Well, if you had any doubts, put em' away. She's in.

[Joe Biden 2020]

Let's get the ball rolling!!  I'm ready to roll up my sleeves and get down and dirty for some nasty mudslinging.  I will probably actively campaign for Mark Warner, somewhat active for John Kerry, and mostly passive for Hillary Clinton.

So, since tomorrow is Wednesday, September 20, 2006, the 2008 Presidential Campaign officially begins in 7 weeks on Wednesday, November 8, 2006, Eastern Standard Time, when the last poll in Hawaii or Alaska closes.

[Joe Biden 2020]

The next 28 months (through January 20, 2009) are going to be exciting for me looking at all the races in the country from a Democratic viewpoint rather than a Republican viewpoint.  Then, the first term of the 44th President will be very exciting critiquing the administration from a Democratic viewpoint rather than a Republican viewpoint.

Hillary is definitely not a shoe-in, but she has to be considered a front-runner right now, if only for name recognition.  Nym90 is right, the Democratic primary contests don't become clear until at least March or April before the election, (2004 was a bit different), whereas Republicans seem to nominate their candidate the summer after the mid-terms, which provides for way less drama and way less excitement.  That is good strategy for the Republicans, though, because it does give the candidate more time to prepare for the general election than the Democrat candidate.

[Joe Biden 2020]

Nym90 is right, the Democratic primary contests don't become clear until at least March or April before the election, (2004 was a bit different), whereas Republicans seem to nominate their candidate the summer after the mid-terms, which provides for way less drama and way less excitement.

I don't understand what you mean.  The basic arc for both parties' nomination races seems to always play out in pretty much the same way:  A year before the primaries, there's a frontrunner, who everyone seems to think will be tough to beat, but then somewhere along the course of the campaign (either in the fall of the year before the election, or in the primaries themselves), that frontrunner starts to face a serious challenge, though *usually* not enough that they lose.

In 1992 cycle, wasn't Clinton widely considered to be the frontrunner for the Dem nomination, once it became clear that the big names like Cuomo and Gephardt wouldn't run?  Clinton stumbled badly over personal issues like Gennifer Flowers, and for a while it looked like Tsongas might win, but Clinton still won in the end.  In the 1996 cycle, Dole was the early frontrunner, but was then seriously challenged by the rising popularity of Forbes in late '95, and Buchanan's surprisingly strong showings in IA and NH, but Dole still won.  In '00, Gore was the early frontrunner for the Dems, but Bradley surged into the lead in NH polls in the fall of '99, though Gore ended up coming back and winning both IA and NH, at which point Bradley could never regain any momentum.  And on the GOP side in '00, Bush was the early frontrunner, and his mammoth war chest and lead in the polls led to half of the field dropping out of the race by the end of 1999, but then you had the rising tide of McCain, who stunned Bush with a 17 point victory in NH.  Bush still came back to win in the end.

The recent case where this pattern played out in a very strange way was in the '04 election cycle, where (once Gore announced that he wouldn't run), Kerry became the early frontrunner.  But he was eclipsed by Dean in the summer of '03, and suddenly Dean was the frontrunner.  But Dean had a spectacular meltdown *right before the Iowa caucus*, and Kerry ended up winning it after all.

I don't think the Republicans are somehow programmed to rally around the frontrunner early, and never give it a second though, while the Democrats are destined to always engage in a primary bloodbath.  I think it's just the case that in recent elections, the Republicans have more frequently happened to have a strong frontrunner early on.  This time around, I don't think either party has anyone who's nearly as well positioned as Bush and Gore were in late 1998.  Clinton and McCain may be their parties' respective frontrunners, but they are nowhere close to being as strong as Bush and Gore were back then.  They are both like Kerry was at the end of 2002--the nominal frontrunner, but weak enough that there's still a good chance that they'll lose their respective party nominations.

I just mean that most of the time the Republicans seem to decide on a nominee a good six-nine months before the convention.  I do agree with you that in 2008, it will probably take a little bit longer for the Republicans to find someone they can run with.  I still expect us to know the nominees of both parties by the middle of April 2008 which is just shy of 7 months before the general election.