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...

Jeb Bush's campaign and allies have spent nearly a whopping $33 million in TV and radio advertisements so far this election cycle - almost more than the rest of the current Republican field combined, according to ad-buying data from SMG Delta. The biggest overall advertiser in the 2016 race is Right to Rise, the Super PAC backing Jeb Bush, which has spent $31.7 million in the contest, while the Bush campaign has chipped in an additional $800,000.

Donald Trump has fended off a challenge by Ben Carson in the early voting state of Iowa and maintained his lead elsewhere, according to the latest wave of the YouGov/CBS News Battleground Poll. 30% likely Republican caucus goers in Iowa name Trump as their choice for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination. Carson, a retired neurosurgeon, receives 19% support, behind Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas who receives 21%. Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida receives 11%. In a YouGov/CBS News poll last month, Trump and Carson were tied with 27% support each among voters in the Hawkeye State. Other polls even found...

The Marco Rubio campaign is making the most out of the blockbuster story in today's New York Times about the Jeb Bush campaign about to go nuclear on Rubio. Specifically, Right to Rise, Bush's super PAC, is apparently ready to spend $20 million in attacking Rubio. "Part of running for president is you have to put your big boy pants on and get vetted on the issues, so we know we don't have a dud candidate running against Hillary Clinton," Right to Rise chief strategist Mike Murphy told the Times. Forget whether the strategy makes any sense - who could...

The Bushes are burning as they consume the news. Bush family patriarch George H.W. Bush is “bewildered,” alarmed and “irritated,” the New York Times reported over the weekend, that his son Jeb is going so poorly in a Republican presidential primary battle dominated by Donald Trump. The 41st president summoned his son George W., the 43rd president, Jeb and Bush money men to Houston for meetings Sunday and Monday to sort out what has gone so wrong that Jeb is now cutting staff. They didn’t have to look far for an explanation. All they had to do was listen to...

Former Florida governor Jeb Bush will release an e-book containing the emails from his time in office this week. Bush is using Amazon’s CreateSpace Independent Publishing platform to publish the work. In the book, Bush includes email conversations between himself, his aides and his constituents alongside reflections on the messages. Here is more from the Amazon listing: This book tells the story of Jeb Bush’s governorship through his email exchanges with his staff, members of the media and the Floridians he served from 1999-2007.

In the wake of widespread campaign cuts and tumbling poll numbers, Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush is attempting to take control of his own narrative, quite literally, by releasing it online. His e-book, Reply All, a tome of his email from two terms as governor of Florida, will be released next Monday. The same week, Bush will also try to bolster a faltering campaign by launching a “Jeb Can Fix It” tour — all an effort to focus on his record as governor, an overarching principle of his campaign. The tour begins in Tampa, Florida, next Monday with remarks from...

What happened to that self-proclaimed "joyful tortoise"? At a Saturday town hall event in South Carolina, Jeb Bush was sure sounding frustrated with the current state of the GOP race for the nomination. "If this election is about how we're going to fight to get nothing done, then ... I don't want any part of it," he said. "I don't want to be elected president to sit around and see gridlock just become so dominant that people literally are in decline in their lives. That is not my motivation." He dismissed the suggestion that the recent financial cutbacks at his...

Donald Trump on Monday mocked former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush for having to consult his parents over the weekend about his floundering presidential run. "Bush is out there, his campaign is a disaster," Trump told a morning crowd in Atkinson, N.H. "That's because I came along! I'm proud of it." Trump also hit Bush for cutting the salaries of his campaign staff. "So he's meeting now with mom and dad," he said. "No it's true, he needs counsel." "He was very angry over the week. He said, 'if this is going to be this nasty, let them have Trump as...

This weekend illustrates why Trump (or somebody like him) could be president. The second rule of pres­id­en­tial polit­ics is nev­er tell voters you’ve got something bet­ter to do. Jeb Bush on Sat­urday: “I’ve got a lot of really cool things I could do oth­er than sit around, be­ing miser­able, listen­ing to people de­mon­ize me and me feel­ing com­pelled to de­mon­ize them.” The third rule of pres­id­en­tial polit­ics is nev­er tell voters to vote for some­body else. Jeb Bush: “That is a joke. Elect Trump if you want that.” The fourth rule of pres­id­en­tial polit­ics is polit­ics today sucks. Deal with...

JENNIFER RUBIN, WASHINGTON POST: What strikes me is not only the outsider/insider, but how backward looking Jeb Bush's ad was. He's talking about what he's done. His family has an esteemed record, one of the great political families of our era. And it's not enough this time. I'm also struck in that opening segment that you showed, how small he seems. How petty, how put upon.

What happens when a candidate whose greatest strength is the sense of inevitability surrounding him becomes something short of inevitable? That’s the question that is facing former Florida governor Jeb Bush’s presidential candidacy amid only so-so polling numbers nationally and in early-voting states and that is behind a fundraising operation premised on “shock and awe” but, to date, is producing mostly “awww.” -snip- Jeb Bush, of course, has long been given a pass on his candidate fundraising because his super PAC — Right to Rise — brought in more than $100 million over the first six months of the year,...

Now Is No Time to Be Voting for President Based on Emotion by Thomas Sowell September 15, 2015 In a country with more than 300 million people, it is remarkable how obsessed the media have become with just one — Donald Trump. What is even more remarkable is that, after six years of repeated disasters, both domestically and internationally, under a glib egomaniac in the White House, so many potential voters are turning to another glib egomaniac to be his successor. No doubt much of the stampede of Republican voters toward Mr. Trump is based on their disgust with the...

On Tuesday, talk radio host Glenn Beck accused the Tea Party supporters of GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump of being racists. While he questioned whether Trump’s supporters are genuine Tea Partiers, Beck said of them, “If you were a Tea Party person, then you were lying. You were lying. It was about Barack Obama being black. It was about him being a Democrat.” Although he later identified fellow talk show host Sean Hannity as a Tea Party supporter who thinks Trump is “a great guy,” Beck said that he simply disagrees with Hannity about Trump. Beck’s comments came as part...