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After disappointing finishes in presidential nominating contests in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina, Jeb Bush suspended his campaign for president Saturday night. It was the end of a run that had seemed doomed for months: countless gaffes, merciless attacks from the likes of Donald Trump, seemingly limitless spending from a superPAC he couldn't control with horrible returns from those investments and perhaps above all, a candidate who seemed uncomfortable on the trail at best, and at worst, frustrated and unhappy. Already, the post-mortems are almost writing themselves.

With apologies to Winston Churchill, the tale of the Jeb Bush campaign might be summarized as "Never before have so few spent so much to achieve so little." -snip- Although the vast majority of this money - more than $100 million - went to purchase air time on local television stations, the advertising barrage probably generated several million dollars in consulting fees and commissions Why did Bush spend so much on ads, especially given how little it seemed to help his ill-fated campaign? One reason may be because the super PAC Right to Rise was run by Mike Murphy, a...

One Bush bundler told CNN's Dana Bash that when it came to Murphy, "strong knives are out." "He made minimum of $14 million," the bundler said, requesting anonymity to speak freely about campaign strategy. The details of Murphy's compensation package at Right to Rise are not publicly known.

Jeb Bush launched his presidential campaign's exploratory committee on December 16, 2014, the presumptive Republican nominee. He ended his campaign on February 20, 2016, a broken man. Bush's campaign (and the pro-Jeb super PAC Right to Rise) spent over $100 million on his campaign. He won no states. And for the last several months, he's been in the news mostly for all the wrong reasons: desperate donors, misspent money, jokes-that-aren't-really jokes. He's been a loser for almost as long as he was a presumptive winner. The slow, torturous twilight of Jeb's campaign offers a couple of lessons. For one thing,...

I'm feeling bad for Jeb Bush. I've never been a supporter of a third Bush presidency-having endured the highs and lows of the second up close-but I can't help but think about this coming Easter or Thanksgiving, or the next event when the whole Bush family is gathered around in one place. The Bushes may come across as kindly, low-key aristocrats. But have no doubt: They are ruthless competitors. When I worked for President George W. Bush, he was racing Karl Rove to see who could read the most books in a calendar year. His father used to challenge people...

Jeb Bush always remained optimistic. From the beginning of his candidacy last June, he pledged to run with "joy" and adopted a tortoise-and-the-hare strategy, earnestly believing that he would prevail in the end despite a crowded field of candidates. Even as his chances became grim over the past eight months, he started handing out tiny toy turtles from his pockets to children, telling them that "slow and steady wins the race." But in 2016, "slow and steady" was the opposite of what the country wanted. There's plenty of blame to go around for Bush's fall, but the central theme is...

For Jeb Bush's loyalists, the first moment of palpable panic - and there would be more than they ever expected in the months to come - built over four days last May when their not-yet-presidential candidate struggled repeatedly to utter a one-word answer - No - to an utterly predictable question: Should the U.S. have invaded Iraq? -snip- From the start, the campaign hired extensively and paid handsomely. That money, though, couldn't come from Right to Rise, which had pulled off a record $103 million haul in six months. The campaign needed to raise the cash itself. It couldn't keep...

For Jeb Bush's campaign, August was a cruel month. Donald Trump's attacks on the former Florida governor as a "low-energy" politician were beginning to stick, and the two were bickering over immigration. The issue before the Bush team was what to do about it. -snip- Mike Murphy, the chief strategist for Bush's super PAC, Right to Rise, explained what had happened this way on Sunday. "Our theory was to dominate the establishment lane into the actual voting primaries," he said. "That was the strategy, and it did not work. I think it was the right strategy for Jeb. The problem...

In the unsparing judgment of the Twittersphere, there was one clear loser after Jeb's Bush's graceful exit from the Republican presidential race Saturday night: political strategist Mike Murphy and the Bush-allied super PAC Right to Rise USA, which he directed. Murphy has long been one of Bush's closest advisers -- and the political world was in awe last year when Right to Rise raised $100 million just as Bush was launching his candidacy. Now, the super PAC will go down in history as yet another failed Murphy juggernaut. -snip- "He made minimum of $14 million," the bundler said, requesting anonymity...

It's a Sad Day in Bushville: Jeb's Family and Friends Rally Around Him After He Pulls Out of GOP Race. Shortly after Jeb Bush announced his departure from the presidential race Saturday evening, brother George W. Bush issued a statement congratulating his younger sibling on his efforts – and for remaining above the fray in an unprecedented election cycle. "Tonight I talked to my brother and congratulated him on his campaign for the Presidency," the 43rd president said in a statement obtained by PEOPLE. "I told Jeb how proud I am of him and his staff for running a campaign...

On a sweltering day in Miami last June, surrounded by a diverse group of supporters, Jeb Bush announced his candidacy for president of the United States. "My message will be an optimistic one," Bush promised. "I will campaign as I would serve: Going everywhere, speaking to everyone, keeping my word, facing the issues without flinching and staying true to what I believe." In a remarkable turn of events, eight months later, Bush -- the son and brother of presidents -- suspended his campaign, flanked by his tearful wife and youngest son. But in a race for the Republican nomination marked...

What were they thinking? In hindsight that may be the biggest question: How did Jeb Bush and his once-savvy political team so badly misunderstand today's Republican electorate? The bold - and, yes, high-energy - governor who transformed Florida government and politics in the 1990s was thoroughly unprepared for today's far more conservative, far more angry Republican Party than when he governed. It was absurd for thoughtful and thin-skinned Bush ever to think he could run a "joyful" campaign for president in this political environment. He ran honorably, but as he gave in to reality Saturday night and suspended his campaign,...

Jeb Bush has finally put his presidential campaign out of its misery. But it wasn't so long ago that Jeb was widely seen as the candidate to beat in the Republican presidential primary. Pundits predicted that Bush was almost as inevitable a nominee as Hillary Clinton was. Commentators cast Bush as the Republican Party's best chance at leaving Clinton shaking in her boots. Between his "rock star name" and the gusher of money he had flowing into his campaign before even announcing, Bush was thought to have the nomination nearly at his fingertips. Then reality intervened. The former Florida governor...

As former Florida governor Jeb Bush suspended his presidential bid Saturday night, new details were trickling in about the massive investments the Right to Rise super PAC made to prop up his candidacy. As of Saturday, the group had raced through at least $95.7 million out of the $118.6 million it had collected by the end of January, according to Federal Election Commission filings. Almost $87 million went into a barrage of television ads, online videos, slick mailers and voter phone calls. The group flew an airplane with a banner mocking Donald Trump over a rally of his supporters, produced...

It ended without an exclamation point. On a mild Saturday night in South Carolina, Jeb Bush took to the stage at his victory party (using those two words in the least literal sense) and told supporters that he was out. It wasn't supposed to be this way. When Jeb jumped in, Tea Partiers panicked and grassroots conservatives lit their hair on fire. He carried an air of inevitability after all-at its onset, his campaign practically drowned in shock-and-awe money and big name endorsements. But from its inception, there were cracks. When he spoke at CPAC a few months before his...

His campaign started out stuffed with money. By last July, Jeb Bush had raised $103 million for his super PAC, Right to Rise, an astonishing sum that seemed to foretell the most lavishly funded campaign in American history. No super PAC had ever raised so much cash so early in an election cycle. In fact, Right to Rise alone outraised all the super PACs combined at the same stage in the 2012 elections. Now, after primary elections in just three states, Bush is out. He finished sixth in the Iowa caucus, fourth in the New Hampshire primary, and now, fourth...

Jeb Bush’s campaign has fallen short of expectations. At one time the Republican front-runner with substantial money behind his campaign's super PAC, the former Florida Governor was the man to beat. Then, billionaire Donald Trump emerged as a more serious contender than his veteran team had anticipated. Bush never quit figured out how to deal with him, and finished well behind him Saturday in South Carolina.

Jeb Bush, the Republican establishment's last, best hope, began his 2016 campaign rationally enough, with a painstakingly collated operational blueprint his team called, with NFL swagger, "The Playbook." On page after page kept safe in a binder, the playbook laid out a strategy for a race his advisors were certain would be played on Bush's terms - an updated, if familiar version of previous Bush family campaigns where cash, organization and a Republican electorate ultimately committed to an electable center-right candidate would prevail. The playbook, hatched by Sally Bradshaw, Mike Murphy and a handful of other Bush confidants in dozens...

A top Jeb Bush adviser on Friday morning repeatedly dodged the question of whether the former Florida governor will stay in the presidential race if he disappoints in South Carolina, instead saying the campaign is laser focused on Saturday's primary. At the outset of the interview on "New Day," host Chris Cuomo asked Michael Steel, Bush's adviser for policy and communications, whether his candidate is finished if he does not finish in second or third place in Saturday's South Carolina primary. The on-screen chyron: "IS SOUTH CAROLINA THE END OF THE ROAD FOR JEB BUSH?" "Look, we're excited about South...

A senior advisor to Jeb Bush seemed non-committal Friday when asked definitively if the former Florida governor's presidential campaign will move forward after Saturday's South Carolina primary. "I can say we're looking forward to a good result here in South Carolina and we'll move on from there," Michael Steele eventually said on CNN after first dodging the question. Bush is publicly scheduled to attend two events in Nevada ahead of that state's caucus: a town hall Sunday evening in Las Vegas and another Monday evening in Reno and the campaign insists they will move on regardless of the outcome Saturday....