Bush and Rubio squabble while Trump runs away with it

By Byron York, Byron York

Published December 20, 2015

One odd thing about the Republican presidential race is that the strong front-runner, Donald Trump, isn't fundraising.

Soliciting contributions takes a huge amount of the time for most candidates, and the quarterly reports of how much they have raised and how much cash they have on hand become carefully-watched measures of their campaigns' viability. None of that applies to Trump.

So the new fundraising reports for the third quarter that have been the talk of the political world for the last few days have an odd also-ran feel to them.

Of the candidates who are raising money, the winner is Ben Carson, who collected $20 million in the third quarter. After Carson is Jeb Bush, who raised $13.4 million; Ted Cruz, with $12.2 million, Carly Fiorina, with $6.8 million; and Marco Rubio, with $6 million. (The rest raised less than that.)

When Bush announced his total Thursday afternoon, his campaign immediately started a spat with Rubio over who had the better quarter. In an email memo accompanying the Bush announcement, campaign manager Danny Diaz noted that Bush's total was "double what Sen. Rubio and Carly Fiorina raised in the same time."