We concede: You're exhausted from the election, the hurricane of attack ads and door knockers. Sick of Rick Scott and Charlie Crist.
But brush it off, the 2016 presidential campaign is upon us, and Florida is in the spotlight like never before.
Sen. Marco Rubio and former Gov. Jeb Bush are seriously considering entering the race and either would stake a formidable claim to the Republican nomination. They will announce their intentions by early next year.
For Rubio, it's a decision of whether to give up an almost sure shot of re-election. (By Florida law, he can't go for both.) At 43, he has years ahead on the political stage. Bush, 61, would have to surrender the harbor of semi-private life for the grind and glare of a national campaign.
Add in their close relationship and the difficulty of two candidates hailing from Florida, a crucial swing-state reservoir of votes and campaign cash, and things get interesting.
Every move in the past year has been parsed for clues. The pebble of news last week that Rubio's new book is coming out Jan. 13 was the latest kindling. He's been hustling to improve his standing with grass roots conservatives and getting face time helping midterm candidates in early nominating states.
Bush began 2014 looking less likely to run but has moved closer to the possibility. He, too, hit the campaign trail for other candidates and a fundraising letter for his education foundation showed up recently in Iowa, stoking questions. But Bush hasn't revealed anything to even his closest allies.
"All you can do is read the tea leaves and right now, they don't tell me a damn thing. He (Jeb) listens, but he always keeps his own counsel," said Al Hoffman, a prominent Florida fundraiser. "I love Marco Rubio and I think Marco Rubio is also a fantastic candidate. But first and foremost, for me, is Jeb."
That sentiment is common among top Florida Republicans and many of the national party elite, who like Bush's executive experience and intellectual bearing. The son and brother of former presidents, he would have little trouble raising money.
"Rubio is young and dynamic and people here have liked him," said Charlie Arlinghaus, president of the Josiah Bartlett Center for Public Policy, a free market think tank in New Hampshire. "But to some extent he's overshadowed by Jeb Bush. Bush hasn't been here, but he doesn't have to. People don't say when you mention his name, 'Who's that?' The name is a blessing and a curse."Read the rest of the story HERE.
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