Free Republic

The man at the microphone spoke in a language most Republican presidential primary voters do not understand. "You are part of the new wave of hope for this country," Jeb Bush said in fluent Spanish to the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference this week. Switching to English, he said the U.S. needs immigrants for the country "to become young and dynamic again." It doesn't seem to matter that Hispanic voters typically do not have much say in Republican primaries. The former Florida governor's play to Hispanic values and policy goals has begun to shape his young political operation. Well before...

In 1999, Columba Bush, the famously private wife of then-Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, was detained and fined by federal customs officials for misrepresenting the amount of clothing and jewelry she had bought while on a solo five-day shopping spree in Paris. The incident left the Florida first lady deeply mortified and her husband politically chagrined. Jeb Bush said the first lady had misled customs officials because she did not want him to know that she had spent about $19,000 on the trip. “The embarrassment I felt made me ashamed to face my family and friends,” Columba Bush said in a...

LEÓN, Mexico — The story of Columba and Jeb Bush began by happenstance in 1971, on the elegant, sun-washed central plaza of this city in the heart of Mexico. Columba Garnica Gallo was a shy high-schooler, tagging along for a drive with her sister and a new boyfriend from the States. John Ellis Bush was an aimless yanqui blue blood, in Mexico for a couple of months on a program through his New England prep school. He was captivated by the doe-eyed beauty he spotted in the car with his friend. Destiny and DNA might have foretold that Jeb would...

A gathering of about 350 donors to the prospective Jeb Bush presidential campaign finished up a two-day conference here Monday listening to a rare public statement from the candidate's media-shy wife, Columba. "It was touching and emotional," said one person in attendance who described the three-minute speech as "very personal." She talked about about "her husband and the family and Jeb's qualities as a father, a husband, a grandfather."