A Year Away from Iowa, and Still (Officially) No Republican Candidates

Given the 24-hour, internet dominated, news cycle we live in , I think one could make a strong argument that the 2012 election was already in swing after the 2010 election ended, probably even right after McCain's concession speech in 2008.  However, despite constant buzz and talk about the 2012 Presidential election over the past years, all of the major expected Republican candidates have yet to announce if they are going to run. In fact, most have remained pretty coy about their intentions.

This might not seem that strange at first glance, as November 2012 is still a long while away, but given the precedent of past Presidential election cycles, it's starting to be very odd that no major Republican candidate has taken that first step of announcing his or her intentions to run.  Especially because four years ago tomorrow, our current Commander in Chief made his announcement on the Old State Capitol in Springfield, Illinois that he would seek the nomination and the office. Hillary Clinton's announcement came even earlier, in January 2007.  On the Republican side, Giuliani made his intentions to run officially clear by Valentine's Day of that year.

To be fair, McCain's announcement did not come until April.  But by then, he was one of the last to officially announce his campaign, and his party was not trying to challenge the current administration.  So it does seem odd that no candidate of the challenging party has announced by now.

If we look back to the 2004 election, both Howard Dean and John Kerry had formed exploratory committees and made their intentions very clear by late 2002, even if official announcements did not come until around the summer of 2003.  Perhaps this is a more appropriate election to compare 2012 to, since candidates would be running against an incumbent, but even then there wasn't anything near the hesitation to officially declare that we see today in the Republican party.

With the field saturated with so many candidates, already Palin, Gingrich, Barbour, Pawlenty, and Romney, just to name a few, one would think being the first to announce would give the media attention needed to jump out as a frontrunner.

Maybe the candidates fear being the first to announce means that they will also be the first to be attacked and criticized, or maybe each candidate thinks it would be easier to announce his or her candidacy immediately positioned as an alternative.

I think it's starting to show how large the divides within the party are actually becoming. Nate Silver, at political blog FiveThirtyEight, has mapped all of the expected candidates on a graph, showing the spread from conservative to moderate, and from outsider to insider.  Ultimately, there are a lot of differences among the candidates, and it shows that each of the candidates are starting to appeal to very different parts of the party.

The growing differences between factions within the Republican party could mean that the candidates are afraid of having entire wings of the party come out against them, perhaps polarizing the party and limiting the candidate's chances.  Already, we saw Michelle Bachmann provide a Tea-Party rebuttal to the State of the Union competing with the official Republican response, a decision that has caused some controversy within the party.

It's becoming clear that the eventual Republican candidate is going to have to bridge a lot of gaps within the party if they hope to take the White House.  This is going to take a lot of time, so it's very surprising to me that not one of the candidates is wanting to start this process.  Each day that goes by without any official Republican candidate means one less day to unite the party, and I think by November 2012, this skirting around and avoiding any announcements is going to be viewed as a mistake.