Remember the good old days? Of course you do! They never go away.
  • spirit of america / Shutterstock
  • Remember the good old days? Of course you do! They never go away.

The astounding thing about presidential speculation at this point is that it's packed with old names, like some shitty sitcom reunion special. Once-dynamic* candidates for the future of the Republican Party like Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz have gone flat. The youngest, freshest name on the Republican side is Rand Paul, a legacy candidate carried into the media spotlight on the shoulders of his father's small-but-loyal fan base. (On the Democratic side, Elizabeth Warren is a thrilling possibility, but even her most ardent supporters admit they'd be happy if a Warren candidacy just pushes the eventual Democratic candidate—by which they always mean Hillary Clinton—to the left. Same with Bernie Sanders.) Republicans just can't let go of the idea of Mitt Romney running again. Team Romney has even started making suggestions in the media that they'd be open to the idea under the right conditions, which presumably means they're seriously considering it. But Romney probably won't run if Jeb Bush were to run for president, because conventional wisdom has it that this is Bush's race to lose, and Romney is a sucker for conventional wisdom.

But is this really Bush's race to lose? Jonathan Martin at the New York Times notes that his public appearances during the midterm elections have been not-quite-disastrous, at best. Bush's very conservative plans to save education and fix immigration are nowhere near conservative enough for the modern mainstream Republican party. There will be significantly fewer Republican debates this time around, but it's still hard to imagine Bush standing on a stage with Rick Santorum, talking about how immigrants are human beings who deserve respect. Santorum would rip him to pieces and whip the elderly white crowds into a lather about how the "illegals" are probably secret Muslims who want to do a 9/11 on small-town America. Bush fancies himself an intellectual, and his wet beady eyes, boardroom slouch, soft pink hands, and condescending mannerisms don't indicate that he has the capacity or the desire to get down to Santorum-level politics.

Today, Ben White at Politico published a report portraying Bush as a schlubby Hamlet, unsure whether he even wants to run for president. Stories don't run in Politico unless there's an agenda behind them. This is a walk-the-plank moment for Bush, published in the house organ of mainstream politics. High-up Republicans are presumably saying to Bush that they've got Mitt flying in a holding pattern, and he's getting impatient. Which past is the Republican Party going to embrace? Depends on who's willing to debase themselves with more enthusiasm. It's doubtful if Bush has the taste for that particular brand of shit, whereas we know Romney loves to eat it by the bucketful, with a huge, vacant smile on his face the whole time.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the aisle, Bill Clinton is road-testing a potential first hundred days of President Hillary Clinton's first term in office. Maeve Reston at the Los Angeles Times says the former president, under the guise of a wink-heavy theoretical answer to a theoretical question by Charlie Rose, believes the next president "should focus on helping people climb out of poverty into the middle class," in addition to "building energy infrastructure" and fixing student loans. These are things that every Democratic presidential candidate promises; I remember when Obama promised it back in 2008. Obama made small steps forward, especially on the energy infrastructure front, but this is not a new message. In fact, it's just slightly repackaged boilerplate. The question I have is this: Are people going to be willing to hear the same old promises when they're coming from the same old mouths that have been promising them to us for the last quarter-century? What happens when we get tired of watching repeats?

* Please note that I would not personally describe Marco Rubio or Ted Cruz as "dynamic," but I do think their impact on the Republican Party at the peak of their respective popularities could certainly have been described as dynamic at the time.