RACHEL MADDOW: At least we know what is not working for Jeb Bush this year. It's his plan to saturate the airwaves in early states like New Hampshire with TV ads promoting the idea of him as president. Governor Bush and super PACs supporting him have spent nearly $5 million on TV and radio ads since early September in New Hampshire. Politico.com reports today that in the last three weeks pro-Jeb Bush spots have occupied about 60 percent of the political ad air time in New Hampshire. The net result of all those pro-Jeb Bush ads, though, is that Mr. Bush's numbers have actually gone down in that state, not up.
One of the truisms of electoral politics in general, and presidential politicking in particular, is that spending money, particularly in the early states, is not just something you ought to do, it's something you have to do. That's the way you get your poll numbers up. For some reason that truism is not working this year for Jeb Bush. And then there's this larger issue. Jeb Bush's viability. His perceived stature as a top-tier candidate. That's premised in large part on this idea that money is what makes him viable even if nothing else does. If he does have a lot of money, super PAC or campaign or otherwise, if that's what's supposed to make him viable, but then it turns out him spending that money doesn't actually boost his poll numbers, doesn't help him get more support from real people, then should Jeb Bush be seen as a top-tier candidate? What happens to his candidacy?
[...]
Despite that, though, despite that bad home state news even though he's languishing at like 1 percent in the national polls right now, doesn't look like Chris Christie's going to drop out. And again, his fundraising numbers today are, sort of, fine. Better than Rand Paul at least. The Rand Paul campaign put out a statement also saying that Rand Paul should not be expected to drop out anytime soon. There's also no sign that Bobby Jindal or Jim Gilmore is going to drop out anytime soon. George Pataki is definitely not dropping out any time soon. He was on All In with Chris Hayes tonight. He wouldn't do that if he were dropping out. Nobody's dropping out. We're going to have a kids' table at every debate all the way into Iowa and beyond apparently. What makes a candidate viable or not anymore? Anything that happened in previous elections to guide our thoughts about what money meant for campaigns, apparently it's no guide this year. Either for who's going to win or for who's going to quit. It's weird.
