Free Republic

Several years ago, Columba Bush was at a Republican women’s gathering in Jacksonville, Florida, looking like she wanted to bolt for the exit. Tom Slade Jr. – former chairman of the Florida GOP and a friend of Columba and her famous husband, former Gov. Jeb Bush – recalled how she seemed utterly ill at ease. Her dislike of being in the spotlight, and at events where people go to see who’s there and to be seen, is well-known among those who know the Bush couple. Columba Bush, who is 60, has endured it, Slade told the Washington Post, because the...

Jeb Bush can trace some of his most appealing qualities as a potential presidential candidate for a diversifying electorate to his 40-year partnership with his Mexican-born wife, Columba. The couple speak Spanish to one another, and their lives have been immersed in Hispanic culture and the immigrant experience. But Columba’s intense distaste for the public arena is one of the issues weighing most heavily on the former Florida governor as he grapples with whether to run for the White House in 2016, according to interviews with friends, former staffers and GOP donors close to the family. -snip- Columba Bush at...