Didn't We Just Elect a President?

From AP:

Poll: Clinton and Giuliani top party picks, but polarizing

ALBANY, N.Y. -- While Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton and Republican Rudolph Giuliani are their party's top picks for the 2008 presidential nominations, both remain highly polarizing figures, according to a national poll out Friday.

Forty percent of Democrats said they favored the New York senator for the party's nomination while 18 percent opted for Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts, the loser of the 2004 presidential race. Fourteen percent wanted former Sen. John Edwards, Kerry's 2004 running mate, according to the Marist College Institute for Public Opinion.

Giuliani, the former New York City mayor, was favored by 25 percent of Republican voters for the 2008 GOP nomination with Sen. John McCain of Arizona at 20 percent and Florida Gov. Jeb Bush at 10 percent.

None of the often mentioned other potential contenders in either party managed to get into double digits in the poll. New York Gov. George Pataki, for instance, was favored by just 2 percent of GOP voters nationally.

The partisan polarization was evident for both Clinton and Giuliani, said Lee Miringoff, head of the Poughkeepsie, N.Y.-based polling institute.

While 72 percent of Democrats said they would like the former first lady to run for the White House in 2008, 76 percent of Republicans said they did not. Conversely, 71 percent of Republicans said Giuliani should run while 64 percent of Democrats said he should not seek the presidency.

Miringoff said McCain and Edwards both run better against the top opposition than do Giuliani and Clinton. For instance, McCain leads Clinton, 50 percent to 42 percent, but against the former North Carolina senator it is McCain, 46 percent, and Edwards, 43 percent.

"They don't have that polarization that Hillary and Rudy have," the independent pollster said.

Marist's telephone poll of 838 registered voters was conducted April 18-21 and has a sampling error margin of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.
________________________________

Bush started his second term less than four months ago. Why this obsession with 2008 already?

The perpetual campaign, perfected by Bill Clinton, and the subsequent perpetual presidential polling, is a phenomenon that I consider to be a colossal waste of time.

Who cares?

These polls couldn't be any more irrelevant. They are easily disregarded. What concerns me is not the polls. I don't like is how the perpetual campaign impacts the performance of some likely contenders.

When every move is calculated, when every statement is measured by how it will affect a run for the White House, it is impossible to be carrying out one's duties as a representative of the people.

Are these officials in office to serve their constituents? Or, are they exploiting their office as a means to an end, that has nothing to do with service and everything to do with the personal goal of attaining power?

Some of the individuals mentioned in the poll are not in campaign mode. Certainly, Giuliani doesn't hold elected office now, so his obligation to his constituents is non-existent. Jeb Bush is busy governing Florida, consistently denying any interest in the presidency.

McCain and Kerry, on the other hand, have both made it clear that they are planning on making another run for the White House. All they do and say is being shaped by that goal.

Although Hillary allows herself to be introduced as the "next president of the United States," she continues to be cagey about her aspirations for higher office. Hillary should give up the charade. She's running; and like Bill, she's in perpetual campaign mode.

Is she busy in the Senate representing New Yorkers, or is she so actively positioning herself to be the Dem nominee in 2008 that her constituents end up on the back burner?

I wish focus would stay on the tasks at hand and the issues we face in 2005. That does not include the 2008 presidential campaign.