Former LA governor Buddy Roemer likely to run for President

[Mr. Morden]

"Name recognition" as such isn't important this far out.  But you have to be able to make the case to party elites that you're a serious contender, and raise lots of money, hire top people in the party to work on the campaign, attract the support of some state legislators in Iowa and NH, get Politico to write more than one story about you, etc.

A Mitch Daniels or a John Thune could potentially do all of that.  Party elites treat them as serious.  The fact that they currently have low national name recognition doesn't matter.

But a former governor who's been completely off the political radar for 20 years, and has done absolutely nothing in the last year to lay the groundwork for a national campaign?  What is he going to say to party elites to get them to take him seriously?  I don't see it.

[Mr. Morden]

Obama appeared on Meet The Press in October 2006, and indicated that he might be interested in running for president in 2008 after all, and that he'd decide within a few months.  That made a big splash in the media, and he instantly jumped to 2nd place (after Clinton) in all the Democratic primary polls.

Today, Roemer indicates that he might run for president, and it gets essentially no coverage.  Here's Google News on "Buddy Roemer":

http://news.google.com/news/search?aq=f&pz=1&cf=all&ned=us&hl=en&q=buddy+roemer

Pretty pathetic.  I highly doubt that Roemer is going to be invited on Meet the Press any time soon.  And no one is bothering to include him in any 2012 primary polls, and I doubt they're going to start doing so in the near future.

[Mr. Morden]

Well, I will say this for Buddy Roemer.  Despite this announcement of potential interest in a presidential run getting no attention in the MSM, it somehow managed to generate more commentary here than the comparable threads about Bachmann and Giuliani combined!