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The experienced, accessible and disciplined candidate gets sarcastic in South Carolina. Jeb Bush said he’d give John Kasich a shout-out from the debate stage if the Ohio governor doesn’t make the cut. He publicly lamented the media’s obsession with Donald Trump. He even mocked the notion that his family lineage means he’s been waiting his whole life to become president. “It’s not like I’ve been kind of in some test tube waiting for my chance now, the third Bush,” he quipped. “I’ve actually had a life.” The 200 people who showed up here Tuesday afternoon got a glimpse of a...

Jeb Bush on Monday returned to the Florida capital to deliver a speech slamming lobbyists as a corrosive influence on public policy, and railing on the practice of public officials becoming professional influence peddlers. The jeremiad may have come as a shock to Tallahassee's government officials-turned-lobbyists whom Bush enlisted to help him sculpt his gubernatorial agenda, and who are now helping bankroll his Republican presidential campaign. In his speech, the former Florida governor said that as president he will push to ban lawmakers from becoming lobbyists for six years after they leave government. He decried the fact that before he...

Monday marks the first in a series of speeches by Jeb Bush “that will outline what his priorities will be as president, beginning with taking on Mount Washington and reforming the way D.C. works” — this according to his campaign. The inaugural speech itself is titled “Taking on Mount Washington,” in fact. While it is an interesting metaphor, the tone and tenor of it also could mark a change in demeanor for Mr. Bush which could help him fend off critics who frame his campaign as inconsequential or tepid.

Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) may be “closest to Obama in his view on foreign policy,” as Dr. Charles Krauthammer put it on Tuesday, but he is facing stiff competition from Jeb Bush in that category. The former Florida governor praised Obama’s initial negotiating efforts with Iran on Tuesday, telling an audience in Denver that “we need to give him credit” for “bringing other people along and making it tougher.” The puzzling statement suggests the influence of James A. Baker III on the Bush campaign. Baker, a former Secretary of State, was the co-chair of the Iraq Study Group in 2006,...

The ancient Romans coined the phrase "dog days" based on the period of time that the brightest star (Sirius, the Dog Star) rose and set in conjunction with the sun. The Romans believed that Sirius radiated heat to the Earth, causing the hottest part of the year as it traveled with the sun. The date range for the annual "dog-day" period varies based on the source. The Old Farmer's Almanac refers to the 40-day period that begins July 3 and ends August 11. The 1552 Book of Common Prayer refers to the period from July 6 to August 17. Many...

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- The Republican National Committee is expected later today to launch a four-week Ohio campaign that will focus on outreach to and mobilization of black voters in advance of the November 2016 presidential election. The campaign, called "#CommittedToCommunity: Engage, Empower, Uplift," includes a partnership with Radio One/TV One, which caters to a black and urban audience. It will begin today with faith-based outreach in Columbus and will end Aug. 6, the date of the first GOP presidential primary debate, which will be held at Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland. The campaign is part of an ongoing effort by...

Donald Trump's campaign said he had to move his speech in Phoenix today from the Biltmore hotel to the city's convention center "due to the overwhelming response," but not everyone is happy the Republican presidential candidate is coming to Arizona. Trump plans to deliver a speech on "illegal immigration and numerous other topics," according to his campaign. He will be speaking at an event organized by the Republican Party of Maricopa County along with Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who has gained a reputation for his hard-line tactics to combat illegal immigration. "The Republican Party of Maricopa County is pleased to bring...

The trouble started more than a week ago. Chris Christie was three days into his presidential campaign on July 2, yet he kept getting thrown off message with questions about Donald Trump. The New Jersey Governor, known for his attitude and bombast, flashed a frustrated glare at reporters. “I’ve said this now about eight or nine times. I’ll say the same thing again,” he said on the street in downtown Nashua between campaign stops. “The comments were inappropriate.” That much was clear. -snip- “When Donald trump speaks about Hispanics, if I’m the smart Republican that stage, I’m going to rally...

JEb Bush thinks you're all a bunch of lazy miscreants who need to work more. Or, at least, that's the spin the Democrats are putting on an awkward comment Bush made to The Union Leader. In the interview, the GOP presidential contender said "people need to work longer hours" if the country is to boost economic growth. "Workforce participation has to rise from its all-time modern lows," Bush said in the full comment. "It means that people need to work longer hours, and through their productivity, gain more income for their families." Once the hubbub started, he quickly backtracked, saying...

Presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders on Friday walked back some of his criticism of GOP contender Jeb Bush’s recent assertion that Americans should “work longer hours” to grow the economy. Sanders had pounced on the former Florida governor’s Wednesday assertion as evidence he was out of touch with economic reality. When Chris Cuomo, host of CNN's “New Day” accused Sanders (I-Vt.) of “twisting” the Republican's words, saying Bush meant to lament the lack of full-time jobs in the current economy, Sanders agreed. “If he is talking about the need for more full-time jobs rather than part-time jobs, he’s absolutely right,...

Te 2016 gaffe wars have finally begun. Oh, there have been gaffes before now in this presidential race, but the one Jeb Bush uttered on Wednesday — that in order to get our economy moving, "people need to work longer hours" — may be the first of this campaign's gaffes that is being accepted by both his political opponents and the media as terribly consequential ("Jeb Bush's 'Longer Hours' Remark Will Haunt Him," reads a headline at Time magazine). I may not have a lot of love for Jeb, but even this liberal is willing to say that on this...

Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush set off a firestorm this week by appearing to say in a newspaper interview that Americans should work longer hours. Democrats pounced, even as the Bush campaign said his comments were taken out of context. But everyone is missing the real story. Whether Bush’s comment was a criticism of American workers or a lament about a weakened job market, his words demonstrated such a lack of knowledge of economics that it’s virtually impossible to understand what was the context of his words.

Jeb Bush’s plutocratic fantasy land: Why his comments about American workers are completely divorced from reality. It’s possible that you can forgive Jeb Bush for not knowing about regular people, when in an interview with the New Hampshire Union Leader on Wednesday, he demonstrated a complete lack of appreciation for how hard Americans work — and for how little. Perhaps you can also forgive him for not recognizing that, in fact, Americans work more than their counterparts in other industrialized countries, that we get less vacation time, less maternity leave, and retire later than most anyone else, and that that...

Last night, The Washington Post reported that Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus called Now, Trump disputed some of the reporting, of course, saying that Priebus at worst gently nudged him.Well, on Fox News this afternoon, Gretchen Carlson called out Priebus and the RNC, defending Trump and saying, “The last people who should be telling him to simmer down on his messaging are those who haven’t yet figured out how to message.”She said the GOP has done a poor job of messaging in the past few years, constantly losing to President Obama, and so said the RNC shouldn’t be pressuring...

Donald J. Trump insisted on Thursday that his phone call with Reince Priebus, the chairman of the Republican National Committee, was brief and described it as “congratulatory” instead of condemnatory, in contrast to news accounts of the talk. “This is shocking,” Mr. Trump, the real estate mogul who is now running for president as a Republican, of descriptions of his conversation with Mr. Priebus on Wednesday that portrayed it as lasting nearly an hour. “The call lasted for 10 minutes – maximum, maximum 15 minutes,” Mr. Trump said. Mr. Priebus, he said, “knows better than to lecture me.” He added,...

Donald Trump remembers that phone call with Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus a bit differently. The Donald took to Twitter on Thursday morning to slam a Washington Post report that Priebus spent nearly an hour on the phone with him this week, during which Priebus told him multiple times to “tone it down.” “Totally false reporting on my call with @Reince Priebus. He called me, ten minutes, said I hit a ‘nerve’, doing well, end!” Trump wrote.

Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus warned presidential candidate Donald Trump that his rhetoric on illegal immigration was jeopardizing the party’s efforts to woo Hispanic voters. According to multiple news outlets Wednesday night, the RNC chief urged the real-estate tycoon, who has shot to the front rank in polling among the party’s 2016 contenders, to tone down his remarks on immigration during the private phone conversation Wednesday afternoon. But a Republican source familiar with the call told CNN that Mr. Priebus closed the conversation with “look, I’ve gotta tell you, I spent four years trying to make inroads with the...

The head of the Republican National Committee, responding to demands from increasingly worried party leaders, spent nearly an hour Wednesday on the phone with Donald Trump, urging the presidential candidate to tone down his inflammatory comments about immigration that have infuriated a key election constituency.

In a private telephone conversation Wednesday afternoon, Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus discussed his concerns with Donald Trump about the billionaire's tone when talking about illegal immigrants, according to a Republican source familiar with the call. They discussed a range of topics, according to the source. "Look, I've gotta tell you, I spent four years trying to make inroads with the Hispanic community ... how we address illegal immigration is very important," to winning back Hispanics politically, Priebus said at the end of the call, according to the GOP source.

The head of the Republican National Committee, responding to demands from increasingly worried party leaders, spent nearly an hour Wednesday on the phone with Donald Trump, urging the presidential candidate to tone down his inflammatory comments about immigration that have infuriated a key election constituency. The call from Chairman Reince Priebus, described by donors and consultants briefed on the conversation and confirmed by the RNC, underscores the extent to which Trump has gone from an embarrassment to a cause for serious alarm among top Republicans in Washington and nationwide.