How do you know when political reporters have absolutely nothing to write about? Answer: They write about Al Gore's chances in 2004.
Isn't it a little early for that? All this talk about who'll be the Democratic nominee for prez in '04, how he'll fare against Bush, whether Cheney will be on the ticket and so on strikes me as way more than premature. By the time that election begins for real, there'll be completely different issues and players before us. We may or may not be at war with Iraq. We may or may not have had more terrorist attacks. The economy may or may not have made a solid recovery. There may or may not have been hundreds more Worldcom/Enron style scandals. Cheney may or may not be in decent health. Et cetera, et cetera…
Other, unpredictable issues of equal importance may have — probably will have — emerged. On September 10 last year, few (if any) imagined that fighting terrorism was about to become Job One. And when it did, few imagined that fighting corporate corruption would soon become an issue of as much importance as it has. Add to all this the fact that at least one prominent politician will get indicted for some crime, some prominent politician will say something so stupid their constituents will desert him, some prominent politician will have a sex scandal…
Again, et cetera, et cetera…
I have only one prediction, which I've made here before. I think, in '04, the question will be, "Do you feel safer now than you did on September 11?" If most voters feel that, as a result of the actions of the current administration, they're less afraid of annihilation, Bush could get caught humping a sheep and still win a second term. If they feel not enough has been done and/or that "the war" (whatever its scope at the time) has been bungled, almost anyone will be able to beat him. The other stuff may matter in terms of Congress because the less the country trusts Bush on the economy, the more likely they are to want Democratic representatives to stop him from running amok. But none of it has anything to do with who'll win the presidential election of 2004 or even who'll be on the ballots.