What is this nonsense about worshipping at the altar of name recognition? Like you said, this is an unusual race with no heir apparent, not that we’ve had so much luck with those guys in the past anyways.
I could run a 12yearold nobody against Hildebeast and win, as long as he was truly conservative. Ask yourself why proposition 187 won overwhelmingly in liberal California when the press was doing its best to hound it into oblivion, claiming it was 30 points behind right even up to election day (and it won big). Ask yourself the same thing about Bill Sali, who won in the same way.
The media is so anti-conservative that they’ll work themselves into a frenzy if it was this 12yearoldNoName that I hypothesize. Soon enough, most of America would see that the press has completely jumped the shark, that the 12yearold represents how they view the world better than these socialist whackos, and the election is a done deal. If you try to move to the center with Hildebeast, she will eat you alive. We need to let the media do what it does best — play the liberal card every time it can.
I have no reason to offer as to why name recognition is what it is. But take a look at the polling over the last year or so and see who are the winners and see who hasn’t moved up to be contenders from day one. That is partially name recognition mixed with some ability to run a national campaign which attracts well known leaders and funding.
A little polling history of this cycle:
http://www.pollingreport.com/wh08rep.htm
Reality will start to settle in 50 days from now no matter who the eventual nominee becomes.