February 28, 2014 02:52 PM UTC

Presidential Ponderation: Rand Paul Leading the GOP Pack?

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• by: Colorado Pols

Our friends at "The Fix" run down the Top 10 Republican candidates for President at this stage of the game, and Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul ends up at the top of the list:

To hear Republicans who follow these sorts of things closely, there are actually two primaries for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination.

The first is the fight to be the establishment conservative pick, a battle that could include Govs. Chris Christie (N.J), Bobby Jindal (La.), John Kasich (Ohio) and Scott Walker (Wisc.) as well as Sen. Marco Rubio (Fla.) and, possibly, former Gov. Jeb Bush (Fla.) and Rep. Paul Ryan (Wisc.).  The other is to be the movement conservative choice, a tussle right now between Sens. Rand Paul (Ky.) and Ted Cruz (Texas).

The theory is that a victor will emerge from each of these sub-primaries and those two winners will duke it out for the nomination. That's a similar dynamic to the one that was at work in the 2012 Republican nomination fight with Mitt Romney winning the establishment conservative slot and former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum ultimately emerging as the movement conservative pick.

What's different this time around is that the establishment conservative field is packed with potential candidates while the movement conservative field is relatively sparse. Which brings us to Paul…

Sen. Paul has certainly been doing well enough thus far to warrant being at the top of the potential Republican field, but the most interesting spot on "The Fix" Top 10 (in our eyes, anyway) is Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker all the way up at #2. While Walker gained some national attention when he fought back a recall attempt brought on because of his fervent anti-union positions, his national profile has been fairly quiet ever since. Just for fun, we put together the image below to test your Walker knowledge. All three men are sitting Republican Governors in Midwestern states — do you know which one is Walker?