The problem is the GOP

„Here’s what you need to know about the Republican candidate field: this is it. No one starts running for president in August, less than six months before the voters start getting involved in Iowa and New Hampshire, and has any chance at all. At least, it’s never happened since the modern process has been fully in place (say, by 1980). And there’s no reason to expect it now.

A number of Republican pundit types and party actors have been holding out hope that there’s still time for a »savior« candidate to emerge. But the notion that this is still possible rests on a misunderstanding of the process. Candidates begin running for president long before they make a formal announcement. For example, Rick Perry didn’t start running for president on Saturday. He may not have totally committed to it months ago, but everything about his book and the issues he stressed during the recent session of the Texas legislature (abortion, immigration) suggested that he was actively getting ready to run. In a completely different way, the same thing is true of Sarah Palin. The Sage of Wasilla may or may not finally decide to run in 2012, but she’s been at least half-heartedly running for 2012 all along.

But that’s it. There’s no one else out there on the horizon who has been doing the sorts of things one has to do to run for the Republican nomination for president. Anyone else — Chris Christie, Paul Ryan, whoever — would be starting from scratch, very late in the game.”