Since the beginning of the 2012 horserace, no segment of the politically active population has been more eager to add new names to the field than members of the media terrified of having to spend an entire presidential cycle covering someone they find as uninteresting as Tim Pawlenty. They desperately want someone who can sell magazines, who can be controversial, who can incite the left and the right into the sort of scrap that makes for a great fun time for all the rubberneckers.

Alas, their dreams have been squandered – Donald Trump, Mike Huckabee, Haley Barbour, Jeb Bush, Rick Perry, John Thune and Paul Ryan have all passed up the opportunity to spend a year as the bad guy in their morality play. Even Mitch Daniels, a fallback for most in the media – but still someone they think of as an interesting guy, who’ll say some rousing, controversial, or surprising things before conveniently losing to Obama (their best case scenario) – has now decided against a run.