Remember Mississippi? Jeb Bush and Right to Rise hope you forgot.

By Neil Stevens | 2:00 PM on October 30, 2015

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In the Mississippi Senate primary of 2014, the state establishment simply could not tolerate their preferred candidate Sen. Thad Cochran losing. So the Cochrans and the Barbours got together and pulled every dirty trick they could come up with, trying to smear Chris McDaniel.

This time it’s the Florida establishment at work. They watched [mc_name name=’Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL)’ chamber=’senate’ mcid=’R000595′ ] beat their preferred guy, Charlie Crist, and by gum, they don’t want to let it happen again to Jeb Bush.

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First, a flashback. Thad Cochran’s campaign ran dirty tricks against Chris McDaniel, the man they were afraid of losing to in the Senate primary.

Well this time it’s another family and another state establishment who’s unhappy. Instead of Cochran and Mississippi, it’s Bush and Florida. Playing the role of Henry Barbour in this is Mike Murphy of Right to Rise PAC.

Murphy is a long-time operative for the establishment side of the GOP, or as he put it in 2008, “the blue swing state governor world: Engler, Whitman, Tommy Thompson, Mitt Romney, Jeb Bush.” This he said just before he called Sarah Palin a ‘cynical’ choice in 2008, instead of the pro-abort Kay Bailey Hutchison. Now he runs Jeb Bush’s Right to Rise PAC, an arrogantly-named organization that captures the internal spirit of the Jeb Bush candidacy.

Bush and Murphy think they have a right to be the frontrunners, and that [mc_name name=’Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL)’ chamber=’senate’ mcid=’R000595′ ] has no business doing what he’s doing, just like the Barbours and the Cochrans thought McDaniel was out of line in daring to run for their seat. So now Murphy and Bush are going to throw every hunk of mud they can find until Rubio’s campaign goes down, or theirs does first.

The establishment was able to tear down Chris McDaniel because he was a much lesser-known figure. I don’t think they’ll get away with this with [mc_name name=’Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL)’ chamber=’senate’ mcid=’R000595′ ] though.

They tried floating the missed-votes problem, but Rubio swatted that away in the debate. They’re trying to accuse Rubio of sleeping around, but there’s no evidence. They’re saying Rubio failed vetting for VP, but he didn’t. I guess they think if they throw out enough lies, something eventually will stick.

[mc_name name=’Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL)’ chamber=’senate’ mcid=’R000595′ ] scares and angers the GOP establishment. He must be doing something right.