First, put yourself in the framework of a Republican in 2014 or 2015. Assume, of course, that President Obama has been re-elected and the economy is enjoying a renaissance of sorts, but the black plague of deficits is restraining growth. Assume that the culture-war wing of the GOP has lost considerable influence. Assume that a revanchist foreign policy is no longer in vogue.

Scarborough describes himself as a conservative with libertarian leanings. He’s a fiscal hawk who cares more about the debt because it’s a genuine burden than because it’s an opportunity to prevent liberals from spending. He is not a denialist. He doesn’t traffic in fear-based politics. He doesn’t like cant, and has been trained, as an off-the-cuff broadcaster, to speak more like the normal person he is than the politician he once was.

Making amends with conservatives would be his first task, but Scarborough is a legitimate hero of the ’94 Republican revolution. He’s been there, and he’s done that. One assumes that if Obama wins re-election, conservatives in 2016 will want to vote for someone who can win, and someone who can change course. Pundits like to say that the most acceptable mainstream conservative tends to get the GOP nomination; the party could well be in Scarborough Country after shedding its isolationism, after the old guard of the RNC is purged after 2012, after younger Republicans with libertarian leanings on social policy move into positions of power.