With a few polls starting to show Donald Trump at or near the top of the Republican presidential field, we’re starting to see more pundits evaluate him seriously as a candidate. This is a mistake.

Early polls in a presidential election are mainly a reflection of name recognition, a fact that plays right into the hands of a celebrity and master self-publicist such as Trump. Were he actually decide to run, Trump would sink in the polls once his past views were held up to scrutiny and conservative voters were reminded of his tabloid personal life. As Slate’s Dave Weigel unearthed, back when he flirted with a presidential run in 2000, he called far a confiscatory tax hike and advocated Candadian-style socialized medicine. This, along with his anti-free trade economic views, led the Club for Growth to blast him this morning as a liberal.