The race to the 2012 White House?

Weekly Presidential Politics - 10/3/07


It was only a matter of time. No, the subject to which I refer is not my tenuous return to blogging after a month and a half of being a teacher again. What I am referring to is the constant pushing up of the presidential cycle reaching a ludicrously laughable level.

Here’s what I mean: it seems after every Presidential election, the race to win the next election begins earlier and earlier. This was most evident the day after the 2004 election, when I watched Chris Matthews discuss who would run for the open oval office in the next cycle, and immediately names like Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, John McCain, and Mitt Romney were suggested as leading candidates. Surely, the day after an election was the earliest possible date for the subsequent election to be realistically discussed, right?

Wrong.

This week, it became evident to me that one man is already running for 2012. And he already knows who he’s running against. And he’s already positioning himself to be the nominee and win the 2012 election. And you know what? I’d say it’s the leading scenario.

Let the count down begin. It’s only 61 months until:

President Hillary Clinton (D) vs. former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich (R-GA).

See you next Wednesday for some elaboration on this topic and its relation to the state of the 2008 race.