The road to the White House 2008 is paved with paradox

[Ron Burgundy]

AFP - The 2008 White House race is already the longest and most-expensive campaign in US history, and though the 17 candidates seem many, so are the paradoxes.

With the first presidential primaries still six months away, the eight Democratic and nine Republican hopefuls have already endured months of campaigning, frenzied fundraising and repeated televised debates.

"The campaign is too long," said Carroll Doherty, of the Pew Research Center.

Americans "are getting campaign fatigue, but on the other hand, people are paying more attention than previous elections," said Doherty.

For the first time since 1928, the White House has no candidate to back, neither president nor vice, and making the situation "still fluid," he told AFP.

Among Democratic hopefuls, New York's senator and former first lady Hillary Clinton leads the polls. A opinion poll Friday showed her the favorite among 43 percent of voters planning to cast ballots, while Senator Barack Obama, at 24 percent is a distant second, and former senator John Edwards claiming 16 percent.

She may look like a shoo-in to 77 percent of Democrats, and even 53 percent of Republicans said she was "likely" to win, but Clinton must still overcome skepticism.

"There is something the voters are resisting," said veteran Democratic strategist Bob Shrum.

"There is this huge desire for a change out there; that's what she is running against," he said, suggesting many voters see the former first lady as something other than a break with the past.

Some commentators have gone so far as to say that after three Bush presidencies, two for the current President George W. Bush and one for his father, the country could balk at a third Clinton presidency -- after two under her husband, Bill Clinton.

Her closest rival, Obama, may trail her in the polls, but is ahead of the well-oiled Clinton machine at raising money: 32.5 million dollars in the second quarter of the campaign.

More than 250,000 people have so far chipped some 55.7 million dollars into the coffers of the young, first-term senator from Chicago who has captivated the masses, both white and African American.

However, Obama cannot turn that financial support into popularity among voters. Obama has plateaued at 19-25 percent preference among Democrats.

"It is early yet," Doherty said. "The question is on the Democratic side (is) can Obama begin to broaden his own base? Can Clinton maintain the front-runner status?"

Already dragged down by an unpopular president and a quagmire in Iraq, Republicans have done poorly at distancing themselves from Bush and done even worse at appearing to be agents of change.

The most recent poll places former New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani as leader among Republicans with 33 percent of voter preference; followed by a man who has not even announced, actor and former senator Fred Thompson, at 25 percent; Senator John McCain, with campaign money and staff problems, at 15 percent; and former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney at eight percent.

"The candidate who seems to have been running forever and the one who has yet to enter the race are leading their respective nomination contests," a Zogby International report this week said about Clinton and Thompson, respectively.

The names of two other candidates, former vice president Al Gore for the Democrats and Senator Chuck Hagel on the Republican side are always rumored to be in the wings.

Beginning in January with Iowa and New Hampshire, voters in each of the 50 United States will choose delegates to party national conventions to elect candidates for the presidency.

Presidential Election Day is November 4, 2008.

source: http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070722/pl_afp/usvote2008 [link]