Why JEB! is out to destroy Marco Rubio

Hell hath no fury like a Bush Scorned!

(New York Post) - Democrats have spent years raging about the rise of super PACs and the millionaires and billionaires who fund them. Maybe they should start laughing instead, because the largest super PAC in history may come to be best known for taking down the Republican candidate who may have had the best chance to win in 2016.

On Thursday, we learned that 35 percent of the money spent so far by the super PAC supporting Jeb Bush has been used to target the candidacy of his fellow Floridian, Marco Rubio.

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According to Jeremy Peters of the New York Times, the anti-Rubio ad buys by Right to [Rule] (R2R) have totaled a staggering $20 million...

There is method here. But there is also madness. And a kind of indirect patricidal fury.

The method is simple. Bush and Rubio are competing for the same type of voter in the same “lane,” and so Murphy wants the voters who prefer Rubio to change their minds and go for Bush. The R2R ads have highlighted Rubio’s missed votes in the Senate and the fact that he changed his position on immigration. (One also mocked Rubio’s boots.)...

And what’s been happening here is in part the flowering of a seed of rage that has been growing within the precincts of what insiders call “Jebworld” for a year.

I’ve been told by people in the know in Florida and elsewhere that Jeb’s campaign intimates (and Jeb himself, for all I know) believe strongly that, out of loyalty, Rubio should have passed on a 2016 run. Back in 1998, Jeb offered crucial support to Rubio at a very early stage in his career and along the way as well.

Rubio’s decision to run is therefore viewed as a deep personal betrayal. And I mean very, very deep — so deep that senior members of Bush’s staff last summer began calling Rubio “Judas.”

I’ve also heard that in attempting to raise new money for Jeb while Bush was sinking quickly in the polls a few months ago and convince others not to give to the other Floridian, Murphy was privately very clear that he was going to go for Marco’s jugular no matter what.

In other words: Maybe Jeb wasn’t going to be the nominee, but it for damn sure wasn’t going to be Marco, either. Read more.