Free Republic

Before he was elected governor of Florida in 1998, Jeb Bush "often benefited from his family connections and repeatedly put himself in situations that raised questions about his judgment and exposed him to reputational risk," report Robert O'Harrow Jr. and Tom Hamburger in The Washington Post, noting that five of Bush's business associates have been convicted of crimes. Bush, who cites his business experience to bolster his run for president, says that he was taken advantage of by unscrupulous businessmen and had no knowledge of wrongdoing. The Post found that Bush's intervention with federal officials helped one later-convicted fraudster get...

Jeb Bush said Monday that the Confederate flag has become a "racist" symbol and applauded efforts to remove the flag outside the South Carolina State Capitol after a racially motivated church shooting. In his first campaign stop in South Carolina since the deadly shooting that killed nine at AME Emanuel Church in Charleston, Bush recalled how he "decided to do something politically incorrect" and removed the flags outside the Florida state house when he was governor in 2001. "The symbols were racist," the Republican presidential candidate said during a campaign stop at a pharmaceutical manufacturing plant.

New York real-estate developer and reality television star Donald Trump says Jeb Bush, the front runner for the Republican presidential nomination, views him as a serious political threat. “Trust me, he takes me seriously,” Mr. Trump, who launched a bid for the Republican presidential nomination earlier this month, said in an interview that aired Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union.” -snip- At a Saturday event in Nevada, Mr. Bush said in Spanish, “I do not agree with his words. They do not represent the values of the Republican Party and they do not represent my values,” according to a...

Wednesday on MSNBC’s “The Rundown With José Díaz-Balart,” Rep. Luis Gutiérrez (D-IL), one of the top Democrat immigration advocates who personally lobbied President Barack Obama for his executive order amnesty, praised Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush for his immigration position. “[L]ook at Jeb Bush right now,” Gutiérrez said. “One of the reasons I think he’s probably doing best or better in the Republicans is he had a pretty nice press conference out there. It was a diverse press conference. There were Latinos, he spoke English and Spanish. He was unafraid to speak both languages. And although he doesn’t have my...

He may be the frontrunner on paper, but his campaign has fallen apart. In his official launch, he tried to turn the tide. Things ought to be pretty good for Jeb Bush right now. The former Florida governor leads by a narrow margin in national polls for the Republican presidential nomination, and by a wider margin in New Hampshire. He is overwhelmingly dominant in fundraising. And he does not lack for connections to the Republican donors, officials, and grandees collectively known as "the Establishment." Yet before Bush's campaign could even officially begin on Monday, it seemed to be falling apart....

As governor of Florida, Jeb Bush used the Spanish word “presidente” instead of the English word – President – while communicating with one of his aides to describe Abe Lincoln, according to decade-old emails reported by the Washington Post. A day before South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley decided to remove the confederate flag from the state capitol grounds following the racially motivated shooting in a Charleston church, a Washington Post blog reported about how GOP presidential candidate and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush handled the confederate flag debate while he was governor of the Sunshine state. In his report, the...

A graffiti artist supporting former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush’s (R) presidential campaign believes the Republican is doing something unprecedented.  Bush previewed his June 15 campaign announcement with a YouTube video featuring Antonio Asik Alonso, a Miami artist, spray painting a “#AllInForJeb” logo on a cargo container.  Alonso told Business Insider last week that the graffiti shows Bush is not your typical GOP presidential hopeful. “I mean this has never been seen before, a Republican using graffiti as a format to reach another audience,” he wrote in an email forwarded by Bush’s campaign. Alonso said he grew up in a Republican household and...

OKLAHOMA CITY– KFOR Sports Director Bob Barry, Jr died in a crash Saturday afternoon in Northwest Oklahoma City. Police say the accident happened near Memorial and North May Avenue around 4:00 p.m. Barry was riding a motor scooter southbound on North May when police say Gustavo Gutierrez-Castillo, 26, unlicensed driver made an illegal U-Turn in front of him. He hit the driver’s side of the car and was thrown over 20 feet. Barry was not wearing a helmet. He was rushed to OU Trauma Center where he was pronounced dead. Police have arrested the driver of the car for manslaughter,...

“It will be as big or bigger than anybody else in this election, Democrat or Republican,” Hispanic outreach director Jose Mallea told BuzzFeed News. A laser focus on getting Latino voters to meet and get to know Jeb Bush and his family. Jeb Bush was loose before his campaign kickoff event Monday in Miami, joking around backstage and letting loose a dirty word in Spanish, a “colloquial street Miami thing,” said Jose Mallea, Bush’s hire for connecting with Hispanic voters. “I don’t want to repeat it, it was a curse word,” he said in a phone interview. That wasn’t all,...

Just as Jeb Bush was introducing his mother, former First Lady Barbara Bush, to the large crowd gathered in Miami for his official 2016 Republican presidential campaign announcement, a row of protesters rose from their seats to deliver a message spelled out across their brightly-colored shirts: “Legal Status Is Not Enough.” Bush, who has been more compassionate to undocumented immigrants than any of his fellow Republican candidates, stood silently for a few moments watching the demonstrators before going off script to address them. “By the way, just so that our friends know, the next president of the United States will...

As part of announcing his 2016 presidential candidacy, Jeb Bush released a video entitled "Making a Difference." The video spotlights how Bush's work as governor of Florida from 1999 to 2007 affected four people: a low-income student, a low-skilled worker, a mother whose child is disabled and a woman who was the victim of domestic violence. "My core beliefs start with the premise that the most vulnerable in our society should be in the front of the line, not the back," Bush says in the video. "The barriers right now on people rising up is the great challenge of our...

After months of unlimited fundraising and making speeches across the country like a guy running for president, Jeb Bush is reportedly making his candidacy official from a locale in Miami that represents his home city’s Latino diaspora. On Monday afternoon, Bush will make his announcement from the Kendall campus of Miami Dade College, a school that boasts having the largest enrollment of minority students, mostly Latinos, than any other institution of higher learning in the U.S. Friends and supporters say selecting Miami Dade enhances the former Florida governor’s positions on two issues, education and immigration, in which he veers away...

Jeb Bush plans to declare his bid for the presidency Monday in Miami, nearly 27 years after his father was elected president. But former Florida Gov. Bush, writes the New York Times, will enter a presidential contest unlike any faced by his father George or his brother George W. Bush. And as the third member of his family to seek the nation’s highest office, Jeb Bush brings to the race a last name that both evokes the nobility of public service and a deep distrust of political entitlement, the Times writes. Bush’s campaign is using a spare logo that excludes...

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...

In my July-issue Editor's Note column released earlier today, I expressed some skepticism about National Review writer Charles C.W. Cooke's conservatarian project, partly on grounds that libertarians should be wary of a political party that keeps on coughing up government-growing Republicans with the last name "Bush." So it's only fair to point out that, according to the shrewd political Washington Examiner political columnist Byron York, Jeb Bush is floundering to the point of shaking up his campaign staff. The remedying began Monday with word that Bush has shaken up his campaign before the campaign has even been formally announced. The...

Jeb Bush hasn't even officially launched his presidential campaign yet, and already there's a shakeup underway. In a surprise move, Bush has tapped veteran Republican strategist Danny Diaz to serve as his campaign manager, his political team announced on Monday. Diaz, 39, a longtime Republican operative known for his aggressive tactics and as a communications specialist, will move to Miami to take on a day-to-day managerial role after spending the last few months as a media consultant. The restructuring of Bush's staff was unexpected, given that Bush aides, donors and friends have said for months that David Kochel -- a...

Danny Diaz of FP1 Strategies, a Republican political consulting firm, will be former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush’s campaign manager if Bush, as expected, announces he’s running for president. It’s a big move by Bush’s team, and a clear sign he’s making efforts to win back conservative voters and make inroads party-wide rather than just winning the establishment side of the primaries. Diaz has a long-standing positive reputation with tons of top conservatives, and has been plugged in with not just establishment Republicans but conservatives Washington-wide for years. “Danny Diaz, a 39-year-old Washington, D.C., native who has worked for the past...

KENNEBUNKPORT, Maine — A banner in the town square says, “Happy 90th Barbara Bush.” Postcards read “Kennebunkport: 2 presidents, 1 town.” A local gift shop is already selling unofficial “Jeb Bush 2016” magnets. In this coastal hamlet made famous by George H.W. Bush and his cigarette boat, it is hard to escape the Bush family — but Jeb Bush is trying very hard to do so. After festivities this weekend to celebrate his mother’s 90th birthday, Bush will jet overseas for a foreign-policy tour and then launch his 2016 presidential campaign 1,500 miles to the south in Miami. The iconic...

Nevada is keeping its caucuses for selecting presidential nominees, a blow to former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and other contenders who hoped to shift the early-voting state to a system of primaries. Caucuses are considered favorable to candidates who have a network of highly motivated activists, such as Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul. Republican Gov. Brian Sandoval, who has met with Bush, backed legislation to change to a primary, but the bill never came up for a vote before the Legislature adjourned Monday night. It was the subject of frantic horse-trading and lobbying in the state capitol in Carson City until...

In this week's issue of New York magazine, Jennifer Senior delves into 2016 presidential hopeful Jeb Bush's plans to win over Hispanic voters. When describing Bush's passion for immigration and love of Hispanic culture, Senior writes that "as strange as it is to say, Jeb may be the true black sheep of the family, not W." According to one Miami Democrat and former Congressman, Joe Garcia, Bush's father described his mixed-race grandchildren as "the little brown ones." But Senior also notes that if Jeb Bush hadn't lost his first gubernatorial race in 1994, he may have been the GOP's presidential...