Politics
2008 Elections: The Present Future
by Graham Jenkins
Wednesday February 14, 2007
Barely had the new 110th Congress been sworn in before the announcements, statements, and declartions came pouring forth from the offices of more than two dozen elected officials, all stating their intent to run for President of the United States. With the first primaries still more than a year away, the field is already crowded on both sides of the aisle. As of this writing, no fewer than 11 Republicans and nine Democrats have either filed the requisite papers with the Federal Election Commission or formed exploratory committees. While the only definite non-contenders are John Kerry, Evan Bayh and, in all likelihood, Al Gore, it remains to be seen who will actually follow through with their campaigns.
2008 also brings a palpable change to the faces in the field. The G.O.P. has eleven white male candidates currently, while the two front-runners for the D.N.C. nomination are a black man and a white woman, respectively. While virtually every poll in January (including Time, CNN, Gallup, Rasmussen, ABC, and Zogby) has Senator Hilary Clinton in the lead, Senator Barack Obama is a close second in all of them. On the Republican side, Senator Joh McCain of Arizona and former New York City mayor Rudy Guiliani are the top two candidates, wth the latter roughly on par with Clinton in internal polling.
The 2008 presidential campaign is shaping up to be the most expensive in history. The Kerry and Bush campaigns each too in over $250 million in 2004, and as F.E.C. Commissioner Michael Toner predicts, “The nominees of the two major parties will end up raising $500 million apiece in the 2008 race, so it’s going to be the first billion-dollar election.” Both candidates opted out of federal matching funding in 2004, and Clinton has set a new prescedent by opting out not only for the general election, but the primaries as well. if other candidates follow suit, the system of public federal funding implemented in the wake of Watergate might well be on the road to obsolescence.
Obsolete, too, is New Hampshire and Iowa’s exclusive primary status. The D.N.C. has reorganized their primary calendar to include Nevada and South Carolina from the outset. As it currently stands, the order will now be Iowa caucuses on January 14, Nevada caucuses on January 19, New Hampshire primary on January 22 and South Carolina on Janary 29, and already New Hampshire is resisting these suggested changes.
It may be very early in 2007, but already the 2008 campaign is well under way. The race is looking as if it will be one of the most dynamic and exciting of our generation. It is also bringing with it a plethora of firsts, and when history is made in November 2008, it will be a long battle indeed.
