Only 648 Days Until the Election!

Senator Sam Brownback (R-Kansas) announces that he will enter the 2008 presidential race.

Jeff Davis / Polaris

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The last time a little-known Arkansas governor ran for President, he waited until four months before the Iowa caucuses to make his announcement. That worked out pretty well for Bill Clinton, so it's understandable that until a few weeks ago, Mike Huckabee thought he had plenty of time. Buoyed by early encouragement from some Republican activists and savoring his last days in the Governor's mansion in Little Rock, Huckabee assumed that he would wait until at least the spring before announcing whether he would run in 2008. Better to move slowly and develop a sure message, he figured, than to rush in before he was ready. But this election is different. Huckabee is realizing that time is a luxury he doesn't have. Top political talent is being snapped up. Antsy potential supporters are starting to look elsewhere and are asking what's taking so long to start his campaign. Then there's money. Even if he starts today, Huckabee will have to raise about $2 million a week to get to the $100 million or so that it will take for him to be considered a serious contender. "It seems awfully early to me," he says, "but my decision is something that has to be announced soon."

There's nearly a year to go before the Iowa caucuses, but it sure feels like the 2008 presidential-election season has reached full swing. There are at least 20 actual or assumed or wished-for candidates--nine Democrats and 11 Republicans--a field that narrowed by one when John Kerry dropped out on Wednesday. Most of them have begun raising money, hiring staff and lining up endorsements. The past couple of weeks alone have brought announcements by three Senators--Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama on the Democratic side, Sam Brownback on the Republican--and one Governor, Democrat Bill Richardson of New Mexico. In the crowd there are, for the first time, credible contenders who give voters a chance to make history on a host of fronts--by electing the first woman President or the first African American or the first Latino or the first Mormon.

To track voter sentiment--and candidates' odds of winning--TIME is launching the Election Index, a regular feature that will pinpoint the intersection of how much Americans know about each candidate and how much they like what they see. The surprising news is that this week's Election Index puts former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani ahead of Arizona Senator John McCain, despite the latter's formidable organization and resources, for the top spot in the G.O.P. Hillary Clinton leads the Democrats, but the Election Index (see page 34) shows she has slightly less potential general-election support than Giuliani.

The eagerness of candidates to make themselves known and liked as quickly as possible is understandable, as this will be the most wide-open presidential race in generations and the first since 1928 in which no incumbent President or Vice President appears on a primary ballot anywhere. The states are as anxious as the candidates to get things going, and more and more of them are deciding they don't want to be left out of the make-or-break early balloting. The calendar is still in flux, but as things look now, 20 or more states will have their primaries or caucuses before mid-February 2008. Practically speaking, that means candidates will need full-fledged national operations by this fall, and there will be little opportunity for the late-starting insurgent. It suggests that both parties will have settled on their nominees fully eight months before Election Day, giving a depressingly early launch to what promises to be a brutal general-election campaign. At the same time, however, it could be harder for a front runner in either primary to deliver an early knockout punch to the rest of the field. "The odd effect could be to elongate the process, not shorten it," says former Republican chairman Ken Mehlman, who was George Bush's 2004 campaign manager. "On each side, there will be two or three candidates who will have the resources to survive a key loss early on."