Two Republicans rivals

Jeb Bush vs. Karl Rove

They’ve had plenty of tangles over the years. Now, the two Republicans are rivals in the quest for GOP megabucks.

By Alex Isenstadt and Kenneth P. Vogel

Jeb Bush was running for reelection as Florida’s governor in 2002 and needed the help of his brother, the president. But there was one person standing in his way: Karl Rove.

Rove, the storied strategist who helped steer George W. Bush into the White House two years earlier, had laid down a strict rule for candidates seeking presidential assistance: No one — not even Jeb — would have unfettered access to the commander in chief.

When word got back to Florida, Jeb was furious — and he went right over Rove’s head. He called up his brother, who assured him that he’d get whatever he wanted. No questions asked. From then on, White House staffers were under the firm understanding that Jeb Bush wasn’t just another candidate on the ballot that year. He was a priority.

By now, after more than a decade's worth of backstage disputes between the man who was the president’s political gatekeeper and the brother who now hopes to follow him into the White House, the frostiness has become the stuff of legend, attributable, people close to them say, to everything from personality differences to professional circumstances. Many have simply come to view them as two ambitious, sharp-elbowed men in a hurry who, at various points in time, have found themselves standing in each other’s way.

Part of the struggle is playing out on phone calls and private meetings, as both compete for the nation’s most sought-after Republican donors. As Bush intensifies fundraising for his Right to Rise super PAC, expected to reach $100 million by the end of this month, he finds himself approaching many of the same contributors as Rove, whose American Crossroads super PAC is also financially dependent on many of the givers who have long supported the political causes and campaigns of the extended Bush family network.

But with Bush gobbling up record amounts of cash, there is an increasing sense that the two groups are destined to clash — and that Rove’s American Crossroads, which spent $325 million on a disappointing 2012 presidential election, will ultimately be the odd man out.

Steven Law, president of American Crossroads, acknowledged that there was wide overlap between his group’s donors and that of the Bush super PAC. But he said the groups weren’t working against one another, and insisted that his group’s top contributors — some of whom are among the richest people in the country — would be able to give to both.

“I haven’t had anyone say, ‘We’re backing Jeb over you guys,’” he said.
Rove’s group, as it prepares for the 2016 campaign, has been taking steps to distinguish itself from Bush’s, which has centered its appeals to donors around the former governor’s vision for the country. In its pitches, American Crossroads promotes itself as a hub of anti-Hillary Clinton activity, tapping into a desire among the party’s benefactors to go on the offensive against the presumptive Democratic nominee at a time when Republican candidates are busy jostling for position in a crowded GOP field.

Rove hasn’t yet thrown his weight behind a 2016 candidate. But he’s come across as lukewarm on Bush’s campaign, using his Wall Street Journal column and Fox News appearances to draw attention to some of the obstacles confronting the former governor.

He’s suggested that Bush’s support for Common Core education standards — a position that’s anathema to conservatives — could cost him in the Republican primary, as could his Bush family pedigree. “A successful former governor, Jeb Bush is a big thinker and effective communicator with a giant fundraising network,” Rove wrote in a November Wall Street Journal column. “But can another Bush win?”

Rove, reached recently by phone, declined to discuss his relationship with Bush, saying that he was busy finalizing a new book. Sally Bradshaw, a longtime Bush adviser, denied any bad blood between the two.

“They’re friends,” she said, “they respect each other.” She added that Bush’s campaign-in-waiting had been in touch with Rove, though she declined to say what had been discussed, or how often they communicated. “I don’t know how to quantify that,” she said.

Still, other Bush family stalwarts, such as former Secretaries of State James Baker and Condoleezza Rice and former Commerce Secretary Donald Evans, have fallen in line with the former governor’s candidacy — making it all the more striking that Rove, who owes his prominence to the Bush clan, is withholding his public support.

And Bush’s White House aspirations have threatened Rove in another way. While he’s long prided himself on his image as the GOP’s strategist extraordinaire, the presidential campaign has elevated one of his longtime rivals: Mike Murphy, a Los Angeles-based media consultant who’s been guiding Bush’s effort.

Friends of Murphy, who faced Rove when he worked on Arizona Sen. John McCain’s bitter GOP primary campaign in 2000 versus George W. Bush, say he’s eager to take over the title of party mastermind.

“Rove is the heavyweight champion of the GOP world,” said Scott Reed, the senior political strategist at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, “and Murphy wants a shot at the title fight.”

Some people who’ve followed the trajectory of the relationship between Jeb and Rove say it got off on the wrong foot in 1993, when both Bush brothers were running for governor, and some distinct rhetoric from Jeb’s Florida campaign migrated to George W.’s Texas stump speech.

“I am running for governor not because I am George and Barbara Bush’s son; I am running because I am George P. and Noelle and Jeb’s father,” Jeb Bush had said, according to The New York Times. Later, George W. Bush began using a derivation of the line: “I am not running for governor because I am George Bush’s son. I am running because I am Jenna and Barbara’s father.”

Rove cracked at the time that “George heard Jeb use the line and thought it was so good, he stole it.” Those close to Jeb Bush say he’s long blamed Rove for swiping the line, and that it still bothers him.

Another flareup came in 2000. During the final days of his brother’s presidential campaign, Jeb Bush sent Rove an urgent message: Al Gore was closing the gap in Florida. The Bush campaign, which Rove was guiding, had only a limited ground game there, and the Florida governor urged him to send reinforcements.

Rove, however, vetoed the idea, saying that resources were more urgently needed elsewhere. When Bush — who prided himself on his political antenna, especially when it came to the goings-on his home state — heard the news, he fumed.

By then, the tension had been building for months. On conference calls with Rove and other top aides to his brother, Jeb had advocated an aggressive, big-spending approach in the state — advice that he felt Rove, who wanted to play in blue states like California and New Jersey, wasn’t interested in.

At one point, Jeb had gone so far as to venture out to Austin, Texas, where his brother’s campaign was based, to sell a Florida campaign push. He left under the impression that his counsel had fallen on deaf ears. “There was a sense that Jeb felt Karl wasn’t giving him his due,” said one former George W. Bush adviser present for the meeting.

After George W. Bush moved into the White House, there was an unspoken understanding that his brother would be keyed into any discussion that involved politically critical Florida. But the rule wasn’t always obeyed.

When Democratic Sen. Bob Graham announced his retirement in 2004, Rove and his top aides launched an effort to nudge Mel Martinez, then the secretary of Housing and Urban Development, into the contest. They even dispatched two Republican senators, Bill Frist and Rick Santorum, to call Martinez while he was in Moscow, where he was traveling at the time of Graham’s decision.

There was one person, however, that Rove had left out of the loop: Jeb Bush. After hearing that the White House hadn’t reached out to him beforehand, Bush steamed to associates that he hadn’t been consulted.

By that point, he’d become deeply invested in the Senate race. Before Graham’s retirement, Bush had taken on the role of recruiter, trying to woo several candidates into the race. Rove’s maneuvering, the governor told those around him at the time, made him wonder why he was being cut out.

Neither Rove nor Bradshaw would address specific run-ins between the two. Said Bradshaw, “I’m not going to rehash conversations that I wasn’t privy to.”