Daniels’s drawbacks begin — but by no means end — with his lack of height, hair and charisma. His informal draft committee has apparently convinced itself that, in some freakish inversion of the rules of politics, this counts as an advantage. “He seems to have sunk into a black hole of personal magnetism and come out the other side, where the very lack of charisma becomes charismatic,” wrote The Weekly Standard. “He is the un-Obama.” Expect to hear a lot more talk like this. Rather than fight an appealing communicator like Obama with a somewhat less appealing Republican communicator, the plan here is to make a lack of appeal a selling point in itself. Which explains why Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey reportedly tarred Obama as a “poser and a preener” at a big G.O.P. fund-raising event last month.

Problem is, electoral politics is a highly superficial field. A series of experiments has shown that subjects, even young children, can reliably pick the winners of races based solely on candidate photos. Now, most voters tend to support one party or the other no matter what. But swing voters tend to have the greatest susceptibility to the influence of superficialities. It’s therefore hard to imagine why party operatives might be pining to nominate a man who looks less like the popular conception of a president and more like the president’s accountant.

Yet another difficulty facing Daniels is that he was, indeed, the president’s accountant. As budget director, he helped draw up and publicly advocate George W. Bush’s fiscal policies from 2001 to 2003. It’s worth noting that even Republicans concede that Bush’s budget was a disaster. The party’s rebranding strategy revolves around convincing Americans that they have learned from Bush’s catastrophic budget policies. Who would be less ideally positioned to make this case than Bush’s budget director?

The answer to that question is Jeb Bush. Naturally, Republicans are courting the brother of the former president as well. Now, the ex-governor of Florida does have a great deal of natural political talent, but he suffers from an inherent branding challenge. Imagine ad firms trying to persuade consumers to give “Spoiled-Brand Milk” or “Kamikaze Airlines” a try. You would insist they just change the name, right? Bush can’t do that.

Then you have the campaign to draft Christie, who doesn’t cut a trim figure and who specializes in verbally abusing his constituents. He has managed to maintain approval ratings that hover around 50 percent because of some combination of the deeply discredited former governor he defeated, the haplessness of his opposition and his state’s unique tolerance for loud, compulsively rude men in positions of leadership.