So we have a candidate who was polling about 4% in Iowa at the time, in debt, looking ahead at a month of terrible press, with no natural political skills to turn it around. He’d have spent the past 3 months banking just on debates, where he wasn’t exactly knocking the cover off the ball when he was in the race.

The reality is he would have been the same place now he was then. Broke, 20 points behind Romney and top conservative alternative in Iowa, and in low single digits nationally.