE BUSHES!! NO MORE ROMNEYS!!! NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO NO!!!!

MYRTLE BEACH, S.C.— A crowd of tea party activists huddled outside a closed conference door here on Sunday. Many hadn’t caught a glimpse of the man they were waiting for, but they knew he was in there. “Here he comes!” someone suddenly shouted, as Ted Cruz emerged. All day long, the Republican senator from Texas was mobbed by people who thanked him for taking on Washington, jostled for pictures and sought out hugs. Even after Cruz had departed the South Carolina Tea Party Coalition Convention, his booth was consistently crowded. Ben Carson and Rick Santorum made their pitches and both...

Much of the 2016 political oxygen on the Republican side of the aisle has been sucked up by establishment-leaning figures so far -- Jeb Bush forming his exploratory committee, Mitt Romney heavily weighing launching version 3.0, Chris Christie making telltale moves, etc. On the more conservative end of the spectrum, we have Bobby Jindal almost assuredly running (do read his hard-hitting speech on radical Islamism delivered in London yesterday), Scott Walker staffing up and sounding like a presidential candidate, and Marco Rubio reportedly inching closer to taking the plunge. And then there's Rand Paul, Mike Huckabee, Carly Fiorina, Ben Carson,...

Hot Air readers won’t be surprised by the lack-of-dynamic dynamic from the first big names testing the GOP’s 2016 waters, of course, but supporters of Mitt Romney and Jeb Bush might be — if they can be found. According to a new NBC/Wall Street Journal poll, approval ratings for both men dropped after making clear they plan to run for the party’s presidential nomination. And that retreat comes from within the big tent of the Republican Party: Just 27 percent of Americans now offer a positive rating for Romney, the Republican party’s nominee in 2012, compared to 40 percent who...

Poential 2016 candidates Jeb Bush and Mitt Romney have earned plenty of headlines after publicly acknowledging that they're revving up likely presidential campaigns, but, so far, they haven't gained positive marks from the public, according to the newest NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll. In fact, both candidates have lost ground since pollsters last measured Americans' feelings towards them - including a dip in approval from members of their own party. Just 27 percent of Americans now offer a positive rating for Romney, the Republican party's nominee in 2012, compared to 40 percent who give him negative marks. And just over...

South Carolina has been where underdog Republican presidential candidacies die and front-runners begin to look toward November. The only asterisk to its 32-year streak of picking the eventual GOP nominee came in the whack-a-mole 2012 contest that placed former House Speaker Newt Gingrich over eventual nominee Mitt Romney. “Romney never closed the deal with the voters,” said legendary South Carolina Republican strategist Chip Felkel about Romney's inability to win the first-in-the-South primary. “Voters cast with their hearts, not their heads, in that cycle.” Everyone understandably focuses on who is coming and going in Iowa, the first contest of 2016's presidential...

A leading Republican presidential contender has warned against electing another Bush or Clinton to the White House, saying that installing an aristocratic “ruling class” in the United States could all but destroy the country. Mike Huckabee, a Baptist minister and quick-witted populist Republican who has powerful appeal among religious conservative activists, suggested that those who “live within the enclaves of the educational and cultural establishment and elites” could not understand the lives of ordinary Americans. While not referring directly to his potential presidential election competitors, his words resonate because Jeb Bush, the son and brother of former Republican presidents, and...

As Jeb Bush and Mitt Romney battle behind the scenes for big money donors, Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz is working to portray himself as the presidential candidate of the conservative base. Speaking to tea partiers in South Carolina over the weekend, Cruz cautioned that Republicans will lose the White House in 2016 if the nominee is insufficiently conservative. “If we nominate a candidate in that mold, the same people who stayed home in 2008 and 2012 will stay home in 2016 and the Democrats will win again,” Cruz told the crowd. His comments come as the Texas senator —...

An MSNBC UP show panel on Saturday gleefully recounted Mitt Romney’s tentative moves toward a third White House run. “What is he thinking?” is one way to summarize the discussion. “He is delusional” is another. Not one panelist could imagine a scenario under which Romney could win, but each was highly entertained by the idea. Beware the Popcorn Syndrome. It seems to be spreading among left leaning social media and chattering classes. Right now it is centered on the 2012 Republican nominee and his refusal to go away, but is being expressed as well on a more endemic level. Pundits,...

Until the next turning point in world history — Ohio State’s Sept. 7 football opener at Virginia Tech — political Ohio will distract itself speculating about 2016’s presidential nominees. As every TV anchor knows, Ohio is pivotal in presidential elections. And the Constitution won’t let President Barack Obama seek a third term. Hillary Clinton likely will be Democrats’ nominee, though there’s many a slip between cup and lip: It took liberal Democrats a while, but they’ve figured out that the Clintons have no particular problem with Wall Street, assuming the right donations go to the right campaign committees. As for...

If you’re Hillary Clinton, you pinched yourself last week to awake from a strange and wondrous dream. Except it wasn’t a dream. Mitt Romney really has been calling up rich conservative donors to tell them he wants to run for president — again. If you’re Hillary Clinton, you broke into a wide grin that stayed on your face all day, because the news seemed too good to be true. Mitt Romney is seriously going to try one more time? Thank you, God, is what Hillary was thinking. Not because Mitt Romney is likely to become the Republican nominee in 2016,...

Mitt Romney and Jeb Bush have emerged to save the party from its immoderate urges.Rick Perlstein’s The Invisible Bridge: The Fall of Nixon and the Rise of Reagan was among the most gripping books published last year. Anybody old enough to remember Nixon’s weighty jowls sagging towards delayed resignation will savour Perlstein’s detailed analysis of Watergate and its aftermath. The book reminds us that – though positively merry in comparison to the UK and Ireland – the United States passed through seven layers of dementia during the 1970s. Patty Hearst was kidnapped. New York City went bust. Helicopters lifted the...

The Texas senator might be just crazy enough to win the GOP presidential nomination.As they used to say in the old westerns, it was quiet out there-too quiet. So no one was really surprised when Ted Cruz announced to The Washington Post the weekend before the November election that his brief flirtation with civilized behavior was nearing its end. For months, the Texas senator had abandoned his "the guy with dynamite strapped to his chest" persona, as one Republican political strategist describes it, to be a team player, crisscrossing the country to campaign for GOP candidates. No filibusters on the...

Plato and Aristotle. Freud and Jung. Obi-wan and Anakin. Jeb and Marco? Under today’s received political wisdom, the two Florida Republicans and would-be presidents are a first-ballot, sure-fire bet for the mentor-protégé hall of fame. It’s rare to see a mention of the two men of late that does not include “mentor” or “protégé” or both. Former Gov. Jeb Bush, 61, is the master, and Sen. Marco Rubio, 43, the disciple, faithfully bearing the conservative torch. (SNIP) Rubio, though, followed a much different path. From the West Miami city commission, he ran for an open state House seat in a...

I’m not much of a conspiracy theorist — and I certainly have nothing on Paul Craig Roberts whose most recent article, helpfully disseminated by the Ron Paul Institute, claims the Charlie Hebdo attacks to be a “false flag” operation — but I can’t help but wonder if the “mainstream media” is playing up the potential presidential candidacies of Mitt Romney, Jeb Bush, Mike Huckabee, and Rick Santorum simply to depress Republican voters. Or, going the full tin-foil-hat route, maybe these guys are themselves double agents, part of a MoveOn.org (does it still exist?) sleeper cell which was just activated (by...

Conservative leaders this week shrugged off the sudden moves by Jeb Bush and Mitt Romney toward 2016 presidential campaigns, saying the two establishment-friendly candidates are too far out of touch with grass-roots activists to win the Republican nomination. At the same time, potential candidates with close ties to the party’s conservative base have moved to speed up their own efforts in response. Senior advisers to several of the potential conservative candidates said Wednesday that GOP insurgents will have to do more in 2016 than they did in previous cycles to make a serious run for the Republican nomination. Building a...

RAND PAUL: If he runs to the right of Jeb Bush, he'll still be to the left of the rest of the party. So it may be a difficult spot to occupy. Look, I liked Governor Romney. I like him personally. I think he's a good person. I think he's a great businessman, but, you know, that's yesterday's news. He's tried twice.

A new political startup has studied the potential 2016 presidential field—and those who donate to them. Researchers at Stanford University started Crowdpac, a website that not only analyzes a candidate’s voting record and statements but their history of political donations as well. The founders of Crowdpac say that combining these factors provides a more accurate picture of a candidate’s true political philosophy, especially when some potential candidates (such as Carly Fiorina and Ben Carson) never have held office and thus have no voting record to judge. They utilized an algorithm to examine the money each candidate gave and received. “Our...

Not everyone thinks Jeb Bush is a strong presidential candidate, Republican donors say Mitt Romney is certain that ‘a Bush can’t beat a Clinton.’ When Jeb Bush jumped out early in announcing that he was putting together a presidential campaign, he was quickly anointed as the automatic front-runner. Donors were said to dash to their checkbooks to be the first to shower him with super PAC loot. Political operatives were polishing up their résumés in the hopes of being gifted with campaign jobs. The overstuffed GOP field was going to winnow in a hurry as would-be contenders decided the next...

On Jan. 4, New York Times' Frank Bruni kicked off the new presidential race with an analysis of a likely - some say inevitable - Bush / Clinton rematch (Jeb vs. Hillary). Predictably it covered little that those outside The Political Class likely even found compelled to read. What, after all, is there to say of such a matchup? If (another) Bush runs against (another) Clinton, and no one can tell them apart, will anyone notice? How many beyond the politically passionate — that is: those whose votes are ensured no matter who each party fields — will care who...

SAN DIEGO — Mitt Romney's unexpected step into the 2016 presidential contest is drawing enthusiasm from the GOP's most passionate conservatives. But not because they want him to win. For the first time in recent memory, prominent conservatives see a Republican presidential field that could have as much competition among the party's establishment-minded prospects — like Romney — as its fiery conservatives....

The GOP field is in pygmy warlord phase—loud, fractured, and not terribly impressive. The most credible candidate is Jeb Bush, a far-sighted policy wonk whose greatest asset and liability is his last name. Powerhouse Chris Christie still has Bridgegate clouds hovering over his reputation. Rand Paul promises to bring the libertarian revolution to prime time and could inspire enthusiasm beyond the old base—but there’s still that wild gleam in the eye of the Kentucky ophthalmologist who would have his finger on the bomb. Rick Perry and Ted Cruz are the Jekyll and Hyde of Texas politics. Mike Huckabee and Rick...

Mitt Romney has stopped Jeb Bush from locking down a significant faction of deep-pocketed Republican donors and top presidential campaign staffers, for the moment. But money and talent won’t stay frozen for long. And multiple Republican insiders said Monday that Romney has a short window of time in which he has to make a decision about whether to mount a third run for the White House — or let the dream of the presidency go forever. One 2012 Romney aide said the former Massachusetts governor might need to make up his mind in the next week. Most people who spoke...

Last month, Ed Morrissey submitted the astute observation that the Republican Party is nearing a crossroads. The starkest contrasts on the 2016 debate stage are unlikely to be those highlighted by the dispute over the prudence of a policy of isolationism or interventionism abroad. Nor will it be exposed by the fight between Republicans who back proposals aimed at strengthening border security before engaging in immigration reform against those who would pursue a combined strategy. The most defined distinctions, he contends, will be drawn by the Republicans of the Bush era and those who rose to prominence under Obama. “It’s...

Siding with the “religion of peace”: Obama, Bush, Brzezinski… By Julio Severo Barack Obama, in his biography “The Audacity of Hope,” says about Muslims, “I will stand with them should the political winds shift in an ugly direction.” So if the Western world begins to reject the U.S. presidential propaganda portraying Islam as a “religion of peace” and begins to treat this religion as a cowardly ideology slaughtering innocents, Obama commits himself to side with the oppressors. Remember: by far Islam is the ideology most martyrizing Christians around the world each year. It would be so good if the...

October 30, 2001. Game 3 of the World Series. George Bush throws out the first pitch of World Series. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bxR1tZ08FcIIn the frenzy of the aftermath of the 9-11 attacks, George Bush made his country proud. In the aftermath of what some call France's 9-11, Barack Obama hid. Twitchy noted Obama's absence: Barack Obama sent three representatives to the funeral of Michael Brown. He sent a pathetic fundraiser to France. In the aftermath of 9-11, French President Jacques Chirac was the first outside head of state to visit the US. Obama couldn't be bothered with France. He hid. (Excerpt) Read more...

Jeb Bush and Mitt Romney have much in common. Both were pragmatic as governors, mild-mannered as candidates and more comfortable balancing budgets at their desks than clinking glasses at a political dinner. The two Republican leaders’ personal rapport is cordial. But they are hardly chummy — and at moments their relationship has been strained, with each man’s intertwined political network carrying some grievances with the other’s. As Bush, 61, and Romney, 67, explore presidential campaigns in 2016, they are like boxers warming up for what could become a brutal bout, sizing each other up and mulling whether or when to...

Jeb Bush once called for building prisons and emphasizing “punishment over therapy” for juvenile offenders. Today, he supports reforming the criminal justice system, arguing that incarceration can harden low-level lawbreakers into career criminals. In the past, he stressed using deportation to rid the United States of unauthorized immigrants. These days, he describes crossing the border illegally as “an act of love” by migrant parents and supports a path to citizenship for those who have done so. He used to emphasize the rights of big landowners who felt cheated by environmental programs. Now, he is a champion of state-sponsored conservation, celebrated...

Jeb Bush’s moves to attract supporters and donors this week put the 2016 race for the White House into sharper focus earlier in the new year than other presidential hopefuls probably anticipated. One apparent result: Mitt Romney, the Republican standard-bearer in 2012, told a group of donors Friday that he is “seriously considering” a third try for the White House after all. Romney continues to lead in polls that include him in the GOP field. With casual but succinct Instagram videos shot on a New York street and posted Tuesday on his Facebook page — one in English, one in...

Link only due to copyright issues: http://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/2015/01/10/straw-poll-predictions/21576395/

In a move that surprised his most loyal supporters and former staff, Mitt Romney told several donors Friday he is seriously considering a third run for the White House… “Mitt has been a terrific leader for the Republican Party, but if he runs again, he’ll have to earn it again,” said veteran Republican operative Phil Musser, a former Romney supporter. His firm is already handling preliminary campaign work for former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, but Musser says he has not committed to a candidate… “Jeb Bush forced everyone’s hand,” said Barney Keller, a Republican strategist. “If he’s serious, Romney needs...

A tidbit buried at the end of a Romney adviser’s longish rationalization of why Mitt Romney may yet again run for the GOP’s nomination suggests Romney does not think Jeb Bush has what it takes to win the GOP nomination. BuzzFeed reports: According to one former adviser, the biggest political question Romney will be considering as he makes his decision is whether Bush will be able to make it to the general election. “Look, Jeb’s a good guy. I think the governor likes Jeb,” the adviser said. “But Jeb is Common Core, Jeb is immigration, Jeb has been talking about...

It's all very simple: the Republicans lost Florida in the 2012 presidential election by 0.88. If conservatives stay at home in 2016 in the same numbers as they did in 2012, then there is no chance of the GOP winning. If conservatives are advised by Governor Palin (unlike in 2012) and Mark Levin to either stay home or vote third-party, then it is impossible to see how Florida could be won by, for example, Jeb Bush. However, for argument's sake, if, because of Bush's Florida connection and a bad economy, Florida is won, then Ohio (-2.98%), Virginia (-3.88%), and Colorado...

A top Chamber of Commerce official and a veteran Republican campaign finance lawyer who co-founded a pro-amnesty super PAC are advising former Florida governor Jeb Bush ahead of a likely 2016 presidential run. According to a Washington Post report, “Rob Engstrom, senior vice president and national political director at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, is providing assistance by taking a temporary leave from his post there to help Bush for several weeks.”

http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2015-01-09/bush-team-sets-bold-fundraising-goal-100-million-in-three-months

Jeb Bush is wasting no time taking on Hillary Clinton, even though neither party’s potential 2016 standard-bearer has officially committed to a presidential bid. Speaking at a closed-press fundraiser in Connecticut on Wednesday night, Bush suggested to potential donors that the former secretary of state would have to explain President Barack Obama’s foreign policy mistakes, Hearst Connecticut Media reported Thursday. Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2015/01/jeb-bush-jabs-hillary-clinton-114073.html#ixzz3OFqzHRQs

Jeb Bush will have to overcome a number of hurdles in order to secure the Republican Party’s nomination for president in 2016. The most significant of these seems today to be the conservative base’s antipathy towards Bush’s positions on a variety of critical policy matters. But the former Florida governor clearly not concerned about the conservative base. He is, however, deeply concerned about winning the support of the Republican donor class and the press. On Wednesday, the media cooed over the political savvy evidenced by Jeb Bush’s decision to release 10 years of personal tax filings. That the political press...

The primary field on the right is developing in a way that favors candidates closer to the center.Conservatives have many reasons to be pleased about their position within the GOP, even after a quixotic challenge to Speaker John Boehner from the far right failed this week. On almost all issues, the current in the party now flows powerfully toward them. Every newly elected Republican senator ran on a deeply conservative platform. But conservatives also have reason to worry about how the 2016 Republican presidential race is coalescing. The field on the right is developing in a way that could advantage...

The major two-party system in American politics has existed since our nation’s infancy. While President John Adams warned against the dueling party system as “the greatest political evil under our Constitution”, it is a pillar of our republic. Today, Democrats and Republicans account for the majority of modern-day political party affiliations. The two parties don’t need to be enemies, rather complementary civic partners. Though the opposing camps differ on policy decisions, both support the individual citizens of our country with their unique visions. However, Republicans and Democrats have dealt with a hidden opponent – an unofficial group that parasitically attached...

Florida Sen. Marco Rubio said in an interview with CNN Wednesday that if the Supreme Court eventually rules that same-sex marriage is constitutional, Americans would have to abide by that ruling. "I wouldn't agree with their ruling, but that would be the law of the land that we would have to follow until it's somehow reversed — either by a future Supreme Court, or a U.S. constitutional amendment, which I don't think is realistic or foreseeable," he said. He said he expects the question "is ultimately going to find its way to the U.S. Supreme court," noting that many federal...

Has Jeb Bush offered the Republican Party a new way to talk about same-sex marriage? Fred Sainz thinks he has. Sainz grew up two doors down from Bush in Coral Gables, Fla., and counts the former Florida governor as an early mentor who got Sainz a job working for Bush’s father in the White House. But Sainz left the GOP in 2004 after George W. Bush, Bush’s brother, railed against same-sex marriage in his reelection campaign. Sainz, now a leader of the gay rights movement as a vice president of the Human Rights Campaign, sees an important evolution in the...

The 2015 presidential campaign – yes, 2015 – isn’t a hunt for votes. At least 23 credible political figures are considering running for the two major-party nominations. And they’re all hunting for the magic concoction of money, attention and friends that could vault them into the top tier in the next 12 months, by the time the first voting starts in caucuses and primaries. Here’s a look at what to watch for: MONEY Bulging donor lists intimidate less well-heeled candidates. Those without money or fat cat friends usually drop out or get left behind. In summer 1999, for example, Elizabeth...

Not so much respect that the state should recognize their commitment as a legal marriage, he stresses, but respect nonetheless. “We live in a democracy, and regardless of our disagreements, we have to respect the rule of law,” Mr. Bush said in a statement. “I hope that we can show respect for the good people on all sides of the gay and lesbian marriage issue – including couples making lifetime commitments to each other who are seeking greater legal protections and those of us who believe marriage is a sacrament and want to safeguard religious liberty.”… Gay rights leaders said...