If the year ends quietly — not a given with the warnings in Australia and the alerts across Europe — I will spend the New Year’s Day Thursday show reviewing the issue that will drive much of the campaign agenda in 2015 and which will define many of the candidates as contenders or pretenders: Common Core, or “Obamacore” as it is increasingly known in center-right circles.

Over the past 18 months I have interviewed a number of the leading GOPers on the issue, including former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, Texas Gov. Rick Perry and Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, to name just four. Now the issue has drawn the attention even of the left.