Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (R) said Thursday that Mitt Romney had a slow start in the presidential campaign but had now "found his rhythm."
He also predicted the Republican presidential candidate would prevail in battleground states where polls showed President Obama with a narrow lead.
"I think Gov. Romney's campaign was ... slow to respond to the attack of the president in July and August," Bush told CBS News. "But after the debate, he's found his rhythm, and you can see there's just been a progressive — I don't know if it's more moderate — but a tone that's more positive, a tone that's reaching out."
In a subsequent interview with Fox News, Bush predicted that Romney was outperforming polls that showed him tied with or trailing Obama in crucial swing states, including Florida. Romney and Bush crisscrossed the state Wednesday with stops in Tampa, Miami and Jacksonville.
"It's a close race, for sure, but I think he's going to carry Florida," Bush said. "The intensity is on our side … It will be a close election, but I do believe that Gov. Romney is probably doing better than what the polls show because of intensity and the swing voters at the end will swing toward him, as they have been doing."
Bush said Romney was primarily benefiting from independent and elderly voters in his state, and cast the president as unwilling to work across the aisle, and offering only "attacks" on the Romney plans for entitlement programs.
"I think the president has spent most of his time explaining away why it hasn't worked the way he wanted to and dividing the country," Bush told CBS. "I'm not optimistic if he's reelected he'll do anything different than what he has done. I hope I'm wrong. But I believe Mitt Romney will be elected president and it was more a response to listen to his message and to see how people responded to it in a very favorable way."
And on Fox News, Bush made veiled reference to the president placing blame for the sluggish economy at the feet of his brother, former President George W. Bush.
"I ought to keep my mouth shut about this, but it perturbs me to no end to have in the fourth year of a presidency, the president constantly be talking about the past," Bush said. "I mean, the guy was dealt a tough hand. We got that. But in the fourth year, you should be held responsible for your actions."
Bush also looked repeatedly to discount the role Obama was playing in the recovery efforts following Hurricane Sandy, pointing to state and local officials as the key to helping those affected by the deadly storm.
"The governor is really the commander in chief of the response to this and the recovery efforts," Bush told Fox News. "I think watching on television, seeing Mayor Bloomberg and Gov. Christie, they're doing a fine job."
On CBS, Bush responded to a question about whether Obama deserved high marks for his response by saying "the federal government's role is to support local and state government."
"It isn't the expectation shouldn't be anything more than that," Bush continued. "When you raise expectations beyond that it is impossible for FEMA to respond to local responses if the local governments and state governments decide not to do it."
