Pro-Bush super PAC set for $10M ad buy

The heavily funded super PAC backing Republican Jeb Bush will spend at least $10 million on television time in the earliest voting presidential primary states, the first salvo in a massive TV ad campaign to support the former Florida governor's bid for the Republican nomination.

Officials with Right to Rise USA say they will buy time in Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina TV markets and on cable television in the three states. Ads are scheduled to begin in Iowa and New Hampshire on Sept. 15, in South Carolina a week later and then run continuously through the end of the year.

The plan, shared by the group with the Associated Press prior to Monday's buy, is the first evidence of Right to Rise USA's major strategic spending of the roughly $100 million it had on hand last month. It's also the first major move by the group, which was developed by longtime Bush adviser and California ad maker Mike Murphy, to run alongside Bush's own campaign organization, which is bound by federal fund-raising limits.

"We believe Jeb Bush has the strongest record of conservative accomplishments in the race, and we plan to tell that story," Paul Lindsay, communication director for Right to Rise USA, told the AP.

After bounding atop a blue trailer in a community park, Sen. Bernie Sanders quickly reminded people here that Iowa had helped elect the nation's first black president.

The next step, he said, is addressing racial discrimination and the recent shootings of unarmed blacks by law enforcement.

"I know that I speak for all of you that we are sick and tired of reading about and seeing videos of unarmed African Americans being shot," Sanders said Sunday at a Democratic picnic. "We know that if those individuals were white, the odds are very strong that would not have happened to them."

During three days of campaigning in Iowa, he repeatedly vowed to address racism, police brutality, and the criminal justice system. It followed disruptions of his appearances in Phoenix and Portland, Ore., by Black Lives Matter protesters who say his message to cure economic inequality fails to address institutional racism.

Sanders has become Hillary Rodham Clinton's chief rival for the Democratic nomination but lagged behind the former secretary of state in building a coalition resembling the diverse voting bloc that twice elected Obama.

Retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson was holding court Sunday with hundreds of Iowans, declaring that he can be president of the United States.

"We shouldn't let the political class pick our presidents," the Republican candidate said at the Des Moines Register's Political Soapbox at the state fair.

Carson has ignited curiosity and enthusiasm from conservatives with his call for a more civil, less partisan dialogue in government. "Just because you disagree with someone doesn't mean you're their enemy," he said.

Republican presidential hopeful Mike Huckabee heads to Israel this week to raise money and meet "with a number of officials" to discuss the Obama administration's nuclear deal with Iran. The former Arkansas governor opposes the agreement.

He announced his trip Sunday on CNN's State of the Union.