Perhaps by next winter, Bush will have become that intimidating figure, but over the past month, things have happened that seemed far less likely when he released a short video announcing that he was seriously considering running.

Many Republicans assumed that Sen. Marco Rubio would not run for the nomination if Bush, one of his mentors in Florida politics, were in the race. They misunderstood Rubio. Two weeks ago he formally announced his candidacy and seemed to take a swipe at Bush by presenting himself as a new generation candidate running against “yesterday.”

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie is another example. No one was affected more by Bush’s decision to start building the financial foundations for a future campaign. The embattled Christie was counting on his ability to revive his prospects by proving he could raise substantial amounts of money from the GOP establishment. Suddenly, many of those donors began flocking to Bush…

“There is less of an impact than we thought a month or six weeks ago,” said a Christie adviser who declined to be identified in order to speak candidly.