A Campaign Role Reversal

You

keep hearing about the Presidential race, "It's so early, it's so early." But it isn't. If you assume the 2008 campaign began on Election Day 2006, then we're already halfway to the Iowa caucus and the New Hampshire primary, currently scheduled for mid-January 2008. Here's what we've learned so far: In both parties, there's a top two—Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama for the Democrats, Rudy Giuliani and John McCain for the Republicans. There's a third-place candidate on the edge of the first tier—John Edwards and Mitt Romney. There's a big jump down to the next tier of declared candidates, none of whom seem to have much of a chance. And there is a possible late entry (Al Gore) or two (Fred Thompson and Newt Gingrich), any of whom would join the first tier.

But beyond this similarity, what's striking is the difference in the way the race has progressed in the two parties. The Democratic campaign has been amazingly stable. In late February, if one averaged half a dozen national polls, Clinton was at about 35%, Obama had about 25%, and Edwards and Gore trailed with about 13%. There's of course been a little bouncing around during the course of the past three months, but no one's changed places, and today the numbers are virtually identical to where they were three months ago. Surveys in the key early states haven't changed much either. There the candidates are more closely bunched, with Edwards usually ahead in Iowa and Clinton in New Hampshire.

The main drama in the Democratic Party this year has been the movement en masse of its voters, elected representatives and candidates toward a policy of withdrawal sooner rather than later from Iraq. This culminated in the past couple of weeks when three-quarters of House Democrats and three-fifths of Senate Democrats voted to begin cutting off funding for most combat operations in Iraq. All the Presidential candidates supported the plan, including the previously "we can't just pull out" Clinton and Joe Biden. So the candidates are together on Iraq policy moving forward, however much sniping there might be about previous votes and statements. This reduces the chances of that issue fundamentally changing the dynamics of the race. This isn't 1972, with George McGovern battling Scoop Jackson and Ed Muskie caught between, or 2004, with Howard Dean challenging the field and Dick Gephardt and Joe Lieberman losing ground as war supporters.

Absent surprises, this looks on the Democratic side like a classic G.O.P. race, in which the Establishment candidate (in this case, Clinton) maintains a lead, is challenged by one or two slightly more exciting competitors and, after a bump or two on the road, ends up prevailing.

The Republican race has been more volatile. McCain and Giuliani were co–front runners in the polls at the beginning of this year, and there was even considerable speculation that Giuliani wouldn't run. Then in the first few months of 2007, McCain lost about a third of his support as Giuliani entered the race and took a commanding lead in the polls, approaching 40% a couple of months ago. Now he's fallen back. Today Giuliani is in the lead at about 27%, with McCain at about 21%, followed by Romney and the two not-yet-candidates, Thompson and Gingrich, at about 10%.

So whereas three-fifths of the Democratic vote now goes to the two front-runners, fewer than half of Republicans support Giuliani or McCain. What's more, one recent survey had only 52% of Republican primary voters saying they were satisfied with the current crop of candidates running for their party's Presidential nomination, compared with 77% of Democratic primary voters. The door is open far wider for Thompson—and perhaps Gingrich—to enter the G.O.P. race than it is for Gore to join the Democratic contest.

And the G.O.P. race features real differences among the candidates on important and salient issues. Giuliani is pro-choice—and apparently pro-Roe v. Wade—in a pro-life, anti-Roe party. McCain is for something like amnesty for illegal immigrants in a party that is not. There's lots of room for Romney to move up, which he is now doing (he leads in a new Iowa poll), and for Thompson to get in (which he intends to do next month). Romney or Thompson will then battle to become the conservative alternative. It's quite possible that the winner of that battle will defeat McCain and Giuliani for the nomination.

Which party will benefit? Well, if the President from your party is at 35% in the polls, you might not mind having your party show some dynamism and change. Anyway, conservatives are supposed to believe in competition and capitalists in creative destruction. So as a Republican, I'm cheering on the chaos.