The 2008 presidential campaign is already nearly a year old.
And it’s June. Of 2007.
Though there are still sixteen months before the election, the race is already packed with candidates. From the Republican Party, Arizona senator John McCain, former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, and former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani have thrown their hats into the ring. Former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee and California Congressman Duncan Hunter have formed exploratory committees and will likely enter the race.
On the Democratic side, New York senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, Former North Carolina senator John Edwards, Ohio congressman Dennis Kucinich, Illinois senator Barack Obama, and New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson, have all officially announced their candidacies. Connecticut senator Christopher Dodd and former Alaska senator Mike Gravel, have formed exploratory committees and will likely enter.
The race, for a number of reasons, is shaping up to be a historic one.
This year’s election marks the first time since 1952, when Dwight Eisenhower was elected, that a presidential campaign won’t include an incumbent president or vice-president.
The wide open race has drawn large numbers of candidates who are raising and spending unprecedented amounts of money incredibly early in the campaign season.
Many states have vowed to or are considering rescheduling the dates of their primaries in an effort to increase the role they play in selecting the major party candidates.
“Never before has so much money been spent so early in an election,” says William Webb, a professor of political science and mass media at Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Maine. “There are more candidates and their campaigns are longer, which means we’ll see more of the [candidates] than we have in any previous election.”
Webb thinks all the exposure could result in voter fatigue. “Voters and non-voters are going to get bored quickly. They’re going to see the same candidates saying the same thing for a year and a half. This could create an opportunity for a candidate to come into the race late, but very quickly garner support.”
This effect could benefit candidates like Al Gore and Fred Thompson. Though neither have entered the race, both were included in a recent poll from Quinnipiac University.
Speculation has also swirled around the plans of New York mayor Michael Bloomberg, the billionaire founder of Bloomberg Financial News Company. Earlier this month, Bloomberg, a lifetime Democrat who ran for mayor of New York as a Republican, announced that he was leaving the Republican Party to become an independent.
Such a move would allow Bloomberg to mount a campaign not unlike that of Ross Perot, the billionaire founder of EDS, who won more than 18% of the popular vote in the 1992 election while running on the Reform Party ticket. Bloomberg’s fortune is estimated to be well above $5 billion, plenty to self-finance a very aggressive presidential campaign.
Alison Neumer, a political science professor at the University of Chicago and founder of the political blog RealPolitikoo, says Bloomberg is still a long shot. “The bottom line is that independent and third party candidates in this country don’t win presidential elections, even when they have unfettered access to money.”
Neumer, though, says the attention Bloomberg, Fred Thompson, and Al Gore are currently getting suggests that “the public isn’t satisfied with the major party candidates in the race. People who haven’t even expressed an interest in running are now polling well ahead of candidates who have been on the campaign trail for months.”
The next president, Neumer says, “may not be anywhere near this race right now. It’s possible that neither of the two major party nominees has entered the race yet. There’s still so much time.”
Webb fears all that time may cause voters to disengage. “I’m afraid we’re going to see the voters grow tired. When they’re tired, they make lazy decisions. They don’t think about issues. Hopefully something will happen that will keep this election fresh.”
Time will tell. And there’s still plenty of time left.
