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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...

Republican Texas Sen. Ted Cruz's presidential campaign announced Tuesday that Neil Bush has joined his finance team, even though Bush was involved in a financial scandal that reportedly cost U.S. taxpayers more than a billion dollars, and though he once admitted to sex romps in Asia during his divorce proceedings. Cruz stated in the announcement that he was “thrilled to welcome these new members to our outstanding team,” adding that the new hires were “further testament that conservatives are continuing to unite behind this campaign.” A federal agency ruled in 1991 that Bush, former President George W. Bush’s brother, had...

Jeb Bush should have listened to his mother. "We've had enough Bushes," Barbara Bush said nearly three years ago, cautioning against her second son's presidential candidacy by presciently pronouncing the epitaph for his forthcoming bid. -snip- But like most American dynasties, another generation is always on the horizon. While Bush crowds loved seeing matriarch Barbara boost her son despite initial doubts, they delighted in glimpsing the young man already emerging as the next generation's standard bearer: Jeb's son, Texas Land Commissioner George P. Bush.

LIVE: Coming Up Jeb Bush Rally Featuring President George W. Bush

The brother who was never expected to become president - but did - will be trotted out Monday as a lifeline to the brother who was always expected to become president, but now may not. Former President George W. Bush will take the stage Monday evening alongside Jeb Bush for a highly anticipated rally in North Charleston, S.C., part of the Bush team's effort to use the primary next Saturday in South Carolina - a state long favorable to the Bush family - to help reinvigorate Mr. Bush's stalled presidential bid. -snip- Recently, a young woman in New Hampshire outlined...

The 2016 campaign has bewildered and captivated George W. Bush. At home in Dallas, the 43rd president rises before dawn and reads political news online. He fires off emails to his old advisers to check on the latest campaign-trail ­gossip. He tunes into the debates, even though they stretch past his bedtime. In private and among friends, Bush and his wife, Laura, express amazement at an election season that has been hijacked by Donald Trump. At a get-together last month, Clay Johnson, a lifelong friend, recalled that he and Bush said to each other, "Can you believe what's going on?"...

Charleston Rally with President George W. Bush and Governor Jeb Bush Jeb 2016, Inc. Monday, February 15, 2016 at 6:00 PM (EST) Charleston, SC Upon registering, the event location will be sent to you closer to Monday

Last April, Crowley Political Report asked the question - should Jeb Bush step aside for Marco Rubio? Now, with Bush's bid for the Republican presidential nomination in deep trouble, Bush the father may well start wondering if a humiliating defeat could harm the political future of his son, Texas Land Commissioner George P. Bush. George P is the next chapter of the Bush family political legacy that started with his great-grandfather, the late U.S. Senator Prescott Bush. He is only two years younger than his father when Jeb first ran for Florida governor in 1994 - and lost. There seems...

Three generations of the most famous family in Texas politics are planning to descend on Houston in the coming days to rally with major donors to Jeb Bush's presidential campaign — and try to raise more money for the former Florida governor. The weekend gathering, once billed as a "special appreciation event" for Jeb Bush's biggest financial backers, comes at a precarious time for his White House hopes. His campaign announced Friday it was making significant cutbacks, reportedly reducing its payroll by 40 percent, trimming travel costs by 20 percent and scaling back 45 percent on some other costs. Jeb...

Former Republican president George W. Bush told donors that Texas Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) is his brother Jeb Bush’s most “formidable” opponent in the GOP primary, according to Politico. Politico spoke to half a dozen donors at an Oct. 18 event in Denver. The attendees reported that Bush said “I just don’t like the guy.” Bush also slammed Cruz’s alliance with runaway frontrunner Donald Trump, who has repeatedly mocked Jeb as “pathetic” and “low energy.” -snip- The event was organized by the GOP establishment to bolster Jeb’s campaign. But it managed to attract only one hundred donors by offering last-minute,...

Texas Land Commissioner George P. Bush is scheduled to headline fundraisers for father Jeb Bush's presidential campaign on Thursday and Friday in Washington, D.C., according to the campaign. The younger Bush is advertised as the main attraction for a reception Thursday evening and a luncheon Friday, according to public invitations. The reception is part of "Mission: Next," the young donor outreach program that the first-year land commissioner is co-chairing. A George P. Bush spokeswoman did not respond to a question about whether he had any official state business in the nation's capital.

Leading academics, archivists and others are criticizing efforts by Texas officials to claim ownership of part of a historical collection at the Alamo that’s considered one of the state’s most important treasures. In a letter sent Friday to General Land Office Commissioner George P. Bush, the group argues that the private library maintained by the nonprofit Daughters of the Republic of Texas is one of the finest research facilities in the state. The letter notes the library houses about 38,000 items, from books, maps and flags to paintings, manuscripts and other artifacts. The letter contends that the General Land Office’s...

GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump said on Sunday that Saudi Arabia is not properly compensating America for its diplomatic partnership. Trump called on Riyadh to share its vast wealth with the U.S. in exchange for the alliance between the two nations. “They make a billion dollars a day,” he told host Chuck Todd on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” “Saudi Arabia, if it weren’t for us, they wouldn’t be here,” Trump said. “They wouldn’t exist.” “They should pay us,” he added. “Like it or don’t like it, people have backed Saudi Arabia. What I really mind though is we back it...

Wonkish and mealy-mouthed, Jeb needs to start riling up his supporters—before Donald Trump wins them all over. To hear Jeb Bush tell it, he’s right where he wants to be, the “joyful tortoise” in the race who doesn’t want to say “outrageous things that turns people off to the conservative message.” At the Koch Brothers’ GOP donor convocation in Dana Point, Calif., over the weekend, Bush waxed confident about the campaign strategy he’s following, including the $120 million war chest he’s spent six months amassing. “I mean, this is a long haul,” Bush said. But many GOP voters don’t seem...

President Bush's son, Jeb, is looking for a maid who's a legal U.S. resident. A maid who had worked at Bush's Miami home for three years was deported back to her native Honduras last week. Bush was out jogging when immigration agents showed up so his wife, Columba, had to deal with them. "She indicated, `Yes, she works here,' brought the lady out, and the two agents showed her the deportation order,said Richard Smith, director of the INS's Miami office."

THE time-honored way to speak of young people is with horror. They’re wild, reckless, irresponsible, narcissistic, immoral and hopeless — and always have been. Now along comes this generation of millennials, and we have a problem. They are raised on “service projects,” apply to Teach for America in torrents and donate to charity at a higher rate (87 percent) than their elders. Basically, they’ve stabbed us older generations in the back with their idealism and altruism, robbing us of the opportunity to feel superior. One of the exemplars of this trend, also catering to it, is Barbara Bush, 33. Yes,...

The Chief Justice again rewrites ObamaCare in order to save it.For the second time in three years, Chief Justice John Roberts has rewritten the Affordable Care Act in order to save it. Beyond its implications for health care, the Court’s 6-3 ruling in King v. Burwell is a landmark that betrays the Chief’s vow to be “an umpire,” not a legislator in robes. He stands revealed as a most political Justice. The black-letter language of ObamaCare limits insurance subsidies to “an Exchange established by the State.” But the Democrats who wrote the bill in 2010 never imagined that 36 states...

Earlier this year, officials at Jeb Bush’s Right to Rise PAC imagined holding an impromptu, “pop-up” fundraising event aimed at a different kind of donor: young professionals. The group scheduled a meet-up with a $25 ask, held in late February in Washington, in the hopes of drawing out a few dozen 20- and 30-somethings. The main attraction? Jeb Bush Jr., the 31-year-old son of the candidate. The event turned out to be a smashing success: More than 400 people showed up that night, and Right to Rise figured it was onto something. Since then, it has held more than a...

Jeb Bush’s correspondence with the Department of Education shows the Florida Republican offered to help Secretary of Education Arne Duncan on the re-authorization of the controversial education law. In an email from 2009 obtained by BuzzFeed News, Jeb Bush offered assistance to Secretary of Education Arne Duncan on reauthorizing No Child Left Behind – the controversial education legislation signed into law by President George W. Bush. In the email, the former Florida governor proposes a meeting between Patricia Levesque, at the time the executive director of Bush’s Foundation for Excellence in Education, and a high-level official at the Department of...