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You are here: Home / Archives for Politics / Politicans / JEB! = John Ellis Not-Bush 2016

JEB! = John Ellis Not-Bush 2016

Late Night Open Thread: The Bush Family Once Again Demonstrates Its Principle

by Anne Laurie|  August 9, 20161:05 am| 46 Comments

This post is in: Hail to the Hairpiece, JEB! = John Ellis Not-Bush 2016, Open Threads, Republican Venality, Assholes, Republican Crime Syndicate - aka the Bush Admin.

History Will Look Unkindly Upon George P. Bush https://t.co/6BqOq6Bg4g pic.twitter.com/fO5wnguJQ5

— Erick Erickson (@EWErickson) August 8, 2016

Because, let’s be honest, they have but one: Whatever keeps the Bush clan in the game.

Patrick Svitek reports for the Texas Tribune:

Land Commissioner George P. Bush, who has not endorsed Donald Trump, is now asking Texas Republicans to support the party’s presidential nominee.

Addressing state GOP activists Saturday, Bush said it was time to put aside any lingering animosity from the primaries — where Trump defeated Bush’s dad, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, among others — and get behind Trump.

“From Team Bush, it’s a bitter pill to swallow, but you know what? You get back up and you help the man that won, and you make sure that we stop Hillary Clinton,” Bush said, according to video of the remarks provided by an audience member.

Bush was speaking in his capacity as the Texas GOP’s victory chairman, who is responsible for overseeing the party’s statewide campaign in November. Bush had been criticized for taking the role without backing the party’s presidential nominee…

Since the end of the primaries, many members of the Bush family and its network have declined to offer any support for Trump. They include Jeb Bush, former President George W. Bush and former President George H.W. Bush.

The old bulls have run their last races. George P. is the rising star; he’s no doubt sad that Trump pantsed his dad so brutally, but business — after all — is business.

Remember that brief happy moment when we allowed ourselves to believe that ‘Low Energy’ JEB!’s public embarrassment at the hands of a manic carnival barker meant we might never hear from the Bush Crime Syndicate again?

ETA:

I’m already cringing thinking about the 2024 presidential primary debates, when Donald Trump Jr makes George P Bush roll over, bark, & beg

— Dana Houle (@DanaHoule) August 8, 2016

Late Night Open Thread: The Bush Family Once Again Demonstrates Its PrinciplePost + Comments (46)

Friday Morning Open Thread: Klown Prince JEB! Rejoins the Conversation

by Anne Laurie|  April 29, 20165:12 am| 199 Comments

This post is in: Cruz-ifiction, Election 2016, JEB! = John Ellis Not-Bush 2016, Open Threads, Republicans in Disarray!, Clown car


(h/t commentor Omnes Omnibus)

I’d actually forgotten Jeb had endorsed Ted “Lucifer in the Flesh” Cruz. Guess that’s why ThanksGeorge decided to wander back into the field of fire, via CNN:

A reflective Jeb Bush said he had no regrets Thursday about his failed presidential bid, saying in his first interview since leaving the race that Donald Trump could still lose the nomination fight.

“There’s a possibility that he won’t get 50% on the first ballot,” Bush told CNN’s Jamie Gangel, giving his first television interview exclusively to CNN after dropping out of the presidential race in February. “And if he doesn’t do that, there are a whole lot of people who don’t believe he’s the proper guy.”

Bush, who has endorsed Texas Sen. Ted Cruz for president but been largely invisible as a surrogate, wouldn’t say whether he would support Trump as the nominee in November, though he added there’s no way he would vote for Hillary Clinton. When asked repeatedly how he would vote if Trump became the nominee, Bush responded, “I’m hopeful he won’t be.”

The former governor said only two people could win the nomination, seeming to not recognize the argument made by Ohio Gov. John Kasich that he could emerge as the nominee.
Bush said he observed Trump’s foreign policy speech Wednesday with bewilderment, saying, “I don’t think he is a serious person.”…

It’s Insert Your Own Jokes Here time!

Apart from recycling, what’s on the agenda as we wrap up another long week?
.

Friday Morning Open Thread: Klown Prince JEB! Rejoins the ConversationPost + Comments (199)

Late-Night Schadenfreude Open Thread: Vaya con el Diablo, JEB!

by Anne Laurie|  February 22, 201611:02 pm| 104 Comments

This post is in: Election 2016, JEB! = John Ellis Not-Bush 2016, Open Threads, Republicans in Disarray!, Assholes, Republican Crime Syndicate - aka the Bush Admin., Schadenfreude

jeb ebb via dan savage

(via Dan Savage)

$25 million per delegate https://t.co/W074JaxkjM

— Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) February 21, 2016

Clearing our shelves (for the season) — everything must go! Mr. Charles P. Pierce:

… He spent gobs of money. He hired all the best people. He had the name and the pedigree. And every one of those conventional credentials were turned against him as vehicles for mockery and derision by He, Trump, the wild-card for whom nobody had planned. Trump mocked Bush’s spending for its lack of results. Trump mocked Bush’s campaign for its lack of results. Trump mocked Bush himself for being low-energy, and for his lack of results. Meanwhile, Bush and his campaign worked day and night to lend obvious substance to every charge levelled by He, Trump…

(Do not make the mistake of thinking that I sympathize in any way with the sad political destruction of Jeb (!) Bush—except, of course, in the sense that it makes the presidency of He, Trump more of a possibility—because I still remember how, out of raw political ambition, he made the lives of a lot of good people miserable. Fuckabuncha him forever for having done that.)

Now, though, Jeb (!) is merely the symbol of a political party and a nominating process gone truly rogue, burning and consuming itself, using itself as its own fuel like some great breeder reactor of rage and fear. Bush, like all the members of the now vestigial Republican “establishment,” who spent 30 years developing the perfect context for something like the Trump campaign to occur, was stunned into incoherence when it actually happened. Watching him in his farewell on Saturday night was to recall what Abraham Lincoln said about General William Rosecrans after the Union’s defeat at Chickamauga; Rosecrans, Lincoln mused, was “confused and stunned, like a duck hit on the head.”…

nothing makes me happier than watching rich people waste their money; so thanks Jeb. I'll miss you. ??

— america. (@SeanMcElwee) February 21, 2016

show full post on front page

The people who thought investing in Jeb! was a good idea are managing your retirement plan.

— Ian Millhiser (@imillhiser) February 21, 2016

Jeb Lund, in the Guardian:

In announcing the suspension of his campaign, Jeb Bush couldn’t have found a more apt expression for his departure from a contest that was beyond his ken than “I congratulate my competitors who are remaining on the island”. The 2016 Republican presidential primary is a thing forged in madness; as befitting the functional illogic of a reality TV show, it doesn’t make a lick of damn sense beyond itself, but the results cannot be appealed. Jeb has been voted off the island; he is the weakest link; goodbye…

… Bush launched The New Bush Experience by gathering around him every establishment neoconservative from either the Reagan or the Bush II years – a soulless sludge of amoral warmongering boobery that, ethically-speaking, resembled the invitees to a North Korean state dinner. (They are the sort of people who put on jackets covered with epaulettes and ribbons from armchair campaigns before mounting their rider mower and treating the lawn like they’re about to daisy-cutter Vietnam.) Bush insisted he was his own man by announcing that he’d listen to advice from the people who belonged to at least one other institutional failure…

When it couldn’t conceivably get any worse, Donald Trump entered the race. Blaming Jeb’s failure on him devalues just how badly Bush could’ve simply screwed his campaign up on his own. Trump was the accelerant, but Bush had to fumble and drop a lit cigarette into his pants cuff before the Trump-branded gasoline could do its work.

Trump didn’t make Bush reply to a mass shooting with, “Stuff happens”. He didn’t make Bush, a man married to a Mexican woman and the father of mixed-race children who almost exclusively speaks Spanish in his own home, say that we shouldn’t live in a multicultural society. He didn’t make Bush say that people in this country needed to work longer hours. He didn’t tell Bush that Obama’s daughter’s name was “Malala” (which is the name of the Nobel peace prize winning Taliban shooting victim turned women’s rights activist), not “Malia”.

None of that even gets to all those weird, doomed attempts by Bush’s campaign to make him go viral: pictures of Bush flashing the liners to his blazers, showing his JEB! emblem on a white background. Or the picture of a somewhat pathetic and forlorn Jeb standing in a hoodie, staring at the camera, as if pleading to know when this ends. Or him taking a selfie in front of the “Peachoid”. Or that last, harrowing Twitter picture, of a gun with his name engraved on it; Bush simply tweeted, “America.” …

It's amazing how bewildered Jeb has been by this campaign. He kept calling Trump's success "weird." Jeb seems more confused than angry.

— Josh Barro (@jbarro) February 21, 2016

Improbably, Jeb's badness at running for president has made me kind of like him. Poor, sweet Jeb.

— Andrew Golis (@agolis) February 21, 2016

See, I want to think that and then I remember the Schiavo family, and stand your ground laws… https://t.co/izi3ev1FWI

— Ana Marie Cox (@anamariecox) February 21, 2016

2 words from Florida: Katherine Harris https://t.co/Jmecq0oKmq

— Janet Johnson (@JJohnsonLaw) February 21, 2016

If Jeb were actually a decent, good-hearted, honorable man he could have gotten rich friends to donate $100 million to something useful.

— Matthew Yglesias (@mattyglesias) February 21, 2016

At the Washington Post, “Fall of the House of Bush”:

… Whether Jeb Bush ever had a chance to win the Republican nomination in a campaign year that proved so ill fitting for a rusty politician who preferred policy papers to political combat is a question that will be debated long after the 2016 race has ended…

Mike Murphy, the chief strategist for Bush’s super PAC, Right to Rise, explained what had happened this way on Sunday. “Our theory was to dominate the establishment lane into the actual voting primaries,” he said. “That was the strategy, and it did not work. I think it was the right strategy for Jeb. The problem was there was a huge anti-establishment wave. The establishment lane was smaller than we thought it would be. The marketplace was looking for something different, and we’ll find out how that ends when we have a nominee.”

The result is one of the most startling failures in the modern history of American politics…

I kept hoping that before he got out Jeb would sacrifice himself and punch Donald in the nose. Ah, well.

— Tom Junod (@TomJunod) February 21, 2016

Speaking of Mike Murphy, here’s Politico — “Inside Jeb Bush’s $150 Million Failure”…

Jeb Bush, the Republican establishment’s last, best hope, began his 2016 campaign rationally enough, with a painstakingly collated operational blueprint his team called, with NFL swagger, “The Playbook.”

On page after page kept safe in a binder, the playbook laid out a strategy for a race his advisers were certain would be played on Bush’s terms — an updated, if familiar version of previous Bush family campaigns where cash, organization and a Republican electorate ultimately committed to an electable center-right candidate would prevail.

The playbook, hatched by Sally Bradshaw, Mike Murphy and a handful of other Bush confidants in dozens of meetings during the first half of 2015 and described to POLITICO by some of Bush’s closest and most influential supporters, appealed to the Bush family penchant for shock-and-awe strategy. The campaign would commence with six months of fundraising for the Right to Rise super PAC and enough muscle to push aside Mitt Romney. There would be a massive, broad-based organizational effort to plant roots in March states at a time when other campaigns were mired in Iowa and New Hampshire. The plan outlined Bush’s positive, future-focused message with an emphasis on his decade-old record of accomplishment as Florida governor.

Interviews with more than two dozen Bush insiders, donors and staff members illuminate the plight of an earnest and smart candidate who was tragicomically mismatched to the electorate of his own party and an unforgiving, mean media environment that broadcast his flaws. The entire premise of Bush’s candidacy, these insiders tell POLITICO, was an epic misread of a GOP base hostile to any establishment candidate, especially one with his baggage-weighted last name…

Today, somewhere in America, a Right to Rise donor is burning the "Ambassador to France" stationary he'd ordered. Please, think of him.

— daveweigel (@daveweigel) February 21, 2016

So what does Right to Rise do with their remaining resources?

— Daniel Drezner (@dandrezner) February 21, 2016

Valedictory bonfire https://t.co/6D1ABmKi2x

— Daniel Larison (@DanielLarison) February 21, 2016

Molly Ball, back in January, in the Atlantic:

… To a degree not common to other candidates, Bush’s supporters feel protective of him and grieved for his sake. They seem acutely aware that he was never supposed to be in this position—mired in the back of the crowded pack of candidates, struggling to be heard, on the edge of being counted out. A campaign that began with a frontrunner’s fanfare now averages less than 5 percent in national polls. It’s a situation that might be humbling or humiliating for your average governor or senator making a run at the title, but it takes on special resonance for a member of one of America’s royal families.

The fact of Bush’s lineage has made the grim saga of the campaign something more than Jeb’s personal drama. It has been his burden and his boon alike, elevating and stifling him at the same time. The topic of his family follows him everywhere, and not just because the media brings it up constantly. The voters, too, want to talk about it, with an unnerving intimacy…

“I’m a 62-year-old man that has a life experience,” he added. “People are going to vote for me. They love my dad; some may love my brother and not love my dad—it’s a little more complicated, it’s not a unified deal. I’m proud of them. I’m not running away from them—that is total nonsense.” Bush praised his older brother for his leadership and for keeping America safe, then reiterated that he had to win the nomination on his own merits. “I spend time talking about my family in a loving way—you can’t ignore them, because that’s weird,” he said. “You can’t over-rely on them, either. There’s a balance.”…

Bush did 9-11

….% in the polls. That's why he lost.

— Marty Beckerman (@martybeckerman) February 21, 2016

imagine being the loser brother in a family where the *winner* brother is george w bush

— Saladin Ahmed (@saladinahmed) February 21, 2016

"Remember when I choked on a pretzel, Jeb?"
"Please not now, George."
"They made me president twice."
"OK."
"I dressed like a fighter pilot"

— Mike Drucker (@MikeDrucker) February 21, 2016

Summing up: a Bush spends fortune to lose war against extremists.

— Paul Musgrave (@rpmusgra) February 21, 2016

There are enough pictures from this campaign of Jeb looking distant and sad to fill a coffee table book. pic.twitter.com/OdbBMNbSWh

— Bob Schooley (@Rschooley) February 22, 2016

To quote Peggy Noonan: Let. Us. Savor. While we can…

1980: Short of delegates and cash, George H. W. Bush ends drive for Republican nomination. https://t.co/if5jEarhlW pic.twitter.com/2n0Rk5ctxi

— NYT Archives (@NYTArchives) February 21, 2016

Today is the first day of George P. Bush's 2028 campaign.

— DENALI (@timothypmurphy) February 21, 2016

Late-Night Schadenfreude Open Thread: <em>Vaya con el Diablo</em>, JEB!Post + Comments (104)

Jeb Bush Takes Ball, Goes Home

by Anne Laurie|  February 20, 20169:11 pm| 278 Comments

This post is in: Election 2016, JEB! = John Ellis Not-Bush 2016, Republicans in Disarray!, Assholes, Fuck Yeah!, Republican Crime Syndicate - aka the Bush Admin.

Per NBC:

Jeb Bush Suspends 2016 Presidential Campaign
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…

His campaign had hoped that South Carolina, a state rich with veterans and traditional Republican voters, would give the former governor a much-needed boost after big losses in Iowa and New Hampshire. Both former president George W. Bush and former first lady Barbara Bush campaigned for Jeb Bush in the state.

The loss comes after an enormous investment of resources by Jeb Bush and his allies.

Together, they spent nearly $81 million in TV ads during the presidential election – with $76 million coming from the Right to Rise Super PAC – according to ad-spending data from SMG Delta…

.

Since this is Mr. Brinks Truck full of Right-to-Rise, scion of the Bush Crime Family, he’s the one candidate whose “suspension” might not actually be an ending. If it comes down to a brokered RNC convention — Reince and his guys frantically looking for a loophole that will let them declare Trump a non-person, while the Cruz and Rubio backers literally fist-fight in the hallways — I can see the Bush apparatus “graciously offering” to accept the burden of figurehead.

Of course, at the moment, the CW says that would be Paul Ryan‘s big chance, but how many College Repub ratfvcker divisions do the Ryan supporters command?

Jeb Bush Takes Ball, Goes HomePost + Comments (278)

Open Thread: Jeb Bush, Sad Trombone Candidate

by Anne Laurie|  February 7, 201611:01 pm| 234 Comments

This post is in: Election 2016, JEB! = John Ellis Not-Bush 2016, Open Threads, Republican Crime Syndicate - aka the Bush Admin.

Rubio super PAC brings Barbara Bush into attack on Jeb!https://t.co/m0hHO61Joh via @ScottFConroy pic.twitter.com/5qFAO8Vjbd

— Sam Stein (@samsteinhp) February 7, 2016

Jeb in Nashua: "I couldn't understand a single thing Kafka ever wrote."

— John McCormack (@McCormackJohn) February 7, 2016


.

“Education is when you read the fine print. Experience is what you get if you don’t.” Some people need to learn by doing, and despite the political power of his formidable family Jeb may be about to find out what it’s like to wake up as a cockroach. Politico reports on the deathwatch:

MANCHESTER, N.H. – Frustration inside Bush world has begun to spill into open view, with even the most outspoken family loyalists admitting it may soon be time to move on.

With the New Hampshire primary just days away and polls showing him still trailing Marco Rubio, there is an increasing sense that Jeb Bush is running out of time to demonstrate strength.

Many donors and influential supporters, bound by a deep and longstanding connection to the patrician clan, say they will remain with Bush no matter what. Yet others, deeply distressed by the rise of Donald Trump and Ted Cruz and eager for the Republican Party to rally around a mainstream candidate with viability, say they have come to terms with Bush’s long odds and the possibility they will eventually get behind someone else.

“I acknowledge reality. There’s going to be three or four candidates remaining after New Hampshire,” said former Minnesota Rep. Vin Weber, a Jeb Bush adviser who also worked on George W. Bush’s presidential campaigns. “I think the field is going to narrow pretty quickly. We’ll see what happens in South Carolina, and from there you can see the dynamic starting to winnow the field pretty quickly.”

While Weber said he would remain with Bush as long as he was in the race, others said they may soon head for the exits. Barring a strong showing, they said, Wednesday could be a day of deep reflection for them…

show full post on front page

… Bush’s top aides are still struggling to keep restless supporters in line. On Thursday, three days after the former governor barely registered in the Iowa caucuses, the pro-Bush super PAC Right to Rise held a conference call with top donors to outline the path forward. At one point, Mike Murphy, a longtime top Bush adviser who oversees Right to Rise, was pressed by a donor on why the super PAC’s substantial spending had yet to improve the former governor’s poll numbers.

To many of Bush’s closest followers, the thought of him dropping out is almost unthinkable – particularly if Rubio emerges as the leading establishment candidate. Among Bush’s top advisers, the dislike of Rubio — who for years was a junior figure to Bush in Florida politics and is seen as deeply disloyal — is intense. One top Bush fundraiser said that on conference calls with the campaign Rubio has been called “Judas,” a reference to the biblical figure who had betrayed Jesus.

But with the governor struggling, some – for all their feelings of closeness to the family – hint that they are beginning to think about the possibility of a 2016 campaign without him…

You can already feel the goalpost shift in to SC, now that donor class isn’t sure they want to push Jeb, Kasich, Christie out next week.

— Michael B Dougherty (@michaelbd) February 7, 2016

Let. Us. Savor.

And in possibly the worst sign yet for John Ellis — Slatepitch!

Jeb Bush may actually have a shot. https://t.co/vU68HVsYOQ

— Franklin Foer (@FranklinFoer) February 7, 2016

BEDFORD, New Hampshire—George W. Bush never really suffered for his sins. But his kid brother sure has. The demise of Jeb Bush has been a source of immeasurable pleasure for, well, nearly everyone. His campaign is a nine-figure boondoggle that suckered cronies from Greenwich and Dallas into investing in a can’t-miss-opportunity. That grating WASP aura of entitlement he wore melted nearly instantly with a choice piece of hectoring about his paucity of energy. Pundits took so much pleasure in Jeb Bush’s plummet that they couldn’t imagine it could ever be reversed.

With his few remaining breaths as a candidate, however, Bush may have a path out from his debacle, an actual shot at the nomination. For months, he tried and failed to crush Sen. Marco Rubio. But he wielded the hatchet like a man who would rather be sailing. What he needed was a wingman. Last night, Gov. Chris Christie, with his bully’s instinct for weakness, baited the golden boy into choking—thereby, relieving Bush of all the throbbing pressure to stage a miraculous New Hampshire comeback…

As Republicans scrounge for their center-right tribune, they will find themselves coming full circle. Christie has no cash and no organization beyond New Hampshire. Kasich is out-of-synch with his party; his moderation won’t play outside a few suburban pockets. Which only leaves one…

Bush has now embraced the fact that he’s a scion. Although he’s kept his brother on the ranch, he brought his mother to the stump. In town hall meetings, he has begun to comfortably celebrate his brood. “The Bush thing, people need to get over it,” he told a crowd in Bedford, in an extended riff about his love for his family. Even the phrasing of that willful claim of indifference echoed one of his father’s idiosyncratic rhetorical tropes (“the vision thing”). Like his dad and grandfather, his presentation oozes with a New England prep school sense of noblesse oblige, talk of “servitude” and “purpose.”…

And when a Bush scion talks about “servitude” and “purpose”, the Lee Atwaters and Karl Roves perk up their little rat ears. Right to Rise should still have a few hundred thousands at its command, and if all that ratfvcking money can’t put another Bush in the White House, at least it should be enough to keep that high-booted little pretender Rubio out of it…

Open Thread: Jeb Bush, Sad Trombone CandidatePost + Comments (234)

Schadenfreude Open Thread: Jeb Now Setting Fire to Big Stacks of Cash

by Anne Laurie|  January 22, 20163:15 am| 117 Comments

This post is in: Election 2016, JEB! = John Ellis Not-Bush 2016, Open Threads, Republicans in Disarray!, Schadenfreude

Jeb! Super PAC mailing out New Hampshire voters mini DVD players with charging cable and documentary. pic.twitter.com/Qez5B5ZRxD

— sean (@SeanMcElwee) January 18, 2016

This would qualify as beating an effectively dead horse, except this is the Bush Crime Clan with its scion on the field, and there’s always the chance that they’ll bribe, steal, or threaten a spot onto the final ballot somehow. Maybe he’ll settle for the VP slot on a Trump ticket and hope the big guy gets indicted for some kind of financial fraud between Cleveland and November? Or agree to understudy Ted Cruz, and then “accidentally” beat him to death in a dark basement, after which every abused campaign volunteer & bored security staffer who witnesses the incident will swear Jeb honestly mistook Cruz for an unusually large poisonous reptile threatening them all?

The Right People are out there doing their best for him, per the Wall Street Journal:

NORTH CHARLESTON, S.C.—Since Jeb Bush signaled a likely presidential bid one year ago, his family’s decades-old network of former ambassadors, cabinet secretaries and Wall Street financiers has been doing what it does best: raising money.

But now, with Mr. Bush lagging behind in the final stretch before Republican votes are cast, hundreds of supporters from his Florida governorship and two family White Houses are trading their checkbooks for comfortable shoes to canvass neighborhoods in the early-balloting states of Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina…

This past weekend, a group of more than 50 Bush alumni, mostly from Florida and Washington, D.C., paid their own way to knock on doors in South Carolina, where Mr. Bush is polling in fifth place with 8.5%, according to the Real Clear Politics average.

The group included longtime Republican operatives who worked for Mr. Bush’s father and had never used voter-targeting software on mobile phones, as well as the younger network of Hispanic professionals cultivated by Mr. Bush’s two sons, George P. and Jeb Jr. Bush. Many are more accustomed to hosting receptions and consulting on policy than the grind of campaign volunteer work…

.

Bush isn't just freezing up money, he's freezing up a small but important cluster of votes in NH that would go to a viable Trump alternative

— Drew Cline (@DrewHampshire) January 15, 2016

… even though, per the Washington Post, “the biggest donor to Jeb Bush’s super PAC says Bush is ‘not living up to expectations’“. And they’re not sure his handlers, this time, really know what they’re doing…

"I'm a big boy," Bush says about new Rubio attack ad pic.twitter.com/sHqjHNBhhE

— Michael C. Bender (@MichaelCBender) January 15, 2016

A prominent donor to Jeb Bush pressed the chief strategist of the “super PAC” supporting Mr. Bush over the group’s negative ads about Senator Marco Rubio during a closed-door meeting in Manhattan on Friday, according to three people familiar with the encounter.

The exchange took place between Barry Volpert of the private equity firm Crestview Partners and the strategist Mike Murphy at a meeting of about 35 donors at the Palace Hotel in Midtown, according to one attendee…

Some donors to the group have questioned the decision to produce and air a 15-minute documentary telling the “the Jeb Bush story” on the New England Sports Network and have privately mocked billboards featuring quotes by Mr. Bush that Right to Rise paid for in Des Moines.

Even Mr. Bush, on a swing through Iowa this week, seemed to question the billboards’ value. “What the hell is that?” Mr. Bush asked, driving past one of the large red billboards, according to a Des Moines Register reporter who was with him at the time. “Is that Right to Rise?”

Super PACs, which can accept unlimited donations, are not permitted to coordinate with candidates’ own campaign staff. (Mr. Volpert does not work for the Bush campaign.) Asked by reporters in Iowa if he thought the group was spending its money wisely, Mr. Bush said, “I don’t know.”…

show full post on front page

Jeb Bush hosts donors to see where their money went. pic.twitter.com/DTalDhMjML

— Bob Schooley (@Rschooley) January 17, 2016

watching rich people burn millions on Jeb's hilariously inept campaign brings so much joy to wretched soul pic.twitter.com/3l4u0Xvoyu

— sean (@SeanMcElwee) January 15, 2016

From the Politico article:

When Jeb Bush announced a record fundraising haul in July, the Florida Republican rewarded major donors with a two-day celebratory retreat at the family compound in Kennebunkport, Maine. They also delivered a message: $114 million was just the beginning of how much cash they would need to win.

Now, seven months later and just 17 days before the first ballots are cast, Bush’s donors are no longer high-fiving or strategizing how to keep funds flowing. Instead, the money spigot is shutting off as the donor class believes it is just a matter of time before the candidate they threw so much money behind drops out of the race.

POLITICO talked to nearly two dozen major donors, and most say they are waiting for what one veteran Republican and former Bush 43 administration appointee described as the “family hall pass” to jump to another campaign after the New Hampshire primary…

“I’m resigned to it being over, frankly. It’s really disappointing,” said one top Bush Wall Street donor. “I’d urge him to get out after New Hampshire if he doesn’t do well, but he probably won’t.”…

“Expectations are not super high [for Bush]. But people are giving him room to try and break out in New Hampshire,” that donor said. “But if it doesn’t happen, pretty much everyone is thinking about the three-way alternative: Trump, Cruz or, gulp, [Hillary] Clinton. There isn’t a sense though that Rubio or Christie have got a much better path than Jeb because they are establishment too.”…

We are watching Jeb's goalposts being changed. NH was supposed to be his state but now looking for a "reset" after SC with Graham support

— Amanda Carpenter (@amandacarpenter) January 15, 2016

And he’s still out there, dutifully selling, per Bloomberg Politics:

Jeb Bush today doggedly continued pushing his policy-centric campaign to Republican primary voters, providing a sharp counterpoint on a day that Donald Trump accepted endorsements from John Wayne’s daughter and Sarah Palin.

Bush, the son and brother of former presidents, spent Tuesday afternoon talking about plans to boost economic growth and bolster the nation’s global presence during a speech to the Council of Foreign Relations in New York. He was publicly thanked by multiple audience members for a “rich, substantive conversation.”…

“Restoring a 21st century vision of America’s leadership in the world is essential, and hopefully the campaign will be a place where this will be discussed from time to time,” Bush said, as several in the crowd laughed. “A girl can dream at least.”…

Even his metaphors are cobwebby and flaccid!

… Bush also made a verbal misstep, referring to Malia Obama, the president’s eldest daughter, as Malayla. It came during an anecdote about his business travels through China in 2013, at a time when Michelle Obama, the president’s wife, canceled a trip to California where she was to have met with with Chinese President Xi Jinping and his wife, Peng Liyuan.

“Every meeting I had in Beijing started out for the first 10 minutes lambasting me, as an American, about why it was we insulted China,” Bush said. “Am I’m thinking, ‘You know what? It could be Mrs. Obama was worried about the science project of Malayla.’ I mean, we’re different. We don’t think the same way they do.”

Probably just as well not much attention was being paid, because no matter how I try to parse that last paragraph, it seems extremely Old White Guy Explains Stuff He Should Know to Avoid.

Right to Rise, which has raised more than $100M, is asking you to CROWDFUND a $300,000 ad. https://t.co/5ZY3GZl1Qn

— Katherine Miller (@katherinemiller) January 15, 2016

So, Triumph — the Insult Comic Dog — seems to have arrived at this Jeb rally in Keene, NH.

— Ashley Parker (@AshleyRParker) January 21, 2016

Spotted in New Hampshire: Right to Rise is not on board with the exclamation point. pic.twitter.com/IlPLvrmQZt

— Molly Ball (@mollyesque) January 19, 2016

Jeb Bush to debut new campaign slogan: "You kind of feel sorry for him, don't you?"

— Bob Schooley (@Rschooley) January 15, 2016

Schadenfreude Open Thread: Jeb Now Setting Fire to Big Stacks of CashPost + Comments (117)

Open Thread: Jeb Bush, Looking to Reduce the Surplus Population

by Anne Laurie|  January 12, 20165:07 pm| 53 Comments

This post is in: C.R.E.A.M., Election 2016, JEB! = John Ellis Not-Bush 2016, Open Threads, Republican Venality, Assholes

There's something poetic about naming your plan to end federal food stamps after your billionaire-funded super PAC. https://t.co/eCQQeATGXK

— Adam Smith (@asmith83) January 8, 2016

Ironic that Jeb reveals a plan to gut social programs one day after getting $10 million from a guy who got an $85 billion government bailout

— read the article (@SeanMcElwee) January 8, 2016

Catherine Rampell, in the Washington Post: “Jeb Bush’s welfare reform plan would only make life worse for America’s poor” —

Jeb Bush claims that, unlike that charlatan Donald Trump, he’s a proven political leader.

How has he chosen to illustrate such brave leadership? By joining the storied tradition of ducking responsibility for tough decisions.

Last Friday, Bush unveiled his grand welfare reform plan. He promises it will reduce waste, fraud and abuse while simultaneously empowering millions of poor people to stop being poor.

His magic formula: completely destroy established anti-poverty programs such as food stamps, cash welfare payments, rent subsidies and public housing. He’d then replace them all with “Right to Rise” grants (yes, named after his super PAC). These would be lump sums of federal money that states could apply for, assuming states would even be willing to create entirely new social safety nets out of whole cloth…

Here’s the usual sell: These are bloated, wasteful, one-size-fits-all programs that hook Americans on the government teat. If only we handed the money directly to the states, poverty could be eradicated on the cheap. It’s win-win, for both makers and takers!

In reality, block-granting is just a way federal politicians can strip poor people of much-needed services without actually taking the blame for the resulting suffering…

Food stamp program Jeb! wants to eliminate reduces obesity, boosts high school completion. https://t.co/KDnMMMUXCI pic.twitter.com/5MHoFPzedW

— sean penn (@SeanMcElwee) January 10, 2016

… The real issue is that rooting out waste, fraud and abuse (actually pretty rare in programs such as food stamps) is really, really hard — especially if you want to avoid accidentally cutting off deserving children and families from food security, affordable health care and stable housing in the process. Federal politicians don’t want to make the kinds of tough choices required for this cost-cutting, given the inevitable sob stories that will result.

So instead they just freeze spending and dump the responsibility for figuring out how to make do with less onto states. Not that states are any better equipped to make these decisions. But federal politicians nonetheless (quite literally) pass the buck anyway.

If history is any guide, block grants also make it easier for the feds to cut spending on the needy, regardless of whether the needy actually have reduced needs…

Or, as Jeb and his fellow Repubs see it: Win-Win!

Paleo for everyone! https://t.co/RXT1wAUc00

— daveweigel (@daveweigel) January 8, 2016

Open Thread: Jeb Bush, Looking to Reduce the Surplus PopulationPost + Comments (53)

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