Well, It's January so the winnowing of Presidential candidates has started.

The Diane Rheem Show today has started out with a discussion among reporters about the various candidates for the Presidential nominations. Of course, the nominations won't actually start until 2008, and this is January 2007.

This is because of

• the frontloading of the nominations which will presumably determine both the Republican and the Democratic candidates by March or April of 2008,
• the large number of candidates because there is no clear anointed successor to Bush, or
• Bush and the Iraq war are such a political disaster that people are already lined up to find a replacement.

Or it could be a combination of those three plus something I am not yet aware of.

Welcome to Political Junkie Heaven! Twenty-one months of Presidential campaigning!