Interesting story from McKay Coppins, at Buzzfeed, on Jeb Bush’s (so far futile) attempts to crush Marco Rubio in advance of the 2016 campaign.
TL; DR (IMO) — First, if thoroughly middle-of-the-road journos like Coppins are willing to attach names to narratives like this, then JEB! is TOAST! (at least in 2016).
And second, the “well known” rumors that Rubio’s financial problems relate to funding his “second secret family” are no more than that. If Marco did have one or more off-registry kids to support, some enterprising fellow Repub would’ve gotten the data out by now. He’s just no good at managing his money, like so many of the rest of us.
… [B]eneath the glossy exterior of his public profile — that of the compassionate conservative, the happy warrior, the good-natured reformer — Jeb possessed a hard-edged, often ruthless political style that ran through his entire rise and reign in the Sunshine State. “He’s been the big, bad kid,” Chris Smith, a leading Democrat in the Florida House, complained to a reporter toward the end of Jeb’s term. “And he’s wielded that power mercilessly.”
It wasn’t until Rubio dazzled a roomful of donors at the Koch brothers summit in Rancho Mirage that Jeb and his tight-knit 2016 team decided the young senator needed to be neutralized. For their new mission, they adopted a code name: “Homeland Security.” Few of Jeb’s lieutenants believed they would need to subject Rubio to too much browbeating in order to sideline him, and their commander agreed. All he needed was a gentle reminder of his place in the pecking order. And so the word went out to Jeb’s army of foot soldiers: Carry the message…
Meanwhile, Jeb’s ever-expanding political operation made a big show of its fundraising supremacy, particularly in Florida. At an event hosted by his political action committee in Tallahassee, his team branded the donors like cattle, with large red stickers exclaiming “Jeb!” — and then they invited reporters into the formerly private meeting so they could ooh and ahh and tweet about the impressive herd of millionaires…
…[T]he Bush brigade had Florida on full, threat-level-red lockdown, and with the exception of a few loyal backers, Rubio wasn’t getting anywhere in his home state. Meanwhile, as they tried fundraising outside of Florida, they began to notice a curious pattern among the Republican donors who were turning them down. Many of them seemed to like Rubio’s ideas and message, but when they explained their doubts about his 2016 prospects, they often used the same vague, coded language: concerns about the wealth of “oppo” that could drag him down, or the “talk coming out of Tallahassee,” or the importance of nominating a “fully vetted” candidate. This, of course, was nothing new for Rubio. But it seemed oddly top of mind all of a sudden in certain quarters of the GOP money world.
Eventually, word got back to the senator’s camp that Jeb’s close allies in Florida were working to revive the “zipper problem” meme in a last-ditch effort to freeze Rubio out of the race; they were circulating the rumors anew among donors and politicos and cautioning them to exercise due diligence before signing on with his campaign…
Still, most in the Rubio camp had trouble believing that Jeb would personally green-light such a brazen campaign of character assassination against someone who he had, just four years earlier, joyously introduced to the world while choking back tears (or at least pretending to). But one of the privileges of being Prince Jeb was his ability to give an order and then step back in blissful ignorance as a team of duty-bound lieutenants plotted, and strategized, and worked out all the gritty details that entailed “carrying the message.”…
Nice folks, those Bushes. Nature’s aristocrats!
Corner Stone
That feeling when the roll of aluminum foil pops out of the container and spools down helplessly to the floor…
Corner Stone
Browns v Ravens
Monday Night Football: Feel the Excitement!
…God, the Ghost of Matt Schaub
Corner Stone
Anybody here have Xbox One? Any special item to consider when buying a console/accessories/bundle?
ETA versus the PS4 as a gaming choice for consoles?
We’ve been using the Wii for years but the kid wants something with more of an edge now, and he’s about that psychopathic age range for FPS.
Betty Cracker
@Corner Stone: I so don’t give a shit about this game. My guess is the Browns win since poor Flacco is out.
PS: Did you know the Broncos beat the Pats last night? It’s true!
David Koch
It takes awhile. Sam Stein of Huffington Post first wrote of John Edwards affair on August 9, 2007. Yet it took another year for someone to photograph him with the baby. It took another three years after that to discover the illegal conversions of campaign funds.
Of course, sometimes the incriminating evidence is permanently destroyed (Shrub’s TANG records)
Mike J
@Corner Stone: Browns (2-8) v Ravens (3-7).
If either team won every game from here on out, how many people would have to die for them to get a wild card slot?
David Koch
On zippers, it is ¿Jeb ? who has had multiple affairs.
including one with…. wait for it… Katherine Harris.
NotMax
Two off the beaten track stories which caught the eye.
Funeral held for Russian czar’s great-grandson who died alone in Australia
It’s not easy being Isis. (And shame on you, Nutella.)
Gin & Tonic
So I read that Jason Van Dyke, the Chicago cop who executed Laquan McDonald, posted bond and walked out of jail. How does a guy who’s been, at best, a mediocre cop (meaning in terms of career advancement) for what, less than 20 years, produce a cashier’s check for $150k on the Monday after a holiday weekend?
Corner Stone
@Betty Cracker:
Whhhaaaattt?? Get The F Outta Here, Girlfriend!
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
Am I the only one watching “Ash vs the Evil Dead”? I can’t help it, I have a weakness for Sam Raimi and ridiculous, impossible, over-the-top gore.
SPOILER if you haven’t watched this week’s episode yet, but G noticed that the young hero survives an encounter with a demon because he’s a genuinely nice guy who wanted to make sure that this girl he’s had a crush on for months wanted a relationship and not just to party. (Eventually the demon got fed up with all the relationship talk and tried to kill him outright.) Obviously, it was played for comedy, but I kind of liked the underlying message, and it was true to the character, too.
Lurking Canadian
You know what is remarkable about this story? Our resident troll, RIGHT TO BACK UP BRINKS TRUCKS, was saying all along that the Bush team had a particular hate on for Rubio, that Rubio was too big for his britches, that Rubio was trying to jump ahead in the queue, etc.
It seems JEB! was unable to effect any changes, but I am astonished that the troll actually provided factual information.
rikyrah
@Gin & Tonic:
Fraternal Order of Police.
rikyrah
LOL at Jeb going after little Rubio.
ThresherK
I would like to congratulate the flack who got Buzzfeed to say anyone’s word association, in late 2015, to “Jeb Bush” is “that of the compassionate conservative, the happy warrior, the good-natured reformer”.
There’s at least one person in that campaign who has earned their money.
randy khan
@rikyrah: Most likely. That sort of thing probably is a union benefit. At least the $1.5 million is a normal kind of bond for a murder case. (10% cash is normal, too.)
Frankensteinbeck
Huh. You know what’s different between 2000 and 2016? Nobody* believes in compassionate conservatives anymore. You’re either old enough to have seen it turn out to be bullshit, or you’re young enough to have grown up watching conservatives descend into frothing racist madness. Of all the reasons that a Republican gets votes, ‘because he has convinced moderates that he, too, is moderate in a kindly way’ is no longer viable.
*Outside the Beltway garden party circuit.
Howard Beale IV
The Rage Furby claims he was involved in the research on this, and is waiting to get paid.
Take THAT claim for what its worth.
Adam L Silverman
@Gin & Tonic: @efgoldman: @rikyrah: @randy khan: Definitely the union. Every union I’ve been a member of (all of two!) invests a portion of the dues in order to have funds to represent and defend the members of the bargaining unit, and in some cases everyone else in the bargaining unit that isn’t a union member. The latter, of course, being a classic free rider problem.
FlyingToaster
@Lurking Canadian:
I’m still convinced he was a paid troll. His information panned out several times (the ¿Jeb? slideshow, for instance), so he really did have some insider knowledge.
Unfortunately, they’re not paying him anymore. So we have to go back to baiting that pitiful misogynist srv.
danielx
@efgoldman:
Most likely correct. Being a CPD patrolman doesn’t produce the same opportunities for, ah, income enhancement that being a member of the department’s Special Operations Section* did.
*Now the Targeted Response Unit, or TRU. Lather, rinse, repeat.
Villago Delenda Est
The Bush Crime Family needs to go the way of the Bourbons and the Romanovs…well earned permanent obscurity.
danielx
How is it that Marco Rubio could be unaware of Bush tactics against other Republicans, let alone anyone else? Granted that Jeb didn’t and doesn’t have Karl Rove working for him, he had the examples of W’s 2000 campaign and the utter spite shown by Jeb during l’affaire Schiavo to consider.
Speaking of Rove, who has been more or less on the sidelines or behind the scenes during this entire campaign, I can imagine him gnashing his teeth and muttering “I’d have that sonofabitch Trump in the gutter in a month!”
Ridnik Chrome
The Aristocrats!
RaflW
Maybe Cruz will start a whispering campaign about Rubio’s (alleged) gender/gender identity. Or just tweet it out. Since lying is the new speaking.
gene108
@Mnemosyne (iPhone):
I’m watching Ash v. Evil Dead.
Wish Starz would release the entire season, like Netflix does, so I can binge watch it.
Waiting a week for the next episode is painful to me now. Hurts almost as much as sitting through commercials.
redshirt
@Mnemosyne (iPhone): Have you seen “The Cabin in the Woods”? If so, what did you think?
John Revolta
Chicago Sun-Times