The "Who is running?" tea leaves thread

[Consciously Unconscious]

Gingrich is in South Carolina today, and says "I don't know" when asked if he'll run again in 2016:

I'm pretty sure he'll run just so that he becomes more popular.  Or maybe I'm wrong.  Maybe he just really, really wants to see a moon colony before he dies.

[Consciously Unconscious]

National Journal examines the moves of Evangelical leaders to try to coalesce behind one candidate this time....with Cruz and Huckabee deemed the frontrunners to receive such an endorsement:

http://www.nationaljournal.com/politics/ted-cruz-and-mike-huckabee-are-on-a-collision-course-as-evangelicals-audition-2016-contenders-20141025

While Cruz's ambitions have already been made fairly clear, note how they're also more or less treating it as a given that Huckabee will run:

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Disgusting. Cruz is bad enough, but Huckabee getting involved is terrible. The good news about all these Evangelicals running is that hopefully they will all split the hard-right vote, preventing them from competing with the establishment candidate(s).

That's what I'm hoping too.

[Consciously Unconscious]

Things should start to speed up, now that one of the top tier candidates is (basically) in.

[Consciously Unconscious]

Things should start to speed up, now that one of the top tier candidates is (basically) in.

To be clear, most of the other GOP candidates already have PACs, so Bush is actually late to the party on this.

True, but none of the other top tier candidates have been this explicit about running.  Maybe Paul, but we don't even know if he'll be able to run for President and Senate at the same time yet. 

[Consciously Unconscious]

Things should start to speed up, now that one of the top tier candidates is (basically) in.

To be clear, most of the other GOP candidates already have PACs, so Bush is actually late to the party on this.

The big thing is that he said he's actively exploring the possibility of running for President.

None of the other Republicans have had a press release like that.

Is there something special about the phrase "actively exploring"?  The other candidates have made countless comments about how they're considering a presidential run.  In some cases, phrasing things like Santorum did here about acting as if they're running.  I don't see "actively exploring" as being any more definitive than those other statements.  Again, what's different is that Bush is the quasi-frontrunner, and that he's now matching the more proactive behavior of many of the other candidates.  But I'm unclear on how this is *more* proactive than what the other candidates have done.

EDIT: Heck, Peter King even said "Right now, I'm running for president" last year.  You can't get any more proactive than that.

Santorum and King aren't top tier candidates.  They don't have a serious chance at the nomination. 

[Consciously Unconscious]

Apparently Dan Quayle is thinking of running again.

Dammit!  What is this, 2010?