And They're Off

Monday night update:


Blog readers know I'm not a fan of Sarah Palin and I don't see a lot to admire in Ted Cruz either. He did indeed officially enter the presidential race and predictably, social media went wild. Twitter had a lot of fun with #TedCruzCampaignSlogans, and apparently his far-right ideology reminds some people of Palin. Neither one of them has a realistic chance of becoming president.

Like Sarah Palin's annoying younger brother #TedCruzCampaignSlogans pic.twitter.com/eaRnSs4ZMZ
— Blue DuPage (@BlueDuPage) March 23, 2015

Original post:
It looks like Senator Ted Cruz, who represents Texas, will be the first Republican to officially declare himself a candidate for president, during an appearance tomorrow at Liberty University. As explained by Jonathan Bernstein in a post on January 23, Cruz isn't a top tier candidate and almost certainly won't win the Republican nomination:

...[T]hree senators who appear to be viable nominees, but almost certainly aren't: Rand Paul, Ted Cruz and Lindsey Graham. Paul falls short because he’s not in the party mainstream on policy. Cruz isn’t a viable nominee because large groups of party actors dislike and don’t trust him. And Graham reminds me of previous campaigns by Richard Lugar, Orrin Hatch and Fritz Hollings: Some senators seem to enter the presidential game but aren’t really playing at that level. (Read the entire post here.)

I'm moving Senator Cruz to a new "Declared Candidates" category on my master list. I'm also deleting two governors, Sam Brownback (Kansas) and Rick Snyder (Michigan.) In 2014 I had seen their names mentioned, in a very tentative way, as potential candidates, but after more than a year of observing the "invisible primary" it's clear neither man is doing the behind-the-scenes prep work required of anyone who is really running for president. Who's not on my list, and never will be? Donald Trump and Sarah Palin. 

Declared Candidates
Ted Cruz (March 23) 

Possible Republican Candidates
Jeb Bush
Dr. Ben Carson
Chris Christie
Mike Huckabee
Bobby Jindall
John Kasich
Rand Paul
Mike Pence
Rick Perry
Marco Rubio
Rick Santorum
Scott Walker

Late Adds on December 22
Carly Fiorina
Lindsey Graham
George Pataki

Officially Not Running
Rob Portman (Dec 2)
Paul Ryan (Jan 12)
Mitt Romney (Jan 30)

Days until election day: 596