2008 Presidential Race

The Wall Street Journal has a good rundown on the race for the White House in 2008.
I’ve summarized it somewhat below:

Democrats

Declared
Joe Biden
Christopher Dodd
John Edwards
Dennis Kucinich
Tom Vilsack

Exploring
Barack Obama

Undeclared
Hillary Clinton
Al Gore
John Kerry
Bill Richardson

Taking a Pass
Evan Bayh
Russ Feingold
Mark Warner


Republicans

Declared
Duncan Hunter

Exploring
Sam Brownback
Jim Gilmore
Rudy Giuliani
John McCain
Ron Paul
Mitt Romney
Tom Tancredo
Tommy Thompson

Undeclared
Newt Gingrich
Mike Huckabee
George Pataki

Taking a Pass
George Allen
Bill Frist
Rick Santorum

I think it is interesting that so many more Democrats have been willing to declare their candidacies while most of the Republican crowd is hanging back and hiding behind their “exploratory committees.” I think they know this is the Democrats’ race to lose.
As to the undeclared candidates, I think Hillary is the only one from either side guaranteed to still get into the race at this point.
While it is still ridiculously early to being making predictions, I’m going to throw one out anyway. I think it will ultimately come down to Hillary Clinton vs. John McCain with Hillary coming out on top.
Republicans will pull out all the stops in their efforts to trash Hillary, but I think their past efforts have given her a limited immunity that will allow her to emerge from the onslaught mostly unscathed. I think the race will be nearly a repeat of the 1996 Clinton-Dole race with Hillary in the driver’s seat and McCain playing the role of the elder Republican statesman who is past his prime. McCain, they will say, missed his chance to be president when he lost the 2000 primary to Bush the Younger, just like Dole missed his chance when he lost the 1988 primary to Bush the Elder.