Trying to get back in the race for the Republican presidential nomination, former Gov. Jeb Bush, R-Fla., is bringing out the big guns as he attempts to right the ship.
Reuters reported on Tuesday that Bush’s National Finance Committee consisted of around 350 prominent donors led by Woody Johnson, best known for owning the New York Jets of the National Football League (NFL).
Bush’s team has a Florida feel including Al Cardenas, the former chairman of the American Conservative Union (ACU) and the Republican Party of Florida (RPOF), as well old family hands like former U.S. Sec. of Commerce Don Evans who served in President George W. Bush’s Cabinet.
The former Florida governor is also relying more on his family to reach out to Republicans. The Bush campaign sent out an email from former President George H.W. Bush over the weekend in which he showcased the campaign’s “Jeb can fix it” slogan.
“I know Jeb can fix Washington because he’s already done it in Florida,” the former president insisted.
Reuters reported on Monday that Bush is bringing his campaign team down to Florida on Saturday as they try to turn things around. A poll Reuters released last week showed Bush pulling 7 percent in the Republican primary, placing him behind businessman Donald Trump, Dr. Ben Carson and U.S. Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas and Marco Rubio of Florida.
Bush has been downplaying the polls, noting businessman Herman Cain was leading the Republican primary field at this point in the last election cycle. That didn’t set well with Cain who pushed back at Bush on Monday at his website.
“Who is Jeb Bush?” Cain demanded. “He is the former governor of Florida and he has one of the most famous political last names in America. He has more political money behind him than any candidate in this race with the possible exception of Hillary Clinton. And how is he doing in the polls? The current Real Clear Politics average shows him in fifth place at 5.5 percent.
“If you want to say I had a ‘fall,’ go ahead, I guess,” Cain added. “You can’t fall when you’ve never gotten any higher than the floor in the first place, and that’s the state of the Jeb Bush campaign. A guy with his name, his money and the team behind him should be one of the top-tier contenders, and he should certainly not be letting Donald Trump wipe the floor with him if Trump is as unserious and unqualified as Bush would have you believe. And yet, Jeb Bush can’t break out of the middle single-digits.”
Cain appeared at a Trump rally in Georgia on Monday night and, while he did not endorse him, the former candidate had kind words for the current frontrunner at his website .
“It’s a different year, and Donald Trump is a different guy,” Cain wrote. “I realize that the Bush political cabal may see all icky outsiders as the same, and thus assume that all will have the same fate. I wouldn’t bet on that. Trump is very smart, has done his homework and has learned a lot from what happened in many previous campaigns – including mine. He’s stayed atop the polls a lot longer than I did, and his rivals haven’t accomplished much by sitting around invoking whatever it is that they think happened to me.
“But if I were to give Jeb Bush a piece of advice – not that he probably thinks he needs any from me – it would be to focus on coming up with a rationale for a Jeb Bush presidency. To date, I haven’t heard one that’s got many people very excited. And to judge from the polls, 94.5 percent of Republican primary voters agree with me," Cain added. “Even if Trump does come back to the pack at some point, there are other candidates much better positioned to pick up support because they’re much more appealing than Mr. Famous Political Name. And really, when you haven’t come anywhere close to what some pizza guy once did, you sound pretty desperate trying to use the pizza guy as your defense.
“At least I was once winning. Jeb Bush has been doing nothing but losing throughout this entire campaign,” Cain concluded. “His problem is him.”
Reach Kevin Derby at kderby@sunshinestatenews.com or follow him on Twitter: @KevinDerbySSN
