Jeb
2.0: Bush relaunches campaign with e-book, tour
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[November 02, 2015]
By Steve Holland
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Battered by weeks
of negative headlines, Republican Jeb Bush launches a campaign reboot on
Monday with a "Jeb Can Fix It" tour and release of an e-book that
reveals a more personal side to a 2016 candidate who has struggled on
the public stage.
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Bush's dismal performance at a debate of Republican presidential
candidates last week in Colorado was an added burden to a candidate
once considered the favorite for the nomination and now suffering
drooping poll numbers and fund-raising.
In Tampa on Monday, Bush hopes to begin a political comeback. He
will give a speech presenting himself as a problem-solving
politician who carried out conservative reforms as Florida's
governor from 1999 to 2007.
A campaign aide said the speech will be a "rejection of the
'competing pessimisms' created in the (President Barack) Obama era
in favor of leadership that solves problems."
He will take the message to South Carolina and then on a three-day
bus tour of New Hampshire.
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2015/Nov/02/images/ads/current/graue_sda_june2015.png) The tour coincides with the release of a 730-page e-book, entitled
"Reply All." It is a compilation of many of the email exchanges he
had with Floridians during his time as governor.
The emails cover everything from his drive for tax cuts and
education reform in Florida to dealing with hurricanes.
Beyond the work issues, there was plenty of the comical, such as
when a 9-year-old girl wrote to tell him she did not like her piano
lessons because "my teacher smells of dead alligators." She wanted
to know if Jeb and brother George had taken piano while growing up.
"Yes, I had piano lessons," Bush emailed her. "It was tough and I
didn't enjoy it. In fact, I wasn’t that good at it. But you know
what? It gave me discipline which helped me as an adult."
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Another writer wanted to know how the bilingual Bush became so
fluent in Spanish.
"I learned Spanish by marrying a Mexican girl, by living in
Venezuela and by taking Spanish courses in school. The first two
were the most important," Bush replied.
Bush makes clear in a 2006 exchange with a reporter his support for
comprehensive immigration reform, an issue that has roiled the
Republican race this year as billionaire Donald Trump has pledged to
build a wall along the U.S.-Mexican border and deport 11 million
illegal immigrants.
Bush said a more secure border is needed "but the notion that we
would felonize folks that have been here and that are contributing
to our progress is just plain wrong."
(Reporting by Steve Holland; Editing by Eric Walsh)
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