If you are under the impression that Carly Fiorina is a hot new teen singer, we feel your pain.
If you don't know Lincoln Chafee from a Lincoln Navigator, it's alright.
They might not be the most inspiring of presidential candidates. However, our nation's history is littered with presidential hopefuls who barely made a mark and would be difficult to pick out of a lineup.
And the scary part is, some of them were elected.
Bobby Jindal became the latest Republican to announce his almost-certain-to-fail candidacy, on Wednesday. While he is well known in most political circles, the Louisiana governor will struggle to get his name out to the everyday American.
Not everyone has the instant recognition that Donald Trump has. Why shouldn't the billionaire have his fur-lined hat in the race? It takes sacks full of money to run for president these days, and he's used to being on television. He easily checks off two keys for the modern candidate.
Of course the likelihood of Trump being elected is roughly the same as him choosing to shave his head. But if the thought of a Trump presidency scares you, take heart. We've been through worse.
Take a look at the 43 men who have been president (win a bar bet ... there have been 44 presidencies, but only 43 men who have served. Shoutout to Grover Cleveland and his nonconsecutive terms, as well as for being the only president married in the White House).
Of course you have your Washingtons, your Jeffersons, your Lincolns and your Roosevelts (two, in fact, both Teddy and Franklin). You have your Kennedys and Reagans.
But they are the highlights, the superstars of our American history.
How did we survive as a country with some of the ineffective and inconsequential leaders we have had leading our country?
From the time Martin Van Buren was inaugurated on March 4, 1837, to March 4, 1933, when Franklin Delano Roosevelt took office, there was one outstanding president (Abraham Lincoln), several very good presidents (James K. Polk, Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson) and 19 who were at best ineffective, and at worst corrupt.
Think about it: For 96 years, starting when the country was still in its relative infancy, we had folks such as William Henry Harrison, who wasn't smart enough to give a short inauguration address in horrible weather and as a result died 40 days later from complications from pneumonia.
We had possibly our worst president in James Buchanan - with all due respect to our friends in Franklin and Lancaster counties, where he was born and lived. He was impotent in the face of the impending Civil War.
Franklin Pierce wasn't even renominated by his own party. Ulysses S. Grant and Warren Harding had two of our most corrupt administrations. We had the first president to be impeached in Andrew Johnson.
Rutherford B. Hayes was elected in a manner that made Bush-Gore in 2000 look downright uneventful. He lost the popular vote but was awarded 20 disputed electoral votes in a tainted deal known as the Compromise of 1877.
We had sideburn-loving Chester Alan Arthur, the vice president of a compromise candidate who was put on the ticket solely as political sop to limit Republican infighting, and who became president via the assassination of James Garfield. His most prominent position prior to the vice presidency? Collector of the Port of New York.
And, of course, we had a president named Millard. You can thank Ma and Pa Fillmore for that.
Our survival is partially explained by the fact that the presidency was a different animal back then. The United States wasn't a superpower until somewhere around World War I. The president gained power in the early 20th century, and for that you can thank – or blame – Franklin Delano Roosevelt. He started the modern presidency and, many argue, the growth in the federal government.
Since his time in office, we've had our best run of presidents since the first seven, who all were heavyweights in the founding of our country – Washington, John Adams, Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe, John Quincy Adams and Andrew Jackson.
Since FDR, we've had Harry S. Truman, Dwight Eisenhower, John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama.
You can argue that the Nixon-Ford-Carter run wasn't the best time in our country's history. But it only proves my point. There have been precious few times when a great president followed another great president.
And while many historical footnotes have held our highest office, many outstanding American statesman never were elected president - Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, William Jennings Bryan (he rocked two great nicknames, the "Great Commoner" and the "Boy Orator of the Platte"), James G. Blaine (the "Man from Maine"), Robert La Follette ("Fightin' Bob"), Robert Kennedy and Colin Powell, to name a few.
Others never had the chance because of society's biases. Eleanor Roosevelt could run for president in her own right today. Not in the 1940s. It would have been lunacy in the 1960s to think that Martin Luther King Jr. could have been a candidate.
The presidency has never been stronger in the world and never more divisive on the home front. It has become such a bitterly partisan position that I fear no matter who is elected, they will have trouble governing.
So if you think Lindsey Graham was a member of Fleetwood Mac and Marco Rubio is a guard for the Minnesota Timberwolves, we understand your confusion. You might not find them the most compelling of candidates.
You still have more than 200 days until the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primaries to get it straight.