Jeb Bush open to future White House bid

WASHINGTON -- Jeb Bush has long resisted pressure from supporters to run for president. Now the former Florida governor is signaling that he's at least open to the idea, a shift that comes as he promotes a book and Republicans struggle to rebound after President Barack Obama's re-election.

"I'm not saying yes. I'm just not saying no," Bush told NBC News earlier this week, one of a series of such comments he's made as he talks about the book "Immigration Wars" in television interviews and forums.

Comments like those from Bush, 60, are in sharp contrast to past refusals to even entertain the idea of following in the footsteps of his older brother, former President George W. Bush, and their father, former President George H.W. Bush.

Less than three years before the first Republican presidential primaries, Bush's words offer a window into his evolving thinking on a future run.

Republicans and former advisers said that, if nothing else, he's made clear to political operatives and donors that they shouldn't count him out for 2016.

Bush left the Florida governor's office in 2007 but since then has remained a major figure in the GOP, mainly through his efforts to influence education and immigration policy. In his book he urges Congress to revamp a broken immigration system that he says is holding back the nation's future and economic growth.

He caused a stir and irked some Republicans by writing that he did not support a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants. -- AP