Free Republic

What were they thinking? In hindsight that may be the biggest question: How did Jeb Bush and his once-savvy political team so badly misunderstand today's Republican electorate? The bold - and, yes, high-energy - governor who transformed Florida government and politics in the 1990s was thoroughly unprepared for today's far more conservative, far more angry Republican Party than when he governed. It was absurd for thoughtful and thin-skinned Bush ever to think he could run a "joyful" campaign for president in this political environment. He ran honorably, but as he gave in to reality Saturday night and suspended his campaign,...

Jeb Bush has finally put his presidential campaign out of its misery. But it wasn't so long ago that Jeb was widely seen as the candidate to beat in the Republican presidential primary. Pundits predicted that Bush was almost as inevitable a nominee as Hillary Clinton was. Commentators cast Bush as the Republican Party's best chance at leaving Clinton shaking in her boots. Between his "rock star name" and the gusher of money he had flowing into his campaign before even announcing, Bush was thought to have the nomination nearly at his fingertips. Then reality intervened. The former Florida governor...

As former Florida governor Jeb Bush suspended his presidential bid Saturday night, new details were trickling in about the massive investments the Right to Rise super PAC made to prop up his candidacy. As of Saturday, the group had raced through at least $95.7 million out of the $118.6 million it had collected by the end of January, according to Federal Election Commission filings. Almost $87 million went into a barrage of television ads, online videos, slick mailers and voter phone calls. The group flew an airplane with a banner mocking Donald Trump over a rally of his supporters, produced...

It ended without an exclamation point. On a mild Saturday night in South Carolina, Jeb Bush took to the stage at his victory party (using those two words in the least literal sense) and told supporters that he was out. It wasn't supposed to be this way. When Jeb jumped in, Tea Partiers panicked and grassroots conservatives lit their hair on fire. He carried an air of inevitability after all-at its onset, his campaign practically drowned in shock-and-awe money and big name endorsements. But from its inception, there were cracks. When he spoke at CPAC a few months before his...

His campaign started out stuffed with money. By last July, Jeb Bush had raised $103 million for his super PAC, Right to Rise, an astonishing sum that seemed to foretell the most lavishly funded campaign in American history. No super PAC had ever raised so much cash so early in an election cycle. In fact, Right to Rise alone outraised all the super PACs combined at the same stage in the 2012 elections. Now, after primary elections in just three states, Bush is out. He finished sixth in the Iowa caucus, fourth in the New Hampshire primary, and now, fourth...

Jeb Bush’s campaign has fallen short of expectations. At one time the Republican front-runner with substantial money behind his campaign's super PAC, the former Florida Governor was the man to beat. Then, billionaire Donald Trump emerged as a more serious contender than his veteran team had anticipated. Bush never quit figured out how to deal with him, and finished well behind him Saturday in South Carolina.

Jeb Bush, the Republican establishment's last, best hope, began his 2016 campaign rationally enough, with a painstakingly collated operational blueprint his team called, with NFL swagger, "The Playbook." On page after page kept safe in a binder, the playbook laid out a strategy for a race his advisors were certain would be played on Bush's terms - an updated, if familiar version of previous Bush family campaigns where cash, organization and a Republican electorate ultimately committed to an electable center-right candidate would prevail. The playbook, hatched by Sally Bradshaw, Mike Murphy and a handful of other Bush confidants in dozens...

A top Jeb Bush adviser on Friday morning repeatedly dodged the question of whether the former Florida governor will stay in the presidential race if he disappoints in South Carolina, instead saying the campaign is laser focused on Saturday's primary. At the outset of the interview on "New Day," host Chris Cuomo asked Michael Steel, Bush's adviser for policy and communications, whether his candidate is finished if he does not finish in second or third place in Saturday's South Carolina primary. The on-screen chyron: "IS SOUTH CAROLINA THE END OF THE ROAD FOR JEB BUSH?" "Look, we're excited about South...

A senior advisor to Jeb Bush seemed non-committal Friday when asked definitively if the former Florida governor's presidential campaign will move forward after Saturday's South Carolina primary. "I can say we're looking forward to a good result here in South Carolina and we'll move on from there," Michael Steele eventually said on CNN after first dodging the question. Bush is publicly scheduled to attend two events in Nevada ahead of that state's caucus: a town hall Sunday evening in Las Vegas and another Monday evening in Reno and the campaign insists they will move on regardless of the outcome Saturday....

Rio Has Given Up On Its Goal To Clean Up The Water In Time For The Olympics When bidding to host the 2016 Summer Olympics, Rio de Jaineiro promised the International Olympics Committee that it would eliminate 80 percent of the sewage found in the city's notoriously filthy water, and would fully regenerate the lagoon in which rowing and kayaking events will be held. Now a few months from the start of the games, Rio has given up on keeping those promises. Outside The Lines' Bonnie Ford has a thorough examination of the current state of Rio's water pollution, and...

All of the color has bled from the face of Jeb! 2016. The campaign is bedridden, confused, moaning in agony. At this point, the best thing for Jeb Bush and everyone around him would be to let his candidacy die with dignity. In Nevada, Jeb Bush has become the candidate of the one percent - literally, he has one percent of the vote there. In Quinnipiac's most recent national poll he's at 4 percent, which puts him in a tie for last place with Ben Carson, who barely has a campaign and spent much of a nationally televised town hall...

Mike Murphy, who runs Jeb Bush's super PAC, has a lousy record in getting presidents elected-which makes Bush's faltering campaign a very personal crusade. "This campaign is not dead," Jeb Bush assured supporters Tuesday night as the results of the New Hampshire primary rolled in-a tentative diagnosis of political viability, perhaps, but hardly a ringing call to arms as the Republican presidential battlefield shifts to the Feb. 20 South Carolina primary. Bush's wan declaration was especially poignant given that his Right to Rise Super PAC, for which the former Florida governor expended blood, sweat and tears to raise more than...

FMR. GOV. JENNIFER GRANHOLM (D-MI): Young women do not want to be shamed into voting and that's very clear and nobody intended for that to happen. I think what they -- I'm from the next generation after, you know, Gloria and Madeline and we -- I've got their pictures on my wall, I mean, they are just -- they're total heroes. Of course they're going to say that we want to be able to see finally a woman as president after 227 years. But the Clinton campaign is saying not just any woman. We wouldn't say vote for Sarah Palin....

Reckless government spending is at full throttle with the example du jour a $5.7 billion cyber defense system created to protect computers at federal agencies against hackers. Despite its mind-boggling price tag the system is seriously flawed and uses features already available in much cheaper commercial-grade products, according to a federal probe made public recently. The problem, besides sticking it to taxpayers for the exorbitant cost, is that the multibillion-dollar system simply doesn't work. Nevertheless, the bloated agency handling this particular boondoggle, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), insists the program, National Cybersecurity Protection System (NCPS), is effective despite its...

Behind the would-be juggernaut lay a candidate who'd never won a competitive election. Jeb Bush banned me from the bus. It was October 2014, two months before Jeb would announce he was exploring a run for president, and I had come to west Texas as an Associated Press reporter to ask about his plans. The former Florida governor had taken a day off from campaigning for midterm candidates to enjoy a victory lap with his son, George P. Bush, who was cruising to election as Texas land commissioner. A Texas colleague and I were set to interview father and son...

A 50-year-old Philadelphia man was arrested on the Pennsylvania Turnpike Sunday evening, preventing him from making the 2,800-mile trip to the Super Bowl in California. Charles E. Robinson was pulled over for speeding at around 4:30 p.m. on Sunday near mile marker 230 heading east on the Turnpike, state police said in a news release. Trooper Mark Gray said Robinson was going about 100 mph in a rental car. Robinson told Gray that he was traveling to the Super Bowl, according to the release. Gray wrote in his report that he "immediately detected a strong odor of marijuana," which led...

Frustration inside Bush world has begun to spill into open view, with even the most outspoken family loyalists admitting it may soon be time to move on. With the New Hampshire primary just days away and polls showing him still trailing Marco Rubio, there is an increasing sense that Jeb Bush is running out of time to demonstrate strength. Many donors and influential supporters, bound by a deep and longstanding connection to the patrician clan, say they will remain with Bush no matter what. Yet others, deeply distressed by the rise of Donald Trump and Ted Cruz and eager for...

It must be more than a decade ago when I got a glimpse of the man often referred to as "George W. Bush's smarter, younger brother." Charlie Cook and I were scheduled to speak to a group of Florida business leaders during lunch, but before we began our shtick, the state's sitting governor, Jeb Bush, was to offer some remarks. Bush was running late that day, so when he finally arrived he blew into the room like a summer rain squall. He sat down, a bit out of breath as I remember it, and quickly turned to the group's executive...

For Jeb Bush, the bar for awkward encounters is set pretty high. After all, his father once vomited in the lap of Japan's prime minister and his brother, George W., well, where do we even start? But, Jeb, oh, Jeb. We shouldn't have underestimated you. His campaign has been enigmatic from the get-go. On the one hand, there are times where he seems barely interested and would rather die than have to do another campaign rally. On the other, he showed fire whenever Donald Trump was around and he needed to defend the family honor. As the campaign has dragged...

2015 was when social justice warriors and the regressive left went 'full retard'.