His National Prayer Breakfast speech is now over a million views on YouTube — rare for any political address, I’d guess — and he’s had not one but two plum appearances on Fox News in the past week. National Journal has a new piece out just this afternoon headlined, “Why a Johns Hopkins Neurosurgeon Is Getting 2016 Presidential Buzz.” He’s a phenomenon on the right, but it’s completely unrealistic, needless to say, for a total political novice to contend seriously for a presidential nomination, even one as personally accomplished as Carson. Senator is a more likely bet, but Carson has the misfortune of living in one of the most reliably blue states in America. Maryland hasn’t sent a Republican to the Senate in more than 25 years. Ben Cardin just got reelected and Barbara Mikulski isn’t up again until 2016 — and she’s never drawn less than 60 percent in a Senate race. Could be that she’ll retire before her next term (she’s 76 now), but Democratic turnout in Maryland will be strong in ’16 no matter who the nominee is since it’s a presidential election year. He could, of course, move across the border to Virginia and take his chances there, but the next Senate election is in 2014 against Mark Warner — who won with 65 percent of the vote last time. Second look at running for the House instead?

Note his response when Cavuto asks him at around 4:15 how ObamaCare is playing with his colleagues.