2008 Already Settled? Not by a Long Shot

By ADAM NAGOURNEY
Published: November 5, 2007

ALLISON, Iowa — With a year to go until Election Day, the Democratic Party is understandably bubbling with optimism, its spirits raised with almost every new poll, fund-raising report or overflow crowd at a rally for Hillary Rodham Clinton, Barack Obama or John Edwards.

But does this necessarily mean the script for the 2008 campaign is set, with a happy ending already written for the Democrats?

Not necessarily.

Take this in the “just-something-to-think-about” spirit, since it would be foolish to predict anything in an election like this. But for all the indisputable Democratic advantages, strategists in both parties say it is too early to hand the White House keys over to the Democratic Party.

Reason No. 1 was on display in Philadelphia last Tuesday, where Mrs. Clinton, the New York senator who had been steadily building advantages over her rivals for the nomination, endured nearly two hours of attacks by her opponents, setting off one of the roughest weeks of her campaign.

That is not likely to end any time soon. The criticism will surely be pressed by Mrs. Clinton’s newly emboldened opponents as well as by journalists, who have seized on a a new campaign story-line. “She is an habitual evader,” said David Axelrod, a senior adviser for to Mr. Obama, the Illinois Democrat. “It’s become a recurrent theme for her now. And I would suspect you guys are now going to be looking for it.”

The challenge for any candidate in Mrs. Clinton’s position — the perceived front-runner and thus the biggest target for attack — is to escape the primaries with as few scars as possible. But this emerging dynamic in the Democratic primaries could prove particularly problematic for Mrs. Clinton, should she win the nomination: the questions Democrats are posing about her are the same as the ones already being raised by Republicans. If Mrs. Clinton wins the nomination and loses the White House to a Republican who challenges her candor, she might look back at these months as the time her fellow-Democrats softened her up for the Republican kill.

But is there any reason to think that Mr. Obama or Mr. Edwards would be stronger in a general election? Mr. Obama’s advisers acknowledge there remains strong unease even among Democrats about whether, as a first-term senator, he has the experience to be president. The fact that two Republicans, Rudolph W. Giuliani of New York and Senator John S. McCain of Arizona, have already raised that question about Mr. Obama suggests the potency the Republicans see in this argument.

One of the central questions of this election — whether the American public is prepared to elect an African-American as president — is not going to be answered by his winning the nomination of the Democratic Party, given that Democratic primary voters are not representative of all voters in the general election. And his lack of experience as a campaigner, which has caused Mr. Obama repeated problems this year, could be a handicap going against a Republican candidate with the skills displayed by Mr. Giuliani and Mr. McCain.

Mr. Edwards, as he campaigned across Iowa this weekend, repeatedly presented himself as the most electable Democrat, the kind of appeal that has historically proved potent in this state. But he continually trails in national polls: A Washington Post/ABC News poll released on Monday found Mr. Edwards in third place among Democratic voters, with 12 percent. That is notable because Mr. Edwards by now is fairly well known to much of America; this is his second time running for president, and he was his party’s vice presidential nominee in 2004.

Mr. Edwards has taken to alluding at campaign stops to the fact that his wife, Elizabeth, has incurable cancer; a question that Democrats in rival campaigns raise, with respect but concern, is what happens if Mrs. Edwards’ health takes a turn for the worse over the coming year?

Most polls suggest that the nation sees the Iraq war as a mistake, and that voters will be looking for a president who will end it; the Democratic presidential field is united in saying it would do so. But the downturn in violence in Iraq over the past month — taking the war off the front pages, and leading Mr. McCain to argue that the so-called surge may be working — is a reminder of one of the great unknowns of this election: What will the state of the war be 10 months from now?

Not that Republicans have any reason to celebrate. The Republican disadvantages start with an unpopular president and an unpopular war. But other problems the party faces are going to become clearer as the general election unfolds. Three of the party’s top strategists under Mr. Bush — Karl Rove, Ken Mehlman and Matthew Dowd — have moved on. The Republican National Committee is in the doldrums; its chairman, Mel Martinez, stepped down last month.

Some of the positions taken by the Republican candidates have stirred further concern among Republican leaders who are thinking about a general election match-up. For example, Mr. Mehlman has warned Republican leaders, party officials said, that the tough talk against illegal immigration from some of the candidates is a serious mistake that could cost them Hispanic voters in November; his warnings have not been heeded by, in particular, Mitt Romney of Massachusetts.

So it is that even Republicans say the exuberance Democrats are exhibiting today is hardly irrational. Whatever problems the Democrats might face in the year ahead, it is hard to find a Republican these days who would not trade places with them in a minute.