Just warming up

According to at least one bastion of the MSM, The GOP 2008 Presidential race is heating up!

DES MOINES — Now the race for the Republican presidential nomination begins in earnest.

Actor and former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson finally joined the contest Wednesday night, ending a months-long tease and giving voters a chance to see whether he can match the buildup that already has him in the top tier of public opinion polls.

As he jumped in, the rest of the field started taking shots at one another in their first post-Labor Day debate, a sign of the higher stakes as the campaign turns more intense before caucus and primary voting starts in late December or early January.

Long shots such as former Govs. James Gilmore of Virginia and Tommy Thompson of Wisconsin already have been driven from the race, and others such as Reps. Duncan Hunter of California and Tom Tancredo of Colorado battle being marginalized by their inability to muster much support.

As the candidates jostle for position, Republican voters remain split, unwilling to anoint any of nine candidates as a dominant front-runner and retaining the power to shake up the race in coming days and weeks.

"You can't call it," Republican strategist Frank Luntz said. "It's going to get shook up a little with Thompson in."

Indeed, the interest in Thompson among Republican voters signals how fluid the race remains despite the earliest campaign start in history.

Several candidates already have been campaigning for half a year, the candidates combined have spent more than $80 million and one candidate — former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney — has held more than 400 events in Iowa and New Hampshire, the first two states to vote.

Still, voters haven't coalesced behind a candidate, and all of them have challenges ahead:

This is all department of the obvious stuff. Voters haven't coalesced since, no real voting has taken place. Straw polls don't count.

Challenges ahead- Get voted for or find something else to do. I could have said this and done it for alot less money than what Steven Thomma and Margaret Talev of McClatchy Newspapers are getting paid. The 2008 Presidential campaign effectively started days after the 2004 race was over. It wasn't a week before the pundits started in. Prospective candidates were trekking to Iowa and New Hampshire in 2005.

I could have cared less too. The general voting public probably feels the same. There has been too much hot air being expended by politicians, pundits, beat reporters and bloggers over the campaign. I can hardly wait till the 2008 election is passed. Unfortunately the 2012 race will start up not long afterwards. I'll even bet we could hear talk of it, before the 2008 November elections take place! Can someone stop this insane cycle or will this be Presidential politics till the day I die?

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