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But it could also cause the eventual nominee problems in a general election with a more moderate electorate. On social issues ranging from abortion to same-sex marriage, much of the Republican field has now taken positions that are at odds with mainstream American opinion. For example, 3 out of 4 Americans say a woman should be able to obtain a legal abortion if she becomes pregnant as a result of rape. (Sullivan, 8/7)

Jeb Bush’s involvement with a philanthropy headed by billionaire Michael Bloomberg, which partnered with Planned Parenthood on a $50 million global reproductive health initiative, is coming under scrutiny just as abortion is re-emerging as a top campaign issue. The former Florida governor served as a Bloomberg Family Foundation director from March 2010 until he stepped down in late 2014, earning roughly $37,000. During those years, the foundation worked with Planned Parenthood to expand women’s health programs in Africa and Central America. The association with the women’s health provider is politically fraught at a time when the group has been accused of selling the tissue of aborted fetuses — a charge it denies. (Pradhan, 8/10)

Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush is again defending his slip about cutting funding for women's health organizations this week, but not from Hillary Clinton, but instead against former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina's assertions at Thursday night's Republican debate. (LoBianco, Killough and Wallace, 8/7)

Both men are New York natives who live in Burlington, Vt.; they avoid talk of themselves or their biographies, and display irritation with many of the conventions of the way campaigns are conducted and covered. Both call for universal health care, though the appeal has less resonance now than it did before the Affordable Care Act was passed. Both have seemed to strike a chord that suggests impatience with the more establishment Democrats in the contest, whether Hillary Rodham Clinton today or John Kerry and John Edwards, senators from Massachusetts and North Carolina, in 2004. And both have drawn fervent crowds who embrace their philosophy and celebrate their candidate-as-fighter styles. ... Still, what may prove more significant, as Democrats begin to focus on the choice ahead of them and attention shifts from the Republican contest after last week’s debate, are the ways in which the two liberals from Vermont are different. (Nagourney, 10/9)