Bush Responds To Romney: My Brother ‘Most Popular’ Prez Among GOPers

Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush tells reporters he will make up his mind “in relatively short order” on whether to seek the Republican nomination for president in 2016, after attending a bill signing ceremony with M... Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush tells reporters he will make up his mind “in relatively short order” on whether to seek the Republican nomination for president in 2016, after attending a bill signing ceremony with Mississippi Republican Gov. Phil Bryant at the Capitol in Jackson, Miss., Thursday, April 16, 2015. Bryant signed a bill based on a program created in Florida under Bush which has the state issuing $6,500 vouchers to some special education students, allowing their families to use public money to pay for private school tuition, tutoring or other education services. (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis) MORE LESS
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Jeb Bush on Tuesday brushed off the suggestion, made by former Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney, that the troubled legacy of his older brother George W. Bush has dragged him down in the 2016 race.

In a phone interview on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” Bush responded to concerns Romney recently told The Washington Post that he’d aired to him during a private January 2015 conversation.

“We talked about the campaign ‘cause he was thinking about running and I went out to see him,” Bush recalled. “I wanted him to know that I was all in and had a plan to win this, and I still do. But my brother—if you did the polling and actually looked at it, he’s probably the most popular president amongst Republicans in this country.”

Romney told the Post that he warned Bush his close family would lead voters to associate him with the tanking economy and drawn-out wars that made headlines when his older brother left office. But the former Florida governor has not shied away from embracing his older brother on the campaign trail, instead celebrating George W. Bush’s “leadership” after the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks and telling reporters he’s open to having his “very popular” brother campaign on his behalf.

In the “Morning Joe” interview, Jeb Bush expressed confidence that the memory of his brother’s “War on Terror” had “absolutely not” affected his 2016 run.

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  1. Avatar for livi_o livi_o says:

    Jeb Bush expressed confidence that the memory of his brother’s “War on Terror” had “absolutely not” affected his 2016 run.

    “The failure of my campaign is due solely to my OWN immense suckage!”

  2. but my brother—if you did the polling and actually looked at it, he’s probably the most popular president amongst Republicans in this country."

    Ok, so you can’t blame your lackluster performance on him, so what else could be the problem ?

  3. the clarification came a few minutes later…

    he meant to say most popular among the severely brain damaged as well as those feeding most heavily at the corporate welfare trough…

  4. This is why Jeb! sucks. It’s not entirely about the Dubya factor per se, it’s more about how Jeb! has handled it.

  5. I can’t wait to see Jeb on the campaign trail with Dubya, then we’ll see who’s popular.
    How delusional can you get?

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