Jeb Bush, “anticipating a competitive primary season, is forming an aggressive presence in states beyond the four that will vote in February,” CNN reports.

“He stepped into Rand Paul country on Thursday afternoon, for example, to headline a fundraiser for the Kentucky state GOP and became the first Republican presidential candidate to pay the filing fee for the state’s March 5 caucus.”

“Bush’s campaign views the stop as an example of their ‘robust’ operation, not only in Kentucky but across the southern region that will host a slew of states in the so-called SEC primary on March 1, followed by other states like Michigan, Kentucky and Illinois later in the month. Along with being first on the ballot in Kentucky, Bush’s team boasts that it was also the first in Vermont, obtaining 2,000 signatures on its petition, twice the number required.”

“Our message is one of hope and aspiration. It isn’t one of division and get in line and we’ll take care of you with free stuff. Our message is one that is uplifting — that says you can achieve earned success.”

— Jeb Bush, quoted by the Washington Post.

Jonathan Chait: “Like all of the non-Trump Republican candidates, Jeb Bush’s economic strategy is built around a program of regressive, debt-financed tax cuts, just as it was under the last Republican administration. In a very clever interview, John Harwood repeatedly asks Bush why he is pursuing this course despite its repeated failure. Bush’s attempts to respond reveal the tangle of denial, non-falsifiability, and cant that undergird the party’s unshakable commitment to voodoo economics.”

“We should not have a multicultural society.  When you create pockets of isolation — and in some places the process of assimilation has been retarded because they’ve slowed down — it’s wrong. It limits people’s aspirations.”

— Jeb Bush, quoted by ABC News.

“I know how to do this because, yes, I am a Bush. I happened to see two really good presidents develop relationships with other countries.”

— Jeb Bush, quoted by CNN, on why he’d be a good leader on foreign policy.

Matt Bai: “If you were in Washington watching the Republican debate last night, you might have felt a small tilt in the floor, or heard the plates rattling gently in their cupboards. That was the sound of the Republican establishment shifting its collective weight away from Jeb Bush — and inching a little bit closer to their best available alternative.”

“And no, it’s not Ben Carson or Carly Fiorina.”

“Not to overstate the crisis here, because one poll can change everything at this stage of a race, but the way I saw it, last night was another minor disaster for Bush. He seemed, yet again, oddly tentative and squirmy, the earnest student body president shoved aside by the boorish quarterback at the pep rally. That performance probably didn’t do much to help Bush among the millions of Republicans who tuned in, especially in the early primary states. But make no mistake: His most important audience right now is the one that pushed him onto that stage in the first place.”

“Right to Rise, the super PAC supporting former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush’s presidential campaign, is laying down $24 million for an ad buy that begins Tuesday in Iowa and New Hampshire, according to a source familiar with buy,” CNN reports.

“The major purchase comes as the political arm of the outside group Club for Growth announced ads taking on Donald Trump’s record on fiscal issues. The ads could shift the dynamics in a race where Bush has been sliding as Trump has grown in strength. Of the $24 million, $6 million will be spent in Iowa, $12 million in New Hampshire and $4.7 million will be spent in South Carolina.”

Washington Post: “The drop also resulted in what top donors have hinted was a less-than-anticipated haul in fundraising during August, forcing the campaign to tighten its spending. While the changes affected mostly senior campaign aides, the most notable change is that Bush, who spent most of the year traveling on private jets to campaign events, has started flying commercial airliners more often, as he did Friday.”

Jeb Bush convened an hour-long gathering in Manhattan with three longtime advocates for sweeping tax cuts, seeking their counsel and sharing the details of his campaign’s economic plan, which will be formally unveiled tomorrow, the Washington Post reports.

“The trio of supply-side conservatives — Heritage Foundation economist Stephen Moore, publishing executive Steve Forbes and CNBC contributor Larry Kudlow — met with Bush alongside Johnson, Bush’s national finance chairman… Those Republicans, who requested anonymity to discuss the private session and the Bush campaign’s outlook, said the former Florida governor hopes his tax offering will jumpstart his candidacy, which has lagged behind GOP front-runner Donald Trump for months, by proposing lower corporate tax rates while also eliminating a number of deductions that favor Wall Street investors.”

Rick Klein: “Jeb Bush’s decision to open a direct line of attack on Donald Trump may have minimal risk on its face. He’s getting attacked by Trump anyway, so why not try to score some blows that help Bush himself establish his conservative bona fides? What’s remarkable, though, is that Bush is on the attack from a position of relative weakness. He’s slipping in the polls, of course. His standing among conservatives in particular is suffering even in comparison to Donald Trump.”

“This trend is troubling to a Bush campaign that never anticipated the Trump surge to last this long. More troubling, though, is the potential that Trump isn’t just convincing conservatives to support him but changing conservatives’ beliefs on what it means to be conservative. Bush can’t compete with Trump on his malleability, but he also can’t match his economic populism or his disassociation with a political establishment that’s defined in part by the Bush name.”

“Three top Jeb Bush fundraisers abruptly parted ways with his presidential campaign on Friday, amid internal personality conflicts and questions about the strength of his candidacy,” Politico reports.

Donald Trump explained his attacks toward Jeb Bush, saying that he had taken for granted that the former governor of Florida was going to be his chief rival, Politico reports.

Said Trump: “Well I don’t want to be nasty, and I don’t want to say that. But I will tell you that if you look at the polls, he isn’t really second anymore. He’s fourth and fifth in a lot of the polls. And I have, you know, I’ve always assumed that he was going to be a primary competitor, and I guess that’s why I’m hitting him harder than others.”