By John Mercurio, NationalJournal.com
© National Journal Group Inc.
Thursday, Nov. 30, 2006

Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack (D) is doing it the old-fashioned way. Twenty-three months before Election Day, he'll formally launch his 2008 presidential bid this week in a five-state, six-day series of events, starting in his humble hometown of Mount Pleasant. There may or may not be bunting. His message is simple: I'm running for president. No exploratory committees. No book tours or heart-to-hearts on Oprah's couch. No non-denial denials. It's the same straightforward, unvarnished persona the Iowan wants to convey on the campaign trail.

	The models that candidates are following for how, when and where to perform the vaunted "roll out" are as varied as the candidates themselves.
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But Vilsack, whose advisers concede he needs time, attention and early fundraising to become a viable force in the race, is crafting a uniquely normal debut among an '08 field of rock-star personas, from both parties, who are approaching the next White House campaign in vastly different ways. Indeed, the models that candidates are following for how, when and where to perform the vaunted "roll out" are as varied as the candidates themselves. Who has decided to run, but not announced? Who won't run, but won't say so for months? In a field of more than three dozen possible candidates from both parties, only three (Sen. Russell Feingold, D-Wis., former Gov. Mark Warner, D-Va., and Sen. Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn.) so far have publicly declined to run.

While early rollouts are quickly overshadowed by actual campaigns, it's no coincidence that some would-be candidates are scrutinizing the effective way President Bush launched his 2000 campaign. Most notably, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., who, like Bush, has enjoyed front-runner status within her party since shortly after the last presidential election, is following his model closely.

Like Bush, who spent heavily in 1998 to win a landslide re-election as Texas governor over a third-tier challenger, Clinton focused intently on re-election in New York this year and studiously avoided visits to early primary states. Like Bush in 1999, Clinton's early lead, and the persistent aura of inevitability, has allowed her to spend relatively little time locking up early endorsements or raising her profile among party activists. She's unlikely to announce anything in the next few months, aides say.

"She doesn't need to say anything, to anyone, at this point," one adviser said this week. "It's all being said, and done, for her."

Clinton does face one early hurdle that Bush wasn't grappling with at this stage in the 2000 campaign. While Arizona Sen. John McCain's (R) stiff challenge to Bush in '00 was unforeseen in late 1998, Clinton advisers are preparing for the prospect that Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., could run and pose a serious enough threat to complicate her ivory-tower strategy. Obama is doing little to squelch the Obama boomlet. He has scheduled strategic trips to both coasts in the near future, in addition to a Dec. 12 fundraiser in Manchester, N.H., for state Democrats. He'll be in New York on Dec. 4 for a children's charity event and, on Dec. 8, will take a seat on Jay Leno's couch.

Indeed, the klieg lights now focused on Obama and Clinton leave lower-wattage Democrats with little time to waste -- a point not lost on Vilsack or, say, retired Gen. Wesley Clark, who said this week that he'll make his move shortly. "I think it was clear that I got in too late last time," Clark told the Associated Press. "[There was] an inability to create a staff in a timely fashion. I didn't have a campaign manager until the end of November. I had no money. I had no strategy when I started. It was my only faith-based initiative.... It's one of several mistakes that if I were to run that I would hope I wouldn't repeat."

On the GOP side, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani and outgoing Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney are moving quickly to establish themselves as viable alternatives to McCain, who despite two national polls showing Giuliani in the lead, remains the clear GOP front-runner. Want proof? Just watch how other Republicans are treating him. Just this week, Romney hired a GOP consultant in South Carolina with experience going head-to-head with McCain's local team. Also this week, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, R-Ga., speaking in New Hampshire, picked a fight with the senator over his pet issue, campaign finance reform, saying McCain-Feingold violates free speech and should be overturned. And Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee dismissed McCain's status as "celebrity."

Sources say both Giuliani and Romney plan to launch their candidacies in early to mid-2007. Curiously, Gingrich has said he won't make a decision until September 2007, presumably banking on voter burnout at that time of one or more announced GOP candidates.

Giuliani's candidacy remains a puzzle to some national observers, who question his decision to register two exploratory PACs -- one with the Federal Election Commission and another in New York. But his active campaign schedule in 2006 reinforced the notion that he's running in '08, and aides privately say he's moving toward announcing his candidacy in late spring or early summer of next year.

By most measures, Romney has taken much bolder steps to suggest he's not only running, but aggressively courting the large bloc of conservative McCain critics. Just this week, he made his latest trip to Bible Belt country, telling Mississippi Republicans that his potential candidacy has support from Christian conservatives such as the Rev. Jerry Falwell. (Falwell later issued a statement denying he has endorsed Romney; Romney says his comments were taken out of context.)

In a move some advisers worry will hinder his general election prospects, he is banking on prospects that in 2008, voters will be focused intently on domestic and social issues, not Iraq or the war on terror, and he has positioned himself as a die-hard champion of traditional marriage. This week, Romney also leased office space for a campaign headquarters in Boston's North End and hired House Majority Leader John Boehner's (R) chief spokesman, Kevin Madden, to join his exploratory committee. He also recently brought Glenn Hubbard and Greg Mankiw, who helped craft the tax cuts Bush shepherded through Congress during his first term, onto his team of advisers. Sources say Romney will formally launch his candidacy early next year, shortly after he leaves office as Massachusetts governor.

Among Republicans, a debate is also evolving over how to campaign with, around or against Bush, whose prospects for political resurrection over the next two years remain inextricably tied to the situation in Iraq. While McCain remains the GOP's staunchest defender of Bush's Iraq policy, two other potential candidates -- Gingrich and Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb. -- have emerged as his strongest critics. (Speaking in New Hampshire, Gingrich this week called Iraq a "failure.")

How that sort of anti-Bush rhetoric will play in two years is unclear. But one thing's for sure -- 23 months before Election Day, candidates are fine-tuning their choice of words and deeds.

-- John Mercurio is a NationalJournal.com contributing writer and a senior editor of The Hotline. His e-mail address is jmercurio@nationaljournal.com.

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