Every four years, the nation’s presidential race consumes more space, time, and energy — grabbing with each cycle a bigger share of our public life and distracting both politicians and the press from major issues facing the country.
As readers of our original incarnation as Campaign Desk know, the 2004 presidential contest was interminable — and exhausting. So suffice it to say that we were less than thrilled to see an Associated Press story headlined “Rudy ‘Danes’ to mull run for White House” on page 2 of the New York Post today:
Former Mayor Rudy Giuliani said yesterday he will contemplate next year whether to run for president in 2008.
“I will be considering it next year,” Giuliani said during a visit to Denmark.
But he added that playing with the idea of running for the Republican nomination did not mean he would actually do it.
“Sometimes, you warm up and get ready and you don’t get in and pitch,” he told reporters.
Where have we heard this before?
Why, in a similar AP dispatch from Australia in late August, when Rudy told the Forbes Global CEO Conference that “he would probably decide next year whether to run for the presidency of the United States.” And sure enough, he said, “I don’t know whether I’m going to run yet, which is something I probably won’t decide until next year and then, of course, nobody knows the answer to that until after people vote.”
From Sydney to Copenhagen, it seems, the AP can’t get enough of Rudy’s measured indecisiveness.
Today’s story in the Post also called to mind an extensive analysis of the 2008 race by Tom Curry, posted last Friday on MSNBC.com. “I’ve just been talking to the next president,” Curry wrote. “If only I knew who it was.” Over 1,100 words, Curry then went on to ask — but not, of course, to answer — whether John McCain might be the next president, or maybe Russ Feingold, or possibly Mike Huckabee, or if George Allen, Mark Warner, Bill Frist, Sam Brownback, Hillary Clinton, Bill Richardson, or even Howard Dean could be No. 44.
Thanks for clearing that up, Tom.
Curry did make the point that “For the first time since the 1952 election, no incumbent president or heir apparent vice president is seeking the White House.” Well, yeah, so far. But at least in certain portions of the blogosphere, Dick Cheney trial balloons already are being inflated and sent aloft.
All this is exhausting us already. So, we have a tip to the wannabe campaign press: It’s 2005! Lay off with pointless prognostications about 2008. And remember, no matter how hard you try, you can’t produce a baby in one month by impregnating nine women.
Edward B. Colby was a writer at CJR Daily.