For all you horseracers terribly excited by the fact that 2008 is only two years away, the WaPo's Chris Cillizza has big ol' sugar cube waiting for ya, a comprehensive rundown of how good and/or bad each potential candidate did this year. As always, normal disclaimers about it being too goddamn early apply, but nevertheless, here are a few thoughts:
- He forgot Clark.
- The Warner love strikes me as misplaced. The guy propelled Kaine to an impressive win, to be sure, but that doesn't make him charismatic, highly experienced, or highly accomplished. If Warner thinks a straight appeal for bipartisanship and moderation will win him the election, he's going to finish up in Joementum territory. As it is, an obsessive focus on his tech background might feed into a powerful narrative about global competitiveness, but I've not seen him even toeing those waters.
- George Allen simply isn't ready for the prime time.
- Mitt Romney is, particularly if he passes this massive health reform plan in MA. That's the sort of problem-solving, compassionate conservative stuff the punditocracy swoons over.
- While I like many of the Democrats (Edwards, Clark, Feingold, etc.), the only one I really see a clear path to the presidency for is Gore. I'm not going to get too deep into this now, but it's easy to sketch out a scenario where the primaries are looming, support for Hillary is lackluster but none of the other contenders are attracting real attention, a robust draft movement emerges, and Gore enters with an elder statesmen, party unifier message. He'll have no trouble raising money, no trouble uniting the base, no trouble attracting cameras, and no trouble achieving threshold credibility. He's been consistently against the war, has the loyalty of both Deaniacs and MoveOn members, has endorsed single payer, and has already been second-in-command of the country.
- John Edwards, if he's going to gain traction, needs to go big. Making poverty the center of his campaign is awesome, but unless he's going to propose huge solutions, it's simply not going to cut through the more "pressing" issues of the day. If I were his advisors, I'd be whispering about a revival of Big Government liberalism, a veritable New Deal of major social programs meant to solve health care, explode asset ownership, strengthen the safety net, and ensure security for American workers so they can better navigate the choppy waters of the globalized economy.
- Man, that Huckabee buzz has sure died down, didn't it?
- Question for comments: who are the dark horses?
