It’s official, Ron Meyer Jr. is running for Congress in the 11th district of Virginia. At 23, if he were elected he would be the youngest member in the nation’s history by several years. But he won’t be.

The district was very close in 2010, and for that reason some still point to it as a possible pickup for Republicans. But in 2012 Gerry Connolly was reelected by a 26 point margin. That partly reflects the advantages of an incumbent, but the 2010 redistricting also shifted many of the 11th’s Republican strongholds elsewhere. The Hill ranked Connolly as one of the top ten lawmakers who benefited from redistricting.

Nonetheless, for some reason it was held out as a possibility, if the right Republican with crossover appeal could be found. To some, ex-Democrat Artur Davis was seen as that man. He spoke at a fundraiser in the district and stoked speculation that he might be considering a run. But being a far more experienced politician, he must have realized the seat was unwinnable; it’s revealing that Davis endorsed Meyer even while his campaign was still in the exploratory phase.

Meyer is about the furthest thing from a candidate with crossover appeal, with his main experience being with the Reagan mythologists Young Americans for Freedom; his campaign website promises to balance the budget in five years (and presumably lay off thousands of the 11th district’s constituents). He’s best known for his embarrassingly bad predictions about a conservative coup against House Speaker John Boehner. The coup never materialized, and it was later revealed that he was being used as a pawn in a long-standing feud between an outgoing rep and the speaker. Afterward Meyer was anything but contrite; his response to the whole incident was to blame the congressmen for “flaking out,” and to drop hints about running for office:

“Look, I’m a 23-year-old activist who’s just starting,” Meyer says. “Did I learn a lot of lessons? Yeah, I did. I learned a lot about politics and the media, and about trusting people.” But it wasn’t all bad: He and Bigelow are still together, and he’s gained hundreds of Twitter followers in the process. “I’ll be fine,” he says. “Maybe I’ll run for office. My outrage about these guys flaking out has actually inspired me.”

In the meantime, he’ll keep tweeting. On Friday, #FireBoehner, as ever, was on his timeline.

A state Republican Party official said he had also been considering a bid for the Virginia senate. Less ambitious, yes, but the seat, unlike Gerry Connolly’s, would have actually been winnable, which is why the party gave him a “reality check” and discouraged him from running.

Matt Lewis offered some blunt advice after the failed coup, basically telling him to quit being a media hound, not make such bold claims, and wait a few years. Meyer seems not to have listened, and he went on Martin Bashir for no apparent purpose other than to have his views (and prospective congressional bid) mocked.

Meyer embodies all the worst aspects of the insurgent GOP and none of the good ones. His experience is almost solely with beltway conservatism. He seems to view all criticism with suspicion, as if the establishment’s agents lurk behind every attempt to tell him to make his Twitter avatar less self-promotional. The worst part is he’s going to be one of the few actual young people talking about intergenerational debt, a potentially powerful message he’ll be pitching it to an utterly unsympathetic district, and by all indications, ineptly. Come 2014, he’ll find out that Fox News appearances and a social media following do not a politician make. And if the past is any guide, he won’t learn that lesson either.

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