WATERLOO, Iowa, Dec. 2 (UPI) — Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush hints that his vice presidential pick would be a woman.
At a campaign appearance in Waterloo, Iowa, Tuesday evening, Bush told supporters: “Should I be elected president, I would have my vice president — I think she will be a great partner.”
He immediately joked: “I mean, did I say that out loud?”
Time magazine reports several GOP women are possible veep candidates, such as South Carolina Gov. Nicki Haley, New Mexico Gov. Susanna Martinez and New Hampshire Sen. Kelly Ayotte.
“We always talk about this with one gender in mind. I think we’ve reached the point I think in our country where maybe we should be a little less gender-specific about this. He or she should be an integral part of the team,” Bush said. “And frankly, the one important element of selecting a vice presidential candidate is whether he or she is qualified to be president. Everything else is secondary.”
The latest Quinnipiac University polling data shows Bush’s Iowa support at just five percent. This is even after a $30 million TV ad buy, which The Wall Street Journal reports was the biggest investment by a single entity in the 2016 presidential race.
On Tuesday, Bush’s campaign began airing $600,000 in new ads in New Hampshire that tout his hawkish foreign policy. In the ad, a Medal of Honor recipient says: “This is no reality show,” seemingly a dig at frontrunner Donald Trump, “This is serious business.”
