Who's the more 'serious' presidential candidate: Rand Paul or Bernie Sanders?

Sen. Bernie Sanders (R-VT)

Sen. Bernie Sanders (R-VT)

Jeb Bush and Rand Paul are "serious" Republican presidential candidates and Bernie Sanders is a Democratic side note, if not outright fringe candidate, right? That really depends how you measure things. Let's take a look at the primary polling averages.

In Iowa, Bernie Sanders is polling at 14 percent in the Democratic caucus. On the Republican side, Scott Walker leads with 20.4 percent. But Jeb Bush pulls in 12.7 percent, Mike Huckabee is at 9.4 percent, and Rand Paul, Marco Rubio, Ben Carson, Ted Cruz, Chris Christie, Rick Santorum, and Rick Perry are all trailing those numbers.

In New Hampshire, Sanders is polling at 12 percent. Among Republicans, just Bush and Walker are above 12 percent.

Look, I get it. With Hillary Clinton polling above 60 percent in the Democratic presidential primary, it's true that Sanders is a very long shot to win the nomination, while Republicans have a huge field and a race that's very much up in the air. From the chance-of-winning standpoint, 12 or 14 percent in the Democratic primaries is not 12 or 14 percent in the Republican primaries. But if what we're talking about is how much a candidate and his message resonates with voters and how seriously his policy ideas should be treated, then, for the moment at least, the polling says that Bernie Sanders is more real than Rand Paul or Marco Rubio.

Fri May 01, 2015 at 12:30 PM PT: And then there's this:

Bernie Sanders raised $1.5M in the first 24 hours of his campaign. Rand raised $1M in that time period; Cruz raised $4M over 8 days.

— @rebeccaballhaus