When will Hillary Clinton give up her candidacy ?

Talk about behind the times.

There's a desire for authenticity, something Clinton seems incapable of mustering. Like Romney, she is overly scripted and speaks as if a focus group is hiding somewhere in her mouth.

During the 2012 campaign, aides and supporters were always promising to unleash the real Romney, a nice-as-heck guy with a great sense of humor. But it never happened.

Clinton is following a similar path. Her campaign recently hatched plans to make her seem more human, and it led to what may be the most nonhuman-sounding New York Times headline ever: "Hillary Clinton to Show More Humor and Heart, Aides Say."

Nothing quite like formally announcing your carefully crafted plan to be more spontaneous.

The other key issue is trustworthiness, or in Clinton's case, a lack thereof. Her time in politics has graced her with an array of scandals, the seriousness of which is up for debate. But her current problem is the private email server she used during her time as secretary of state.

The decision to use a private email account in the first place remains baffling. It's as if Clinton asked her advisers if there was something she could do that would play into the GOP's narrative of her as a sneaky politician and they said, "Oh, here's an idea!"

Since that activity came to light, she has tried downplaying it, cracking jokes about it and now, after intense pressure, offering a tepid apology. It's like Romney and his secretly recorded comment claiming 47 percent of Americans are dependent on the government and will vote for Obama no matter what.

He started out trying to explain the comment, then acknowledged it was "not elegantly stated," then eventually said it was "just completely wrong." It was all marvelously bungled and it cost him.

Clinton's email scandal is costing her as well. A new Washington Post/ABC News poll found that 55 percent of Americans "disapprove of the way Clinton has handled questions about her use of a private e-mail account while serving as secretary of state." Almost the same percentage said they believe she tried to cover up details about the scandal. And 56 percent of Americans think she's not honest or trustworthy.

It's early in the campaign, but that's a bad starting point. And if Clinton continues to operate like she's being carefully stage-managed, those numbers are going to be hard to turn around.

Many Democrats still believe Clinton will be their nominee and become president. But it's worth noting that Republicans, right up until the results came in on Election Day 2012, believed wholeheartedly that Romney would win.

They had faith in him. They thought it was his time. They thought issues of trust and authenticity didn't matter.

They were wrong.

Biden is not running

I also don't buy that Carson has gone from in the pack to 2.5X Jeb Bush's support when he really isn't getting any press and nothing of note has happened.

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I also don't buy that Carson has gone from in the pack to 2.5X Jeb Bush's support when he really isn't getting any press and nothing of note has happened.

I do. He is not a politician, he is black, he would be a disrupter, he looks like a fighter who knows how to be nice and most people think that he would be less of a risk than trump...less likely to do something stupid. All big pluses. We live in a new world where having political experience and elite funded media buys are a negative, and where extensively laying out positions is not required.

He hasn't announced and done the circuit saying he is not ready to run. Would you be happy if I said "not running yet"?