Jeb Bush hires Jose Mallea, Marco Rubio’s Senate campaign manager, for Hispanic outreach

*This is getting interesting. Jeb’s new Latino ourtreach guy, Jose Maella, is a former Rubio guy. Maella was a headliner at a recent Jeb political donor retreat – for a candidate that isn’t really an official candidate yet. VL

By Paricia Mazzei, Miami Herald

He’d been in talks with Jeb Bush‘s would-be campaign for several weeks, but it wasn’t until Jose Malleawas featured as a panelist Monday in Bush’s political-donor retreat on Miami Beach that he was outed as a Jeb Guy.

Soon, he will become part of the payroll: Bush’s political action committee, Right to Rise, plans to hire Mallea to advise the former Florida governor’s likely 2016 presidential campaign on Hispanic outreach and engagement.

Mallea’s first paid job in politics was on Bush’s 1998 gubernatorial campaign, and worked for PresidentGeorge W. Bush from 2001-05. But he has known Marco Rubio since 2006 and ran Rubio’s successful 2010 U.S. Senate campaign — so which Republican presidential contender would he pick?

“The decision in terms of who’s going to be a better president and who’s ready to be president — that wasn’t hard,” Mallea told the Miami Herald on Friday in his first public comments about his new gig, which was first reported by Politico. “It was a no-brainer for me.”

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