It's fun to speculate - so long as we remember it is only speculation.

Predicting the next nominee of a major party with no incumbent in the race is hard enough ONE year out from the election - witness the universal assumption of the Dean Juggernaut in November 2003. Two years is extremely difficult.

For instance, in 1970 most people assumed Muskie would win the next Democratic nomination. Nobody would have given McGovern a chance - maybe McCarthy, Teddy K, or even Humphrey again, but not McGovern. Heck, the guy sounds like Liberace!

Who was touting Dukakis in 1986? Did anyone even know who Jimmy Carter WAS in 1974?

If we spread out the tea leaves just right, and analyze all the current data, we might be able to pick an early frontrunner. The history of early frontrunners isn't always so good, though - ask Muskie, or Gary Hart, or Howard Dean.

Hilarity! has a huge edge in money and name recognition, and her recent rejection by the moonbat left might well have been a calculated effort to balance her 95% lifetime ADA rating in the Senate. "Triangulation," they call it . . .

Her advantage is that core of sympathetic and financial support. She may not rise much above her 36% in this poll, but that would be enough to win Iowa and NH in a crowded field, and after doing that, no candidate has ever been denied his party's nomination.

If she is to be beaten for the nomination, either the "anti-Hilarity!" forces will have to coalesce around a single candidate before Iowa, or she will have to self-destruct.

Astute analysis, to be sure, if I do say so myself - but pretty much worthless in predictive value as to the 2008 campaign, anyway.

:-)

It appears to be a name-recognition poll from a politically apathetic sample.

At this point, a poll of probable primary voters might have value, and even then only to gauge the depth of opposition to Hillary and McCain in their respective parties.

Neither Giuliani nor McCain are an easy fit with the GOP base. There's a vacuum yet to be filled. My early guess is Romney, but it's way too early to handicap this thing.

It is 2 years UNTIL 2008. No Voter cares NOW!