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Wednesday, December 27, 2006

Edwards to toss hat into ring early

Edwards to toss hat into ring early Thursday's news will precede string of '08 candidates

(12-27) 04:00 PST Washington --

On Thursday, John Edwards is planning to announce what has been clear to much of the world since the end of the last presidential election:

He is running for president in 2008. A similar declaration is expected shortly from Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, followed, in all probability, by Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, Barack Obama of Illinois and John McCain of Arizona.

For all the very orchestrated hoopla about to be heaped on American voters over the next few weeks, presidential announcements have become, more often than not, vestigial remnants of the way presidential politics were once conducted -- or at least the way they are remembered.
Rather than being big moments in which candidates lay down ideological markers and discuss what they would do as president, announcements are more of a pro forma exercise of the obvious. Campaigns grab at a political opportunity for attention with events that, ultimately, are of relatively small consequence.
For Clinton, Romney, Edwards and McCain, it would be noteworthy, after all they have done, if they were to announce that they were not running. Edwards' 2008 campaign arguably began on election day 2004, when he lost as his party's vice presidential candidate.
But if formal announcements hold little drama, they are hardly meaningless. Their timing and staging reflect how presidential politics is changing in America in 2008, and offer a glimpse at problems each candidate faces one year before the Iowa caucuses. The announcements are an insight into how campaigns are adapting to the pressures of the Internet, the demands of fundraising, the broad range of avenues for reaching voters and mobilizing supporters, and the particular dynamics of the '08 campaign, crowded with candidates, many of them celebrities.
Most strikingly, the announcements are being made extraordinarily early. In the 1992 cycle, Bill Clinton did not formally announce his candidacy until October 1991, three months before the Iowa caucuses. When Edwards announces, with a round of morning talk show interviews and a news conference in the Lower Ninth Ward in New Orleans, he will become the second major candidate to have formally declared, following Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack, another Democrat. Nearly a half-dozen prospective candidates, including McCain and Rudolph Giuliani of New York, both Republicans, have formed exploratory committees.
In this crowded field, few candidates can afford to wait and risk watching a rival pick off big-name elected officials, campaign consultants and contributors. And since aides to many of the candidates say they are likely to bow out of the public campaign finance system and raise money on their own, there is pressure to start raising money now.
"Timing is becoming much more of an issue," said Joe Trippi, who managed the 2004 presidential campaign of Howard Dean. "You're seeing it now in the urge of these people to get out and announce. I'm worried that we're going to see people announce four years ahead of time next time the way this thing is moving."
Understandably, candidates are going to do what it takes to get publicity. Edwards' aides said they chose this slow-news time of year, and the backdrop of New Orleans neighborhoods ravaged by Hurricane Katrina, in part, to command the maximum amount of attention.
But there are less obvious advantages as well. Trippi said that when Dean announced for president in June 2004, they timed his announcement for a week before the deadline for the release of campaign finance reports. The idea was that the excitement built by the announcement in Vermont would result in a surge of contributions that would allow Dean to surprise the political world with a display of his grassroots financial support. Dean's big fundraising report that month proved a big boost for his campaign.
Edwards, who is arguably the most Web-savvy candidate in the '08 race to date, is using Thursday's event to try to gin up his supporters via the Internet. He sent out an e-mail earlier this week, saying he was on the verge of making a decision that his aides say has, in fact, already been made.
The decision of how to time the announcements also reflects the particular needs of the candidates.
For Edwards, there is clearly interest in trying to win attention after two months in which Clinton and Obama dominated the coverage of the Democratic contest. The decision by Indiana Sen. Evan Bayh not to run has left a clear opportunity for Edwards to position himself as the alternative to the other two senators.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/12/27/MNGF6N6B351.DTL&feed=rss.news
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