They’re off. And we don’t mean mentally (although some could make an argument that’s the case).
2007 is not even a teenager yet and campaign 2008 is well underway. Candidates in both parties — and the parties themselves — have already begun the process of trying to put their best foot (and images) forward, without putting their foot in their mouths (an affliction that helped sink some candidates in 2006).
But how do you make sense of the ongoing two-part horse race?
The BEST WAY to see the menu of likely candidates is to read THIS POST HERE at the blog The Coming Realignment. It gives you not only an exhaustive list with links of likely candidate in both parties but of the OTHER OPTIONS in the third parties a well. We were going to run this excellent compilation as a Guest Voice but it is chock full of so many links we are directing you to the original post instead.
Writer Nick Rivera has a point to all of this:
[In] my never-ending (and likely futile) quest to break the grip of the two major parties on all levers of political power in this country, I’ve taken it upon myself to make it known wherever and whenever I can the political alternatives to the Democrats and Republicans. Independent and third party candidates can no longer afford to wait until ten months before the election to kick off their campaigns. The time for these candidates to gain publicity is before the two major parties establish the front runners for their respective presidential nominations.
Thus, during the next 22 months, I plan to keep track of not only the front runners for the presidential nominations of the Democratic and Republican parties but also for the Libertarian, Green, and Constitution parties, since these are the three largest third parties in this country and stand a reasonable chance of attaining ballot access in enough states to theoretically attain the 270 electoral votes needed to win the presidency. These lists will be subject to constant revision and won’t likely sort themselves out until after Labor Day of this year.
A MUST READ…and a MUST BOOKMARK (as is this website in general).
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.