Republican Crime Syndicate – aka the Bush Admin.

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!

Open Thread: “Whisper Campaigns and Zipper Problems”Post + Comments (29)