Many presidential candidates have seen their fundraising dry up after initial bursts of generosity from gullible donors, but I can't recall seeing a drop as precipitous as Team Jeb has seen.
According to the Washington Post, donations to Team Jeb all but disappeared after the first six months of the year.
The group, Right to Rise, has already gone through nearly half of the $103 million it brought in during the first half of the year, records show. It raised only about $13 million in the five months that followed, according to a person familiar with the figure.
Jeb's fundraising has dried up and his campaign has very little to show for the $50 million withdrawn from their war chest and flushed down the drain.
Actually, that's not altogether accurate. They do have something to show up for it: Jeb's new status as a polling asterisk.
While the PAC supporting Jeb has blown approximately $50 million in their attempt to lift him out of obscurity, the Right to Rise PAC still has $67 million in the bank which, to the best of my knowledge, is more than the rest of the Republican presidential field combined.
During previous elections cycles the size of their bank account would have been a pretty big deal as it would allow them to monopolize public attention, but that doesn't seem to be the case in 2015. Donald Trump has spent very little money on political advertising because our political media gives him wall-to-wall coverage every single day free of charge and no amount of spending by other candidates can make up for that. I suspect Trump would have withdrawn from the race if it he was actually forced to spend significant amounts of his own money to draw attention. He doesn't have to and he knows that. He banks on the free advertising of coverage.
If spending $50 million on Jeb's campaign could not slow his descent, is there any reason to believe spending another $60 to $100 million, or whatever the amount is, will deliver the nomination?