He’s the 11th candidate to throw his hat in the ring,. but he’s the GOP frontrunner.  Last week, Bush unveiled a raft of endorsements from Florida pols, including 11 of the 17 Republicans in the state’s U.S. House delegation. Normally, home-state endorsements are pro forma, but with a fellow Floridian (Sen. Marco Rubio) in the race, these endorsements are a bit more meaningful.

Bush now has more endorsements, 13, from current House members, governors and senators than anyone else in the 2016 Republican field. He’s also the only candidate besides Sen. Rand Paul to pick up at least two endorsements from members of Congress who are not from his home state.

And money?  Oh, yeah.  Don’t be put off by news stories saying he won’t hit $100 million by the end of June. He’ll still outpace his GOP opponents.

But he’s only polling at 23%.  Which is terrible.  On the other hand, the only reason (arguably) that it is so low is because there’s so many others in the GOP field.  Having one fourth of that pie might not be that bad.

The question is what starts happening when that pack starts to thin out.  As the third tier drops out, will those voters break for Bush, or perhaps a second-tier candidate?  If Bush ends up being the GOP nominee, but the third or even fourth choice of a significant amount of Republicans, that works to Hillary’s benefit in the general, big time.

As of this writing, Bush has not given his announcement speech, but we now have seen the logo.  It’s this:

Ugh.  Am I being sold Wonder bread?

Omitting his last name is a rather obvious ploy for obvious reasons. I suspect there are a not-insignificant number of Americans who think that Jeb Bush is actually his brother George operating under a false flag in defiance of the Twenty-Second Amendment.  Jeb didn’t help himself when he failed in distancing himself from his brother’s Iraq War, even with benefit of hindsight.  Anyway, we now know that Jeb is his own man, because he uses his first name — a rather dumb first name now that I’m compelled to think about it.

And the exclamation point.  Because he’s….. exciting.  I guess.

If you get the idea that there wasn’t much thought behind the logo, you would be right.  Robert Costa of the Washington Post reminds us:

When Jeb Bush first ran for governor of Florida in 1994, his father had recently been booted out of the White House, and the ­40-something son very much wanted to be seen as his own man. So, when it came time to design his bumper stickers, he went with a red background and “Jeb!” in chunky, white letters.

There was no mention of his famous surname or his party, and the jolting exclamation point was the opposite of his family’s Kennebunkport reserve. Bush ended up losing that race but keeping the brand, reusing the logo in his 1998 political comeback and in his 2002 gubernatorial reelection campaign.

Now “Jeb!” is back…

Yup.  The Bush is back.