All The GOP Has-Runs Who Could Still Become The Nominee

"There are no second acts in American lives," F. Scott Fitzgerald famously said. The legendary author and observer of American society was prescient about Donald Trump : what is The Donald if not the Jay Gatsby of politics? But Fitzgerald's dictum could be way, way wrong if applied to the 2016 Republican presidential race.

In fact, second acts may be all that is available in Cleveland in July. Paul Ryan, the ostensibly well-respected GOP House speaker and former veep candidate, has decreed that in the event of an "open" convention, only people who have "run" nationally should be considered as alternatives to front-runners Trump and Ted Cruz (R-Texas).

That leaves a whole service bay's worth of retreads stacked to the ceiling and waiting to be slapped onto the GOP jalopy. Having previously dismissed all of these people as losers or worse, fratricidal Republicans may have to turn to one of them in the end. Or so Paul Ryan says, and who are we to disagree?

There is only one bald tire that is simply too shot to consider, and you know who that is.

Sarah Palin can't be patched. 

But here's the rest of the undead: 

CORRECTION: This article previously cited The Onion as the source for the joke that Ben Carson doesn't remember his campaign; it was Andy Borowitz at The New Yorker .