Politico: JEB! attempting to strangle any potential GOP challenge to his entitlement in its crib with a heavy blanket of fund-raising activity and big money.

Despite his lack of an official announcement, recent developments leave little doubt that former two-term Florida Gov. Jeb Bush is running hard for the White House.

Just three weeks after announcing he is "actively exploring" a campaign for the Republican presidential nomination, Bush's "actively" has morphed into intense activity.

Bush has leaped ahead of the other Republican nomination front-runners, getting an early start on fundraising and setting up a leadership PAC and a super PAC to enable him to steal the lead in the vital march for campaign contributions, Politico reports...

A veteran GOP fundraiser told Politico, "Everybody was saying Jeb didn’t know how to campaign in the modern day, but he is moving on the fundraising side much more aggressively and much more effectively than everyone else in the field put together.

"By going early, he has really made it much harder for a lot of these other guys in the establishment wing of the party."

Read more.