Is something going on under the surface here with Joe Scarborough? His argument with Mike Murphy on Meet The Press raises the ever so slight suspicion that Joe may be more invested in his line than your normal talking head.

Granted, it's likely fodder for the Annals of Pure Speculation - but damned if I'm finding the intuition hard to shake. Scarborough may fancy himself as the choice of a brokered convention.

Mitt looks like a mannequin in an air crash simulation, and despite a debate win, Santorum got squelched by the Gingrich who stole Nixon. Now the shock of Newt's South Carolina win starts up obligatory "Fantasy Football" scenarios over just who might be able to jump in the race. Mike Murphy, Republican strategy guy, counters this as wishful thinking - about like expecting aliens to take over the primaries. Now here comes Joe:

"If Newt Gingrich wins Florida, ...that's a nightmare. Now there's another scenario... favourite sons... There's a real possibility that you could have different candidates, if Haley Barbour and others get together, that run and gunk up the process enough that nobody gets a majority and then Jeb Bush is dragged kicking and screaming to the convention."

Joe gets animated when Murphy pops in with "if Napoleon had nuclear submarines.", apparently very keen to reinforce his analysis. His trump point: Murphy's line might be plausible if Newt had not won the SC Primary by 12 percentage points.

Joe caucused with Gingrich once, coming in fresh as a Congressman in 1994. As he mentioned earlier, the experience left a really bad taste:

"Tell you one reason he did not win last night It wasn't because he's a conservative, because Newt's not a conservative. He uses this resentment, this politics of grievance to actually hide a record you can really identify very quickly on Google. [&] Mitt Romney could attack Newt for not being a conservative, because Newt is not a conservative. Google it. We ran him out of Congress in 1998 because he sold us out... He's not a conservative; he's an opportunist. But here's the problem: so is Mitt Romney."

Shift to Monday Morning Joe and he underscores Mitt's "insipid drivel" after studiously driving home the Google Newt theme. Google hard enough and you'll also find Joe remarking: “If Newt Gingrich is the smartest guy in the room, leave that room.”

The anger is strong with this one. And if nobody is any good now, just who on earth could come through? Could aspiration be lurking as well, augmented by enough insight to refrain from speaking too directly? Don't believe everything you hear on the Internet, but looking at his conditional about Florida and Gingrich apparently riding dangerously high, I can't help but wonder if Joe Scarborough has had a few private words with Halley Barbour and others about the "favourite sons" scenario. Who could take Jeb Bush seriously, unless it were kind of code word!?

Mika in the Morning? Morning Joe in America? ORLY? The excessive drama in this campaign has probably corrupted my imagination.