Jeb Bush, once a front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination, is slashing pay across the board for his struggling campaign as he attempts to regain traction just 100 days before the party’s first nominating contest. 
 
 The campaign is removing some senior staff from the payroll, parting ways with some consultants, and downsizing its Miami headquarters to save more than $1 million per month and cut payroll by 40 percent this week, according to Bush campaign officials who requested anonymity to speak about internal changes. Senior leadership positions remain unchanged. 
 
 The campaign is also cutting back 45 percent of its budget, except for dollars earmarked for TV advertising and spending for voter contacts, such as phone calls and mailers. Some senior-level staff and consultants will continue to work with the campaign on a volunteer basis, while other junior-level consultants, primarily in finance but including other areas, will be let go, the officials said. The officials declined to say who would be removed from the payroll or provide an exact dollar figure for the savings. (A summary of the changes, provided to Bloomberg Politics by the campaign, is posted here.) 
 
 Bush's advisers, under pressure from their donors and from falling and stagnant poll numbers, have been discussing ways to retool the campaign in recent days, and came to the conclusion that a course correction was essential. While recent tangles with Donald Trump have energized the campaign, Bush's senior team recognized a more fundamental set of changes was required that didn't involve dealing directly with the party's surprising—and surprisingly durable—front-runner. 
 
 "The circumstances when we started the election were different," Bush told Pat Robertson in an interview at Regent University hours after news of the shakeup broke. "I have not met a person that thought that Donald Trump would be the front running candidate at this point. God bless him for his success in that regard, we’ll see how long that lasts. But you have to adapt.” He said his new "lean and mean" campaign will allow him to do that. "Every dollar we can save in overhead is a dollar that goes on television, goes on radio, goes on media, goes on voter outreach," Bush added. 
 
 Analysts and rival campaigns will view the changes as a desperate act, perhaps the last one, of a man whose campaign has dropped in the polls in recent months and has remained mired in the middle of a crowded field despite a month-long blitz of friendly television ads. None of the changes deal directly with what even many of Bush's supporters say is his main challenge: The burden of trying to convince voters hungry for change to choose a man whose father and brother both served as president. 
 
 Officials said the changes—the second time the campaign has cuts its payroll this year—will enable them to shift more resources into New Hampshire, where the campaign has the largest operation in the state, and other states where early voters begin casting ballots in February. There will be more volunteers and surrogates for Bush, which the campaign refers to as “friends of Jeb,” on the ground to help in a state that his brother lost in 2000 and his father won in 1988. 
 
 One Bush adviser told Bloomberg Politics in an interview Friday morning that the team was “unapologetic” about the changes, saying the moves were from a “position of strength.” “This is about winning the race,” the adviser said. “We’re doing it now and making the shifts with confidence. We expect to win.” 
 
 Bush plans to continue to focus on a core message that argues that he has experience to make the kinds of fundamental changes voters want to see in Washington. The campaign changes reflect that, an adviser said. 
 
 Get the latest on global politics in your inbox, every day. Get our newsletter daily. 
 
 The campaign claims to have the most extensive field operation in Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, and Nevada, states with the first four nominating contests. Bush had $10.3 million available for the primary race as of Oct. 1, about the same as U.S. Senator Marco Rubio, but less than U.S. Senator Ted Cruz and Dr. Ben Carson. Right to Rise USA, the super-PAC being run by Mike Murphy, raised $103 million in the first six months of the year. 
 
 Still, many thought Bush would keep the pole position heading into the 2016 primary calendar. But the former Florida governor and his advisers had little choice but to make the changes to redirect resources and attempt to create a new narrative for the campaign before the Feb. 1 caucuses in Iowa and—more importantly for Bush—the Feb. 9 primary in New Hampshire. 
 
 In a presidential campaign cycle that has already seen stunning twists and turns, to see the presumed establishment front-runner, whose strength was based in part on his fundraising capacity, have to make these kinds of cuts, is one of the most surprising developments so far. 
 
 One of Bush's rivals, Carson, who leads in a new Bloomberg Politics/Des Moines Register Iowa Poll, was taken aback in an interview Friday morning that Bush is being forced to make some changes. 
 
 “This is a little bit surprising, but you know a lot of his money, of course, was super-PAC money as opposed to campaign money,” Carson said in an interview that will air on With All Due Respect today on Bloomberg TV. “That doesn't give you as much flexibility, quite frankly.” 
 
 The campaign said its internal measures showed that the month-long run of TV advertising is having an impact. “We need to double down and triple down in the early states,” another Bush official said. 
 
 Bush, who aides said was actively involved in the decision to cut back, will spend less time raising money and more time engaged in retail political events, such as town halls, meet-and-greets, and one-on-one meetings, advisers said. 
 
 Although Bush's long-time political adviser, Murphy, who now runs the pro-Bush super-PAC backing his candidacy, told Bloomberg Politics recently that Bush's strength in the March contests would earn him the nomination, the changes are an acknowledgement that Bush needs to first improve his standing in Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, and Nevada. 
 
 Symbolically, the changes turn Bush from an establishment battleship into a more scrappy underdog, making radical alterations in how the campaign operates in order to avoid the existential threat the campaign now faces. When his brother George W. Bush ran for president in 2000, he was the fundraising leader from start to finish and never had to contemplate such draconian cuts. 
 
 The changes come a week after Danny Diaz, Bush’s campaign manager, sought to ease concerns about the amount of cash being spent by pointing to campaign’s robust operation in states with the earliest primary contests. 
 
 Polls from Bloomberg Politics this week showed Bush in fifth place in Iowa and a distant third in New Hampshire. 
 
 (Contributing: Arit John) ||||| Jeb Bush, the Republican establishment’s last, best hope, began his 2016 campaign rationally enough, with a painstakingly collated operational blueprint his team called, with NFL swagger, “The Playbook.” 
 
 On page after page kept safe in a binder, the playbook laid out a strategy for a race his advisers were certain would be played on Bush’s terms — an updated, if familiar version of previous Bush family campaigns where cash, organization and a Republican electorate ultimately committed to an electable center-right candidate would prevail. 
 
 Story Continued Below 
 
 The playbook, hatched by Sally Bradshaw, Mike Murphy and a handful of other Bush confidants in dozens of meetings during the first half of 2015 and described to POLITICO by some of Bush’s closest and most influential supporters, appealed to the Bush family penchant for shock-and-awe strategy. The campaign would commence with six months of fundraising for the Right to Rise super PAC and enough muscle to push aside Mitt Romney. There would be a massive, broad-based organizational effort to plant roots in March states at a time when other campaigns were mired in Iowa and New Hampshire. The plan outlined Bush’s positive, future-focused message with an emphasis on his decade-old record of accomplishment as Florida governor. 
 
 And it included several pages about Bush’s case to prosecute against top rivals — dire political threats such as Wisconsin’s Scott Walker. 
 
 The plan roundly underestimated threats: Bradshaw, his closest adviser and longtime defender, for example, told at least one campaign aide that Marco Rubio wouldn’t challenge Bush. Besides, Bradshaw and other top advisers believed, it would be next to impossible for someone with so little experience to beat him. “They thought there was going to be much more reverence and respect for the fact that Jeb Bush, a Bush, was getting into the race,” said one Florida-based supporter, an alumnus of Bush’s gubernatorial campaigns and former staffer. “When they got Romney to step aside, they figured everyone else would too.” 
 
 Most critically, the playbook, people who have read it tell POLITICO, contained nothing about Donald Trump, who would spend the next excruciating year turning Bush into his personal patrician piñata. 
 
 “The rules all changed this year. It was all about taking on the establishment,” said a Republican operative close to the Bush family. “When you’re the son and brother of former presidents, the grandson of a U.S. senator, how do you run in a year like this? It is just a year of personality, not message. All of a sudden, there was no path for him. They just kept falling back on his record as governor, which is all he has — and no one gives a shit.” 
 
 Bush suspended his campaign Saturday night after a fourth-place finish in the South Carolina primary. 
 
 Interviews with more than two dozen Bush insiders, donors and staff members illuminate the plight of an earnest and smart candidate who was tragicomically mismatched to the electorate of his own party and an unforgiving, mean media environment that broadcast his flaws. The entire premise of Bush’s candidacy, these insiders tell POLITICO, was an epic misread of a GOP base hostile to any establishment candidate, especially one with his baggage-weighted last name. 
 
 And Bush, known for toughness and hard-work ethic in Tallahassee, just couldn’t project the kind of Reagan-on-’roids strength demanded by Trump. 
 
 “They were just captive to it,” one Washington-based Bush donor said. “And they didn’t adjust very nimbly.” 
 
 *** 
 
 By August, just six weeks after officially launching his campaign, the only thing Bush’s staff could agree on was the problem: Donald J. Trump. 
 
 They’d paid no attention to the New York celebrity’s launch in June, just a day after their own. In early August, well after Trump began to dominate news coverage of the race, they still believed he was a blessing in disguise who would deprive Bush’s lesser-known rivals of the media oxygen needed to break through. But as Labor Day neared, Bush found himself on the defensive, peppered daily with questions from reporters asking him to react to Trump’s hard-line positions and seemingly outrageous statements on immigration. 
 
 But almost immediately, Trump baited Bush into a fight, staking out a position to the far right of the Floridian by calling for an end to automatic citizenship to any baby born in America. He ridiculed Bush’s earlier comment that immigrants who come to the United States illegally do it as an “act of love” for family, and called him unelectable. 
 
 Bush fired back, poorly. He went on conservative radio and used the derogatory term “anchor babies” when making the case that he would be a tough enforcer of immigration laws — opening the floodgates of criticism. 
 
 The following week, inside a Mexican restaurant in McAllen, Texas, just a few miles from the U.S.-Mexico border, Bush compounded the problem he was trying to clean up when he explained rather didactically that he was referring to Asians, not Mexicans, whom he argued were more guilty of taking advantage of the country’s birthright citizenship provision. 
 
 Inside his Miami headquarters, Bush’s senior staffers were coming to the collective realization that the race was veering out of their control. 
 
 But that’s where the consensus ended. 
 
 David Kochel, the early-state strategist initially hired to serve as campaign manager, and senior adviser Trent Wisecup, a protégé of Murphy’s, suggested that Bush challenge Trump to a one-hour, live televised debate on birthright citizenship, perhaps on “The O’Reilly Factor.” The Fox News host, they argued, supports birthright citizenship, and his show would offer a high-profile platform for Bush to demonstrate his policy knowledge and articulate his more unifying message, bringing the contrast between himself and Trump into sharper relief. 
 
 But Bradshaw, the most senior figure in the operation, and campaign manager Danny Diaz couldn’t be convinced it was a risk worth taking, according to high-level campaign staff. 
 
 
 
 By early August, Bush's team all agreed their main problem was Donald Trump, who had begun baiting Bush into fights almost immediately after his campaign launched. Above, the three candidates at the New Hampshire debate in early February. | AP 
 
 
 
 Days later, on Aug. 25, Trump was on stage at a rally in Dubuque, Iowa, when he offered an impression of Bush and characterized him as “low energy,” a critique he’d come up with after the first debate a few weeks earlier. 
 
 Bush’s team was stunned, first by the insult and then that it stuck. Kochel and Wisecup raced to respond and saw their already planned event that very same day — on the anniversary of Hurricane Katrina — as the perfect opportunity for Bush to respond forcefully and directly to Trump. They envisioned Bush in Pensacola, Florida, speaking straight to Trump: “You think I’m low energy, why don’t you come down here and talk to these people about how I took charge in a crisis.” 
 
 But once again, Bradshaw and Diaz couldn’t be convinced. Trump, they decided, wasn’t in Bush’s “lane” and so the campaign need not worry about responding to him. They went ahead with the event as planned, rolling out a two-minute video telling the story of Bush’s leadership during several hurricanes in 2004 and 2005. The following day, the headlines mainly served to remind readers of another Bush with a less-heralded record on Katrina—George W. “One Bush gets praise for his handling of hurricanes” was The Washington Post’s version. 
 
 They got defined as �?low energy’ by a guy who took an escalator to his own announcement.” 
 
 “The Jeb people knew that literally every day when he was governor, he’d walk the steps of the Capitol at a jog pace,” one longtime Bush bundler and confidant said recently. “The building was 30 stories high. You’d hide because you wouldn’t want him to catch you and make you walk the stairs. He’d email you at 5:30 a.m. This was not at all a low-energy guy. It wasn’t true, but it stuck.” 
 
 “They got defined as �?low energy’ by a guy who took an escalator to his own announcement.” 
 
 *** 
 
 Those pivotal days in late August were one of the most critical inflection points for Bush’s troubled presidential campaign—the moments when Bradshaw, Kochel and Diaz might have reconsidered the assumptions made months earlier and redirected their candidate. They didn’t, because that redirection wasn’t part of the playbook. 
 
 “You cannot run a political campaign and not have the ability to adapt, to pivot,” one longtime Bush donor who has supported all five of the family’s presidential campaigns. “To sit there and say �?We have a book’ just shows the immaturity.” 
 
 Bradshaw, who remained based in Tallahassee throughout the campaign, not the Miami headquarters, is exceedingly close to Bush. She has run all of his gubernatorial campaigns and served as his chief of staff. She acts as his strategist, his confidante and his muscle, defending him from critics and acting as a wall between Bush and almost everyone else. But some donors worried that she and other Bush loyalists wouldn’t be able to see his flaws as a candidate. 
 
 Early on, Murphy warned some incoming top aides about the loyalists. “If Jeb walks into a room and asks for a coconut,” Murphy told them, “the loyalists would drop everything to make sure Jeb got a coconut.” 
 
 When Bradshaw held her first meeting with about 40 of the campaign’s most connected donors in Washington, D.C., last spring, laying out the playbook, explaining the structure of the operation and confidently asserting the high likelihood of Bush becoming the GOP nominee, she left the sleek law-firm conference room without assuaging some donors’ doubts about the plan — specifically, the decision to focus the first half of 2015 almost exclusively on raising unlimited amounts of cash for the super PAC and the structure of the campaign itself — or her willingness to speak tough truths to Bush himself. 
 
 “She told this story about how Jeb upset the young kid tasked with collecting and distributing the [news] clips because he said he didn’t want anyone reading the clips, he wanted them focused,” a top Bush bundler who attended the meeting recalled. “And she said she told the kid, �?Don’t worry, just take Jeb off the list and keep doing them.’ She’s in a room with 40 of us basically saying that she’s hiding things from the principal. We were like, �?Why are you telling us this?’” 
 
 Bradshaw brushed off donors’ concerns that focusing so much on filling the super PAC’s coffers might leave the campaign cash-poor. At the time, so much money was rolling in, that situation was hard to imagine. Bush’s finance team, led by Heather Larrison and Jack Oliver, was confident it would have the money it needed and instructed Kochel, then serving as the unofficial campaign manager, to build out a massive campaign with ballot-access teams working every state and senior staffers earning more than $200,000 annual salaries. Early on in the campaign, for example, Bush hired scores of policy aides — a reflection, perhaps, of his own wonkiness. Yet it was a luxury: Most of the campaigns hired only a small number of policy aides. 
 
 Once Diaz was named campaign manager in June, he went on a cost-cutting spree — implementing painful across-the-board cuts that affected staffers at nearly every corner of the campaign. Even junior staffers making mid-five figures found their salaries reduced. By late fall, the campaign was no longer leasing a second office space on the sixth floor of its Miami headquarters, with so many staffers having been either laid off or relocated to Iowa and New Hampshire. 
 
 “[Sally] would be the one who could be direct with Jeb about his flaws — but she doesn’t see the flaws,” said a GOP operative who has worked with Bradshaw. “She doesn’t understand how other people don’t see it, and anyone who is critical of Jeb is dead to her.” 
 
 Bradshaw especially was obsessed with Rubio, whose audacity in simply entering the race and challenging his friend and former mentor was, to many Bush loyalists, unforgivable. Once the GOP debates began in August, sparking new interest in the golden-tongued Rubio, Bush’s team agreed it was time to engage with a challenger who, in its view, posed a greater obstacle to Bush consolidating support from mainstream Republicans. 
 
 In October, Bush began laying the groundwork to prosecute his case against Rubio, dinging the first-term senator for his poor attendance record and missed votes in the Senate. Heading into the third GOP debate in Boulder, Colorado, on Oct. 28, Bush and his entire team were on the same page — and brimming with confidence. They hinted at what was coming, planting stories and calling reporters on debate day to ensure that the attack on Rubio was the dominant storyline. 
 
 They’d rehearsed the attack on Rubio dozens of time during debate prep, but when it came time to execute on stage, Bush “just whiffed,” one senior staffer lamented later. “That stuff he said about being one of Marco’s constituents and being disappointed, that wasn’t anything we’d practiced,” the staffer continued. “He’s Jeb Bush. No one is going to empathize with him as someone who needs his senator to work on his behalf.” When Rubio hit back, dismissing Bush’s attack by citing the fact that “we’re now running for the same position,” Bush failed to respond. 
 
 “Sometimes you just fuck up,” the Bush staffer said. 
 
 It wasn’t until that debacle that Bush’s advisers decided to address the candidate’s poor performances themselves, hiring Jon Kraushar, who generally works with television anchors, as a public speaking coach. 
 
 *** 
 
 Looking back now after his early exit from a nomination battle he vowed to be in “for the long haul,” his slow, awkward stumble from August through October encapsulates everything that caused the operation viewed as “Jeb!, Inc.” to fail. Bush was on the wrong side of the most galvanizing issues for Republican primary voters; he himself was a rusty and maladroit campaigner and his campaign was riven by internal disagreements and a crippling fear that left it paralyzed and unable to react to Trump. 
 
 The problem, many donors say they believe, is that there wasn’t anyone on the team who both recognized his shortcomings and was willing to point them out to the principal himself. 
 
 “He did not put an adult as the chairman of the campaign and a lot of the mistakes flow from that,” said one longtime Bush donor. “Reagan put Bill Casey in that position. 41 put Jim Baker. 43 had Don Evans. You always had someone above the campaign manager who could tell people and the candidate what needed to happen, who could see the big picture. By putting Sally, who loves you, in charge, you don’t get the fair perspective, the right perspective.” 
 
 But the blame is not Bradshaw’s alone. The entire premise of Bush’s candidacy now looks like a misread of an electorate that wasn’t amenable to establishment candidates—and a misunderstanding of a modern media environment ill-suited to a policy wonk who speaks in paragraphs, not punchy sound bites. He couldn’t sell experience to an electorate that wanted emotion. He couldn’t escape his last name. His millions couldn’t buy popular support. 
 
 Given how the race has gone, the real mystery of Jeb Bush’s campaign isn’t why he failed — but why anyone ever thought he would succeed. 
 
 Glenn Thrush and Alex Isenstadt contributed to this report. 
 
 Eli Stokols is a national politics reporter. ||||| Photo by Rick Wilking/Reuters 
 
 Wednesday’s Republican presidential debate was critical for Jeb Bush. He had to show donors and voters that he was a fighter, with life in his campaign—that he could stand up to Donald Trump, take on Sen. Marco Rubio, and emerge as a front-runner for the GOP nomination. 
 
 Jamelle Bouie Jamelle Bouie is Slate’s chief political correspondent. 
 
 In other words, it was do or die. And Bush died. The debate clock tells the whole story; next to Sen. Rand Paul, who fell to the bottom, Bush had the least speaking time of any candidate on stage. Worse, he was on the losing end of a tough exchange. Early in the night, the former Florida governor came out swinging against his erstwhile protégé, Rubio. “Marco, when you signed up for this, this was a six-year term, and you should be showing up to work,” said Bush, hitting Rubio on his absence from the U.S. Senate. “You can campaign, or just resign and let someone else take the job.” 
 
 Advertisement 
 
 
 
 Bush had a hit. Rubio was supposed to stumble. But he didn’t. Instead, he accused Bush of playing politics in the most brutal way possible. 
 
 Well, it’s interesting. Over the last few weeks, I’ve listened to Jeb as he walked around the country and said that you’re modeling your campaign after John McCain, that you’re going to launch a furious comeback the way he did, by fighting hard in New Hampshire and places like that, carrying your own bag at the airport. You know how many votes John McCain missed when he was carrying out that furious comeback that you’re now modeling after? 
 
 [L]et me tell you. I don’t remember you ever complaining about John McCain’s vote record. The only reason why you’re doing it now is because we’re running for the same position, and someone has convinced you that attacking me is going to help you. 
 
 And that was it. Bush was finished. He spoke again throughout the night, but never with energy. Any wind he had—any fire or spirit—was gone. In a few seconds, Rubio had knocked Bush out of the game completely. 
 
 Advertisement 
 
 
 
 Put differently, if this was an “establishment” debate—hosted by CNBC, focused on the economy, and meant to give voice to the most viable candidates in the race—then it served its purpose. Bush might have cash reserves and support from family backers, but after tonight, he’s slipped to the second tier. He may not leave the race, but he’ll struggle to get traction. Now, Rubio—who gave another great performance—takes his place as the most viable candidate in the race, and as the closest thing to a front-runner. 
 
 But he’ll have rivals. Like Rubio, Sen. Ted Cruz excelled on this stage. But where Rubio turned to biography to win applause and plaudits—reminding the audience that he has struggled with student loans and personal debt—Cruz turned to an old saw. He attacked the media. Constantly. “The questions that have been asked so far in this debate illustrate why the American people don’t trust the media,” he declared in response to a question on compromise and the recent budget deal in Washington. “How about talking about the substantive issues the people care about?” 
 
 Any wind Bush had—any fire or spirit—was gone. 
 
 The crowd went wild, Cruz returned to this theme, dodging questions with hits on the moderators. And as they lost control over the debate—struggling to keep candidates on time and to ask follow-up questions—other candidates did the same, slamming the “liberal media” at the pro-business, pro–Wall Street CNBC. Cruz doesn’t just leave Wednesday in good shape; if he gets a boost in the polls, he has a campaign that can capitalize on his gains. 
 
 With that said, it’s important not to get lost in the theater criticism of presidential debates. This was supposed to be on the economy, and while it jumped into issues such as same-sex marriage and marijuana legalization, that was largely true. And after the modest but steady gains of the Obama administration where is the Republican Party on growth, wages, and economic security? 
 
 Advertisement 
 
 
 
 The same place it’s always been. As with Mitt Romney’s campaign in 2012, the signature policy plan for every Republican candidate is a tax cut. “We need somebody who can lead. We need somebody who can balance budgets, cut taxes,” said Ohio Gov. John Kasich, touting his record. “We’re reducing taxes to 15 percent. We’re bringing corporate taxes down, bringing money back in, corporate inversions,” said Donald Trump. “Growth is the answer,” declared Cruz. “And as Reagan demonstrated, if we cut taxes, we can bring back growth.” And the cuts are meant for high earners. Under Rubio’s plan, for example, the government wouldn’t tax income from dividends and capital gains, largely benefiting the wealthiest Americans. And while Rubio includes measures that benefit the bottom 10 percent of income earners, the overall effect of his supply-side cuts is to tilt the tax code toward the top at an even greater angle than exists now. 
 
 There’s more: Gov. Chris Christie called for Social Security benefit cuts and demogogued the program as broke (despite all evidence to the contrary) while Sen. Rand Paul and Ben Carson pitched the audience on their plans to slash Medicare benefits. Carson called for a flat tax, Cruz praised “sound money” and the gold standard, and Carly Fiorina attacked the federal minimum wage as unconstitutional. Candidates talked about their modest upbringings but couldn’t articulate plans for reducing student loans and debt. At most, Kasich pointed to online education, Bush pointed to “accountability,” and Rubio promised more vocational training. 
 
 In short, despite years of decrying Romney’s “47 percent” remarks, Republicans have stuck with the underlying idea: that the government does too much to redistribute wealth to low- and middle-income Americans, and too little to assist the richest citizens. ||||| Former Florida governor Jeb Bush announced to supporters in South Carolina that he was suspending his presidential campaign after a disappointing performance in the state's GOP primary. (AP) 
 
 Former Florida governor Jeb Bush announced to supporters in South Carolina that he was suspending his presidential campaign after a disappointing performance in the state's GOP primary. (AP) 
 
 For Jeb Bush’s campaign, August was a cruel month. Donald Trump’s attacks on the former Florida governor as a ­“low-energy” politician were beginning to stick, and the two were bickering over immigration. The issue before the Bush team was what to do about it. 
 
 Some advisers argued for an aggressive response, even to the point of challenging Trump to some kind of one-on-one confrontation. Others resisted, believing Trump’s candidacy was unsustainable, while some cautioned against getting “into a pigpen with a pig,” as one adviser recalled. Others described it as “trying to wrestle with a stump.” 
 
 Those summer days crystallized the plight of a campaign that had begun with enormous expectations and extraordinary resources, as the scion of one of America’s dynastic political families sought to follow his father and brother to the presidency. 
 
 At what would become a crucial moment, Bush’s team had no clear strategy for a rival who was beginning to hijack the Republican Party that the Bush family had helped to build, other than to stay the course set months earlier of telling Bush’s story to voters. 
 
 “There was no consensus,” senior strategist David Kochel said of the discussions about how to combat the threat of Trump’s candidacy. Other campaigns were wrestling with the same problems, but as the front-runner in the polls at the time, Bush would suffer more than the others. 
 
 Jeb Bush suspended his campaign for president on Feb. 20. The Fix's Chris Cillizza breaks down why he was never going to be president. (Peter Stevenson/The Washington Post) 
 
 On Saturday night, the candidacy that had begun with such promise ended quietly after a disappointingly weak fourth-place finish in South Carolina. 
 
 Ever the gracious realist, Bush announced in his concession speech that he would end his campaign as Trump continued to soar as the GOP front-runner. “I have stood my ground, refusing to bend to the political winds,” he said. 
 
 Whether Jeb Bush ever had a chance to win the Republican nomination in a campaign year that proved so ill fitting for a rusty politician who preferred policy papers to political combat is a question that will be debated long after the 2016 race has ended. 
 
 “Donald Trump channeled the worst fears, frustrations and anxiety of voters, but he also magnified those same feelings,” Sally Bradshaw, Bush’s chief strategist and confidant, said Sunday in an email. “It would be difficult for any solutions-oriented conservative to tackle Trump in this environment, much less one who was seen as having been so much a part of the establishment. He was never going to be an angry guy — and voters wanted angry.” 
 
 Mike Murphy, the chief strategist for Bush’s super PAC, Right to Rise, explained what had happened this way on Sunday. “Our theory was to dominate the establishment lane into the actual voting primaries,” he said. “That was the strategy, and it did not work. I think it was the right strategy for Jeb. The problem was there was a huge anti-establishment wave. The establishment lane was smaller than we thought it would be. The marketplace was looking for something different, and we’ll find out how that ends when we have a nominee.” 
 
 The result is one of the most startling failures in the modern history of American politics: the fall of the House of Bush. It is a human story about the struggles of one of the most successful former governors in America in his bid to become president, like his father and brother, set against the backdrop of one of the strangest political cycles the country has seen in years. 
 
 Beyond underestimating the anger in the electorate, three other problems led to Bush’s downfall. First, the candidate and his team misjudged the degree of Bush fatigue among Republicans. 
 
 1 of 19 Full Screen Autoplay Close Skip Ad × Candidates who have dropped out of the 2016 race so far, and why View Photos With the primary season in full swing, several have dropped out in recent days. Caption With the primary season in full swing, several have dropped out in recent days. John Kasich Ohio Gov. John Kasich (R), who ran as a sunny, center-right “prince of light and hope” but won only his home-state primary, bowed out of the presidential race on Wednesday with a reflective speech in Columbus. Read the story Kyle Grillot/For the Washington Post Buy Photo Wait 1 second to continue. 
 
 Aides said an internal poll conducted last fall showed discouraging news: Roughly two-thirds of voters had issues with Bush’s family ties. “Bush stuff was holding him back,” said one aide who saw the polling data. “We obviously knew it was an issue, but even still, the gap between it and other issues — I don’t think we thought it would be that big.” 
 
 [For Jeb Bush, the challenge remains making it about ‘Jeb,’ not ‘Bush’] 
 
 Second, Bush and his team miscalculated the role and power of money and traditional television commercials in the 2016 race. During the first six months of 2015, Bush raised more than $100 million, most of it stockpiled in Right to Rise, a strategy that seemed right at the time but came at the cost of not dealing with other pressing needs. 
 
 “We didn’t use that time to introduce him as a unique brand,” said Vin Weber, an outside adviser. “We used it to raise money. I don’t want to say they made an obvious and clear mistake, but in retrospect, it was a mistake.” 
 
 The aggressive fundraising came to be known as “shock and awe,” an echo of the initial bombing of Iraq by U.S.-led forces before the 2003 invasion. In the campaign context, it could be read as code to other potential candidates to get out of the way. But the prodigious fundraising of Bush’s broad network scared off no one. As the Bush campaign would learn, every credible candidate today has a few billionaire friends who can enrich a super PAC. In the end, all that money came to symbolize frustration rather than power. 
 
 Third, Bush ran a campaign that, whether deliberate or not, was rooted in the past, managed by loyalists who admired Bush and enjoyed his confidence but who, like the candidate, found themselves in unfamiliar political terrain. 
 
 His advisers were convinced from the start that the more voters learned about what Bush had done as governor of Florida from 1999 to 2007, they would flock to him as their presidential candidate. Bush stubbornly held to that approach — even as evidence mounted that it was out of step with voters. 
 
 Doug Gross, a prominent Iowa Republican, recalled meeting with Bush in July 2014 in Kennebunkport, Maine, to talk about the impending campaign. “He definitely wanted to run. He’s always had it in him and knew this was his last chance,” Gross said. “He was trying to figure out how to do it his own way. I was struck by his obstinate avoidance of any political discussion. . . . He wanted to do it his way or no way.” 
 
 Skirmish, then turning away 
 
 In contrast to the doldrums of August 2015, July seemed a glorious time for the Bush team. Early that month, Team Jeb gathered in Kennebunkport to celebrate that the campaign and two allied political committees had together raised nearly an unprecedented $120 million. The numbers were made public as nearly 300 major Bush fundraisers assembled to mingle with the Bush family and campaign advisers. 
 
 Guests were transported in black-and-red trolleys to Walker’s Point, the Bush family compound. The group gathered for a photo with former president George H.W. Bush and Barbara Bush. 
 
 That evening, Bush touted the team’s record fundraising as guests dined on lobster rolls and hamburgers at a luxury resort tucked among a forest of birch groves and balsam fir. “It was incredibly memorable to be there with several generations,” said Jay Zeidman, a Houston-based investor who helped raise money from young professionals. 
 
 The next day, the donors got briefings from senior Bush aides including Bradshaw, campaign manager Danny Diaz and finance director Heather Larrison. They laid out how the campaign planned to take on contenders such as Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie. Throughout, there was little mention of Donald Trump. 
 
 [That time Jeb Bush invited 300 top donors to his parents’ house] 
 
 “None of us thought he would last the summer,” said one person who was in attendance. 
 
 At that moment, however, Trump was already in the process of undermining Bush’s candidacy. If Bush had ever gone up against someone like Trump, it didn’t show. Trump was a new and different kind of rival, one given to personal insults rather than policy debates, who monopolized media coverage and got away with provocative statements that would have sunk normal politicians. 
 
 After marching in two July 4 parades on a rainy Saturday in New Hampshire, reporters asked Bush about Trump’s claim that Mexico was allowing immigrants to illegally cross into the United States. It was one of the hundreds of times he would face such questions. 
 
 Bush said “absolutely” he was offended by Trump’s rhetoric. “We’re going to win when we’re hopeful and optimistic and big and broad rather than ‘grrrrrr’ ” he said — literally, growling – “just angry all the time.” 
 
 That very night, Trump attacked Bush as soft on immigration and took aim as well at Bush’s wife, Columba, who was born in Mexico and entered the country legally — retweeting and then deleting a disparaging comment about her. 
 
 Nothing, however, cut as close to the bone as Trump’s claim that Bush was too “low-energy” to serve as president. 
 
 The accusation was laughable — until it began to stick. Trump’s charge was in fact a proxy for a different and more difficult argument to combat: that Bush was neither strong nor edgy enough for a party seething with anger at the grass roots. 
 
 [Inside the Bush-Trump melodrama: Decades of tension and discomfort] 
 
 “Nobody tapped into it, for all the polling, all the focus groups,” said Theresa Kostrzewa, a North Carolina lobbyist who raised money for the campaign. “The biggest thing they did was miss was just how angry the American electorate was and that Trump would be their Captain Ahab.” 
 
 Bush’s advisers would contest that claim. They could see the anger, they said. The issue was what to do about it. “Donors, political operatives and big thinkers from around the country urged us to ignore Trump for months,” Bradshaw said. “There was no one in the news media or the operative class at the time who felt Trump would ultimately be a serious contender for the nomination.” 
 
 At the same time, others feared that engaging Trump was almost beneath Bush and would thrust the candidate into a never-ending game of charge-countercharge. “Jeb should be bigger than this,” another aide recalled thinking. 
 
 Over at Right to Rise, Murphy sent a clear signal: Trump is not our fight right now. 
 
 “If other campaigns wish that we’re going to uncork money on Donald Trump, they’ll be disappointed,” Murphy told The Washington Post in late August. “Trump is, frankly, other people’s problem.” 
 
 At that moment, the Bush team’s analysis showed that no Trump voters were likely to shift their support to Bush. On Sunday, Murphy said that attacking Trump would only have benefited other candidates. Bush’s campaign needed to consolidate the establishment lane while hoping that Trump and Cruz would sort out the competition among the anti-establishment candidates. 
 
 Bradshaw also dismissed complaints from some donors that she cut the candidate off from advice. Noting that Bush long has been active on email, Bradshaw responded in a message by saying: “Donors constantly gave conflicting advice — attack Trump, don’t attack Trump; smile more; smile less — you look like you are smirking. I didn’t tell people they were wrong — not my style — I did a lot of listening, and I’m sure there were things we could have done better — but withholding info from the Governor simply did not happen in our campaign.” 
 
 For much of the autumn, Bush’s engagement with Trump was on-again, off-again — skirmish, then turning away. Not until late last year did he truly start a concerted and sustained series of attacks. Aides said Bush was particularly affected by the terrorist attacks in Paris and San Bernardino, Calif., and felt, as one adviser put it, that it was “time to stand up to the bully.” 
 
 “Jeb was the only candidate with the political courage at the time and frankly throughout the last six months to take on Trump directly for doing something that the governor felt was very harmful to the Party and to the country,” Bradshaw wrote. “There was no hesitation at that point given his comments about women, about Hispanics, his lack of knowledge on issues of national security and on and on.” 
 
 A flat-footed image 
 
 Bush’s failure to come to terms with one of the downsides of his family name came to a head over a four-day period in May, when he stumbled over the decision by his brother, former president George W. Bush, to go to war in Iraq. 
 
 [Jeb Bush faces hostile questions about Iraq war] 
 
 Changing his answer on a daily basis, Bush came across as a flat-footed campaigner clearly uncomfortable articulating his views on the most critical moment of his brother’s presidency. But it also highlighted the ­double-edged nature of being a candidate named Bush. 
 
 In a January Washington Post-ABC News poll, nearly 6 in 10 Americans held an unfavorable view of Bush. He was the only Republican with a negative favorability rating: 44 percent said they had a favorable impression of the former governor while 50 percent rated him negatively. His rankings grew worse as the campaign progressed. 
 
 A fundamental weakness, supporters said, was the lack of a coherent rationale for Bush’s candidacy and the failure to make inroads with activists on the right. “At the end of the day, it wasn’t clear the name was ever surmountable,” said a Bush donor. “If the name was going to be surmounted, it would have to be because there was a fresh set of ideas.” 
 
 Bush offered ideas, but in a campaign dominated by Trump, they were ignored or lost to most voters. 
 
 ‘The timing was not right’ 
 
 One of the biggest tactical advantages Bush appeared to have early on — a richly endowed super PAC — was not the invincible weapon his team thought it would be. It cut off his access to a key adviser, Murphy, whom he installed at the group’s helm. 
 
 It also meant that during the first six months of last year, nearly all of the coverage about Bush focused on how he was socking away millions into the super PAC, all while maintaining that he had not decided whether to run. In an election brimming with anger toward the wealthy elite, Bush seemed almost flippant about his pursuit of big dollars. 
 
 Murphy was convinced that much of what was taking place was noise and that when the voters began to check in, the super PAC’s financial might would be overpowering. 
 
 First, the committee would use it to lay out Bush’s biography. Then, as necessary, the group would turn its arsenal on his rivals. “Our job is just to amplify his story and what he’s saying and we banked enough cash that nobody’s turning our speaker off,” Murphy told Bloomberg Politics in October. 
 
 Back at campaign headquarters, the team hewed to that timetable and sensibility. Once the Bush record was burned into voters’ minds, attitudes would shift, Bradshaw said at the time. A Bush donor complained, “Murphy had a timetable, and nothing mattered until December and January.” 
 
 By the end of January, Right to Rise had raced through at least $95.7 million out of the $118.6 million it had collected, according to Federal Election Commission filings. Almost $87 million went into a barrage of television ads, online videos, slick mailers and voter phone calls—to no avail. 
 
 Mel Sembler, a former Bush ambassador who helped raise money for the super PAC and served on its governance board, said he believes the group’s strategy was sound. 
 
 “We had confidence in Mike, and I think we did the best we could in deploying of resources,” Sembler said. “That’s not where the problem is. . . . The timing was not right for Jeb. Our candidate was just not connecting with the electorate.” 
 
 Retaining his good humor 
 
 The final months were difficult for Bush. After a particularly weak performance during a debate in Boulder, Colo., in October in which Rubio appeared to get the better of him, there were suggestions that he might quit the campaign right then. 
 
 Reporters who made inquiries about the possibility were brushed off. In the middle of it all, Bush spotted a reporter who was a regular on the trail with him. “Hey — I didn’t drop out, did I?” he shouted. “You know, that kind of stuff really gets my juices going. I’m going to win this thing, and when I do — you’re going to give me a big hug.” 
 
 Through it all, Bush attempted to keep both good humor and determination in the face of the inevitable. 
 
 “I was stunned by how well he handled the last month of this campaign when the writing was on the wall,” said Tim Miller, Bush’s communications director. “It is hard to go out there every day and put on a fake smiley face. He was in really high spirits and didn’t lash out at people in private throughout the last two months.” 
 
 The final indignity in a campaign that had suffered through many came three days before Saturday’s primary, when South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley endorsed Rubio rather than a man she described as a friend and mentor. 
 
 When it ended Saturday night, Bush told saddened supporters: “We put forward details, innovative, conservative plans to address the mounting challenges that we face. Because despite what you might have heard, ideas matter, policy matters.” 
 
 His final remarks as a presidential candidate were a reflection of the campaign he had constructed from the start, one he had built to his unique specifications, which nonetheless proved to be a mismatch for a political environment that caught him by surprise — and for which he paid a hefty price. ||||| Watch the CNN debate at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library on Wednesday Sept. 16 at 6 and 8 p.m ET, and get the latest news from CNN Politics 
 
 (CNN) No one has more on the line in Wednesday night's Republican presidential debate than Jeb Bush. 
 
 The former Florida governor with one of the most recognizable names in politics and $100 million in the bank is facing one of the most crucial moments of his political career at the CNN debate held at the Reagan Library. 
 
 In the unpredictable GOP race for president, Bush is struggling to regain his footing in the midst of Hurricane Trump. He first tried to ignore the bellicose billionaire before changing course and punching back hard. He has released detailed tax and immigration reform plans to show he is about substance, not style. He has kept a rigorous pace on the campaign trail, squeezing in Monday meetings with tech leaders in Seattle before heading off to Nevada and Michigan post-debate. 
 
 The payoff for all that hard work? A steady slide to the middle of the pack that is giving Bush donors the jitters and an opening to rivals like Ben Carson and Ohio Gov. John Kasich to overtake him in key early-voting states. 
 
 Here's a look at some of the hurdles Bush and other GOP presidential contenders face going into debate night. 
 
 Bush 
 
 The former Florida governor's initial assets -- money, connections and political experience -- have made his downward trajectory all the more striking as he wrestles to regain control of the campaign narrative. 
 
 "These debates are increasingly life-and-death moments for candidates who started out as the presumptive frontrunners but have fallen to low single digits," said Republican strategist Steve Schmidt, who listed Bush, Scott Walker and Marco Rubio in that category. "The first step to securing the nomination, is taking control of your destiny, completely within the process. At this point in 1999, George W. Bush had accomplished that. At this moment in time, Donald Trump has accomplished that," said Schmidt, a former aide to the elder Bush who advised John McCain in 2008. 
 
 Photos: Jeb Bush's life Photos: Jeb Bush's life Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush waves as he takes the stage as he formally announces he is joining the race for president with a speech June 15, 2015, at Miami Dade College in Miami. Hide Caption 1 of 21 Photos: Jeb Bush's life Former Florida governor Jeb Bush shakes hands with attendees after speaking at the 42nd annual Conservative Political Action Conference on February 27 in National Harbor, Maryland. Hide Caption 2 of 21 Photos: Jeb Bush's life Bush takes a selfie with a guest at a luncheon hosted by the Chicago Council on Global Affairs on February 18 in Chicago. Bush delivered his first major foreign policy speech at the event. Hide Caption 3 of 21 Photos: Jeb Bush's life Bush hands out items for Holiday Food Baskets to those in need outside the Little Havana offices of CAMACOL, the Latin American Chamber of Commerce on December 17 in Miami. Hide Caption 4 of 21 Photos: Jeb Bush's life Bush waves to the audience at the Tampa Bay Times Forum in Tampa, Florida, on August 30, 2012, on the final day of the Republican National Convention. Hide Caption 5 of 21 Photos: Jeb Bush's life Bush (left) and wife Columba Bush attend the 2012 Lincoln Center Institute Gala at Frederick P. Rose Hall, Jazz at Lincoln Center on March 7, 2012, in New York City. Hide Caption 6 of 21 Photos: Jeb Bush's life President Barack Obama (left) speaks about Bush (center) while visiting Miami Central Senior High School on March 4, 2011 in Miami, Florida. The visit focused on education. Hide Caption 7 of 21 Photos: Jeb Bush's life Bush (left) speaks with Brazilian President in charge Jose Alancar during a meeting at Planalto Palace in Brasilia, April 17, 2007. Bush was in Brazil to speak about sugar and ethanol business. Hide Caption 8 of 21 Photos: Jeb Bush's life Then-Texas Governor Rick Perry (center) testifies as Bush (right) and then-Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano (left) listen during a hearing before the House Committee on Homeland Security on Capitol Hill October 19, 2005. Hide Caption 9 of 21 Photos: Jeb Bush's life Bush gives a thumbs up signal from his car as he leaves a local polling station after casting his vote in Coral Gables, Florida, November 5, 2002. Hide Caption 10 of 21 Photos: Jeb Bush's life Bush walks out of the West Wing after meeting with his brother, then-President George W. Bush, at the White House January 9, 2002. Governor Bush participated in the signing ceremony of the Everglades Protection Agreement. Hide Caption 11 of 21 Photos: Jeb Bush's life Then-Mexican President Vincente Fox (left) and Bush hold a press conference September 7, 2001, in Miami. Fox visited Florida to attend the Americas Conference and deliver a speech to speak about issues such as immigration. Hide Caption 12 of 21 Photos: Jeb Bush's life Then-President George W. Bush (right) is greeted by Jeb Bush on March 21, 2001, at Orlando International Airport in Orlando, Florida. President Bush was in Orlando to attend the American College of Cardiology Annual Convention. Hide Caption 13 of 21 Photos: Jeb Bush's life Bush speaks during a press conference at the Carandolet Government Palace in Quito, January 18, 2006. Bush and a businessmen delegation were in a two-day visit to talk about a free trade agreement. Hide Caption 14 of 21 Photos: Jeb Bush's life Bush speaks to reporters after meeting with the Florida State Cabinet at the Florida State Capitol Building November 16, 2000, in Tallahassee, Florida. Hide Caption 15 of 21 Photos: Jeb Bush's life Then-President George W. Bush (left) and Jeb Bush (right), raise their arms onstage following a rally at the Florida State Fairgrounds, October 25, 2000, in Brandon, Florida. Hide Caption 16 of 21 Photos: Jeb Bush's life Jeb Bush (left) and then-President George W. Bush stand with their arms around each other's shoulders at a rally in Miami, Florida, September 22, 2000. Hide Caption 17 of 21 Photos: Jeb Bush's life Then-President George W. Bush (right) and Jeb Bush go through the line for strawberries during a stop at the Stawberry Festival March 12, 2000 in Plant City, Florida. Hide Caption 18 of 21 Photos: Jeb Bush's life The Bush family, (left to right) former U.S. President George W., former Florida Governor Jeb, former President George H.W. and his wife Barbara, watch play during the Foursomes matches September 25, 1999 at The Country Club in Brookline, Massachusetts the site of the 33rd Ryder Cup Matches. Hide Caption 19 of 21 Photos: Jeb Bush's life Former President George H.W. Bush (second left), his wife Barbara Bush (left), their son Jeb Bush (center), then-first lady Hillary Clinton (second right), and former then-President Bill Clinton (right) look up to see the U.S. Army Golden Knights parachute team November 6, 1997 at the conclusion of the dedication ceremony of the George Bush Library in College Station, Texas. Hide Caption 20 of 21 Photos: Jeb Bush's life Portrait of the Bush family in front of their Kennebunkport, Maine house August 24, 1986. Pictured, back row: Margaret holding daughter Marshall, Marvin Bush, Bill LeBlond. Pictured, front row: Neil Bush holding son Pierce, Sharon, George W. Bush holding daughter Barbara, Laura Bush holding daughter Jenna, Barbara Bush, George Bush, Sam LeBlond, Doro Bush Lebond, George P. (Jeb's son), Jeb Bush holding son Jebby, Columba Bush and Noelle Bush. Hide Caption 21 of 21 
 
 "None of these candidates have any ability to control their own destiny any longer—their capacity to rise from 3-, 4-, 5-, 6% is fundamentally about Donald Trump losing his grip," Schmidt said. "No other candidate, with the possible exception of Ben Carson, is within reach to beat Trump. Only Trump can beat Trump." 
 
 Bush is making a noticeable effort to retake control over his campaign narrative. He's dropped his hands-off approach to Trump in favor of direct confrontation. He's letting his personality show more often by, for instance, unbuttoning his shirt over the weekend to reveal a shirt with the 1984 campaign logo of Ronald Reagan and his father. 
 
 And he released a campaign video on Monday in which he speaks Spanish -- defying Trump's calls that Bush only speak English on the campaign trail. The video also includes a rare appearance from Bush's wife, Columba, who is an immigrant from Mexico. 
 
 "I have lived over half my life here," she says in English in the video. "We all have the same interests, the same feelings." 
 
 Still, the moves aren't helping Bush much in the polls. A Monmouth University poll released on Monday found that in New Hampshire, Bush has slipped from second place into a tie for fifth with Carly Fiorina at 7%. 
 
 Trump 
 
 Given his defiance of the normal rules of political gravity, it's become difficult to predict the kind of error that would stunt Trump's momentum. 
 
 A stray remark that would offend women? He was quoted in his Rolling Stone cover story last week as saying, " Look at that face ," when Fiorina appeared on television. He went head-to-head with Fox News host Megyn Kelly during and after the first debate hosted by Fox News. 
 
 Photos: Donald Trump's empire Photos: Donald Trump's empire Donald Trump, the Republican Party's presidential nominee, has been in the spotlight for years. From developing real estate to producing and starring in TV shows, see how he's shaped his empire. Hide Caption 1 of 23 Photos: Donald Trump's empire Trump stands with Alfred Eisenpreis, New York's economic development administrator, in 1976 while they look at a sketch of a new 1,400-room renovation project of the Commodore Hotel. After graduating from the University of Pennsylvania in 1968, Trump worked with his father on developments in Queens and Brooklyn before purchasing or building multiple properties in New York and Atlantic City, New Jersey. Those properties included Trump Tower in New York and Trump Plaza and multiple casinos in Atlantic City. Hide Caption 2 of 23 Photos: Donald Trump's empire Trump was married to Ivana Zelnicek Trump from 1977 to 1990, when they divorced. They had three children together. Hide Caption 3 of 23 Photos: Donald Trump's empire Trump signs his second book, "Trump: Surviving at the Top," in 1990. Trump has published at least 16 other books, including "The Art of the Deal" and "The America We Deserve." Hide Caption 4 of 23 Photos: Donald Trump's empire Trump dips his second wife, Marla Maples, after the couple married in a private ceremony in New York in December 1993. The couple divorced in 1999. Hide Caption 5 of 23 Photos: Donald Trump's empire An advertisement for the television show "The Apprentice" hangs at Trump Towers in New York in 2004. The show launched in January of that year. In January 2008, the show returned as "Celebrity Apprentice." Hide Caption 6 of 23 Photos: Donald Trump's empire A 12-inch talking Trump doll is on display at a toy store in New York in September 2004. Hide Caption 7 of 23 Photos: Donald Trump's empire Trump attends a news conference in 2005 that announced the establishment of Trump University. From 2005 until it closed in 2010, Trump University had about 10,000 people sign up for a program that promised success in real estate. Three separate lawsuits -- two class-action suits filed in California and one filed by New York's attorney general -- have argued that the program was mired in fraud and deception. Trump's camp has rejected the class-action suits' claims as "baseless." And Trump has charged that the New York case against him is politically motivated. Hide Caption 8 of 23 Photos: Donald Trump's empire Trump attends the U.S. Open tennis tournament with his third wife, Melania Knauss-Trump, and their son, Barron William Trump, in 2006. Trump and Knauss married in 2005. Trump has five children from three marriages. Hide Caption 9 of 23 Photos: Donald Trump's empire Trump wrestles with "Stone Cold" Steve Austin at WrestleMania in 2007. Trump has close ties with the WWE and its CEO, Vince McMahon. Hide Caption 10 of 23 Photos: Donald Trump's empire For "The Apprentice," Trump was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in January 2007. Hide Caption 11 of 23 Photos: Donald Trump's empire Trump appears on the set of "The Celebrity Apprentice" with two of his children -- Donald Trump Jr. and Ivanka Trump -- in 2009. Hide Caption 12 of 23 Photos: Donald Trump's empire Trump poses with Miss Universe contestants in 2011. Trump has been executive producer of the Miss Universe, Miss USA and Miss Teen USA pageants since 1996. Hide Caption 13 of 23 Photos: Donald Trump's empire In 2012, Trump announces his endorsement of Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney. Hide Caption 14 of 23 Photos: Donald Trump's empire Trump speaks in Sarasota, Florida, after accepting the Statesman of the Year Award at the Sarasota GOP dinner in August 2012, shortly before the Republican National Convention in nearby Tampa. Hide Caption 15 of 23 Photos: Donald Trump's empire Trump appears on stage with Nick Jonas and Giuliana Rancic during the 2013 Miss USA pageant. Hide Caption 16 of 23 Photos: Donald Trump's empire In June 2015, Trump announces that he is running for President during a speech from Trump Tower in New York. He said he will give up the show "The Apprentice" to run. Hide Caption 17 of 23 Photos: Donald Trump's empire Trump -- flanked by U.S. Sens. Marco Rubio, left, and Ted Cruz -- speaks during a CNN debate in Miami on March 10. Trump dominated the GOP primaries and emerged as the presumptive nominee in May. Hide Caption 18 of 23 Photos: Donald Trump's empire The Trump family poses for a photo in New York in April. Hide Caption 19 of 23 Photos: Donald Trump's empire Trump speaks during a campaign event in Evansville, Indiana, on April 28. After Trump won the Indiana primary, his last two competitors dropped out of the GOP race. Hide Caption 20 of 23 Photos: Donald Trump's empire Trump delivers a speech at the Republican National Convention in July, accepting the party's nomination for President. "I have had a truly great life in business," he said. "But now, my sole and exclusive mission is to go to work for our country -- to go to work for you. It's time to deliver a victory for the American people." Hide Caption 21 of 23 Photos: Donald Trump's empire Trump faces Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton in the first presidential debate, which took place in Hempstead, New York, in September. Hide Caption 22 of 23 Photos: Donald Trump's empire Trump apologizes in a video, posted to his Twitter account in October, for vulgar and sexually aggressive remarks he made a decade ago regarding women. "I said it, I was wrong and I apologize," Trump said, referring to lewd comments he made during a previously unaired taping of "Access Hollywood." Multiple Republican leaders rescinded their endorsements of Trump after the footage was released. Hide Caption 23 of 23 
 
 Another turn of phrase that would offend Latinos? Trump has stood by comments that some Mexican immigrants are criminals and rapists, proposed ending universal birthright citizenship and advocated building a wall along the Mexican border. Despite all of that, his support has only grown, though he is viewed negatively by a majority of Hispanics. 
 
 "I think debates tend to work in his favor because at their core, they're performances," said Republican strategist Kevin Madden, a former Romney adviser. "He's a celebrity who's been performing for the better part of 35 years now, so none of this is new to him." 
 
 Trump has shown serious vulnerabilities when it comes to factual matters. 
 
 He charged conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt with "gotcha" questions when Hewitt tested his knowledge about the leaders of terror groups like Hamas, Hezbollah, al-Nusra and ISIS. He also has mischaracterized elements of the Iran deal and made difficult-to-substantiate claims that Syrian Christians have a harder time entering the U.S. than Syrian Muslims. 
 
 "One of the interesting things to watch will be whether or not the moderators or other campaigns seek to expose Trump as a bit of a fraud or a con when it comes to being able to promote a conservative Republican agenda," Madden said. "If he's exposed as totally unserious on that (foreign policy and national security) issue, it could help some of the other campaigns begin to really draw a favorable contrast on an issue that will be very important in 2016." 
 
 Walker 
 
 Walker's campaign has been in free-fall over the last several weeks, most notably in Iowa where he was the consistent leader in the polls for much of this spring. 
 
 Photos: Scott Walker's career Photos: Scott Walker's career Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker dropped out of the presidential race on Monday, September 21. He was seeking the Republican Party's nomination. Hide Caption 1 of 22 Photos: Scott Walker's career Walker fields questions from Bruce Rastetter at the Iowa Agriculture Summit on March 7, 2015 in Des Moines, Iowa. Hide Caption 2 of 22 Photos: Scott Walker's career Walker speaks at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference at National Harbor, Maryland, outside Washington, D.C. on February 26, 2015. Hide Caption 3 of 22 Photos: Scott Walker's career Walker speaks to guests at the Iowa Freedom Summit on January 24, 2015, in Des Moines, Iowa. Hide Caption 4 of 22 Photos: Scott Walker's career Walker speaks at his election night party November 4, 2014, in West Allis, Wisconsin. Walker defeated the Democratic challenger Mary Burke. Hide Caption 5 of 22 Photos: Scott Walker's career Walker shakes hands with Democrat challenger Mary Burke before facing off in a debate at the WMVS-TV studios October, 17, 2014, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Hide Caption 6 of 22 Photos: Scott Walker's career Walker has a scarf put on his head during a special service at the Sikh Religious Society of Wisconsin for the victims of the shooting at the Sikh Temple of Wisconsin the previous day, on August 6, 2012, in Brookfield, Wisconsin. Hide Caption 7 of 22 Photos: Scott Walker's career Walker speaks during the Republican Jewish Coalition spring leadership meeting at The Venetian Las Vegas on March 29, 2014. Hide Caption 8 of 22 Photos: Scott Walker's career Scott Walker (left) shakes hands with Chinese President Xi Jinping (center) before a meeting as Iowa Governor Terry Branstad (right) looks on at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on April 15, 2013. Hide Caption 9 of 22 Photos: Scott Walker's career Walker poses with a woman during the Republican National Convention at the Tampa Bay Times Forum on August 28, 2012, in Tampa, Florida. Hide Caption 10 of 22 Photos: Scott Walker's career Walker prepares to cast his ballot at Jefferson School to vote in the gubernatorial recall election June 5, 2012, in Wauwatosa, Wisconsin. Hide Caption 11 of 22 Photos: Scott Walker's career Walker (right) listens to Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal speak as they campaign at the Waukesha Victory Center on May 24, 2012, in Waukesha, Wisconsin. Hide Caption 12 of 22 Photos: Scott Walker's career Walker addresses the National Rifle Association Leadership Forum April 13, 2012, in St. Louis, Missouri. Hide Caption 13 of 22 Photos: Scott Walker's career Walker stands on the North Lawn of the White House before making remarks to the news media after a meeting of the National Governors Association with President Barack Obama on February 27, 2012. Hide Caption 14 of 22 Photos: Scott Walker's career President Barack Obama receives a Milwaukee Brewers baseball jersey from Walker (left) as he disembarks from Air Force One upon arrival at General Mitchell International Airport in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, February 15, 2012. Hide Caption 15 of 22 Photos: Scott Walker's career Walker listens during the 2011 Governors Summit of U.S. Chamber of Commerce June 20, 2011, in Washington, D.C. Hide Caption 16 of 22 Photos: Scott Walker's career Members of Code Pink (left to right) Medea Benjamin, Liz Hourican and Tighe Barry, hold signs to protest as Walker (center) takes his seat during a hearing before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee April 14, 2011, on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. Hide Caption 17 of 22 Photos: Scott Walker's career Walker holds a letter from democratic State Sen. Mark Miller, one of the fourteen Wisconsin state senators who fled the state over two weeks ago, during a press conference on March 7, 2011, in Madison, Wisconsin. Hide Caption 18 of 22 Photos: Scott Walker's career Walker holds up a 'Wisconsin is open for business' bumper sticker as he speaks during a ceremonial bill signing outside his office at the Wisconsin State Capitol on March 11, 2011, in Madison, Wisconsin. Hide Caption 19 of 22 Photos: Scott Walker's career Walker delivers his budget address to a joint session of the legislature at the capitol March 1, 2011 in Madison, Wisconsin. Hide Caption 20 of 22 Photos: Scott Walker's career Walker speaks at a news conference inside the Wisconsin State Capitol February 21, 2011, in Madison, Wisconsin. Hide Caption 21 of 22 Photos: Scott Walker's career President Obama receives a Green Bay Packers NFL football team jersey with 'Obama #1' written on it from Walker (left) at Austin Straubel International Airport in Green Bay, Wisconsin, on January 26, 2011. Hide Caption 22 of 22 
 
 But there's been plenty of bad news for Walker lately in Iowa, which is vital to his campaign's prospects. Walker held the top spot in the pack in polls early this summer, but in a Quinnipiac University poll released last week, Walker had fallen from first place at 18% in July to 10th place in September at 3%. 
 
 In CNN/ORC's polling , Walker has fallen from 10% support nationally in July to 8% in August and 5% earlier this month. In Monday's ABC News/Washington Post poll , Walker was at 2% nationally, down from 13% in July. 
 
 "Walker needs a debate performance that reverses the trajectory of his campaign," Madden said. "He started out very fast, but didn't match the initial interest in his campaign with a lot of enthusiasm and momentum once voters started to tune in a little bit more." 
 
 Fiorina 
 
 The debate will offer the first chance for Fiorina to directly square off against Trump. 
 
 Another forceful performance could keep her momentum growing, but if she's overshadowed, it's hard to see her building more steam to keep overtaking competitors with much higher name recognition. 
 
 Photos: Carly Fiorina's political career Photos: Carly Fiorina's political career Former business executive Carly Fiorina speaks to guests gathered at the Point of Grace Church for the Iowa Faith and Freedom Coalition 2015 Spring Kickoff on April 25, 2015, in Waukee, Iowa. Hide Caption 1 of 15 Photos: Carly Fiorina's political career Fiorina prepares to speak to guests gathered at the Point of Grace Church for the Iowa Faith and Freedom Coalition 2015 Spring Kickoff on April 25, 2015, in Waukee, Iowa. Hide Caption 2 of 15 Photos: Carly Fiorina's political career Fiorina speaks to guests gathered at the Point of Grace Church for the Iowa Faith and Freedom Coalition 2015 Spring Kickoff on April 25, 2015, in Waukee, Iowa. Hide Caption 3 of 15 Photos: Carly Fiorina's political career Fiorina greets guests at the Johnson County Republicans Spaghetti Dinner at Clear Creek Amana High School on April 24, 2015, in Tiffin, Iowa. Hide Caption 4 of 15 Photos: Carly Fiorina's political career Fiorina, right, poses for a selfie with Joe Koberna at the Johnson County Republicans Spaghetti Dinner at Clear Creek Amana High School on April 24, 2015, in Tiffin, Iowa. Hide Caption 5 of 15 Photos: Carly Fiorina's political career Fiorina speaks at the First in the Nation Republican Leadership Summit April 18, 2015, in Nashua, New Hampshire. Hide Caption 6 of 15 Photos: Carly Fiorina's political career Fiorina speaks during a forum on Capitol Hill March 16, 2015, in Washington. Fiorina spoke about what she calls the War on Women in politics. Hide Caption 7 of 15 Photos: Carly Fiorina's political career Fiorina delivers remarks at a discussion called "Welcoming Every Life: Choosing Life after an Unexpected Prenatal Diagnosis, focusing on caring for children with Down Syndrome," organized by the Heritage Foundation and the National Review Institute in Washington on January 20, 2015. Hide Caption 8 of 15 Photos: Carly Fiorina's political career Fiorina concedes defeat to her rival Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-California, during a news conference at her Irvine campaign headquarters on November 3, 2010, in Irvine, California. Hide Caption 9 of 15 Photos: Carly Fiorina's political career Fiorina, left, watches election results with granddaughter Kara Tribby, 7, in her hotel room at the Hyatt Regency Irvine, November 2, 2010, in Irvine, California. Hide Caption 10 of 15 Photos: Carly Fiorina's political career Fiorina, left, puts on headphones before participating in a radio debate with incumbent U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-California, in Washington, as co-moderator Gabriel Lerner, metro editor of La Opinion, does the same at local public-radio affiliate KPCC studios September 29, 2010, in Pasadena, California. Hide Caption 11 of 15 Photos: Carly Fiorina's political career Fiorina arrives for a news conference after participating in a debate with U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-California, in a radio debate hosted by La Opinion and public radio station KPCC on September 29, 2010, at the KPCC studios in Pasadena, California. Hide Caption 12 of 15 Photos: Carly Fiorina's political career Boxer, left, and Fiorina, center, greet moderator Randy Shandobil, right, after a debate on the campus of Saint Mary's College September 1, 2010, in Moraga, California. Hide Caption 13 of 15 Photos: Carly Fiorina's political career Fiorina, left, smiles with her husband Frank Fiorina, right, after casting their ballots at a polling place June 8, 2010, in Los Altos Hills, California. Hide Caption 14 of 15 Photos: Carly Fiorina's political career Fiorina greets supporters after announcing her candidacy for U.S. Senate at Earth Friendly Products packaging plant on November 4, 2009, in Garden Grove, California. Hide Caption 15 of 15 
 
 Fiorina, the former head of Hewlett-Packard, made it to the main stage on the strength of her first debate performance, raising expectations for her on Wednesday night. Charting the opposite trajectory of Walker, Fiorina has climbed steadily in the polls since the first debate -- a rise that CNN recognized with an amendment to the debate criteria that secured her spot. 
 
 Still, Fiorina has hovered in the single digits , according to CNN/ORC's polling. In ABC News/Washington Post's most recent poll, she went from an asterisk in July to 2% this month. 
 
 She led the pack in the National Federation of Republican Women's straw poll conducted over the weekend -- notching nearly half of the vote when the first and second choice spots were combined. At that conference, she also garnered attention with an indirect attack on Trump during a well-received speech, where she also directed plenty of attacks against Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton. 
 
 Carson 
 
 The understated style of retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson has served him well in recent months, helping build a loyal following among evangelical voters and a professional campaign organization that has turned out big crowds even in deep blue states like California. 
 
 Photos: Ben Carson's career in politics Photos: Ben Carson's career in politics Ben Carson attends the National Action Network (NAN) national convention at the Sheraton New York Times Square Hotel on April 8, 2015, in New York City. Hide Caption 1 of 13 Photos: Ben Carson's career in politics Carson speaks during the 41st annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) at the Gaylord International Hotel and Conference Center on March 8, 2014, in National Harbor, Maryland. Hide Caption 2 of 13 Photos: Ben Carson's career in politics Carson speaks to guests at the Iowa Freedom Summit on January 24, 2015, in Des Moines, Iowa. Hide Caption 3 of 13 Photos: Ben Carson's career in politics Carson is surrounded by supporters as he waits to be interviewed at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) at National Harbor, Maryland, outside Washington on February 26, 2015. Hide Caption 4 of 13 Photos: Ben Carson's career in politics Carson speaks at the South Carolina Tea Party Coalition convention on January 18, 2015, in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina. A variety of conservative presidential hopefuls spoke at the gathering on the second day of a three-day event. Hide Caption 5 of 13 Photos: Ben Carson's career in politics Carson delivers the keynote address at the Wake Up America gala event on September 5, 2014, in Scottsdale, Arizona. Hide Caption 6 of 13 Photos: Ben Carson's career in politics Carson speaks during the 41st annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) at the Gaylord International Hotel and Conference Center on March 8, 2014, in National Harbor, Maryland. Hide Caption 7 of 13 Photos: Ben Carson's career in politics Carson speaks during the National Prayer Breakfast at the Washington Hilton on February 7, 2013, in Washington. Hide Caption 8 of 13 Photos: Ben Carson's career in politics Honoree and director of pediatric neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins University, Carson poses with actor James Pickens Jr. at the Jackie Robinson Foundation Annual Awards Dinner on March 16, 2009, in New York City. Hide Caption 9 of 13 Photos: Ben Carson's career in politics Before his jump into conservative politics, Carson was known for his work as a neurosurgeon. Carson was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by then-President George W. Bush on June 19, 2008. At that time, he was the director of pediatric surgery at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland. Hide Caption 10 of 13 Photos: Ben Carson's career in politics In a story that garnered international attention, Carson was ready to separate a pair of 10-year-old Indian girls, Saba and Farah Shakeel, who are joined at the head in New Delhi, India. Here, he addresses a press conference at the Indraprashtra Apollo Hospital on October 4, 2005. Hide Caption 11 of 13 Photos: Ben Carson's career in politics Carson and a team of 20 specialists approved the procedure after studying the girls' brains; however, their parents were worried about their daughters' lives and did not give doctors permission to operate. The surgery did not happen. Hide Caption 12 of 13 Photos: Ben Carson's career in politics Carson observes the start of neurosurgery proceedings at the Raffles Hospital in Singapore on July 6, 2003. Carson and Dr. Keith Goh, left, performed a complex operation that was unsuccessful to separate 29-year-old twins Ladan And Laleh Bijani, who were joined at the head. Hide Caption 13 of 13 
 
 But with the exception of a few memorable lines in the first debate, he is widely viewed as having been too quiet -- and Trump has attacked his energy level. Carson has also seemed skittish about taking on Trump -- at one point questioning the authenticity of his faith but then walking back that criticism and saying he didn't mean it. 
 
 He has said he doesn't want to get into a "gladiator fight" with Trump, but, at the same time, he must show Wednesday that he has the mettle to take him on. 
 
 The risk for Carson and all the candidates, of course, is being aggressive but not crossing a line where their attacks work to Trump's benefit. 
 
 Rubio 
 
 Photos: Moments from Marco Rubio's career Photos: Moments from Marco Rubio's career Florida Sen. Marco Rubio speaks in October 2013 at the Values Voter Summit, held by the Family Research Council in Washington. Hide Caption 1 of 20 Photos: Moments from Marco Rubio's career Sen. Mike Lee, left, and Rubio talk before a news conference to introduce their proposal for an overhaul of the tax code in March. Hide Caption 2 of 20 Photos: Moments from Marco Rubio's career Rubio, center, arrives in the House chamber ahead of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's address to a joint meeting of the U.S. Congress in March. Hide Caption 3 of 20 Photos: Moments from Marco Rubio's career Rubio speaks with the media after delivering remarks during the graduation of small business owners from the Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses program held in Miami in February. Hide Caption 4 of 20 Photos: Moments from Marco Rubio's career Rubio talks to aides in December before speaking on President Barack Obama's announcement about revising policies on U.S.-Cuba relations. Hide Caption 5 of 20 Photos: Moments from Marco Rubio's career Rubio, left, talks to Sen. Lindsey Graham prior to a news conference on Capitol Hill in July. Hide Caption 6 of 20 Photos: Moments from Marco Rubio's career Rubio talks to reporters in June after a closed door briefing on Capitol Hill. Hide Caption 7 of 20 Photos: Moments from Marco Rubio's career Rubio speaks to the media in front of a wall dedicated to the victims of the violence in Venezuela as he shows support for the Venezuelan community at a restaurant in Doral, Florida, in April 2014. Hide Caption 8 of 20 Photos: Moments from Marco Rubio's career Rubio speaks to the media at the Doral restaurant in April 2014. Hide Caption 9 of 20 Photos: Moments from Marco Rubio's career Rubio checks his phone in March as he arrives for a Capitol Hill news conference to introduce a proposal for an overhaul of the tax code. Hide Caption 10 of 20 Photos: Moments from Marco Rubio's career Rubio, left, is greeted as he arrives at a restaurant in Doral in February 2014. Hide Caption 11 of 20 Photos: Moments from Marco Rubio's career Rubio, left, and Florida Gov. Rick Scott speak to the media in Doral in February 2014. Hide Caption 12 of 20 Photos: Moments from Marco Rubio's career From left, Sens. Cory Booker, Rubio, Kristen Gillibrand and John McCain wait for Obama to deliver the State of the Union address in January 2014. Hide Caption 13 of 20 Photos: Moments from Marco Rubio's career Rubio addresses an event held by the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research in January 2014. Hide Caption 14 of 20 Photos: Moments from Marco Rubio's career Paralympian Brad Snyder poses with Rubio during a Team USA Congressional visit in November 2013. Hide Caption 15 of 20 Photos: Moments from Marco Rubio's career Rubio speaks in November 2013 during a campaign stop for Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, the Republican candidate for governor of Virginia. Hide Caption 16 of 20 Photos: Moments from Marco Rubio's career Rubio confers with McCain as U.S. Ambassador to Syria Robert Ford testifies before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in October 2013. Hide Caption 17 of 20 Photos: Moments from Marco Rubio's career Rubio, center, speaks to members of the media as Sen. Ron Johnson, left, and Rep. Ron DeSantis listen during a news conference on Capitol Hill in October 2013. Hide Caption 18 of 20 Photos: Moments from Marco Rubio's career Rubio returns to the Capitol after meeting with Obama and other Republican leaders about the government shutdown in October 2013. Hide Caption 19 of 20 Photos: Moments from Marco Rubio's career Rubio speaks to an aide on Capitol Hill as he arrives for the weekly Senate Republican Policy Committee luncheon in September 2013. Hide Caption 20 of 20 
 
 Many Republican donors and strategists are still eyeing Rubio as one of the most formidable contenders for the Republican nomination, given his charisma and compelling narrative on the campaign trail. Like the other top-tier candidates, Rubio has faded into the shadow of Trump. 
 
 But he was viewed as having a strong debate performance in the first faceoff among the candidates. Given his youth, his challenge is to show that he has the gravitas to serve as the party's standard bearer. ||||| AP Photo Jeb Bush defends George W.’s Iraq War legacy The former Florida governor stops running away from his Iraq War problem. 
 
 DAVENPORT, Iowa — Jeb Bush is owning his Iraq War problem. 
 
 Bush, wrestling with his brother’s legacy of the war for the second time in three days, again sought to cast blame on the Obama administration for its failure to achieve a “fragile but secure” peace in the region that has been overrun by ISIS militants. 
 
 Story Continued Below 
 
 As he did in his speech Tuesday night outlining his own approach to combating ISIS in Iraq and Syria, the former Florida governor and presidential hopeful glossed over his brother’s decision to go to war in Iraq — and while acknowledging that mistakes were made, he seemed to view the war itself in positive terms. 
 
 “I’ll tell you, taking out Saddam Hussein turned out to be a pretty good deal,” the former Florida governor told a crowd of roughly 200 people who attended a forum on national security at St. Ambrose College. 
 
 Bush’s efforts to present himself as a strong, sensible commander in chief are complicated by the unpopular war his brother waged in Iraq — a war the likely Democratic nominee, Hillary Clinton, supported at the time — and by his own tendency to view it in a more favorable light. 
 
 While Democrats are sure to mine Bush’s words for attack ad soundbites, the candidate showed no signs of tempering his praise for his brother’s war record. 
 
 To the contrary, after months of difficulty reconciling the broadly held public view that the Iraq War was a mistake with his own hawkish foreign policy views and an innate unwillingness to rehash and criticize his brother’s record, he has settled on a strategy: unapologetically arguing that the war, however misconceived, brought about an opportunity for a more stable Middle East, one that the current Democratic administration squandered. 
 
 “I’m not saying this because I’m a Bush,” he said. “I’m proud of what he did to create a secure environment for our country.” 
 
 With 17 of his 21 foreign policy advisers being veterans of George W. Bush’s White House, Bush’s position is no great surprise. And in a wild Republican primary to be decided by a conservative electorate clamoring for a more muscular approach to foreign policy, it might be a smart strategic play. 
 
 “It’s not like you can run a campaign for president and not talk about Iraq,” said Tim Miller, Bush’s campaign spokesman. “We can talk about Iraq on our terms. Terrorism and radical Islam is something the country cares about and certainly Republican primary voters are very concerned about it. He wanted to take the mantle as somebody who’s going to have a strategy and be a leader on it. There’s a primary electorate on our side that’s looking for that.” 
 
 Specifically, Bush focused again on the 2007 troop surge as a “courageous” decision that, he argues, temporarily curtailed sectarian violence within in Iraq; and he blames President Barack Obama and former Secretary of State Clinton for removing American troops too hastily and creating the power vacuum that’s allowed ISIS to take root. 
 
 “We just washed our hands of the effort,” Bush said. “We declared success and then chaos occurred afterwards.” 
 
 More than anything else Bush said Thursday afternoon here, that statement underlined the political perils of this candidate talking about that war. The words he chose to criticize Obama for bringing U.S. forces home from Iraq too soon evoked decade-old critiques of his brother’s infamous declaration of ‘Mission Accomplished’ in Iraq in a show of bravado aboard the U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln in May 2003. 
 
 Some Bush donors privately question the strategy of Bush focusing attention on foreign policy and, specifically, the Iraq War with his speech Tuesday night in Los Angeles and the forum on national security here Thursday. Even though Tuesday’s speech didn’t begin until after 9 p.m. Eastern time, it garnered significant media attention. 
 
 “If you’re of the view that the U.S. should do nothing about ISIS, Jeb’s not going to be your candidate,” Miller said. “And that might be the majority view of the media, so that’s something we have to contend with; but that’s not the view of the American people.” 
 
 The subject of the Iraq War was the first major thing to trip Bush up earlier this year and, whatever the campaign’s attempts to deal with it head on now, will likely be something he wrestles with for the duration of his campaign. 
 
 Back in May, Bush stumbled during an interview with Fox News’ Megyn Kelly when he didn’t clearly answer whether he believes the war, in hindsight, was a mistake (after four days of controversy, he acknowledged it was, in hindsight, a mistake). 
 
 “The decision to dismantle the Iraqi army was a mistake, and I think my brother would admit that today,” he said Thursday, as he pushed back at questions suggesting that he was attempting to rewrite history by suggesting that ISIS “didn’t exist” when his brother was president and that Obama bears the blame for carrying out the Strategic Forces Agreement his brother negotiated to bring U.S. troops home from Iraq. 
 
 “I reject this out of hand, this whole idea that somehow, after the surge, they’re just doing it because the agreement required them to do it,” Bush said. “Leadership requires a strategy.” 
 
 Asked whether Clinton, then Obama’s secretary of state, deserved credit for pushing within the administration to maintain a larger troop presence in Iraq, Bush hedged: “She was not very effective in her advocacy,” he said. 
 
 Bush bristled at the moderator’s suggestion that his own strategy to take on ISIS isn’t that different from Obama, but he defended the administration’s use of drones and said that he would keep detainees imprisoned at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, just as Obama, despite promises to close the prison, has done. 
 
 “This is not a torture chamber,” Bush said. “There is no other option that I can see.” 
 
 In reiterating his own plan to root out ISIS, Bush called for engaging U.S. allies and working to strengthen a coalition of moderates in Syria, but his critique of Obama again brought to mind those leveled against his brother’s war. 
 
 “We can’t unilaterally go into countries,” he said. 
 
 Follow @politico
– The post-mortems on Jeb Bush's failed campaign are rolling in. Some examples: Don't blame Donald Trump. "What killed Jeb Bush’s campaign was first the failure of his brother’s administration, and then the emergence of Marco Rubio to present a more attractive face for its continuation," writes Jonathan Chait at New York. Still, Peter Beinart at the Atlantic explains why Bush was Trump's "perfect foil." The Week sums things up by collecting 19 "devastating quotes" that compare coverage of Bush in early 2015 with more recent stories. One problem: His campaign underestimated "Bush fatigue," observes the Washington Post. Another: He didn't have advisers who could recognize shortcomings and, more importantly, point them out to Bush himself, says this piece in Politico Magazine. How on earth do you spend $130 million and have so little to show for it? The New York Times digs into "one of the least successful campaign spending binges in history." Those early stumbles on Iraq didn't help, notes CNN. Gary Legum at Salon bids "good riddance" to the "Bush Dynasty" with the question, "Can anyone think of another family dynasty that has had such a huge role in a particular stretch of American history, yet has almost zero hold on the country’s imagination?"