I think the “he is the smarter one” really means he isn’t as mallable as his brother, but either way its a very low bar of comparison. He seems to possess the same innate ability for mangling the English language.
There may be something to do with that. I suspect he probably made some promises back in 2012 when everyone was begging him to enter the race…but it was still too soon after W. (I think it will always be too soon after W, but that’s another discussion).
What does seem to be happening, however, is this is shaping up into exactly the sort of thing that he was dreading. An extremely crowded race (like historically unprecedented crowded!) with a lot of people who will have the same financial staying power that he will. JEB wanted to be the consensus candidate with just a few crazies beneath him that he could ignore while trying to appear above all the petty bickering. That notion is out the window, but he seems quite slow in accepting the reality of what the race is really going to be.