I don’t know if Joe Scarborough is running for president, but he is sure doing all the things he would need to do if he were. Over the last few years, Scarborough has taken some cues from the Ronald Reagan playbook. Like Reagan, Scarborough has maximized his best natural asset–his amiability–to position himself as a true conservative who is everyone’s friend and no one’s enemy. And like Reagan in the early seventies, Scarborough has stood aside from the political hurleyburley, with its exhausting fundraising and inconvenient votes, and taken up residency in the soft pastures of media punditry. Just as Reagan was able to forge his political identity with his radio program, Scarborough is building his brand on MSNBC, where every morning, an audience of tastemakers sees him as friendly, self-mocking, staunch about defense, ardent about fiscal control, someone who admires the president without being smitten by him, someone who agrees with a lot of Republican values without being impressed with their tactics. The bestselling book he published at the beginning of the summer, rather melodramatically called The Last Best Hope: Restoring Conservatism and America’s Promise, puts Scarborough in a fairly interesting place: squarely in the flow of mainstream values, but far, far, far from the fringes.
This week he further staked out his territory by taking on Glenn Beck for El Blubbero’s hate
speech. In kind of a Sister Souljah moment, he challenged the GOP’s 2012 hopefuls to follow suit. “We’re going to have a conservatives’ honor roll on this show…,” Scarborough said. “I’m talking to you, Mitt Romney, and I’m talking about anyone who wants to be president in 2012. … You need to call out this type of hatred.” When The Daily Beast phoned potential candidates to see how they 
would respond, most ducked the question; only Mitt Romney’s spokesman saying that while he didn’t want to get in between Scarborough and Beck, he didn’t agree with the substance of what Beck said.
What a brilliant move: if Romney disagreed with Scarborough, he’s aligning himself with the crazies. And if he agrees with Scarborough, well, he’s just agreeing with Scarborough.
Apparently Scarborough has not only studied Reagan’s playbook, he’s studied Bill Clinton‘s. And Barack Obama‘s. There’s a reason Obama keeps making nice to Republicans, and it has nothing to do with actual Republican support. Obama is trying to impress independents with his openness and reasonableness, which he believes will help him hold the middle against whatever wild-eyed tub-thumper the right throws his way in 2012. But what if the GOP throws up a genial good ol’ boy from Florida who has made a comfortable home for himself on the upper west side of Manhattan?
Scarborough isn’t even leaving Romney any room in the Looking Presidential battle. Early in the summer, Scarborough would do his show in an open-neck shirt, often wearing a fleece vest that looks like it spent many a weekend running errands. Since Labor Day, Scarborough’s been logging time in a suit and tie. Maybe he’s not running for president, but if he isn’t–what’s behind the suit and tie?