Mike Murphy done with ‘professional campaign management’

Mike Murphy, the GOP operative who ran a super-PAC supporting Jeb Bush’s ill-fated presidential bid, said he is finished giving professional campaign advice.

{mosads}In a Bloomberg Masters in Politics podcast with Tammy Haddad and Betsy Fischer Martin, Murphy said he’s “back in the private sector where [he] belongs.”

“I came out to help Jeb,” he said.

When prodded by Haddad and Martin about using his polling groundwork and other expertise as a means to defeat GOP front-runner Donald Trump — of whom Murphy has been breathlessly critical — he said he would rather volunteer his time toward that end.

“I’ve been in contact with my friends in the anti-Trump operation, they called me up and asked me to chip in some ideas, I’ve done that. I’m happy to be a volunteer in that effort because I think stopping Trump is so important for, frankly, the country, not just our party,” he said. “But I was happily in the advocacy business, not the campaign business anymore.”

Murphy also mentioned working on “technology stuff” and pursuits in his “creative life.”

He had spent roughly $119 million in less than 18 months through the pro-Bush super-PAC Right to Rise. Many wealthy donors and Bush supporters have been critical about how that money was spent, given the ultimate demise of the former Florida governor’s campaign.

“There are a lot of people in the cheap seats with a lot of opinions,” he told the Los Angeles Times earlier this month. “What have they done?”

Murphy, who has worked for candidates like former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Jeb Bush’s father, former President George H.W. Bush, also dabbles in Hollywood screenwriting.

“My professional campaign management days are done, but I am going to go bang a drum in the street because I believe in volunteerism,” he said. “And I’ll do whatever I can to help on the anti-Trump stuff.”