Much to the chagrin of the “Morning Joe Conservative” contingency of the Republican Party, Joe Scarborough confirmed that he will not run for President of the United States in 2016.
“I’m not running, and I’m not considering running,” Scarborough said last week. “I’m not making any Shermanesque statements, but I do not expect that to change.”
According to Michael Wolfe of The Guardian, Scarborough will be campaigning, however, because being elected isn’t the goal for him. Significantly, he has a book to sell, The Right Path. Therefore, campaigning can be an end to a lucrative means. Mr. Wolfe stated, “The new calculus is not about electability. … It’s about your own personal marketing and branding advantage. It’s a publicity stunt.”
The idea that Scarborough might be presidential timber actually was first conceived in February during his Morning Joe talk show, where Weekly Standard‘s Bill Kristol suggested that Scarborough should throw his hat into the 2016 presidential race for the Republican nomination, thus “filling the Huntsman lane.” Not surprisingly, Scarborough said, “I love Jon Huntsman.”
The New York Times described the host as “the Republican liberals love and conservatives love to hate — quite a turnabout from his days in the House, where he was a member of a brash young band of self-described ‘bad boy’ conservatives who once tried to oust Mr. Gingrich, then the speaker.”
But, could Scarborough actually be considering a run for president? He told conservative talk radio host Hugh Hewitt “I won’t rule anything out. … The greatest job I ever had, and the greatest honor I ever had, was being in the House of Representatives. … I’ve always said I wanted to get back in. It’s just a matter of timing, and we’ll seen [sic] when it happens.”
In the final analysis, Wolfe isn’t fooled by Scarborough’s threats to run for office and believes that he isn’t about to leave his comfy job at MSNBC. Moreover, Wolfe contends that Scarborough “is a far more successful cable host than he ever was a politician.” Nevertheless, creating the illusion that you are in the race and are a contender can do quite a bit for your ratings and sell a few books in the process.