The Economist considers Rick Perry’s political future. I’m not very interested in speculation about Rick Perry’s presidential ambitions, but this line seemed very questionable:

More broadly, the potential 2016 bench looks far stronger than the weaklings who thrashed Mr Perry in 2012.

This could be true, but it reminds me of the claims so many conservatives were making when they complaining in 2011 and 2012 that all the good candidates had stayed out of the race. Many conservatives became enamored of their many fantasy candidates only after they saw the declared candidates in action, and I suspect that the declared candidates in 2015 and 2016 will cause the same dissatisfaction. The 2016 field could very well come to be seen as being just as weak as the 2012 one, because candidates usually appear much weaker once they are actively campaigning. Political liabilities and controversies that most voters know nothing about come to light during these campaigns, and many politicians successful at the state level or in Congress don’t make the transition to presidential politics successfully. Glaring deficiencies that previously didn’t matter, such as a lack of foreign policy experience or knowledge, can quickly become major problems. As Perry discovered on immigration-related policies, issues that didn’t cause a politician much trouble at the state level can end up significantly hurting him in a national contest. Some candidates can overcompensate for their weaknesses by becoming a cardboard-cutout ideologue whose campaign message is pitched to activists and pundits instead of voters, who find that these candidates have nothing relevant to say to them.

If someone had drawn up a list of the “potential 2012 bench” in 2009, it would have appeared more impressive than the eventual field turned out to be, and it would have included many politicians that may have considered running but then chose not to declare. Right now the GOP appears to have a glut of supposedly viable candidates, but this seems to be the case now because there has been so little scrutiny of most of them. On top of that, the bar for being considered a viable presidential candidate has been lowered significantly in recent years, but the requirements for being a viable candidate have not changed that much.

It’s possible that the next Republican nomination contest will be much more wide-open and competitive than the last one. There will be no Romney-like prohibitive favorite discouraging leading Republicans from running, and there will be no incumbent Democratic president to face in the general election. Unlike 2008, Republicans will be at the end of two terms out of power instead of being saddled with the baggage of an unpopular two-term Republican administration. That should encourage more candidates to enter the race, and the candidates that end up declaring could be better quality than in previous cycles, but there is no guarantee that this will happen. As irrational as it might seem, a Clinton candidacy would probably limit the ranks of both the Democratic and Republican fields. Many on the “potential 2016 bench” on the Republican side might suddenly seem very weak.

Right now every moderately successful Republican politician with any national exposure is being considered as a credible presidential candidate, so the 2016 “bench” appears stronger, but in most cases this will change on closer inspection.