How many candidates will each party's field have?

[Ignacio Upton]

Remember back in 2004, how pundits would joke of the crowded field of nine (briefly ten) Democrats, in contrast to the Chimp standing alone? Well, this year we're about to see large candidate fields in BOTH parties that could eclipse 2004 and give us the most crowded primary field since the 1976 battle for the Democratic nomination. According to Yahoo, here's the current status on each candidate in both parties:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/cq/2008whitehousederbythefieldsofar

On our side, we have five candidates who have officially announced they are running, with three in the "Exploratory Committee" phase. However, considering the fact that Exploratory Committees are really just ceremonial these days, at the moment we can say that the Democratic field already has eight candidates. It will grow to at least nine, as they still count Richardson as "considering running." Gore, Clark, Kerry, and even Sharpton might get into the race, bringing the total field to 13

Over on the Republican side, only one has "officially announced," and that is an obscure lawyer from Illinois named John H. Cox. He's a much of a candidate as those no-names who launched primary challenges against Bush in 2004. However, there are currently nine who have launched Exploratory Committees (although Brownback has since indicated that he's officially running.) There are also four Republicans who have indicated a possible Presidential bid, but have not done anything yet: Gingrich, Huckabee, Hagel, and Pataki. Out of these four, I think Huckabee will get in soon, but I doubt Gingrich and Hagel will get in (there have been recent reports that he won't run for President OR to re-election for his Senate seat.) As for Pataki, I think he'll get in, but he hasn't been making a lot of noise recently (as far as I know.) Assuming these predictions, the Republican field could have as many as 10 candidates (or 11 plus Cox.)

Now, I think the field will shrink in both parties by January (the Republicans had a decent-sized field in 1999 for the 2000 election, but only Bush and McCain had a real shot of getting nominated.) I think that some of these candidates in both parties (Dodd and Gilmore as examples) will become obscure also-rans, and drop out by January.

[emulatorloo]

1. "President Brownback" terrifies me . . .

hopefully we can add him to the obscure also-rans ASAP.