Peggy Noonan has a column out today asking why the 2008
presidential elections are starting so early. I think one of the
main explainations is that given President Bush's low approval
ratings, a lot of people of people want a new president. This hit
me when I saw a FoxNews poll yesterday showing that the preference for
the presidential election to start earlier was divided among party
lines. Among Democrats, only 37 percent thought it was too early
for presidential candidates to be campaigning, compared with 59
percent who thought it wasn't. Among Republicans, the numbers are
almost the total reverse --58 percent say too early, 38 percent say
not too early. So, it seems like there's some correlation between
how a group feels about Bush and how they feel about the early
start to the presidential election.