All of the Sunday morning...

...talk shows that I record -- Chris Matthews, This Week and Meet the Press -- had at least one person make the same observation about the 2012 Republican presidential race: "It's the most wide open since 1940." Incredible! It's as though everyone in Washington was reading from the same script.

That prompted me to do a little research on the 1940 election. And it seems that a little-known utility executive, Wendell Willkie (above) -- who had never run for office before -- emerged as the Republican standard bearer that year. And the result? FDR was reelected in a landslide; Willkie carried only ten states for a grand total of 82 electoral votes.