So was Chris Christie's lap band surgery; it’s obvious what that means. Joe Biden tells Rolling Stone he spends four to five hours a day with President Obama -- we all know why. The attempted rehabilitation of George W. Bush was all about the presidential ambitions of his brother Jeb. Sen. Marco Rubio’s immigration reform proposals are covered almost exclusively in terms of what they mean for his 2016 chances, not for U.S. immigration policy. And the White House schemes of freshman Sen. Ted Cruz, instead of being a laughable footnote in stories about his radicalism, are instead headline news everywhere.

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Hillary Clinton has just made her first public appearances since resigning as Secretary of State, and I am enthusiastic about her presumed candidacy; it’s making me dream of Iowa. I long to go there to work on electing the first woman president.

I watched Barack Obama there last November at the final stop of his final campaign, just before midnight on the chilly evening before election day in Des Moines, the crowd of 20,000 strong doing call and response along with our president. “Fired up!” “Ready to go!”

This is not post-racial America, despite what some would try and have us believe. This is still racist that-nigger-messed-up-the-country America and I am crying from true joy to think that 20,000 mostly white folks are out there in Iowa — in Iowa! — for our president. For Barack Obama. For a black man. A black man! (I don’t believe that Iowans are any more likely to be racist than the rest of us, but the heartland of America is not the first place that jumps to mind when I think of racial progress.)

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Paul referenced his contention at a Senate hearing earlier this year that he would have "relieved her of her position" if he was in office and learned that she did not read cables asking the State Department for more security at the U.S. consulate in Libya:

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Watch:

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Revolutions tend to occur in waves, triggered by the aftermath of wars, like the world wars, or by revolutions in leading countries, like the French Revolution and the revolutions of 1848. In the last generation, there have been four regional waves of revolution. With the end of the Cold War, communist regimes were swept from power from Eastern Europe to Central Asia, surviving only in a few countries including China, North Korea and Cuba. Unable to justify themselves with the pretense of fighting communism, military dictatorships were swept away in Latin America. Then the Arab Spring triggered a wave of populist if not necessarily democratic revolutions against autocracies in North Africa and the Middle East.

Are we seeing a new wave of revolutionary politics in the heartland of the industrial West? Although governments are not being violently overthrown in Europe, political systems are being destabilized by the rise of anti-system movements opposed to the major establishment parties. In Greece, the leftist Syriza party and the far-right Golden Dawn have sapped power from the political center. The most recent Italian election was dominated by anti-system candidates, including Silvio Berlusconi and the comedian Beppe Grillo.

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“I’m a Republican. I like Chris Christie. I want him to run. I just want him to lose weight,” Mariano said. “I’m a physician more than I’m a Democrat or Republican. And I’m worried about this man dying in office.” The White House doctor under George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, Mariano revealed that she helped Clinton lose 30 pounds, and suggested Christie could be helped, too.

“If he can overcome this disease, he deserves the White House,” the doctor later told the Newark Star-Ledger. “He’s a tough SOB. And all of us really like him because he’s refreshingly honest. He’s no BS-er. … I want him to lose weight so he can win the office.”

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Paul the Younger hasn’t disguised the plain fact that he’s running for the 2016 Republican nomination for president; he’s already begun making appearances in early primary and caucus states, and this week he started putting in motion the machinery for a presidential campaign.  It’s always possible he won’t be running in 2016 – but for now, he’s certainly running for 2016.

And yet … Rand Paul faces very long odds. Perhaps not quite as long as his father did in his numerous presidential runs, but long enough.

There are basically two questions to ask about whether someone would be a viable candidate for a major party nomination. First, a candidate must have conventional qualifications. Paul certainly clears that hurdle, although not all that impressively. By 2016, he’ll be finishing up a full Senate term. That’s a little more than Barack Obama had (presumably Obama’s state legislative service meant little on this score). It’s more than Mitt Romney, a one-term governor, had. It’s the same number of years as George W. Bush, although Bush had the added qualification of having been reelected. So there’s no real barrier there.

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From the poll:

Ms. Clinton would get 65 percent of Democratic votes compared to 13 percent for Vice President Joe Biden, 4 percent for New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, and 1 percent or less for Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick, Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley and Virginia Sen. Mark Warner, the independent Quinnipiac (KWIN-uh-pe-ack) University poll finds. If Clinton is not in the race, Biden would get 45 percent, with 15 percent for Gov. Cuomo, 6 percent for, Gov. Patrick, 3 percent O'Malley and 2 percent for Warner.

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I batted 1.000 for that cycle, but it was easy. In 2016, Republicans won’t be facing a Democratic incumbent, so somebody has a shot. I recently wrote that New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie will never be president, due to his out-of-control anger issues, but candidly, I think that’s my riskiest one yet.

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When Gillibrand -- a hot topic in political circles this week, as a potential liberal presidential candidate and a champion for addressing sexual assault in the military -- was appointed to Hillary Clinton's Senate seat in 2009, Nate Silver wrote, "This is not a terrific outcome for progressive Democrats," because "Gillibrand, statistically speaking, has been one of the more conservative Democrats in the House. Moreover, she is a somewhat proud conservative, being a member of the Blue Dog caucus. In a state like New York, which is capable of electing and re-electing a very liberal senator, that’s a somewhat underachieving result for the Democrats."

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“The only discussions I’m having are about how to help the state, how to get the state running, how to make the government a better government,” he conitnued. “And to the extend I’m focusing on politics, it’s my race next year.”

“I understand the press appeal of presidential politics,” Cuomo added. “But no, I’m doing what I’m doing.”

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From the Post:

“The governor has told people in recent weeks that there’s not a chance for him to run if Hillary gets in the race because she’ll easily wrap up the Democratic nomination,’’ said a Cuomo administration insider with direct knowledge of the situation.

“He knows that and he accepts that, and so he won’t even be thinking at all in those terms — unless Hillary decides not to run, which seems unlikely,’’ the source continued.

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So I’ve found it a sad commentary on GOP rebuilding that there’s been so much talk this week about the likelihood and desirability of a Jeb Bush candidacy. And apparently one influential Republican, his mother, Barbara, agrees with me.

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"He's by far the best qualified man, but no," she continued. "I really don't. I think it's a great country, there are a lot of great families, and it's not just four families or whatever. There are other people out there that are very qualified, and we've had enough Bushes."

Bush added that she doesn't think Jeb, the former governor of Florida, will run: "He's the most qualified, but I don't think he'll run."

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The New Orleans Times-Picayune reports that Jindal announced that he will pull his plan in a speech opening this year's legislative session, telling state lawmakers that he will not "pout" or "take his ball and go home." From the Times-Picayune:

The speech is a major concession that Jindal's proposal, a complicated plan contained in a total of 11 bills, is unpopular both within and outside the Legislature. The proposal has come under increasingly heavy fire in recent weeks as business groups and advocates for the poor have assailed its effects and think tanks have questioned whether the math in the proposal adds up.

Jindal acknowledges the strong opposition to the proposal in his prepared remarks.

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There is a series of clichéd caveats you have to get through when you write about this stuff: 2016 is a long ways away. Making predictions is an invitation to mockery in a few years' time. At this point in 2006, the 2008 election was supposedly going to pit Mark Warner against George Allen.

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Clinton has publicly divulged no plans to run and has no formal political operation -- so the PAC is hoping to fill the void, calling itself the "nation's premier organization urging" Clinton to run. Chairwoman Allida Black wrote to supporters today:

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But just because it will be a boring book doesn't mean that its existence isn't interesting.

Thiessen is a very poor Washington Post opinion columnist who wrote a book in which he strung together a series of distortions in support of the thesis that torture is great. Before the book and the column gig, he was a speechwriter for George W. Bush and Donald Rumsfeld. (Before that, Thiessen spent six years as a spokesperson and "policy adviser" to unreconstructed white supremacist Sen. Jesse Helms, which is another thing that should effectively bar him from participating in civilized society.)

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“Can you imagine the next presidential campaign a Republican candidate saying flat out ‘I am for gay marriage,’” host George Stephanopoulos asked Rove.

"I could," he replied.

Watch:

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