New York Times
By Ashley Parker
January 12, 2016
The messages coming out of the political world of Jeb Bush could not be more different.
For
weeks, the Bush campaign, led by Jeb Bush himself, has used the
candidacy of Donald J. Trump to argue that Mr. Bush is a responsible
alternative, a serious leader
for serious times.
And
then there is Right to Rise, the “super PAC” supporting Mr. Bush, which
has begun a furious advertising offensive against Senator Marco Rubio
of Florida, accusing
him of flip-flopping on immigration.
“He
ran for Senate saying he opposed amnesty,” says the narrator of the
30-second spot, called “Vane,” which features Mr. Rubio atop a weather
vane, swiveling back and
forth. “Then he flipped, and worked with liberal Chuck Schumer to
co-author the path to citizenship. He threatened to vote against it, and
then voted for it.”
“Marco
Rubio, just another Washington politician you can’t trust,” concludes
the ad, which is airing in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina.
The
spot has made some Bush supporters uneasy and created challenges for
the candidate, whose own immigration plan — about which he wrote an
entire book — is remarkably
similar to the Rubio proposal that the super PAC ad dismisses as
“amnesty.”
The
candidate himself has seemed uncomfortable with such attacks,
particularly against Mr. Rubio, his one-time protégée. In his one major
broadside against Mr. Rubio during
an early debate, Mr. Bush looked awkward and the attack failed, leaving
donors grumbling and his campaign scrambling to explain away the
moment.
On
Tuesday, asked by reporters if the super PAC supporting him was
tarnishing his record, Mr. Bush distanced himself from the ad, saying he
was focused only on his own
campaign, but signaled that he expected the race to get tougher.
“I
can’t control what anyone else does,” he said. “I can only control what
I do, and I’m advocating my record and my detailed plan to fix the mess
in Washington, D.C.
Everybody’s going to be scrutinized. This is not bean bag.”
Moments
later, referring to an ad that a super PAC supporting Mr. Rubio
recently aired, featuring images of Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey
with President Obama, Mr.
Bush posed a question of his own: “Why don’t you ask him about his ad
about Christie?” he said. “I saw that in New Hampshire. That’s a
zinger.”
Erick
Erickson, a prominent conservative, voiced the concerns of other
Republicans with a blog post Tuesday calling on Mr. Bush to “denounce
his super PAC.”
“Bush
is not going to be the nominee, but is getting backed by a super PAC
doing its level best to stop someone who is a potential nominee and a
Bush protégée,” he wrote.
Earlier
in the day, at a town-hall-style event in Coralville, Iowa, a young
female voter seemed to capture Mr. Bush’s ambivalence about going after
Mr. Rubio, when she
stood and asked, “When it’s over, when everything is over, do you go up
to him and say, ‘Hey man, it’s O.K.? I didn’t mean everything,’” she
said. “Because you know there was a great relationship at one time, and
if you watch his face, sometimes he even looks
disappointed that maybe there is the rift between you two.”
But
Mr. Bush — unlike his super PAC, which has shown an increased
willingness to take Mr. Rubio on directly — instead largely talked about
his own record and said, only,
“Marco is my friend —he’s my friend — and what has been said by our
campaign, I stand by, completely.”
The
new ad is not the first time Right to Rise has created problems for the
Bush campaign. Late last year, the group — which has raised more than
$100 million— began telling
donors and supporters it was willing to spend as much as $20 million to
hobble Mr. Rubio. The super PAC showed donors a contentious ad it had
made, but never released, painting Mr. Rubio as unelectable in a general
election because of his hard-line position
against abortion
Right
to Rise says the ad is not about immigration, but an effort to portray
Mr. Rubio as a calculating politician with no core principles who is
trying to be all things
to all people.
The
super PAC has also hit Mr. Trump repeatedly. But as the early voting
nears — Iowans head to their caucuses on Feb. 1, and New Hampshire
voters go to the polls on Feb.
9 — Right to Rise seems to have focused its attacks most on Mr. Rubio,
in contrast to Mr. Bush’s own campaign strategy. (Mr. Bush frequently
mentions Mr. Trump on the campaign trail, railing against him, but does
not bring up Mr. Rubio unprompted.)
Another
digital ad by the super PAC took a more lighthearted tone, but also
attacked Mr. Rubio for changing his position on issues — using a recent
dust-up over a pair
of trendy black boots Mr. Rubio was spotted wearing. “These boots are
made for flippin’,” says the narrator, in a sing-song voice.
Mr. Rubio’s campaign dismissed the attacks as those of a desperate candidate.
“Jeb
Bush and his establishment allies are trying to buy this election, and
they know Marco is standing in their way,” Alex Conant, a spokesman for
Mr. Rubio, said in
a statement. “That’s why their attacks grow more desperate by the day.
When Marco is president, there will be no amnesty and we will secure the
border. Period.”
For more information, go to: www.beverlyhillsimmigrationlaw.com
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