GOP Now Needs a Circus Train

The Republican presidential contest has grown to 17 candidates with Wednesday's entry of Jim Gilmore.

The former Virginia governor told The Associated Press earlier this month that he would announce his candidacy in early August. On Wednesday, he filed the necessary paperwork with the Federal Election Commission

How do you handle that many candidates? Copy the NCAA!

[H]ere’s a modest proposal: Seed the field like the NCAA seeds its annual basketball championship fields each spring. The first weekend features four regional tournaments of 16 teams apiece.

The teams in each regional are seeded, 1 through 16, by a committee that compares their records and relative strengths. The top seed plays the bottom seed, the No. 2 seed plays the No. 15 seed and so on. No 16-seed has ever beaten a No. 1 seed, but there have been seven No. 2 seeds upset by No. 15 seeds. Ask the University of Missouri about Norfolk State in 2012.

The accompanying bracket seeds the 16 announced GOP candidates according to their showings in the latest RealClearPolitics.com “poll of polls.” RCP took the findings of six polls and averaged them, leaving out only former New York Gov. George Pataki. In late-breaking news, former Virginia Gov. Jim Gilmore on Wednesday became the 17th GOP candidate to file papers for the election. He can be in a play-in game with Mr. Pataki, whom we seeded No. 16 and put up against Donald Trump, the frontrunner. The most intriguing matchup has 6-seed Ben Carson, a brain surgeon, taking on 11-seed Rick Perry, the former Texas governor.

They'd have to tinker with it to add Gilmore and any other Johnny-Come-Latelies, but as the editorial goes on to note, this format would be likely fairer than any other. Do the first round, run polling, and then do the second round. The ones who can't handle debates and tough questions will flare up and burn out.

Of course, some won't go away. Both The Donald and Scotty Walker (a wholly-owned subsidiary of Koch Industries) have a lot of money behind them, so unless they fail at the "fall-on-the-floor-frothing-at-the-mouth" level, they're not quitting. But this still might cull the herd somewhat.