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The interesting thing about candidate Hillary (and I do think she's running) is that I haven't met one Democrat who is actually excited about the prospect of her winning the nomination. Obviously, polls showing her way ahead contradict my anecdotal evidence, but still, I think most Democrats would prefer an alternative. For much of the year I thought that Mark Warner was well-positioned to challenge her, but obviously now he's not running. It's pretty clear that John "botched joke" Kerry is out of the picture. Al Gore could conceivably make a comeback a la Richard Nixon in 1968. However, my theory is that his renewed popularity is rooted in the fact that he's not running for anything, so he's more relaxed, and comfortable in his own skin. Were he to transform into a candidate once again, I think he'd revert back to being the man of wood that people found so annoying in 2000. There's a lot of hype surrounding John Edwards, but he didn't live up to the hype in 2004, and he won't this time around. You hear Evan Bayh's name tossed around, but he may be too moderate to appeal to the party's base. So, perhaps that leaves them with Barack Obama, who I see as too inexperienced, but he clearly has more charisma than any other Democrat and has appeal across the ideological spectrum of the party.

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Barack Obama