Jeb Bush's Site Had Hidden 'Die Hard' References

For a few glorious hours, the source code of Jeb Bush's campaign site had a buried synopsis of Die Hard. Why, you may ask yourself, would one of the latest presidential candidates want to do that? Truth be told, it was probably a bunch of developers having fun — because we all deserve a little bit of fun in our lives, right? But here are a few other reasons Bush could be appealing to franchise loyalists.

A plot summary of both the first and second movies, which the coders generously called "Not That Bad Of A Sequel," were lurking in the language when the site launched. The New York Times noticed this buried jewel on Monday before it was taken out of the code completely (boo). The Times also noted that both Hillary Clinton and Rand Paul's sites have buried goodies. Clinton has ASCII art that imitates her logo, and Paul has a hidden pitch to join his tech crew.

These so-called Easter eggs are pretty common. Bush's tribute to Bruce Willis' badassery didn't actually affect the functionality of the website, but other sites have hidden interactive elements programmed into the code. My personal favorite is Vogue's UK site, where velociraptors wearing very stately hats will pop up if you enter the Konami code (up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, B, A. If you want to make more pop up, keep hitting A).

So this might have just been something to make developers giggle. But I also think there are some tacit messages about Jeb Bush, Die Hard, and what that means for his election somewhere even deeper than the code — in the campaign team's subconscious.

Here are some ways Bush could be channeling the movie for his campaign:

• Because, like the Die Hard franchise, it seems that another Bush will pop back onto America's stage every 10 years or so
• Bruce Willis, the star of all five of the films, has supported several Republican candidates, and this was an easier pitch than having to schedule a dinner with the actor
• He wants everyone to be "die hard" Republicans
• It was his own way of saying: "Welcome to the [Republican] party, pal."

Images: Screenshot/Vogue UK