Free Republic

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is quietly maneuvering to field a slate of GOP Senate candidates in critical battleground states, attempting to avoid a repeat of election cycles a decade ago when candidates emerged from primaries only to implode and deny his party the chance to take back the majority. This time around, the wily Kentucky Republican has a high-spending super PAC and he’s prepared to use it. With 20 GOP seats to defend — including five open seats where Republican senators are retiring — compared with 14 seats that Democrats have to defend, McConnell is making clear he’s not...

If Donald Trump ends up on stage this July formally accepting the GOP presidential nomination, don't be surprised if everyone from Washington Republicans to Twitter conservatives gathers outside the convention arena in Cleveland to burn Mike Murphy in effigy. -snip- Perhaps unsurprisingly, some disgruntled donors have struggled to keep their displeasure with Murphy to themselves. As one nameless Bush backer grumbled to Politico during the latest round of venting in the media, "You might as well light all this money on fire." -snip- Now, with the spectre of the Trumpocalypse looming over the GOP on the eve of the Iowa...

-Mitt Romney says concern about Jeb Bush's electability was a major reason he seriously considered running for president a year ago. "A Bush-versus-Clinton head-to-head would be too easy for the Democrats," he told my colleagues Dan Balz and Philip Rucker during an interview last week in Boston for a broader story about the political events of 2015. The 2012 GOP nominee recalled thinking, "I like Jeb a lot, I think he'd be a great president, but felt he was unfairly but severely burdened by the W. years - and when I say the W. years, it's not only what happened...

Early on in Jeb Bush's campaign, his advisers, many of them veterans of the 2012 general election campaign, huddled to discuss a vexing concern: Mr. Bush had something of a Mitt Romney problem. The similarities between the two men were, and remain, unmistakable: Tall and lean. Well-bred sons of political dynasties. Diction harking back to a more genteel era. ("Gosh, darn!" Mr. Romney would exclaim; Mr. Bush chides supporters against sounding like "nervous Nellies.") Both were personally likable policy aficionados who inspired tremendous loyalty from aides. But like Mr. Romney before him, Mr. Bush has showed difficulty connecting with many...

ome of Republican Jeb Bush's financial supporters think he needs a heavyweight political adviser to help him navigate the campaign trail and deliver more dynamic performances. According to conversations with a number of donors, some would like to see Bush bring back Mike Murphy, the political veteran who heads Bush's Right to Rise organization and who by law cannot advise Bush as long as he is at the super PAC. Other donors, while anxious about Bush's slippage in polls of Republican voters, say they are pleased that he appears to have stopped the bleeding in his campaign with a stronger...

Longtime political strategist Karl Rove is warning Republicans not to nominate a presidential candidate that reflects the same "populist anger" that gave birth to the rise of Donald Trump. In his latest op-ed for the Wall Street Journal, Rove explained the GOP will have two choices when delegates gather in Cleveland, Ohio, next July to determine which remaining Republican hopeful they wish to see challenge Democrats in the general election. "Will the party choose a nominee with a conservative agenda or one reflecting populist anger?" Rove wrote. "The two are hardly the same," he noted. "Conservative principles provide a winning...

A hundred and four days from the kickoff caucuses in Iowa, Jeb Bush's campaign manager couldn't have been much farther away geographically. Danny Diaz, who was brought on in June to right a wayward campaign start, found himself in Berlin Monday as a featured speaker at The International Conference For Political Communications, where, before a mostly European audience, he ticked off selective polling numbers pitting Bush against Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, touted early state advertising buys and trumpeted a handful of endorsements by elected officials. The presentation appeared to be boilerplate for American political aficionados, but an organizer of...

Jeb Bush on Morning Joe continue his light criticism of Marco Rubio, likening to him an untested leader ala Barack Obama. -snip- In 2012, Bush didn’t seem to have reservations as he pushed Rubio for VP. Here is an exchange with Charlie Rose from 2012: Marco has enough preparation to be one heartbeat away from the presidency? "I believe so. Look, he has more experience than Barack Obama had when he ran, more practical experience. And certainly got the intellectual acumen and the fortitude to be a good president. And I have a special place in my heart for him,...

Jeb Bush is still the GOP establishment favorite, with loads of campaign cash and a top-notch political organization. But he certainly doesn’t have the same air of inevitability that Mitt Romney had in 2012. Even some of Bush’s biggest fans in the Beltway are privately wondering whether the former Florida governor has what it takes to out-muscle current frontrunner Donald Trump and emerge next summer with the GOP presidential nomination in hand. Bush is still grappling with the legacies of his brother and father, two former presidents, in a year where voters are rallying behind outsiders. The 17-candidate GOP field...

Former Massachusetts Gov. and 2012 GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney said he thinks former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush would probably like a mulligan on the recent question on the 2003 invasion of Iraq but said that Mr. Bush is a “very capable person” who could raise more money than all the other GOP presidential contenders put together. “Well, I’m sure he would have liked to have taken it back and get the answer out at the end that he gave and put that at the very beginning, and I think he did misunderstand the question,” Mr. Romney said in an...

Republicans in 1994 had their best election cycle in decades. The GOP swept to joint majorities in Congress for the first time in 40 years. And the party picked up a net 10 governorships, giving them 30 of 50 overall. But Jeb Bush wasn’t among them. The Bush family scion came up short that year in his run against Democratic Gov. Lawton Chiles. Even as Jeb’s older brother George W. Bush toppled a Democratic governor in Texas, setting him on the road to the White House six years later. Jeb Bush, a South Florida businessman, did go on to claim...

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton still leads two major possible 2016 Republicans opponents by double digits but is held under 50% for the first times in Zogby Analytics polling. The new nationwide poll of 902 likely voters, conducted online May 21-22, shows Mrs. Clinton leading former Florida Governor Jeb Bush 49% to 32%, with 14% saying they prefer to vote for “someone else”, and 5% not sure. In another matchup, she leads New Jersey Governor Chris Christie by 14 points, 47% to 33%, with 14% selecting “someone else”, and 6% undecided. -snip- And despite being married to a Latina...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Republican National Committee wants to take more control over how the party picks a White House nominee. The RNC was to meet Wednesday in Memphis, Tennessee, to choose members who will effectively set the calendar for 2016's long list of potential presidential contenders. If the party's chairman, Reince Priebus gets his way, the GOP will pick its nominee more quickly than during past contests and have fewer debates in which candidates could criticize each other. The RNC also was expected to put penalties in place for candidates who don't follow the committee's plans. RNC officials described...

Former Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney may take another run at the White House, "Face the Nation" host Bob Schieffer said. "I have a source that told me that if Jeb Bush decides not to run, that Mitt Romney may actually try it again," Schieffer said during a panel discussion on the CBS Sunday morning news show.

Jeb Bush and Bobby Jindal appear in a commercial that will air Sunday to promote NewRepublican.org, a project focused on outlining a positive GOP agenda for the future. The former Florida governor and the current Louisiana governor, both potential 2016 presidential candidates, support a super PAC that is the brainchild of Republican strategist Alex Castellanos. “If you believe that every parent ought to be able to choose their child’s school, and that the economy should be driven from the bottom up, not the top down from Washington, then you’re thinking like a New Republican,” Bush says to the camera at...