Jeb Bush’s Ad Push in NH Features Barbara Bush
Jeb Bush is utilizing his powerful family ties in his latest ad.
— HAMPTON, NH -- With the New Hampshire primaries only three weeks away, Republican Presidential candidate Jeb Bush is trying to revive an ailing campaign with a new advertisement push in the state featuring a very special guest...his mother.
Former First Lady Barbara Bush, in a web-video entitled "A Message From Barbara Bush" attempts to sway voters, as only she can, praising him as "a wonderful son" whose "heart is big.
"When push comes to shove, people are going to realize Jeb has real solutions. Rather than talking about how popular they are, how great they are, he's doing it because he sees a huge need and it's not being filled by anybody," she says in the video, seemingly taking a dig at frontrunner Donald Trump. "Of all the people running, he seems to be the one who can solve the problems. I think he'll be a great president.”
Though the video, for now, is planned for the internet only, Bush accidentally announced it at his town hall Thursday night before his campaign had officially released it.
"And my mother, I just saw the ad literally, I didn’t know the campaign was doing it. She’s going to be on the air coming up here at some point, tomorrow I think – paid advertising by the campaign... if there’s anybody more powerful in my family than my mother then I don’t know who it is," he said.
He later sheepishly joked with reporters about scooping his campaign's official release.
"Did I say that? I said it out loud? All advertising hopefully accomplishes people moving toward your cause," he said. "It’s good to get an endorsement from your mother. I don’t think she was prepared to endorse anyone else, but it’s a nice validation just in case people were wondering."
He invokes his mother frequently on the trail, as he tells of his reticence to be a braggart or ungentlemanly, fearing the “slap” of his mother’s hand.
Former First Lady Bush famously expressed some hesitance of her own…months before her son announced, she famously said back in 2013 that “we’ve had enough Bushes.” Of course now, she is “all-in” for Jeb, sporting Jeb! stickers on her walker.
Also, going in rotation tomorrow in the Granite State is a new 30 second advertisement, provided first to ABC News, entitled “Town Hall” which includes an excerpt from his town hall at Foss Manufacturing in Hampton back in September, as he touted his experience as former Florida governor who "disrupted the old order," advocating term limits for member of Congress and a balanced budget.