The Washington Post column “The Fix” presents its ranking of potential 2008 presidential candidates:
The Friday Line: Return of the Presidential Rankings
It’s back! After a hiatus in the run-up to the 2006 midterm election, the regular Friday Line on potential 2008 presidential candidates returns this week … with a special new twist.
In previous presidential lines, we’ve chosen not to rank the candidates by their likelihood of winning their party’s nomination — choosing instead to just list the five with the best chance at the nomination. No more. Starting today we rank the five candidates in each party best positioned to become their party’s standard bearer.
A note of caution about reading too much into these picks. One year ago two Virginians — Sen. George Allen (R) and former Gov. Mark Warner (D) — were seen as top-tier challengers for their respective party nods. Today, Allen is out of the Senate and Warner has removed himself from consideration.
To the Line!
For those who are impatient, they see the top 10 candidates as follows:
Democrats: Hillary Rodham Clinton, Barack Obama, John Edwards, Evan Bayh and Bill Richardson
Republicans: John McCain, Mitt Romney, Rudy Giuliani, Mike Huckabee and Newt Gingrich