Jeb is back from the dead — and other thoughts from an almost 300-mile day on the Granite State campaign trail:

Of the three GOP candidates I saw on Monday— John Kasich in Greenland in the morning, Chris Christie in Pelham in the afternoon, and Bush in Alton in the evening — Bush had easily the best crowd, 150 or more, for his town-meeting event.

Further, he’s much improved since I last saw him on the stump. Contra Trump, his was a high-energy performance. Why, being leapfrogged by the disdainful, demagogic Donald appears to have kindled a fire in the dynastic Bush belly. When it came to Trump, John Ellis Bush was as indignant as an Andover preppy passed over by his top-choice Ivy.

He now begins a speech with his presidential plans, not a recitation of his old Florida gubernatorial record. He took lots of questions, listened patiently, and usually explained his own views substantively and without excessive pandering or disingenuousness.

Usually, but not always. Queried by a skeptic about global warming, Bush went into full dismiss-the-consensus mode, noting that the climate has always been changing and asserting that the science on man-made climate change isn’t settled. It was also discordant to hear him, in decrying the gridlock in Washington, echo the dopey GOP refrain that President Obama has been the “divider-in-chief’’ while ignoring the concerted effort by Republicans to thwart him on all fronts.

Still, his pitch was far better than Christie’s godawful glop of illogical gallimaufry. The New Jersey governor’s opening pitch at a veterans-issues town hall in Pelham can be reduced to this: We need to hear more about the pursuit of happiness and less about leveling the playing field.

“I played sports most of my life. I never played on a level playing field,’’ he said. So enough with efforts to redress unfairness, Christie says. We must focus instead on rewarding hard work and great ideas. Why, simply look at Mark Zuckerberg, cofounder of Facebook, who as a young entrepreneur wasn’t thinking of specific growth or revenue targets, but rather of new ways to make Facebook “really cool.’’ Got it?

Christie’s gathering was less than half the size of Bush’s. But never fear: If you can’t draw a big crowd, you can always import one. According to The Philadelphia Inquirer, the Christie campaign bused about 120 Garden Staters up to the Granite State for some of his other recent events, demonstrating that if you can’t take the New Jersey out of the candidate, you can at least bring New Jerseyans along to make him feel at home away from home.

Kasich’s crowd at a “Women for Kasich’’ kickoff was also small, but included several big GOP names: former US senators John Sununu and Gordon Humphrey. (In Alton, Bush had former governor and senator Judd Gregg in tow.)

Humphrey dismissed the notion that, with six weeks left to go, Trump has New Hampshire locked up. “When the seriousness of this election comes into focus, as it will after the holidays, I think people are going to put a premium on experience,’’ he told me. That, he added, should stand Christie, Bush, and particularly Kasich, because of his ground game, in good stead.

Maybe. Bush feels like he’s bouncing back. And Kasich has always struck me as a New Hampshire type, though I’ve yet to see him draw a really big crowd. On Monday, his team was excited about having attracted 90 or so to a Sunday event in Portsmouth.

Still, you can imagine either one waging a strong, competitive race against Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton.

A Clinton-Christie contest?

That’s quite another matter.

Hot knife, meet butter.

Scot Lehigh can be reached at lehigh@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @GlobeScotLehigh.