Web posted Saturday, January 4, 2003

'04 campaign promises to be a good one

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Close your eyes for a second these days, it seems, and when you open them, you'll see another exploratory committee.

These are groups put together by presidential aspirants with the purpose of seeing if there is any money out there to help a fellow get to the White House. Large amounts of money will come only if the people who have it think the aspirant also has a good chance of success at the ballot box in the primaries and general election.

The latest two candidates for the Democratic nomination -- well, they are not exactly candidates yet, but then again, they are close -- are Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina and Rep. Dick Gephardt of Missouri. They join Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts and Gov. Howard Dean of Vermont as people announcing that they and their committees have set about trying to discover cheering throngs and continents of cash.

On top of these four are also people exploring whether they should explore further. They are reported to include Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware, Sen. Tom Daschle of South Dakota, Sen. Christopher Dodd of Connecticut, Sen. Bob Graham of Florida, Sen. Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut, retired Gen. Wesley Clark and civil rights activist Al Sharp-ton. More names could be added any day.

The potential field is as large as it is for at least a couple of reasons. One is that Al Gore stepped aside, meaning that there is no one who seems so formidable a candidate as to make the efforts of others futile from the outset.

Another may be the sense of these men that events could make President Bush highly vulnerable by 2004, despite his current popularity.

Early reviews suggest that winning the nomination is an uphill job for any one of these people. Who has ever heard of Dean, and what does anyone really know about Edwards? It is difficult for current members of Congress -- especially of the House -- to be elected president, it is said.

But this much is known: Someone will get the nomination. And in this age of television, obtaining name recognition in a hurry is easily achieved.

Something else is known, too, and it is that these possibilities include people of exceptional ability. The odds are in Ameri-ca's favor that our democratic processes will give us a candidate who will be worthy and that the 2004 campaign will provide a solid discussion of issues.