Jeb's campaign is desperate right now to take down Marco Rubio, which if you examine the polls would seem like a pointless thing to attempt to do given that Rubio is not exactly at the top of the field.
It all begins to make more sense if you read this. The upshot is that, out of fear of the anti-establishment movement and Ted Cruz's potential for uniting it, the establishment did all they could to rig the primary to allow Jeb Bush to win.
Their goal was to use a wide field and "winner takes all" voting rules to set up Jeb to survive the early rounds and then surge to the top at the end, particularly after he (surely!) won the Florida primary.
It's worth pausing to note how extraordinary and ridiculous it is that both parties would insist on forcing a Clinton and a Bush as the choices for the voters. Sheer hubris.
On the GOP side they have two external problems and one internal problem.
The external problems are Marco Rubio and Donald Trump. The Donald is a problem because he's the perfect foil to the insecure and weak Jeb who happens to be strong on an issue that the party's base cares deeply about whereas Jeb couldn't be weaker thanks to his deep connections with Mexico (both business and personal).
Rubio is a problem because the same process of rigging the nomination for Jeb could work equally well for Rubio if the establishment decided to roll with him instead. Trump is a problem, but if you assume that he won't win enough votes to get the nomination, or that he'll run out of steam, he's less of a problem than Rubio taking Jeb's place as the anointed candidate.
The internal problem is that Jeb is a weak candidate. He may have been an effective governor in Florida and a policy wonk, but he's poor for the role of being the figurehead leader of either the nation or the power broker who's interests he represents. Every time he tries to confront Trump or Rubio it becomes more apparent how weak he is, imagine him trying to stand up to Clinton or Putin...
He also very transparently represents a style of governing and power brokers that no dominant faction in America is remotely interested in seeing put in charge. The Republican base deeply distrusts the establishment and particularly the establishment figures behind the disastrous Bush presidency. The Democrat base might hate them even more.
While the Democrats may be successful in ramming Clinton down the throats of their constituents, I don't think the GOP is going to be able to convince their base to accept Jeb.
When you watch the Bush attempt to say that he was totally oblivious of his campaign's recent attempt to take down Rubio you can tell that this has all gone horribly wrong for the GOP establishment. And then you have to shake your head and chuckle.
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