“The one sport where the unthinkable can become the inevitable in a matter of weeks or even days,” Weld said, “is national politics, not the National Football League.”

Maybe that’s right, assuming devastating testimony from John Bolton, the former national security adviser; former Rudy Giuliani associate Lev Parnas; and who knows who (or what) else. Not that any kind of testimony is likely to sway the 67 senators needed for a conviction. But it’s not quite out of the question that it might, in the coming weeks, sway a large fraction of New Hampshire Republicans to vote against the president, thereby setting into motion forces that could bring him down.

That’s the hope, at any rate. The odds against? I’d say 20 to 1 — which is to say, still worth a shot. If it fails, Weld said he would not run as an independent. Unlike in 2016, when he ran with Gary Johnson on the Libertarian ticket (and won 4.5 million votes) he has no interest in playing the spoiler to anyone in the race except Trump.