Candidates are dipping their toes in the water with these "exploratory" committees. Over the next year we'll likely see both the emergence of positions as well as evolution of positions. It's important to start paying attention now, to track what they say and how they shift, and then in a year start to firm up a decision.

This early phase of the campaign season is interesting because it's now that candidates pander to the more extreme elements of their Party's bases, knowing that the fanatics remember the promises, while the general public either isn't paying attention at all or will forget. It's during this early pandering that McCain lost me, turning hard right to reassure the religious conservatives that he'll wage cultural jihad against mainstream America. In their early speeches the candidates and these constituencies establish their code phrases, so that late in the game the candidates can drop the reassuring nudge-nudge-wink-winks into their speeches that pass right by the mainstream electorate.

Obama's lack of experience isn't a showstopper on any absolute grounds. John F. Kennedy had a similar resume at the time of his election. Toiling in the Party machinery for years and paying dues doesn't seem to me to be any predictor at all of performance as President, and such party hacks always pile up debts that are understood will be paid if the candidate makes it to the top. People like Obama blast through the Party apparatus on a wave of popular support and may well be least tarnished by politics simply because they minimize their exposure to it. Maybe. Always throw in the "maybe".

Mary Anne's right to observe that it's generally governors who make it to the White House, and are arguably more qualified on the basis of executive experience (with notable exceptions!). Bush II(!), Clinton, Reagan, and Carter were governors; Bush I was both a Representative and an executive branch careerist, but never a Senator. The last Senator to move laterally to the White House was Johnson, and Kennedy before him. Historical stats don't bode well for the current crop of front-runners.

Hillary Clinton makes me slightly uneasy, as I think she does with most people. But as Mary Anne points out, there's a good case to be made that she's as tough as she needs to be given her unique situation. SNL last night had a little fun with a mock Hillary interview, in which "Hillary" reassures us that the American people can trust her to maintain a consistent policy toward Iraq, because she can't change her mind a third time. Yuk yuk yuk...

On the Republican side I'll be looking to see how the moderates do. The GOP is on a cusp, and could react either by purging the extremists and becoming more moderate, or digging in its heels and deciding that even more extremism is the only way forward. How the Republican candidates fare during the primary season will be the reliable indicator. As we saw with McCain's experience, if the Party doesn't want a candidate, it'll find a way to squeeze him out.

Which illustrates another part of the dynamic that's not being examined much. The President is enmeshed in political power relationships within his own Party, and by custom becomes head of the Party. It's a package deal: We'll elect both a President and the Party machine behind him/her. I'll be judging the Parties too as time goes on, and I'll be especially informed by our experience with Bush and his pet rubberstamp Congress. The candidate any party supports is not necessarily the best one.