Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush holds a question and answer session at the Mountain Shadows Community Center in Las Vegas Monday, March 2, 2015. Bush distanced himself from his family on Monday as he courted senior citizens in Nevada, the first stop in a national tour aimed at key states on the presidential primary calendar. (AP Photo/Las Vegas Sun, Steve Marcus) The GOP is starting the primary early in Tennessee.
Actually, a parade of Republican nominee hopefuls already have begun stumping here.
Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee spoke at the National Religious Broadcasters meeting in Nashville last week, while former Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal is scheduled to appear in Memphis on March 20 and Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum will speak at the Montgomery County Republican Party's Lincoln Reagan Day on March 28, according to The Associated Press. Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush will headline the Tennessee Republican Party's annual fundraiser on May 30. New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie spoke at last year's event.
If history is instructive, Bush and Christie needn't have bothered: Tennessee is not moderate Republican territory. Santorum won Tennessee's Republican presidential primary in 2012, and Huckabee won in 2008.
Of course, if anyone is longing for good old war-for-oil days of previous Bush presidencies, by all means support Jeb. After all, he's so much his own man that he has a virtual carbon copy of his dad's and brother's advisers.
Aside from the logical reasons why Bush is a poor choice to lead the country, there's the practical matter of why we wouldn't just go ahead and crown the Bushes as royalty and the Republicans as the party of J.R. Ewing.
Dynasty and democracy should be thought of as a contradiction in terms.
On the other hand, Bush's GOP primary competitors have no real legs either -- they just sound good to those locked in the oxygen-deprived rooms where Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck and Fox television pour out of the TVs and radios.
Bush's use of Bush Royalty Advisers is one more example of the retread factor in Republican politics, also known as "no new ideas."
Less than a month ago, Jeb Bush and Mitt Romney trotted out a surprise set of talking points about income inequality and vanishing middle-class America. Romney's talk was short-lived as he soon saw the campaign dollars going to Bush and other candidates so he bowed out of the race -- at least for now.
But Jeb talked on after opening his salvo in Detroit with a speech titled "Restoring the Right to Rise in America." Catchy, huh? The right to rise.
Why are these GOPers -- particularly the moderate ones who would depend on the gargantuan number of "moderate" and independent-leaning Americans -- suddenly trespassing on Democrat territory?
It's all about "issue ownership" theories, according to strategists. Issue ownership theories predict that parties and candidates will emphasize issues on which they have an advantage -- especially those in which the public tends to see one of the other party as more competent.
Democrats are generally thought to "own" education and health care, while Republicans are typically seen as better on crime and national security. (Of course, right now the frat boys in the House of Representatives holding Homeland Security funding hostage are working to disabuse most Americans of that notion.)
In recent decades, the GOP has supported economic growth and opportunity over income of the masses, so it's normal to associate concerns about inequality to be voiced primarily by Democrats.
Now moderate-leaning Republicans (and far-right ones, if they're smart) are talking this way to try to put some distance between themselves and 1 percenters, especially the Koch-brothers' financed agendas.
There also is the matter of President Obama's success with the improving economy. With more jobs being created, Republicans can't use that bludgeon any longer, so they have been forced to shift their talking points to criticize wage stagnation.
Tennessee's presidential primary is just under a year away -- March 1, 2016.
It's likely, however, to feel as though the year is a decade.