Jeb Bush battered by weeks of negative headlines, launches a campaign reboot on today in Tampa with a very important tour to get back in a race that see’s him training not one but three candidates.
The rally begins at 10:30 a.m. at Tampa Garden Club. Bush then goes to Winter Park and Jacksonville as he unveils a new slogan: “Jeb can fix it. He will also release an e-book that reveals a more personal side to a 2016 candidate who has struggled on the public stage.
Bush’s dismal performance at a debate of Republican presidential candidates last week in Colorado was an added burden to a candidate once considered the favorite for the nomination and now suffering drooping poll numbers and fund-raising.
Today, Bush hopes to begin a political comeback. He will give a speech presenting himself as a problem-solving politician who carried out conservative reforms as Florida’s governor from 1999 to 2007.
A campaign aide speaking to the press late last night said the speech will be a “rejection of the ‘competing pessimisms’ created in the President Barack Obama era in favor of leadership that solves problems.”
From Florida Bush will head to South Carolina and then on a three-day bus tour of New Hampshire.
The tour coincides with the release of a 730-page e-book, entitled “Reply All.” It is a compilation of many of the email exchanges he had with Floridians during his time as governor.
The book is made from emails that cover everything from his drive for tax cuts and education reform in Florida to dealing with hurricanes.
Beyond the work issues, there was plenty of the comical, such as when a 9-year-old girl wrote to tell him she did not like her piano lessons because “my teacher smells of dead alligators.” He talks about the importance of learning how to speak Spanish in his e-book.
“I learned Spanish by marrying a Mexican girl, by living in Venezuela and by taking Spanish courses in school. The first two were the most important,” Bush replied.
Bush makes clear in a 2006 exchange with a reporter his support for comprehensive immigration reform, an issue that has roiled the Republican race this year as billionaire Donald Trump has pledged to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexican border and deport 11 million illegal immigrants.
Bush said a more secure border is needed “but the notion that we would felonize folks that have been here and that are contributing to our progress is just plain wrong.”
