Well so far...

Ted Cruz, Rand Paul and Marco Rubio have all piled into the race for the GOP Presidential Nomination, herein I provide an incomplete scorecard: Ted Cruz: In case you haven't heard, Ted is the intellectually gifted wingnut who graduated Harvard Law, something I sure everyone will be tired of hearing about within two months. Ted is otherwise the US Senator from Texas, glib, sarcastic & every bit as intellectually weird as Rick Perry...but he has the incalculable advantage of Not Being Stupid. He is however a product of the tea partei echo chamber and it remains to be seen how well he will do in terms of coalition building my guess is not very well at all. A good question of his political heft will be determined by whether or not he can force Rick Perry to pass on this race. My guess is no (You can't fix stupid after all) but it'll be a useful tip off all the same. Rand Paul: The United States Senator from Kentucky is a glamorous Libertarian Superstar who has a long history of fecklessly doublecrossing said principles whenever they came into the slightest conflict with The Religious Right. But then how else could he have been elected as a Republican from Kentucky. He can do this because the Ayn Rand Book Worshippers are simply too small a cohort compared to the larger more formidable constituency that is Xian Book Worshippers. Which does make Rand Paul possibly the most intellectually corrupt of the announced GOP contenders so far but there is plenty of capacity to set a new low given additional notional aspirants. Marco Rubio: The United States Senator from Florida is wildly popular in some vital electoral real estate, he is very very youthful looking whose record is notable chiefly for a notorious abject cave in on immigration reform a few years ago. Other than that, he has little on offer he is very young looking and if nominated would look all the world like a kid who had a crush on his teacher when debating say Hilary Clinton. He is however the Veep of Choice for say Scott Walker and it should be remembered that Former Florida Governor Jeb Bush with all his money and power and cronies couldn't keep Rubio out of this presidential cycle...which tells yuh something right there.