Jeb Bush speaking
Jeb Bush speaking

Now this is enter­tain­ing read­ing. We’re not sure how it hap­pened, but an extreme­ly lengthy, one hun­dred and twelve page pre­sen­ta­tion pre­pared by Jeb Bush’s cam­paign, osten­si­bly for donors and oth­er back­ers, was leaked to U.S. News & World Report. The whole thing has been pub­lished online for any­one to read.

Mid­way through the pre­sen­ta­tion are sev­er­al slides which attempt to dis­cred­it Mar­co Rubio, whom Jeb Bush’s peo­ple evi­dent­ly see as a threat.

The first one is enti­tled Mar­co is a Risky Bet. It argues:

  • No accom­plish­ments, negat­ing hit against Hillary Clinton
  • Marco’s “tomor­row ver­sus yes­ter­day” argu­ment will be wide­ly ridiculed by media while run­ning against “first woman president.”
  • Mis­use of state par­ty cred­it cards, tax­pay­er funds and Jes to scan­dal-­-tarred for­mer Con­gress­man David Rivera takes away line of attack on Hillary Clinton.
  • Close­ness with Nor­man Bra­man , who dou­bles as per­son­al bene­fac­tor, rais­es major eth­i­cal questions.
  • Out­side of lob­by­ing and legal con­sult­ing, no cred­i­ble expe­ri­ence beyond government.
  • Nev­er been in charge of any­thing larg­er than two dozen people.
  • Those who have looked into the Marco’s back­ground in the past have been con­cerned with what they have found.

A sub­se­quent slide argues, “We need to offer a con­trast to the cur­rent Pres­i­dent. Hillary will pitch com­pe­tence and expe­ri­ence. Mar­co is a GOP Obama.”

Ouch!

The slide deck also touts Bush’s endorse­ments, not­ing that peo­ple for­mer­ly close to Rubio have gone to work for Bush instead of the junior sen­a­tor from Florida.

Fur­ther analy­sis of the lengthy pre­sen­ta­tion is avail­able from U.S. News.

About the author

Andrew Villeneuve is the founder and executive director of the Northwest Progressive Institute, as well as the founder of NPI's sibling, the Northwest Progressive Foundation. He has worked to advance progressive causes for over two decades as a strategist, speaker, author, and organizer. Andrew is also a cybersecurity expert, a veteran facilitator, a delegate to the Washington State Democratic Central Committee, and a member of the Climate Reality Leadership Corps.

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One reply on “Here’s what Jeb Bush’s people have to say in private about Marco Rubio”

  1. In my opin­ion, Rubio does­n’t come across as pres­i­den­tial. Whether a can­di­date is Demo­c­rat or Repub­li­can, that’s a trait that I can find. I don’t see it in Rubio or real­ly any of the con­tenders on the GOP side.

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