Free Republic

Hope - and money - spring eternal for Jeb Bush, who isn't letting a lack of interested voters dampen his presidential aspirations. Sources close to the former Florida governor say that his sixth-place finish in the Iowa caucus was even worse than they were expecting, but they're vowing to take the buckets of cash their candidate has collected and win big in the Sunshine State. "Bush did another swing through Florida and raised $500,000 at four events," says an insider close to the GOP long shot. We're told that cash was collected over the course of six hours the week...

Jeb Bush told NBC News' Chuck Todd on Sunday that his campaign will continue no matter how he finishes in New Hampshire, the state where he has committed most of his time and campaign resources. "We'll beat expectations. And we'll be in South Carolina. And I'm excited by that," Bush said on "Meet The Press." "In fact, of the governors at least, I'm the only one that has a national campaign."

Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush says he will continue his campaign no matter the outcome of Tuesday's New Hampshire primary. Bush said in an interview with CNN on his campaign bus Saturday that the presidential race is just getting started and that he's "in it for the long haul." Bush says every election is different but that none are over after the first primary.

An all-out assault on Sen. Marco Rubio by groups aligned with former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush is angering GOP senators, who fear it could hurt the party's chances of capturing the White House. Right to Rise, a pro-Bush super PAC, has spent an estimated $20 million against Rubio. It is expected to launch a new ad this weekend featuring a clip of former Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.), who endorsed Rubio Tuesday, fumbling to name one of his accomplishments. One senator who has endorsed Bush, Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), is urging the PAC to rein in its attacks.

On Wednesday, Karl Rove, not a Trump fan by any means, explained how the cheating could have cost Donald Trump the election in Iowa. Wow! This is a stunning indictment of the Cruz Campaign's cheating scandal.

Pennsylvania Sen. Pat Toomey endorsed Marco Rubio for president Wednesday, describing the Florida senator as a "thoughtful conservative leader" he believes will appeal to voters in Pennsylvania and across the country. Just hours later, former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum quit the presidential race and also endorsed Rubio, calling him a "born leader" who shares his views on the central role of the family and on the national security threats facing the country. The support from Toomey and Santorum comes as Rubio is seeking to solidify backing from the GOP establishment after his third-place finish in Iowa. Toomey, a Republican from...

Jeb Bush's donors complain he is "burning money" with lavish spending on fancy hotels, fundraisers at the Four Seasons and St. Regis, and private planes - all while his poll numbers have plummeted and some GOP operatives are wondering whether he should remain in the race. The federal filings of both Bush's campaign and Super PAC Right to Rise show his campaign has at times been "a whirl of private planes and high-end affairs," according to Reuters, which received responses from 11 of the 16 major donors to Bush's campaign it contacted to inquire whether the money contributed has been...

There were stays at boutique hotels featuring rooftop pools, private soirees at members-only, jacket-and-tie clubs and fundraisers at the Four Seasons, the St. Regis and the Mandarin Oriental. In the world of Jeb Bush, the campaign for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination has at times been a whirl of private planes and high-end affairs, according to the federal filings of Bush’s campaign and his Super PAC, Right to Rise, which can raise unlimited funds for Bush as long as it does not coordinate directly with him. It is not unusual for U.S. presidential candidates to fly private or even sometimes...

You knew it had to happen soon: Someone at Politico (or actually two someones, Anna Palmer and Eli Stokols) would get on the horn with some of the donors who poured more than $100 million into the Jeb Bush super-pac Right to Rise and would reliably hear and report some high-end bitching. And the object of this unhappiness was equally predictable: Right to Rise chieftain and longtime Republican campaign consultant Mike Murphy, who has burned through about half of the vast RTR war chest even as his candidate went from being the unquestioned front-runner to this feckless and much-ridiculed guy...

Donald Trump ripped Karl Rove at a campaign rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma this afternoon that featured former Gov. Sarah Palin. TRUMP: Karl Rove, this guy he predicted -- he thinks Romney won the election. Remember? Romney won. He won. I'm telling you. They had to take him off the air in a basket.

On January 19, Donald Trump, the loudest Republican claimant to the anti-establishment label, filled out his recent attacks on Ted Cruz in a very telling way, as revealed on Mark Levin's radio program ... We've been contacted by the establishment types. They all want to know, how do they get involved with the campaign? They're giving up on their candidate...and I mean these are real establishment people, that I've known when I was a member of the establishment -- meaning a giver, a big donor. But they are contacting us -- Corey [Trump's campaign manager], I think we can say...

The Republican Party will lose the White House, the Senate and many of its House seats if Donald Trump becomes the party's presidential nominee, according to Karl Rove. “If Mr. Trump is its standard-bearer, the GOP will lose the White House and the Senate, and its majority in the House will fall dramatically,” the Republican wrote in an op-ed for The Wall Street Journal Rove, who was a top adviser to former President George W. Bush, said nominating Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) for president could also be dangerous. “If the nominee is Ted Cruz the situation is still dicey,” he...

A year ago, when he was just beginning to run for president, Jeb Bush declared that he was "my own man" and suggested he would run as far as possible from his famous last name. Now, stuck near the back of the GOP pack and fighting for survival, the former Florida governor is calling in the cavalry - relatives and hundreds of others with long ties to the Bush clan who are gearing up to flood Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina or Nevada in a push to get back into contention. Bush World has done this before for his father,...

Twitter users have made a mockery of the ad A super PAC supporting Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush bought a billboard ad in Iowa to take a swipe at frontrunner Donald Trump. The ad, paid for by Right to Rise USA, features a red billboard that reads, in white letters, "'Donald Trump is unhinged' -Jeb Bush."

Right to Rise USA, a super PAC supporting the presidential candidacy of Jeb Bush, has received a $10 million donation from insurance executive Hank Greenberg, sources familiar with the situation told The Wall Street Journal on Thursday. -snip- The former Florida governor polls just 3.3 nationwide, according to a RealClearPolitics average of polls.

Gary Johnson, a two-term Republican governor of New Mexico who became the Libertarian Party's 2012 presidential nominee, will officially announce his 2016 campaign on Fox News on Wednesday.

Since the emergence of Donald Trump as the GOP presidential front-runner, various sources close to Mitt Romney have floated the idea of the 2012 nominee reentering the current race to heroically save his party. Romney has repeatedly insisted that he's out for good this time, but now he claims that "Mitt 2016" fever is still very much alive - to the point that even a current candidate has begged him not to rule out running. "Look," Romney told the Washington Post in late December, "I had one person who was running for president, and I won't give you the name...

Donald Trump slammed the Republican Party of Virginia via Twitter on Sunday for its plan to require that 2016 primary voters sign a statement confirming they are Republicans. Trump and others say the requirement could discourage independent and first-time voters from casting primary ballots in Virginia, where primaries are open to all registered voters. According to some experts, the voter pledge has the potential to hurt Trump in particular, because his un-orthodox candidacy has attracted voters disenchanted with traditional party politics. -snip- David I. Ramadan (R-Loudoun) said Sunday that he supports the party requirement. He responded to Trump with an...

Republican candidates and parties in key primary states are among the first beneficiaries of Jeb Bush’s Right to Rise PAC. The committee launched by the former Florida governor and prospective 2016 Republican presidential candidate announced on Friday it gave nearly $123,000 in contributions. The largest payments were $10,000 each to the Republican Parties of Florida, Iowa, Nevada and South Carolina, as well as the New Hampshire Republican State Committee - each playing an important role in early presidential primaries for 2016. In addition, the Bush PAC gave $5,200 each to individual Republican candidates, such as U.S. Sens. Kelly Ayotte of...

Jeb Bush and his super PAC are set to assault New Hampshire airwaves with a series of ads leading up the first-in-the-nation presidential primary. The spending looks like an effort by Bush to empty campaign coffers, filled in a fundraising haul started in late 2014, in a last ditch effort to gain ground in a state famous for anointing the Republican establishment standard-bearer. This strategy includes two ads from Bush's PAC, Right to Rise. Those ads are set to air in New Hampshire during the Super Bowl. The Boston Herald reported that the Bush team has reserved more than $14...