To me, a shockingly large and diverse group of B List Republicans -- Huckabee, Brownback, Tancredo, and even in their ways Paul and Thompson -- are more impressive than the official "big three." They all seemed to me to come much closer than Giuliani, McCain, or Romney to be coming at things from a principle, coherent point of view. The top contenders are all "Reagan! Terror! Bush! Terror! Reagan! Terreagan!" and weirdly busy running away from their actual records.
I don't know if I'm so "shocked." The practice seems to be for the media, commercial and political elite to anoint their candidates and expect us to fall in line behind one of them. And it's not like the same phenomenon isn't found on the Democratic side.
