Headlines
Jeb Bush inadvertently announces presidential candidacy
Washington, May 14
Florida former governor
Jeb Bush inadvertently announced his presidential candidacy in a
conversation with reporters, although he quickly corrected himself.
While
speaking with reporters on Wednesday in Reno, Nevada, the brother and
son, respectively, of presidents George W. Bush and George H.W. Bush
said that he is going to run for president in 2016, but immediately
thereafter changed that remark to "if" he runs.
"I'm running for
president in 2016, and the focus is going to be about how we, if I run,
how do you create high sustained economic growth," Bush said.
Upon
being asked about the apparent verbal slip immediately by the
reporters, Bush said that he is not an "official" candidate for the
Republican nomination but has been travelling around the country for the
past three months to see if he has the support necessary to join the
race.
If he formally announces his candidacy, Bush would be the
seventh Republican to enter the race, after Sens. Rand Paul, Ted Cruz
and Marco Rubio, Arkansas former governor Mike Huckabee, retired
neurosurgeon Ben Carson and Carly Fiorina, former CEO of
Hewlett-Packard.
There is a significant difference in terms of
what one can legally do regarding raising money between considering a
political run and actually declaring one's candidacy. Once candidates
announce they are entering the race they face tighter campaign
fundraising restrictions.
In recent weeks, Bush has increased the
number of his public appearances in the media and at assorted
political, academic and religious events.
The latest NBC
News/Wall Street Journal survey gives Bush 23 percent support among
voters who characterize themselves as Republicans or Republican-leaning
independents.
At the event on Wednesday, Bush also had to face
accusations publicly levelled at him by a woman concerning his brother,
whom she accused of having "created" the Islamic State as a consequence
of going to war in Iraq, to which the politically conservative former
Florida governor responded that he did not agree with that assessment.