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The GOP's 19 percent solution

Can a candidate supported by less than 20 percent of an extreme right-wing party become our 45th president?

Poor Lindsey Graham. The moment he's been planning for months -- the South Carolina senator's annoucement that he's indeed a candidate to become the 45th president of the United States -- hit the exact same moment as a tsunami named Caitlyn Jenner. I think the cover of Vanity Fair with Jenner is a cultural moment that America will remember for 30, 40 years. The Graham campaign may be forgotten by the 2016 general election, if not sooner.

It's just hard to take Graham seriously, even if he is the only one of 19 potential GOP candidates who believes there's a role for humans in rolling back climate change. On foreign policy, the dude still wants to party like it's 2003, in his beloved country of orange terror alerts and bad guys hiding in your shrubbery.

Graham never met a war he didn't like, and it's not clear if he wants to be the next POTUS or commissioner of the Thought Police. He once said famously: "If I'm president of the United States and you're thinking about joining Al Qaeda or ISIL, I'm not gonna call a judge. I'm gonna call a drone and we will kill you." That's the kind of thing that won't get you to 1600 Pennsylvania Aveneue. but it may net Graham a few votes in Iowa or his home base, the Palmetto State.

And that kind of thing is a big problem for the GOP. With a looming vacancy in the Oval Office, there's little incentive for any and all manner of Republicans not to throw his or her hat into the ring. After all, running for president is a kind of fun job if you're on any kind of ego trip -- when you know that a lucrative gig as a lobbyist (look at how much blackmail cash Denny Hastert earned in such a short time) or a Fox News commentator is guaranteed on the other side. The Republicans will have anywhere from a dozen to maybe 19 candidates in the early primaries -- yet none has more than 12-13 percent in the early polls.

The best known, best funded candidate, Jeb Bush, is actively disliked by the party's base. Others -- like freshmen senators Rand Paul and Ted Cruz -- have small rabid followings that aren't going to grow any bigger, while the Mike Huckabees and Rick Santorums are yesterday's news. The only candidate I see with breakout potential is what TV experts used to call "the least objectonable program," a dim bulb named Scott Walker. It seems not only possible but likely that the winners in Iowa and New Hamphire will have less than 20 percent of the vote, and a limited delegate haul. All this raises the specter of the great white whale of American politics that had seemed likely to never surface again -- the brokered convention.

Will the fringe candidate who talled 19 percent of the primary votes (or who got picked in a smoke-filled room in Cleveland) of an increasingly fringe party that denies science and that is increasingly out of step with the public on an array of social issues actually take the oath on 1/20/17? Or will the fall 2016 general election be as much of a joke as the Republican primaries are fast becoming? I think even most liberals agree the GOP's self-immolation is bad for democracy, bad for America.