Free Republic

It’s a tough position to be in if you’re the former Florida Governor staring down the barrel of a gun in the 2016 general election. After all, you’re the only member of your family to seek the Presidency with disastrous results and the “chaos candidate” who beat you handedly has basically been your sworn enemy for the last year. So when Jeb Bush was pressed by former GOP strategist Nicolle Wallace about who he would be voting, he doubled down on assertions he has previously alluded to: neither Hillary Clinton nor Donald Trump would earn his vote.

People supporting Donald Trump's presidential bid will "feel betrayed" should the presumptive Republican nominee's campaign promises go unsatisfied, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush predicted Monday. Speaking to MSNBC contributor Nicolle Wallace, who served as his press secretary in Tallahassee, Bush called Trump "to his credit ... very smart at exploiting these kind of opportunities." "He's a master at understanding how the media works — more than anybody I've ever seen in politics. Kudos to him, for kind of creating the environment and then manipulating the environment to his effect," Bush said in the interview airing in full Monday night. There...

There is an old axiom in marketing: Good advertising makes a bad product fail faster. If you doubt that, may I submit Exhibit A: The 2016 campaign for the Republican nomination for President of Jeb Bush. It now joins the likes of the Ford Edsel and Coca-Cola's "New Coke" as a bona-fide marketing flop of an enormous magnitude. In each case, be it Edsel, New Coke or Jeb!, logic dictated a winner. Research for all three concluded a marketplace that was theirs for the taking. All three were rooted in strong family brand equity and even carried the brand name...

Yesterday, Donald Trump won his biggest victory yet, a decisive triumph in Florida’s winner-take-all primary. With the win, the tycoon’s hostile takeover of the Republican Party becomes overwhelmingly likely. Where was Jeb Bush during the battle for his home state’s primary? He was pouting. Spinning Bush’s failure to endorse his one-time protege Marco Rubio (whom he once touted for the vice presidency), or another non-Trump candidate, the former governor’s confidante Al Cardenas said: [Bush] put his heart and soul in this race, and the outcome was disappointing to him. You get emotionally drained, and you just want to stay off...

Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush may have dropped out of the presidential race weeks ago — but his name is on the ballot in Florida on Tuesday anyway. And he may get a good chunk of votes in the primary — perhaps the final insult for Marco Rubio, who trails front-runner Donald Trump by 17 points in the latest poll out Monday. The votes could come on two fronts: absentee voting started weeks before Bush left the race, and the fact his name remains on the ballot Tuesday despite suspending his campaign.

He'll meet privately this week with Cruz, Rubio and Kasich ahead of the crucial Florida primary. Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, who ended his lackluster bid for the White House last month, will meet this week with three of the four remaining candidates in the Republican presidential race ahead of Tuesday's primary in his state. The one-time GOP presidential front-runner is to meet with Florida Sen. Marco Rubio Wednesday, Ohio Gov. John Kasich and Texas Sen. Ted Cruz Thursday, an aide told the New York Times. However, Bush hasn't tipped his hand as to which, if any, of his former...

John Kasich, Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz are all visiting with Jeb! Bush in Miami before Thursday night’s debate, presumably to secure his endorsement. This sounds like the best possible setting for a very weird revival of “The Lion in Winter” or “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” or even “King Lear.” With a tip of the hat to Emmett Rensin’s “Trump in Winter,” and without further ado … (Lights up on Jeb! Bush, seated majestically in an armchair. Enter Kasich, Rubio and Cruz.) Bush: All right. Grovel. (Everyone starts to speak at once. Bush holds up a hand to...

Jeb Bush, the former governor of Florida who ended his presidential bid after a string of disappointing finishes, is planning to meet with three of the remaining Republican candidates while they’re in Miami for the Republican debate on Thursday night. Mr. Bush has plans to meet with Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, Gov. John Kasich of Ohio and Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, an aide to Mr. Bush confirmed. The list’s glaring omission, of course, was Donald J. Trump.

Right to Rise, the super PAC political committee supporting Jeb Bush is preparing to refund about $12 million in unspent money to donors who gave at least $1,000. -snip- It touts, "No open ended commissions. All vendor contracts included fee caps," though cynics about how the money was spent will note that contractors and vendors built their compensation directly into the prices they charged.

Republican presidential candidate Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX)97% says that eight former national finance committee members for Jeb Bush’s failed presidential campaign have joined Cruz’s finance committee.

The sudden end to Jeb Bush’s presidential campaign this month appeared to bring another chapter to a close: his long and fruitful partnership with Republican admaker Mike Murphy, the brash strategist who has been at his side for nearly two decades. Since 1998, when Murphy helped Bush remake his image and win the Florida governor’s office after an earlier failed bid, the strategist’s firms have received nearly $36 million from Bush’s campaigns, allied political committees and educational foundation, according to campaign finance and tax records compiled by The Washington Post. While the vast majority of the money went to purchase...

Cruz or Trump? Hey let's all just be glad it ain't Jeb. I've seen all of them except for the very last one. That one is really a hoot. Peace. ¡Jeb!

Since Jeb Bush's withdrawal from the presidential race on Saturday, endorsements from prominent Republicans have been piling up for Senator Marco Rubio of Florida. Just in the last day, former Senator Bob Dole of Kansas, Senator Orrin Hatch of Utah and Gov. Asa Hutchison of Arkansas have signed on. But there is one endorsement that remains elusive: Mr. Bush's. Leaving Nevada on Tuesday for a day of campaigning in Minnesota and Michigan, Mr. Rubio told reporters that he had spoken on Monday with Mr. Bush, the former governor, who was his mentor in Florida politics. He said the two planned...

Ohio Gov. John Kasich has won the endorsement of Tom Ridge, a former director of homeland security and Pennsylvania governor. Ridge had been supporting former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush for president since early 2015 and joined him on the campaign trail in South Carolina. ...

Rep. Adam Kinzinger said on Friday that he was not sure if — "God forbid" — Donald Trump became the Republican presidential nominee and that he needed to surround himself with the best experts on foreign policy. (SNIP) The three-term congressman, who supports former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, said that Trump lacked solid leadership traits, including harnessing voter anger to effectively advance his agenda. (SNIP) "A leader doesn't have to be angry on behalf of himself. When [Trump] gets mad, it's because he's personally offended. That's not the traits of a leader."

Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, once considered the Republican Party's most likely presidential nominee, is ending his campaign after a dismal showing in South Carolina's primary. "The people of Iowa and New Hampshire and South Carolina have spoken, and I really respect their decision, so tonight I am suspending my campaign," he told backers in the Palmetto State. Bush, who entered the race with great fanfare and trumpeted massive fundraising numbers early in his campaign, was ultimately weighed down by Republicans' concerns about continuing the political dynasty of his father and brother.

Donald Trump does not have a "consistent conservative view" and should not be placed in a position to nominate a successor to Supreme Court Associate Justice Antonin Scalia, Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush told Newsmax TV on Friday. "Each time he's had a chance to be in a position where he would apply conservative principles in a way to help anybody other than himself," he hasn't, the former Florida governor told "Newsmax Now" hosts J.D. Hayworth and John Bachman. ...

The Jeb Bush presidential campaign people deny it in a high-energy way so unlike their famously even-tempered boss: Tonight's South Carolina primary is not a litmus test for the former Florida governor's so-far fizzling presidential campaign. If he does lousy here, expect him to trudge on, through Nevada and next into Super Tuesday on March 1.

Bracing for a finish toward the bottom of the pack in South Carolina, the campaign of Gov. John R. Kasich of Ohio argued on Saturday that the primary's outcome would be a victory no matter what because of Jeb Bush's struggles. Mr. Kasich's chief strategist, John Weaver, said the race would be down to four viable candidates after Saturday's primary: Donald J. Trump, Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, Senator Marco Rubio of Florida and Mr. Kasich. "For all practical purposes, there's no path forward for Governor Bush," Mr. Weaver said on a conference call with reporters. Referring to Saturday's outcome...

As rumors swirl that Jeb Bush's presidential campaign is collapsing, he refused to say whether he would remain in the race if he placed poorly in Saturday's primary in South Carolina. "I'm going to work as hard as I can till 7 p.m. I'm not going to feed the speculation of people who have no clue about my campaign," Bush told reporters after greeting voters at a polling place at an elementary school in this tony island hamlet. Bush, accompanied by his son Jeb Jr., Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and other supporters, skittered around this state that political...