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Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush faced the same decision as South Carolina officials - whether to remove the Confederate flag from statehouse grounds - more than a decade ago. With far less fanfare, Bush as Florida's governor 14 years ago removed the Confederate flag from the Florida state Capitol in Tallahassee. On Feb. 2, 2001, the flag moved to the Museum of Florida History. A Bush spokeswoman said at the time that the governor believed that most Floridians would agree symbols of the past "should not be displayed in a manner that may divide Floridians today." Though Bush's action drew...

A brand-new national NBC/WSJ poll finds Jeb Bush leading the crowded Republican presidential field, with 22% of GOP primary voters saying he's their first choice. He's followed by Scott Walker at 17%, Marco Rubio at 14%, and Ben Carson at 11%. While Jeb had a similar five-point lead in our April NBC/WSJ poll, you see his current position has strengthened when you look inside the numbers of this new poll. (It was conducted during the buildup and coverage of Bush's official presidential announcement on June 16.) The latest survey shows him ahead among self-identified conservative GOP primary voters -- when...

No, no, no! Another Bush?!” Such was my reaction, and that of many other conservatives, last year when rumors of a potential Jeb Bush 2016 candidacy began to surface. Words like “dynasty” and “legacy” were a constant. “What don’t you like about Jeb?” someone would ask, to which we would sputter the following nonsensical retort: “Hm, well — c’mon, a Bush?” Yet several realities began to dawn upon us: (1) in all the kneejerk reflectiveness against the idea of a Bush, we had hardly evaluated the man on his actual record; (2) the idea of “not another Bush” was a...

Sensing the window of opportunity is closing, John Kasich is on a last-minute dash across the country to convince party donors and power-brokers that there’s room for one more candidate in the most crowded Republican presidential field in decades. The Ohio governor, who’s expected to formally announce his White House bid next month, is jetting to America’s political money capitals — from Dallas to New York City to Palm Beach — with the goal of securing the financial support he’ll need to wage a 2016 campaign. He’s huddled with Ann Romney at a lavish Utah ski resort and pushed to...

The leader of a leading organization representing gay, lesbian and transgender military service members says he's "cautiously optimistic" about comments made by Jeb Bush regarding transgender people serving in uniform. Campaigning in Iowa on Wednesday, the former Florida governor was asked by a reporter whether he would support allowing transgender people to serve in the military. "I’m sure there’s a role for everybody to play in the armed forces. I think it would depend on the specific role and whether it’s appropriate enough," he said. "The first priority for the military is to create an environment where the morale is...

eb Bush capped his first official campaign swing through Iowa with an impassioned plea for comprehensive immigration reform, saying it will help the United States compete globally—and help Republicans defeat Democrats at the ballot box. It folded neatly into Bush's broader message framed implicitly by his argument for electability—that he, more than any other Republican candidate, has a proven record of passing conservative policy and winning large numbers of swing voters in a purple state.

When he has needed a quiet place to work, Mike Murphy has pedaled his electric commuter bike onto the Paramount Studios lot, flashed his ID and rode past cavernous stages such as No. 14, where filmmakers shot “Saturday Night Fever,” “The Hunt for Red October” and “Star Trek.” Movie and TV stars paid no heed to the balding guy in horn-rimmed glasses and rumpled East Coast khakis as he made his way toward his office, closed the door and went to work trying to elect Jeb Bush president of the United States. When Bush officially launches his campaign Monday, Murphy...

When Jeb Bush first ran for governor of Florida in 1994, his father had recently been booted out of the White House and the fortysomething son very much wanted to be seen as his own man. So, when it came time to design his bumper stickers, he went with a red background and “Jeb!” in chunky white letters. There was no mention of his famous surname or his party, and the jolting exclamation point was the opposite of his family’s Kennebunkport reserve. Bush ended up losing that race but keeping the brand, reusing the logo in his 1998 political comeback...

“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,...

In a setting that emphasized the Spanish language and Latino culture, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush announced that he is running for president. Bush, the son of one U.S. president and brother of another, launched his 2016 campaign with a rally and speech at Miami Dade College, whose student body is more than 70 percent Latino. Speaking in English, and adding some comments in flawless Spanish, Bush vowed make the most vulnerable in U.S. society – the disabled, minorities and women – a priority if he gets to the White House. He called Florida a fitting place to launch his...

Tea party Republicans are voicing their displeasure with Jeb Bush in the hours leading up to his 2016 campaign kickoff. Bush would be the third member of his family to sit in the Oval Office, and tea party leader Mark Meckler says both George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush were "big-government" Republicans. The president of Citizens for Self-Governance says they contributed to, quote, "the increase in size, spending and involvement of government in America." He also notes that Jeb Bush's steadfast support for Common Core education standards and immigration reform "is a nonstarter with many conservatives."

Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush officially kicked off his candidacy by filing paperwork to run for president with the Federal Election Commission, flipping the switch on an expansive campaign operation he has quietly been building for months. The Republican, who becomes the third member of his family to seek the nation’s highest office, also is slated to deliver his first official campaign speech at Miami-Dade College Monday afternoon. The son and brother of two U.S. presidents, Mr. Bush enters a presidential field crowded with young up-and-coming Republican talent and an electorate deeply divided about the future direction of both the...

Byron York quotes various rival GOP strategists sniffing that this plays more like a general-election ad than one for the primaries.Okay, tell me: What should a Jeb Bush primary ad look like? If he did four minutes of red-meat conservatism here, righties would laugh and shout, “Amnesty! Common Core!” Those votes are unwinnable. His path to the nomination runs through the center-right. He’s going to pitch himself to them the way centrist campaigns always do, as a non-ideological problem-solving pragmatist. This seems made to order. The video is aimed particularly at women voters, underscoring the image Bush wants to...

As Jeb Bush formally enters the race for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination, allow me to make a humble request of the former Florida governor: Please drop out.

In a key-note interview, he described his father, the first President George Bush, as the “greatest man alive” and said the mere thought of him might make him cry. "I need to share my heart to show a little bit about my life experience," Mr Bush said in the video.

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...

Today, former Florida governor Jeb Bush formally enters the race for the Republican nomination for President. When Bush began his exploratory effort he was supposed to assemble the strongest roster of aides and donors, spooking would-be rivals for the nomination from the race. His political machine was expected to have $100 million on hand the day he declared as a candidate. Eventually, no one would ask about his family, which has spawned two Presidents, or his support for Common Core education standards or liberal views on illegal immigrants. None of that has happened noted Time Magazine’s Phillip Elliott in his...

Jeb Bush is poised to make his candidacy for the GOP presidential nomination official today. He will announce his intentions at Miami Dade College in a speech where, at least once, he is going to assure his listeners that he is a good conservative and can beat Hillary Clinton in the general election. The Bush fundraising steamroller is impressive. By the end of this month, his super-PAC, Right to Rise, will have raised close to $100 million, far and away the most of any declared or undeclared candidate. But he is currently the choice of only about 12% of the...

Fox News host Sean Hannity continues his streak as conservative king maker, as the network announced Thursday that he will have the first interview with Jeb Bush after his presidential campaign announcement next week. The former Florida governor is expected to announce his presidential campaign Monday in Florida. On Tuesday, Hannity will interview Bush. Bush will also appear on "The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon" that same night. Bush campaign spokespeople confirmed that Bush will not hold any interviews Monday and that Hannity will be his first.

The son of 41 and brother of 43 opened up a clear lead in a crowded GOP field, according to the June 2-3 Howie Carr Show/Gravis poll of 487 Republican Primary voters. Former Florida governor John E. “Ellis” Bush was the choice of 21 percent of respondents, who said they intended to vote in the Feb. 8 Republican New Hampshire Primary, said Doug Kaplan, the managing partner of Gravis Insights, the Florida-based company that conducted the poll. The poll carries a margin of error of 4 percent. “Jeb Bush has advantages going into the New Hampshire primary,” said Kaplan. “His...