Who can remember January? Not us. So we did a deep dive and discovered two amazing facts about the 2016 presidential race, which has reached the halfway point in the nominating season.
One: Hillary Clinton is the queen of conventional wisdom. She led our first ranking; she leads now. Two: There was a point in human history when we didn't have to listen to Donald Trump.
Hillary aside, changes in the ranking are amusingly vast. Remember Wisconsin's Scott Walker, shrewd GOP insider bet? Pfft. Formerly high-ranking libertarian ankle-biter Rand Paul? On life support. The Donald? Not on that first list. Ditto Carly Fiorina. Dr. Ben Carson? An anemic 18th back in January. Bernie "Saturday Night Fever" Sanders? An obscure 15th. But FTL was ALL OVER the powerful, looming candidacies of Elizabeth Warren, Paul Ryan and Mitt Romney.
(Here is where we remind you that FTL does not encapsulate The Huffington Post’s own extensive reporting. Rather, it is our sense of the view of the political/media pundit/industrial matrix, from which we lamely attempt to distance ourselves by deploying snark.)
(As a note, N/A means these folks didn't make it the first time around. Oh how the race has changed!)
And for reference, our last go-round from January 15, 2015.