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| Donald Trump with Gov. Mitt Romney...the closest Donald will ever get to the Republican nomination. |
However, perhaps I have all of this exhaustion because the most exhausting human being in America is about to claim he'll run for president. Yes, ladies and gentlemen Donald Trump, the human equivalent of Lay's WOW Chips, is running for the White House, and I personally think that the only people who gain by this are Republicans with a backbone (the first person who calls him out in a debate gets fifty points for Gryffindor) and Jon Stewart, who might well postpone his retirement upon this announcement. Still, it does beg the question of who is actually leading in the GOP race to be POTUS, so I figured we'd do a State of the GOP Primary this morning (Number One is currently in the best shape):
10. No One
I honestly can't see anyone really rising above the below nine at the moment. Gov. Chris Christie is just as much of a joke as Trump at this point, Carly Fiorina and Ben Carson have never held major public office before and likely never will in the future, Rick Perry is scarred by the whole "oops" moment in a way no one can recover from, and Rick Santorum's crowds are just embarrassing. It's worth noting that these people are big names, and in Fiorina's case, they're actually over-performing expectations, but I do think that this is a list of people whose best case scenario is fifth place in an early primary state.
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| Gov. Bobby Jindal (R-LA) |
Jindal is set to announce fairly soon, I'm guessing, but the question his campaign has to be asking is-is there room for me at the table? I'm starting to feel like it's a no-there can't be much base left that won't fall into the Walker, Paul, Rubio, and Bush camps, and if there is it's going to go with an establishment alternative (since the current assumption is that the GOP is going to falter on Jeb, though I have my doubts there), and Bobby Jindal has been positioning himself more to the far right than as an establishment pick. He's still a major player on paper and a two-term governor, but like many Republicans, he may have been better off trying to take on Mitt in 2012.
8. Gov. Mike Huckabee (R-AR)
No one has seen their stock fall harder in the past month than Mike Huckabee. The Arkansas governor badly misjudged public sentiment by backing Josh Duggar, and it's going to cost him dearly as the Duggar Family is pretty much human anathema right now, and there's really been no other noise from the Huckabee camp other than this support, which makes me think that Huck might not remember how to run a proper campaign. There's still time to recuperate in Iowa or South Carolina, but the GOP is desperate to start cutting names from the primary, and he's an easy person to call "too extreme" or "damaged goods."
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| Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) |
I'm genuinely curious to see where Graham takes his campaign. His launch has admittedly been impressive-he has handled the bachelor question with aplomb and has deflected several other questions about how he will distinguish himself in a field with a lot of candidates with relative ease (plus, he's ballsy-supporting Caitlyn Jenner and giving a thinly-veiled insult to Mitt Romney was pretty impressive from a party that has been reluctant to attack their own and courage is usually rewarded by donors). Still, I'm just not buying the fact that America, particularly the Republican Party, will vote for a candidate that is both single and potentially gay. If Graham emerges as a real candidate, I expect that the "potentially" on that label will be put to the test, however (the tabloids are going to be doing some sleuthing). Still, if he continues to campaign this well I'll have to consider moving him up a spot or two.
6. Gov. John Kasich (R-OH)
John Kasich is in the same position that Rick Perry was four years ago at about this time. He's looking at a field where a lot of different scenarios could pan out and no one has really gotten to the finish line yet, which gives him some breathing room to make an entrance. One can also point out that Perry ended up badly fumbling the race as a result of over-assuming, but I doubt that Kasich will do that-he's a longtime veteran of both Washington and Columbus (and is a genuinely popular governor of a swing state), though I still haven't seen anything that really makes me think that he isn't just running for Vice President.
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| Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) |
There is a weird sort of vacuum right now with Mike Huckabee losing supporters, and the big question is-will his supporters, if they abandon him, go to Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, or Scott Walker? My money is on Scott Walker, who has started to make a sort of indent in Iowa which could come in handy as the first four primary states are starting to look more and more likely to winnow the field pretty dramatically. Ted Cruz now has Lindsey Graham to wrestle with in South Carolina and an emerging Walker in Iowa, the two states he seems to have a legit shot of competing in-he's going to have to take down one, but I have difficultly believing that Cruz, who has been a major public player in the GOP for years now (in the press, not in actual governing) won't have some moment in the sun and won't be able to take some key points out of the debates. Still, fifth place is not where Cruz was hoping to be at this point and he knows it.
4. Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY)
Rand Paul stays in the Top 4 mostly because Graham, Kasich, and Cruz all haven't had their moment yet, but I'm starting to have trouble seeing how Rand Paul becomes the president. This isn't a national primary, where he might emerge with a plurality of the votes (though I strongly advocate for a national primary as our current system is a joke), and I don't see him gaining enough traction in any early primary state to actually win or even place second. At this point he is going to run a respectable race that maybe outdoes his dad by 1-2 points, but he has yet to show a way that he can advance past his dad's numbers, which is a HUGE problem if he wants to actually make it to the White House and not just raise cain.
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| Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) |
I'm aware that I'm defying public sentiment here, and I maintain that Rubio is the candidate that Democrats are most scared of (and if the New York Times is actually part of the "liberal media" that piece about him being in debt is hardly what one could consider a particularly damning report, as it made most people like him more-who doesn't struggle with credit cards?). Still, Rubio hasn't emerged as a leader in any of the early primary states quite yet, and his worst nightmare was probably the entrance of Lindsey Graham into the race, blocking what could have been a standout performance in South Carolina. Don't get me wrong here-Rubio is in a tight threeway race for the nomination, but his current position isn't quite as polished as that of Bush or Walker, and he's probably the candidate that will be targeted in the debates, since he's the worst debater of the top three.
2. Gov. Scott Walker (R-WI)
Scott Walker, and not Marco Rubio, appears to be the candidate of the Tea Party. The movement has flirted with Huckabee and Cruz, but is looking more and more likely to go with the Wisconsin governor. This is a great thing for Walker, as he needs the Tea Party (and Iowa) to blast Marco Rubio, his chief rival in the "not-Jeb" primary, out of the water. Walker's running a pretty solid race, though I think he needs to get into the actual contest fairly soon so as not to look ridiculous in the same way that Jeb had by not declaring outright that he was running for president.
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| Gov. Jeb Bush (R-FL) |
Yes, he's had some rough spots. The Bush name scared absolutely no one out of the race (not longtime ally John Kasich, not Jeb's protegee Marco Rubio). And yes, his polling has seen better days. Still, Jeb Bush is the only person in the race who doesn't need to win any of the early primary states to stay in the race. He has the money and power in the GOP to keep going until Super Tuesday and still remain viable. And he's still running a solid campaign in New Hampshire, and is probably the only candidate that seems like he could genuinely compete in almost every one of the Big 4. Put it this way-if his last name wasn't Bush, we'd be crowing about how impressive those sorts of numbers are. Like Hillary, he had nowhere to go but down as the field got crowded, but he's still where my money is heading into the debates.
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