Conservative radio talk show host Laura Ingraham ripped Jeb Bush Friday from the same stage the former Florida governor will use in a few hours to court conservatives.
Ingraham, who has bashed Bush on the airwaves, took to the stage at a major gathering of conservative activists, lambasting what she says has been a “coronation” by party “elites” to chose Bush, and declaring the former Florida governor is too similar to Hillary Clinton to defeat her.
“Why don't we just call it quits and Jeb and Hillary can run on the same ticket," she asked, ticking off what she said are similarities on “Common Core, amnesty, giving Obama trade deals with China, the surveillance culture.”
Her suggestion for a bumper sticker: “Clush 2016 - What Difference Does it Make,” -- a Bush/Clinton mashup.
Underscoring the challenge Bush faces as he seeks to court the conservative audience, Ingraham earned a round of applause as she took the stage, asking the crowd "how many of you in the room are skeptical of another Bush term?’
She mocked him, suggesting he could “explode” the gender gap because “what woman doesn't like a man who gives her a blank check at Tiffany’s?” -- a reference to a Washington Post article about Bush’s wife, Columba‘s penchant for pricey jewelery.
She even included a swipe at Bush’s father, George H.W. Bush, rapping the elites “who said there would be no new taxes and that we could read their lips.”
And she decried Bush’s embrace as the presumptive front runner by the Republican establishment and the “donor class,” decrying a “coronation” because 50 rich families “will best decide their interests? No way, Jose.”
She called on attendees to embrace not “a conservative who comes to CPAC to check a box but a conservative who comes to CPAC because he is a conservative.”