Quick Assessment of GOP Nomination, February 2015

Here's how I rank them, by plausibility of winning the nomination. I've assigned percentage values to each off the top of my head. This is extremely unscientific, but this is how I'm seeing it currently.

1. George Pataki (0%): No chance in hell. Not a bit.
2. Carly Fiorina (0.1%): Appears to be running for VP. Might gain traction in that, but winning the nomination outright is probably a bridge too far.
3. Lindsay Graham (0.25%): I would say "not impossible because of South Carolina's position in the nominating process." But I think "extremely unlikely" is accurate.
4. Ben Carson (0.4%): Very popular on the Right. Might have actually had a shot in 2012, if he ran a good campaign. But there are too many plausible candidates in the Tea Party space.
5. Rick Santorum (0.75%): Santorum got so good on the trail by the end of the 2012 cycle that I give him points just because he's become such a solid retail campaigner. But he has so much ideological overlap with Mike Huckabee that I think he will struggle to find space this time around.
6. Bobby Jindal (1%): He's a very good VP choice or HHS choice for a Republican nominee, particularly an establishment choice. But his low approval ratings in ever-redder Louisiana make me think he's going to have trouble gaining traction.
7. Mike Huckabee (3.5%): I was more bullish on Huckabee a few months ago than I am now. If the 2008 version of Huck ran in 2012, I think he would have been the favorite for the nomination. The updated version of Huckabee, though, appears to have become a bit less of a happy warrior and a bit more venomous. The Huck strategy was always about taking a loyal base of support from Evangelicals and expanding it to potential sympathizers who were at least a little skeptical of GOP economics. He can do the former and may well win Iowa, but I don't think he'll be inclusive enough to gain traction this time around.
8. Chris Christie (5%): I think he's been overrated for a while, and Jeb Bush boxing him out with his best potential donors is essentially slamming the final nails in his coffin. But I'll give him a shot on the grounds of his potential debate performances and potential to connect in New Hampshire. Christie's best shot was a full-throated endorsement from Romney as soon as Romney announced he wasn't running. It didn't happen.
9. Rand Paul (5%): Paul is interesting, certainly, but I think the emergence of threats like Russia and ISIS will reactivate the Tea Party's Jacksonian soul. (As far as I can tell, the Tea Party lies at the intersection of Jeffersonian small government and Jacksonian populism.) Paul's non-interventionism just won't play this time around, I don't think. He should probably just run for Senate again.
10. Ted Cruz (6%): Cruz's best chance to emerge would be in a long-lasting slog for delegates after a lot of the other conservatives simply stopped competing. It's hard to gauge the likelihood of that. The super-divided field actually makes the chances for someone like Cruz to pull off a win in Iowa pretty good; all he needs to do is find 20 percent of the caucus-goers that support him, and he'll have it. But the establishment will absolutely revolt if Cruz starts to gain ground.
11. Rick Perry (11%): The most underrated of the candidates in question. Stellar governing record for conservatives. The 11% is misleading, in terms of odds, because it is absolutely a hedge based on the debates. If Perry rocks the debates, he is probably right there in the top tier. If he falters--even a little early on--he's at the back of the pack.
12. The Field (11.5%): I'd throw the Midwestern governors who haven't made as much noise as Scott Walker into this area: guys like Rick Snyder (MI), Mike Pence (IN), and John Kasich (OH) all belong here. I could even see a dark horse rising, like a Susana Martinez (NM), Nikki Haley (SC), or the self-funded Rick Scott (FL). 
13. Scott Walker (17%): Certainly the initial "flavor of the month" of this cycle. His poor handling of the slew of "gotcha" questions and Q&A in general, though, signifies potential trouble down the road, if he doesn't improve as a candidate. (Conservatives defending him so vociferously counts for something, but I see it as a potential leading indicator of problems deflecting tough questions.) I wouldn't put it past Scott Walker to improve, but the early returns on the unscripted portions of campaigning are not positive. Still, on paper, he is the strongest candidate for 2016.
14. Jeb Bush (19%): I've moved Jeb up slightly in my mind based on the overwhelming support that the establishment has sent his way, which exceeded my expectations. Some of his rhetorical choices of late have reminded me of Jon Huntsman, but Huntsman never approached the level of establishment support that Bush is seeing. Critically, though, the establishment, on its own, will not be enough. Can he expand? (Addendum here: why on Earth do so many establishment Republicans want to run Bush v. Clinton??? We lost that race in 1992. We'd've lost that race in 2000. And Clinton is a far more popular former president than W. Why do we think that the result will be any different this time?)
15. Marco Rubio (19.5%): This is a bet on a couple of things: Rubio's sheer political talent, and his potential to emerge as a "compromise" pick late. Put it this way: if Jeb falters, he will almost assuredly throw his support to Rubio. And among conservatives, even with his immigration heresy, Rubio can play the role of "whistleblower" about Obama and Congressional Democrats ("They can't be trusted! I know because they lied to me!"), so I think he can actually neutralize that weakness. He's not higher because I'm not sure there will be enough space for him to fit into the broad field. But if I absolutely had to pick a frontrunner, it would be Rubio.