NASHUA, N.H. — Republicans eyeing the Oval Office gathered in early voting New Hampshire Friday to court voters — and zeroed in on a common foe, Democrat Hillary Clinton.
Florida Sen. Marco Rubio slashed at Clinton’s reported plan to raise $2.5 billion for her second White House campaign.
“That’s a lot of Chipotle, my friends,” Rubio deadpanned, reaping laughs from GOP honchos and activists at the First In The Nation Republican Leadership Summit.
Former New York Gov. George Pataki used his time in the Granite State spotlight to throw a few darts at Clinton for using a private email server while secretary of state — and served up a Chipotle joke of his own in a riff on Clinton’s much-hyped lunch break there on her way to campaign in Iowa this week.
Pataki said he and wife Libby hit a Chipotle themselves on Thursday, only, “She didn’t wear sunglasses, I wasn’t in disguise, we said hello to everybody — and I left a tip.”
Jeb Bush was in some ways the man in the middle among the hopefuls who appeared in the first round of the two-day Nashua summit.
The ex-Florida governor had to defend himself from continued questions of whether he’s conservative enough to satisfy the right-leaning primary voters, who will select the Republican nominee.
One woman who questioned Bush from the audience at the summit said she feared the GOP establishment had aligned behind him too quickly out of desperation to stop Clinton.
“I don’t see any coronation coming my way, trust me,” Bush said lightly at the summit. “We’ve got 95 people possibly running for president — I’m really intimidating a bunch of folks, aren’t I?”
Bush, who came out of the gate with early fund-raising success among high rollers, talked up his right-of-center street cred throughout the day.
“I would match my record with anybody that’s thinking about running or any governor during the last 20 years,” he said.
“It’s an ‘I’m not kidding conservative’ record — it’s one of results.”
But Bush surprised some listeners with his comments on climate change — indicating that the U.S. should strive to reduce carbon emissions, and setting himself apart from those in the GOP vanguard to who essentially say global warming is junk science.
He also called for a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants, saying, in part, “The people who want to come here are driving for success.”
While Bush spoke warmly of his father and brother who have already occupied the Oval Office, he bristled when asked — repeatedly — to compare his foreign policy views with theirs.
“That’s not particularly relevant,” he said. “What’s relevant is what’s the role of America going forward.”
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, for his part, did not mention Clinton during his formal summit remarks, but served up plenty of crowd-pleasing critiques of President Obama.
Christie, who scoffed that Obama now cares only for his “legacy and library,” also defended his own famously blunt personal style.
“You will never have to wonder what I’m thinking,” Christie vowed.
Asked by reporters at another event to contrast his style with Clinton’s, Christie replied, “We’re different people, of different generations, so we’re going to approach things in different ways.”
