First off, I’m going to leave it to Pete and Carl to help you become expert on recent congressional behavior. I’m pretty pessimistic about how interbranch relations will go over the next couple of years, and I’m thinking the president will fare better in fending Congress off than Republicans expect. That means, of course, that reform we can believe in depends on the Republicans capturing the presidency in 2016. Although I know a number of liberals who very much prefer Elizabeth Warren to Hillary Clinton, Pete is right that her obvious demographic is pretty limited. So although Clinton is vulnerable, the extraordinary Obama-level candidate who can exploit that fact isn’t on the horizon.

Meanwhile, I agree with those experts who say that, at the end of the day, the three most likely Republican nominees are Jeb Bush, Chris Christie, and Rand Paul. Fourth might be Romney. And then the drop-off is pretty severe in terms of probability. The Republican process is not kind to outsiders, and the learning curve on the campaign trail is usually too steep for those short on experience and organization. (Santorum in 2012, Huckabee in 2008.) For those who say Christie and Bush aren’t attractive to much of the Republican base, I refer you to Romney’s capacity for staying the course in 2012.

I hasten to add I’m not thinking that any of those guys right now has the right stuff to win in November. It would be better if the Republicans had a fairly young, eloquent guy who inspires principled enthusiasm and who would win because of his personal superiority to the Democratic nominee.

For now, you’d be foolish not to think that Paul, although not yet a likely nominee, is actually probably more likely than any other particular Republican. That might be because he comes the closest — not that he’s all that close — to having those desirable characteristics listed above (if, for me, you abstract from the truth or desirability of what he actually believes). On foreign policy, he will benefit because his ”realist” view differs from that of the others. Once it’s clear he’s quite competitive, he will attract infinite amounts of money from the key big donors who are basically libertarians. And his argument that he can build a new kind of Republican coalition will sound plausible to many, especially said big donors. Can he draw lots of those youthful libertarian securitarian slackers back into the GOP fold?

Paul is, as I’ve said before, the one Republican candidate that I probably couldn’t vote for. Once again, the Republicans have lots of candidates but are very short on those who could likely go the distance through the nomination process. Several distinguished experts have mentioned both Scott Walker and Rick Perry to me. I remain to be convinced in both cases. Portman is boring (and in any case has taken himself out of the running). Cruz turns every battle into the Alamo, which did not go well. Rubio’s not ready. And so forth and so on.

The Republicans (if it’s possible to speak of any such organized group) did little to nothing to groom a candidate for 2012, and so they got nothing enduring from their 2010 victory. The “establishment” seemed okay with Romney mainly because he was a very low-maintenance — a very convenient — candidate, although he was obviously the wrong guy to exploit the anti-Obamacare surge. I could go on and explain why Bush seems so similar today.

To conclude with the most obvious point of all: Everyone really knows how disappointed so many Americans will be to be stuck with choosing once again between a Bush and a Clinton. Jeb might be the best President Bush of them all, you say! I agree that he might be a pretty good president. Mitt might have been too.