Free Republic

GOP presidential candidate Jeb Bush, who was at one time considered a shoe-in for the party nomination, is now facing a do-or-die warning from senior fundraisers who say he needs to correct his sinking poll numbers in October or face losing key supporters. The former Florida governor over the weekend downplayed his dwindling poll numbers, telling Fox News Sunday the "polls don't really matter," reports The Washington Post, and he and his super PAC are readying an aggressive ad campaign, but a recent national NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll put him in fifth place with just 7 percent of the...

Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) said Thursday night that former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush would be a great president if he ran in 2016. However, the Speaker made clear he is not endorsing anyone more than two years before the election. “Well listen I’m not endorsing anybody, but Jeb Bush is my friend, and I frankly think he would be a great president, I really do,” he said on “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno.” Bush was the only potential GOP candidate Boehner mentioned when asked who he liked for president. In the wide-ranging interview, Boehner also touched on last October’s...

Former Florida Governor Jeb Bush, a staunch supporter of "comprehensive immigration reform," urged Republicans on Monday to stop being "the obstacle" to immigration reform. Writing in the Wall Street Journal with Clint Bolick, Bush asserted that "immigration reform" was a gateway issue for Hispanic and Asian voters. He said Republicans needed to "cease being the obstacle to immigration reform and instead point the way toward the solution."

“The chatter is he's up to something,” says one Florida operative. If Jeb Bush decides to convert his media tour into a presidential bid in a couple years, he won't have to look far for a campaign staff: The well-funded education foundation he runs out his office in a Miami hotel is stacked with former political operatives, a large communications team, and a rapidly growing staff whose work stretches into 40 states. It is common practice for undeclared presidential candidates to build a campaign infrastructure under the guise of a political action committee, but Bush appears to be laying the...