Lindsey Graham has a better chance of scoring the part of Ariel in a Broadway production of "The Little Mermaid" than he has of becoming the 2016 Republican presidential nominee.
At least, that’s how it looks as the polls stand today. He barely shows up as a potential contender in Iowa and New Hampshire polling, the first two states which cast their votes and, in most cases, have the power to decide a normal nomination fight.
Quinnipiac — one of the most accurate major polling institutes in the country — didn’t even bring up his name in their most recent Iowa poll. He doesn’t appear on Real Clear Politics’ poll aggregator list for New Hampshire, either.
In that race, he falls behind Scott Walker, Jeb Bush, Rand Paul, Chris Christie (!), Ben Carson, Mike Huckabee, Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, Rick Santorum, Bobby Jindal and Rick Perry in that order.
It seems necessary to list that absurdly long line of fanatics, fantasists and hucksters because contrary to popular belief, there is a quantifiable limit to how many clowns one can fit in a single car. (And, in fact, it seems to be 11.)
If Walker and Bush split the establishment vote in those two primaries and Paul dominates the outsider Libertarian vote — what seems like the most likely scenario to me — then Graham is done, no matter how much support he has in South Carolina.
And even in his home state, very early polling has both Bush and Walker right at his side.
In some polls, he’s behind both of them.
If either of the two wins an early primary, that bump should push them over the edge and Graham into irrelevancy.
It used to be a maxim that whoever won South Carolina would go on to win the nomination, which would have been some minor comfort for Graham. But even he doesn’t have that dictum to hold onto anymore ever since Newt Gingrich won the state, but dropped the nomination.
It should be emphasized that poll numbers aren’t nearly as accurate as they seem to be this far out. John McCain — a close friend of Graham’s — watched his campaign tank in early 2007 before coming back to snatch the nomination away from Mitt Romney.
Strange stuff happens in most campaigns and anyone trying to predict the election this far out is a classic case of giving hostages to fortune.
But, from the knowledge we have now, Graham doesn’t have the resources, the broad support or the name recognition to beat someone with “Bush” for a last name.