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It all started with a question about food labeling at the Iowa Agriculture Summit earlier this year and Jeb Bush's not-so-humble brag: "When I go to Publix in Coral Gables after church to go prepare for Sunday Funday in my house ... I'll probably make a really good guacamole and I want to know where that avocado is from and I want to know where the onions are from and the cilantro and all the secret stuff I put in it." Then, Bush sold molcajetes (aka mortar and pestle) - stone devices used to crush or grind food - in...

Jeb Bush's campaign is drastically shifting its resources from the airwaves to the field, scrapping large advertising buys in early-voting states in hopes of reviving his floundering bid for the presidency. Campaign officials told CNN Wednesday that it will cancel $3 million in reserved television advertising in Iowa and South Carolina, and is preparing to spend its money deploying upwards of 60 campaign staffers from its Miami headquarters to the first four voting states -- Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada. The move will double the staffer presence in New Hampshire to more than 40. The dramatic spending shift...

Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush is canceling reserved advertising time in Iowa and scaling back his advertising in South Carolina, campaign aides said Wednesday, a sign of his continuing struggles to connect with voters. Instead, Bush plans to deploy more staff to the first four states holding contests next year - Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada. Staffing in New Hampshire will double to 40, and the Bush team in Iowa will grow to about 20, aides said. Staffing in South Carolina and Nevada will be in the low teens. News of the decision was first reported by the...

Jeb Bush's campaign is pulling money out of TV advertising in Iowa and South Carolina, leaving the heavy lifting up to its super-PAC. The news, first reported by The Des Moines Register, raised speculation that the former Florida governor would effectively give up on Iowa, where he's currently fifth according to the latest RealClearPolitics average. But Bush's campaign pushed back on that notion, telling The Hill that it was focused on building an unmatched get-out-the-vote operation. The campaign is moving several dozen staff from Miami headquarters to the early-voting states in January. "The campaign is building the best national ground...

The last time Jeb Bush put together a plan to salvage his campaign, it involved a bus tour through Florida and a few early-voting states, that old staple of primary campaigning. That was in early November, after Donald Trump had yanked the national lead from Bush's grasp and any sense of security from beneath his feet. Our Philip Rucker reported that the tour felt as much like a therapy session as an effort to connect with voters. Campaign strategy or therapy session or whatever it was, it didn't work. From late October, right before the third Republican debate, until the...

Jeb! Bush spent about n hour recently with the editorial board of The Tampa Tribune, responding in depth to questions about a wide range of policies he would push if he is elected president of the United States. He showed a clear command of the things he would face as commander in chief, speaking confidently and sounding much like a candidate who expects to sit in the Oval Office a little more than a year from now. He even said at one point, “I want a guy (in office) who understands the issues.” That was a clear slap at Donald...

George Will is warning that if the GOP nominates Donald Trump for president, it would be the "end" of the conservative party. “Conservatives’ highest priority now must be to prevent Trump from winning the Republican nomination in this, the GOP’s third epochal intraparty struggle in 104 years,” he writes in a new Washington Post column Thursday.

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MODESTO (KRON) — A Modesto pastor is recovering Tuesday night after being shot during a gun safety class, according to KTXL. Tom Smith was shot by his own gun safety instructor. Police said the two were acting out a scenario when a loaded gun the instructor was holding accidentally went off. Officials said the gun fired at the end of class after the instructor put a mock gun down and picked up his real loaded gun. It is unclear if the instructor believed he was using the mock gun he had been using to teach the class.

Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson on Wednesday suggested his policies would torpedo his chances at two terms in the Oval Office. "You know, if I'm successful in this endeavor to become president of the United States, it's very likely I would be a one-term president," he said, according to The Wall Street Journal. "[It is] because there are some tough things we have to attack," Carson added. "We cannot continue down this path." The retired neurosurgeon bemoaned the GOP base's impossibly high standards for its conservative credentials. "Republicans have this mental disorder that says, ‘A person doesn’t agree with me...

The price of meeting Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush is going down. Earlier this year, before Mr. Bush became a candidate, he headlined fundraisers for his super PAC that cost as much as $100,000 to attend. Now, as the former Florida governor's polling numbers drop and competition for campaign contributions intensifies, his backers are inviting potential donors to meet Mr. Bush for free. At a fundraiser on Wednesday hosted by Kenneth Lipper, former deputy mayor of New York and a bundler for Mr. Bush's campaign, attendees will be encouraged to contribute but are not required to do so, according to...

How do you know when two television correspondents are in the same parking lot pretending that they are in separate locations? When you can see the same cars going by in both screens. Producers at CNN apparently thought viewers wouldn't notice that anchors Nancy Grace of HLN/Headline News and Ashleigh Banfield of Newsroom were standing no more than 30 feet way from one another as they manipulated the footage and placed Grace on Banfield's right instead of her left...

The fate of a network of alternative “co-op” health plans started under ObamaCare remains uncertain going into 2016, after half of them collapsed amid deep financial problems. The co-ops are government-backed, nonprofit health insurers propped up with over $2 billion in taxpayer loans. Twelve of the 23 co-ops established under the Affordable Care Act, though, have gone or are expected to go under by the end of the year, leaving customers who used them scrambling for coverage and taxpayer money at risk. But, as lawmakers on Capitol Hill demand answers on what’s being done, the Obama administration is offering few...

Influential GOP consultant and policy adviser Karl Rove says former Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels would be the perfect running mate for whoever wins the 2016 Republican presidential nomination. And at the very least, Rove adds in an exclusive interview with Newsmax TV, the GOP's vice presidential pick should be a Midwesterner to maximize the Republican ticket's drawing power. "It would be good to have somebody from the Midwest. I've got an out-of-the-box idea for you, how about the former governor of Indiana, Mitch Daniels," Rove said Wednesday on "Newsmax Prime" with J.D. Hayworth. "[He's] done an exemplary job serving in...

Jeb Bush and his supporters have spent more than twice that of any other candidate or outside group on TV ads in the 2016 presidential race. And what does the former Florida governor get for nearly $20 million, asks Mark Murray of NBC News. Apparently, not much. Bush's poll numbers are currently languishing in the single digits both nationally and in the early primary states. Right to Rise, the pro-Bush super PAC, has made $19.5 million in ad spending for Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina. Murray notes that the campaign also spent another $438,000.

UnitedHealth Group, the country’s largest health insurer, announced on Thursday that it was expecting to lose $600 million on Obamacare policies in 2016 from the health insurance exchange websites, and may terminate its Obamacare business by 2017. This was a sudden turnabout for the company. It was just a month ago that the company had said in an earnings call that they expected to expand their Obamacare coverage in 2017. According to Dave Wichmann, president and CFO, on October 15: The annual care ratio is being modestly affected by the performance of our new [Obamacare] public exchange benefit programs which...

The superPAC backing Jeb Bush seemed to have everything it needed. It went into the primaries with the most money by far. Right to Rise USA had raised $103 million by June 30, with plenty of help from Bush before he officially announced his candidacy and could no longer legally ask for big contributions. In September, Right to Rise put the money to work, announcing it would buy $24 million worth of TV ads in the first three nominating states: Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina. -snip- But Bush didn't get the intended result. On Labor Day, the Real Clear...

Colorado will allow Syrian Refugees thanks to Colorado will accept Syrian refugees, Hickenlooper says according to The DP.

The latest Economist/YouGov poll indicates Jeb Bush may have fallen out of the Republican top tier As the Republican candidates for President get ready for their next debate tonight, the potential 2016 GOP voters continue to express their support for non-traditional candidates. Businessman Donald Trump and retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson maintain their lead in the latest Economist/YouGov Poll as the top choices of registered voters who identify as Republicans. Carson pulls even with Trump when Republican voters name their second choice: just about four in ten say each man is their first or second choice.

After struggling to gain traction in the 2016 race, Jeb Bush's campaign announced last week it is relaunching the campaign. It appears his super PAC is doling out some significant cash to encourage the campaign to lift-off. According to independent expenditure disclosures that we spotting on Sunlight's Real-Time Federal Campaign Finance tracker, it appears Right To Rise USA is doubling down and going after the Republican base by placing more than $6.6 million dollars in ads exclusively on the Fox News Channel. The super PAC spent $18,932 producing those commercials, which were placed by a Virginia-based firm known as Oath...