Free Republic

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...

When George W. Bush first ran for president, he liked to say he had inherited half of his father’s friends and all of his enemies. For Jeb Bush, now preparing his own bid for the White House, that may ring familiar. His brother’s enemies have made themselves known in recent weeks as Jeb Bush has struggled to formulate his own take on the decisions made during the last Bush presidency. But perhaps just as important for the fledgling candidate has been the challenge in winning over his brother’s friends. While George W. Bush himself and many in his circle, especially...

Former Florida governor and potential 2016 Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush said that although his pro-immigration views are not in line with his party’s base, he’s “not going to back down” on the country’s “immigration problem.” Speaking Sunday on CBS’ “Face the Nation,” Bush said he’s “not going to back down” on immigration, insisting the country has an immigration problem and needs a path for illegal aliens “I think we have immigration problem,” said Bush. “It’s a system that’s broken. The legal system is broken. We need to narrow family petitioning expand economic immigrants. We need to enforce the law....

Saying he believes Republicans can win the White House in 2016 “with a hopeful, optimistic message,” former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush came out in defense of the PATRIOT Act, currently under debate in Congress, according to Knox News: -snip- Bush also seemed to prod the GOP, if not conservatives, for presumably not being inclusive enough — saying the GOP can win only “if they reach out to everybody in our country, not just those that have already decided that they are conservatives and Republicans.”

Sunday on CBS’s “Face The Nation,” potential Republican presidential candidate former Gov. Jeb Bush (R-FL) said even though his pro-immigration stance is at odds with the Republican Party base, he is “not going to back down.” Bush said, “I’m not going to back down on views on immigration, for example. I think we have immigration problem. It’s a system that’s broken. The legal system is broken. We need to narrow family petitioning expand economic immigrants. We need to enforce the law. We can’t use this, keep having this be political issue when we’re missing opportunity to create growth that everybody...

Former Gov. Jeb Bush (R-Fla.) in an interview broadcast Sunday fired back at campaign watchdog groups who accuse the potential 2016 candidate of violating election law. Bush said on CBS’s “Face the Nation” the he “would never” violate the law. “No, of course not,” he said. “And I'm nearing the end of this journey of traveling and listening to people, garnering, trying to get a sense of whether my candidacy would be viable or not. We're going to completely adhere to the law, for sure,” he said.

Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush has flip-flopped in every imaginable way on immigration since the mid-1990s. He once supported mass deportation of all illegal aliens in America. After that, he supported a pathway to legal status—but not citizenship—for them. Then he changed his mind to back a pathway to citizenship, before flip-flopping back to support just legal status and not citizenship. None of this is surprising from someone who now calls himself an “honorary Latino.” Ever since he began thinking about running for president Bush has become a champion of illegal aliens’ cause, even calling the action that they took...

This week, Jeb Bush ramped up his rhetoric on immigration reform -- against Republicans. In a closed-to-the-media phone call with Alabama Republicans (except for The Washington Post's Ed O'Keefe, who got access), the former Florida governor knocked his 2016 GOP competitors for bending "with the wind" on immigration reform. Immigration reform has been a tricky subject for many Republicans to broach. There's a wide gap on the issue between the constituency they want to reach in the general election (Hispanics) and the constituency they need to win the GOP nomination (conservatives). And Bush is right: It can take a lot...

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...

A recent report reveals Republican presidential hopeful and brother of former president George W. Bush, Jeb Bush, backed a path to legalized citizenship for undocumented immigrants in 2009. Bush, who has not yet announced his intention to run in 2016, is one of the most forward-looking Republicans concerning the issue of immigration reform. However, he still needs to appeal to a Republican base wary of anything that may hint at "amnesty," in their eyes. Bush has treaded carefully, phrasing his support for reform as one that includes "earned" legal status. However, Buzzfeed News uncovered a 2009 letter in which the...

Bush co-chaired a Council on Foreign Relations task force that recommended a slate of policies on immigration to then Labor Secretary Hilda Solis. In 2009, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush sent a letter to Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis advocating an immigration plan developed by the Council on Foreign Relations. That report included in its recommendations an earned pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants. Bush was one of two co-chairs of the bipartisan task force. The letter, signed by Bush, identifies “a program of earned legalization that offers an opportunity for many illegal immigrants to earn the right to remain...

He was born in Midland, Texas, and he spent a good bit of his boyhood in Houston, and he went to high school in Andover, Massachusetts, and to college in Austin, Texas, and he has lived for the last three and a half decades in Miami. But at the top of the list of the most important places in the world in the life of Jeb Bush is the central Mexican state of Guanajuato, and its conservative, old-world Catholic capital of León. León is why he proposed marriage in Spanish, why his three children are Mexican-American, why his favorite foods...

Her husband isn’t officially running, but Columba Bush is already driving with a Spanish-language bumper sticker supporting the former Florida governor for the White House in 2016. The Daily Mail grabbed photos this week of Columba entering and exiting a green Mini Cooper in Coral Gables, Fla., with an orange "Viva Jeb! Presidente 2016" sticker. The sticker is next to another for their son, George P. Bush, from his successful bid for Texas Land Commissioner last year.

EXCLUSIVE: Columba Bush's car sports bumper sticker declaring 'Viva Jeb!' and his campaign for 'Presidente 2016' (but he still won't say he's actually running) Jeb Bush has been coy about whether he will formally enter the 2016 presidential race. But his wife already has the bumper sticker. Columba Bush was photographed Tuesday in Coral Gables, Florida getting into her green Mini Cooper with a clearly visible Spanish-language message on the back-end. 'Viva Jeb! Presidente 2016,' it read. It's the first outward sign that Bush's presidential announcement is a certainty, and could come soon. The sticker includes Jeb's first name in...

Few political spouses in recent memory have been as wary of the spotlight as Columba Bush, Jeb's wife of 41 years. But her husband's presidential potential means the spotlight is about to find her. Now and then in an otherwise unmemorable speech, Jeb Bush will drop a mention of his wife, like a sudden pop of color. At an event in Nevada this March, one of his first speeches of this campaign season, before a crowd of what The Washington Post called “everyday Americans,” Bush opened with a husband-still-in-thrall routine. His life, he said, can be divided into two parts:...

Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and his wife will be attending a fundraising event in Miami Monday evening. Columba Bush will join her husband at the Right to Rise PAC fundraiser at the Jorge Mas Canosa Youth Center. Congressman Lincoln Diaz Balart is also expected to attend.

In a sign of Jeb Bush’s broad Hispanic outreach, his intensely private wife, Columba Bush, slowly started to raise her profile Friday by opening her own Twitter and Instagram accounts. Columba Bush, using the handle @ColumbaBush, plans to reach out in English and Spanish to various segments of the nation’s Latino community, which has one of the highest rates of social-media use in the nation. -snip- “This is a really important first step. It’s beyond dispute that Hispanic voters are more and more important in each election, and we need to capture at least 40 percent of that vote,” said...

She will be tweeting and ‘gramming in English and Spanish, a source familiar with Columba Bush’s plans told BuzzFeed News. Family photos are coming. Jeb Bush’s campaign hasn’t been announced yet, but one of the routine parts of an expected candidacy is here: social media accounts from the spouse. “Privileged to meet @ICADV leaders while in IA with Jeb this weekend. Join me in supporting Domestic Violence prevention,” she tweeted after meeting with the Iowa Coalition Against Domestic Violence. A source familiar with Columba Bush’s plans told BuzzFeed News she’s really excited to interact with people, and should Bush decide...

Although the presidential election of 2016 is more than a year away, the race is already starting to heat up. ForAmerica, the popular online conservative group that boasts of a “digital army,” is launching an ad that slams potential presidential hopeful Jeb Bush. The ad, which is as much a condemnation of Democratic Party runner Hillary Clinton, lambasts the former Republican governor of Florida for supporting the former Obama administration's secretary of state. The one-minute video shows a cavalcade of conservative pundits bashing Clinton’s credentials as she seeks the presidency in 2016. However, what makes it a Jeb Bush attack...

Jeb Bush, in an exclusive interview with Fox News’ “The Kelly File,” rejected the suggestion that the momentum behind his likely presidential bid has slowed – calling recent polls “irrelevant” and urging those closely watching them to “take a chill pill.” Bush, though widely expected to run for the Republican nomination, has held back as several other Republicans have officially announced their 2016 campaigns in recent weeks. As they dominate the headlines, some – notably, Bush’s presumed home-state rival, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio – have enjoyed a surge in the polls. But Bush stressed in the interview with Fox News...