Recommended Reading

We have more than fifty weeks before the Republicans convene in Cleveland to formally nominate their nominee for president. Let me give you that number again in boldface and all caps: MORE THAN FIFTY WEEKS!!!

Much can change in that time so I'm not taking Paul Waldman's scenario as a prediction so much as an outline of how Jeb Bush becomes the nominee if he becomes the nominee. If you pointed a crossbow at me today and forced me to say who I think it'll be, I'd probably say Bush. (It's intriguing to imagine the whole election as a replay of 1992 with that year's Republican nominee's son versus that year's Democratic nominee's wife…and Donald Trump in his greatest role ever as Ross Perot…)

But like I just boldfaced, it's MORE THAN FIFTY WEEKS!!! We don't know what the economy will be like then. We don't know what the situation with Iran or any foreign troublespot will be like then. We don't know what scandals will erupt or where there might be terrorist attacks or how the Supreme Court may change our lives. By that date, the consensus about the Obama Administration will have gone up or down, John McCain will have found nine more countries he thinks we should invade and there'll be at least three major issues that are presently not even being discussed, perhaps because they don't yet exist.