Mike Murphy of Right to Rise Explains His Theory That Jeb Bush Is Still the Candidate to Beat

When Mike Murphy in June took the helm of his longtime friend and client Jeb Bush’s super-PAC, Right to Rise USA, he disappeared from the media, part of a concerted effort not to draw attention away from the candidate. In mid-August, Murphy—a witty narrator of presidential politics who has also guided campaigns by John McCain, Mitt Romney, and Arnold Schwarzenegger—broke that uncharacteristic silence. “If other campaigns wish that we’re going to uncork money on Donald Trump, they’ll be disappointed,” Murphy told the Washington Post in August. “Trump is, frankly, other people’s problem.”

The rare on-the-record remark from Murphy was widely assumed to be a signal to Bush’s Miami-based campaign of his group’s strategic calculations. And it indicated an election season already straying from BushWorld’s well-laid plans. When Murphy was detailed to the super-PAC, he knew he would be unable to communicate directly with Bush or the candidate’s circle. But the deliberate six-month project to build a mutually dependent structure, in which the two entities could work in tandem without violating prohibitions against direct coordination, had taken place in a Trump-free environment.