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Oh, noes. Trouble in Bushland?
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Jeb Bush thought he was going to shock and awe his Republican presidential primary opponents by raising soooooo much money for his "Right to Rise" Super PAC that everyone's shoulders slumped and their heads bowed and they realized they could never compete. But, much like a previous Bush shock and awe campaign, it turns out the opposition is fiercer than expected. Jeb thought he'd spread things around, get $1 million per donor and still have a dominant amount of money. Whoops:
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But that was before New York hedge fund magnate Robert Mercer pledged more than $15 million to Ted Cruz, and Marco Rubio gained the full-fleged support of Miami billionaire Norman Braman and became the front-runner to win casino mogul Sheldon Adelson's backing. Another rival, Scott Walker, recently became the favorite of billionaire David Koch, who seemed to tip his support for the Wisconsin governor at a fundraiser this week.
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And while his competition has been busy lining up billionaire owners for themselves, Bush has been pissing off his potential mid-level donors, the ones who write $5,000 or $10,000 checks, by making them feel not rich enough to get his attention. Bush's strategy of raising tons of money through his Super PAC before officially declaring himself a presidential candidate, then outsourcing traditional campaign functions to said Super PAC, is also raising eyebrows among some donors:
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"There's a worry that this is setting them up for a number of legal challenges," a Florida-based donor said. "There's some freedom allowed by this but there's also a lot of arrogance because, even if they think they're on firm legal ground, we all know the intent of the law is not to have presidential campaigns being run out of a super PAC. It's untested, it's risky - there's that chance that it blows up, that some unforeseen legal challenge actually sticks.
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"And the optics are horrible. If he wins the nomination this way, Democrats will seize on the tactics as evidence that Jeb Bush thinks he can play by his own rules. It's the same playbook we're trying to run against Hillary, which would be out the window."
On the other hand, pretty much any of Jeb's Republican opponents would win the nomination looking like the personal property of one or two specific billionaires, so that anti-Hillary playbook might need some work no matter what. But this does promise to be a juicy, exciting, and expensive primary campaign. And I don't know about you, but watching a Bush lose an election will make me happy either way-primary or general.
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