(New York Times) - “I’m not an expert on the ways of Washington,” Jeb Bush told conservatives last month when he was asked about a funding dispute in Congress. [How hard did they laugh at those comments?] Mr. Bush, the former Florida governor, has sounded that theme regularly in his fledgling presidential campaign. But even as he positions himself as a Washington outsider, he seems to have mastered a skill that is crucial in this city: tapping into the money-raising clout of the K Street lobbyists, political operatives, superlawyers and business leaders in Washington’s permanent class. Although not yet an official presidential candidate, Mr. Bush has had at least seven private fund-raisers and meet-and-greets in the Washington area, raising more than $1.3 million for his political action committee in a single day last month, and he has scheduled another one in April. His success is hardly surprising: For more than two decades, Washington has provided Mr. Bush, the son and brother of former presidents, with financial and political support.“Washington is a deep well for Jeb. There’s a lot of support for him here,” said Tony Fratto, a Washington consultant who worked at the White House under George W. Bush, Mr. Bush’s brother, and pitched in $5,000 for a Bush fund-raiser last month.In his two successful runs for the Florida Statehouse, in 1998 and 2002, Mr. Bush received at least $237,000 from hundreds of lobbyists, lawyers, political consultants and others in the capital, records show. Many donors had ties to his father and his brother or to special interests like tobacco, oil, Hollywood and Wall Street. Now he is far outpacing potential Republican rivals who have largely been absent from the capital’s chicken-and-chardonnay fund-raising scene. Read more.
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