The secret is, it’s not that early.
While most analysts point to the front-loading of the primary process, and the lack of an incumbent, the most important reason it’s not that early is this.
It’s just not that early.
One of my favorite scenes in Oliver Stone’s Nixon shows him (Anthony Hopkins) at a New York cocktail party around 1966. Most of the crowd is gathered around New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller (Ed Hermann) who pointedly tells Nixon that siding with extremists (Joe McCarthy, as himself) "never helped the party and never will."
This was a vital part of the process back then, the "money primary" that could precede the actual run by a year or more. Stone is hinting that Nixon lost this, in his then-backyard of New York, but in fact, as revealed through an imagined scene with a Texas oilman (Larry Hagman) he had ample financial support all along.
One can actually argue that, in terms of generational crises, this election campaign has started late. The 1894 campaign was, in many ways, a dry run for the rise of Populism in 1896 — the party took over several important states. The 1858 election was similar — anyone who thinks the Lincoln-Douglas debate wasn’t part of the 1860 campaign doesn’t know history.
(Image from the collection at Northern Illinois University.) Because TV dominates modern campaigns, this part of the campaign has
taken on the form of an American Idol-like audition, with Iowa and New
Hampshire voters, along with state conventions, as the focus groups.
These events, which are held in public, now take the place of the old
cocktail party circuit, and the even older smoke-filled rooms, that
once buzzed with activity two years out from an election.
One final, important, and unprecedented element in the early start is the
unpopularity of the incumbent (and the fact he’s term-limited, something that wasn’t possible before the 1950s). We haven’t seen this kind of fatigue
since 1932, when Hoover was rejected long before the campaign. But Hoover could run again. With Bush term-limited, both parties are now
involved in their process.
With Iowa and New Hampshire less than a year away, and many other
states piled in right after, no, it’s not too early. Let the
conversation begin, and just remember it’s not about talking to the
candidates, but talking among ourselves which counts.
You have the power, which means the smoke-filled room is now your living room.
The thing that intrigues (and appalls) me is that as Bush’s popularity has waned, McCain has tried to align himself more closely with the administration. It seems like he had the perfect opportunity to play the man of conscience who could no longer maintain the status quo at the cost of the nation, yet he went the completely opposite way. Clearly, the machine behind W still has enough juice that McCain felt he couldn’t afford to let them go to another republican — even at the cost of ceding a huge percentage of the general election vote that will reject anything easily tied to Bush. Basically, he has mortgaged his future to insure that he wins the primary.
The thing that intrigues (and appalls) me is that as Bush’s popularity has waned, McCain has tried to align himself more closely with the administration. It seems like he had the perfect opportunity to play the man of conscience who could no longer maintain the status quo at the cost of the nation, yet he went the completely opposite way. Clearly, the machine behind W still has enough juice that McCain felt he couldn’t afford to let them go to another republican — even at the cost of ceding a huge percentage of the general election vote that will reject anything easily tied to Bush. Basically, he has mortgaged his future to insure that he wins the primary.