Hillary Clinton, Jeb Bush and the money trail: Frank Bruni

(oregonlive.com) - Last week began with the comedy extravaganza of the "Saturday Night Live" reunion, but not one of its sketches or jokes was half as funny as four words three days later by Jeb Bush. "I'm my own man," he said. And he kept a straight face somehow. The remark came during a foreign policy speech in Chicago, and he was making clear that he was no slave to the policies and priorities of his father, the 41st president, or his older brother, the 43rd. I'll buy that. But immediately following the speech, donors sought to buy him. It was estimated that at back-to-back fundraisers, he hauled in about $4 million for his Right to Rise PAC  [aka Right to Rule] and for a "super PAC" that supports him. This was on top of another $4 million that he reportedly netted the previous week in one evening alone at the Manhattan home of a private equity bigwig. After Manhattan came the Washington, D.C., area, where he racked up $1 million at two events, according to Politico. An atlas of cities, an avalanche of dough: It's what successful campaigns are made of, and his is expected to raise between $50 million and $100 million over a span of three months. Those dollars come with expectations. Money almost always does. Bush is no more his own man than Hillary Clinton is her own woman. Read more.