Gov. John Kasich (R-OH)
Poor Jeb! Bush. As his standing in the polls drops and talk grows that he can't really hack it as a candidate, he's starting to abandon his "I'm the adult in the room" stance and trying to attack other candidates. But it's not going so well. There's his
attempt to take a shot at Donald Trump, for instance. And then there's John Kasich. The Kasich campaign is making sure reporters know that the Bush campaign is
conducting opposition research into the Ohio governor:
But on Monday, an intern affiliated with the Bush campaign issued a public records request to Ohio’s economic development agency for a list of all companies that have received tax credits and subsidies from the Kasich administration since July 2011. [...]
For the Kasich campaign, it was a chance to crow about the apparent interest from the Bush camp: “I’ll decline to say anything other than to note the Bush campaign’s growing interest in John Kasich’s candidacy,” said the Ohio Republican’s campaign manager, John Weaver.
The Bush campaign insists that this is just opposition research that they're conducting on every other candidate, but ... it does look like they're taking a deeper dive, looking for information now that was just as available a month ago when Kasich announced he was running. Apparently it was less interesting before Kasich started rising in the polls, positioning himself in direct competition with Bush for the role of serious and responsible, conservative yet not crazy, swing state governor or ex-governor.