THE REAL REASON NO ONE RUNS: Not to take anything away from Howard Dean, but I'm not sure where Ezra -- himself a former Deaniac -- finds the causality between Dean's campaign and the progressive tilt of possible Democratic candidates in 2008. First, I think a couple notes of caution are in order: the only major prospective candidates who opposed the Iraq War from the start, Obama and Gore, have not declared and may still not run. It's true that even if they do not run, two of the major candidates who are more certain to run, Edwards and Kerry, have found their voices in opposing the war. But they have done so more strongly after the 2004 campaign, suggesting to me that they were influenced not by Dean but by the deteriorating situation in Iraq and the public's losing patience with it. I think Ezra's observation about Warner and Bayh, that with the party moving to the left they saw no significant niche to Hillary's right, is astute. But I also think one could as easily attribute the reluctance of so many candidates to get in the race this time to the fact that a presidential run gets longer, more expensive, and more personally invasive every cycle. I wonder if there are changes out there, maybe something with the primary schedule, that could ameliorate that.
--Ben Adler
