Jeb's polling bump from his announcement is going to upset quite a few narratives here. This notion that Jeb is descending into joke candidate territory ignores the apples and oranges comparison. People like Carson and Rubio are only competitive as long as Walker and Bush go unannounced. When each of these top tier candidates announce, they'll vault ahead of the pack like we saw after Walker's speech in Iowa. Jeb and Walker, then everyone else relatively way behind. Scott Walker will then proceed to pry the "top tier" label off his campaign and in some way disqualify himself.
Hello, Bush 45.
Aside from the part where he becomes President (which is still up in the air), I basically agree with this. Yes, Jeb has done all the things the rest of the clowns are doing (supporting socons of the most vile stripe, denying global warming, etc) and had a couple stumbles of his own. He's still got money to burn, and an experienced machine backing him. Bush is in nearly as good a position as Hillary.
Jeb can still do himself in, via Perry-level performance or an unrecoverable gaffe or scandal. Walker had the potential to compete, but I don't think he's ready to be a national candidate. (Which doesn't mean he won't try.) The only other opposition he might face is if one of the other clowns really catches fire and then successfully bootstraps themselves into a real competitor. That will not be easy. Even Rubio is a long way from being in a position to challenge even a mediocre Jeb campaign.
