This morning Morning Joe host Joe Scarborough ridiculed a speculative piece by the Huffington Post‘s Howard Fineman. It said that “well-placed sources” are saying that Scarborough and New York Mayor Michael Boomberg “have begun trying to figure out whether they could be an independent presidential ticket in 2012 [and] have talked about running together, with Bloomberg in the top spot.” I listened to Scarborough deny it all from various angles, and he wasn’t low-key about it — he was borderline angry.

But the instant I read Fineman’s article I could hear a little gear clicking into place. Right now there are no clubhouse Republicans or tea-party wackos with anything close to the kind of charismatic heft necessary to generate serious excitement about a 2012 run at the White House. Nobody. But Bloomberg-Scarborough — a couple of reasonable, right-center, practical-minded corporate ass-kissers who won’t do anything brilliant or revolutionary but are clearly not looney-tunes — do have that charisma. If they were to actually run, Obama-Biden might have something to worry about.

If America can elect an African-American to the White House, it can certainly elect a Jew.