Caitlin Hall

It's that time again - election time, that is. Candidates are scrambling to put together last-minute bids, conventions are getting ugly, delegates are sweating in their seats.

None of that should be surprising. After all, midterms (the elections, not the tests) are only a few months away - the blink of an eye in political terms.

What's surprising, though, isn't the frenzy. It's the aim - not the fast-approaching congressional elections, but the presidential race of 2004. The last election is barely over, but presidential hopefuls are buckling down for the 31-month long haul ahead of them.

Already, the Democrats are having problems. To begin with, they have to contend with a despicably popular wartime president who is about as far left as McCarthy. They don't have the luxury of being able to criticize anything he does because the words "president" and "America" have become inexplicably synonymous. And nay-sayers aren't simply unpatriotic; they're treasonous. Just ask Lynn Cheney.

To compound the Democrats' problem, the list of people with designs on the Oval Office is a short and unimpressive one. In the first place, there are very few who are willing to take on Bush at all, and they're right to be afraid - it certainly seems like political suicide.

The other problem is that there are very few who are qualified to take on Bush. There are only half a dozen Democrats right now with the kind of name recognition that would give them a fair shot, and most of them aren't running.

So who is running, if the rumors are right, anyway? There's the obvious: Gore, newly-shaven, surprisingly confident and ready for action. He's certainly eager to jump back into the fray, but whether he is the Democrats' best bet is still up in the air.

He did, after all, lose once already to Bush, and that was back in the days when Bush was considered something of a joke.

As Maureen Dowd of The New York Times put it, Gore is in a tougher spot the second time around, "now that the Dude has morphed into the Man."

There's also Lieberman, who's in even worse shape. He too carries the stigma of having lost once to Bush, but he was only running for VP.

Additionally, whether or not it's a fair assumption, most people believe that he is naturally biased toward Israel because he is Jewish.

That may not be a big problem in this country, but Republicans will be quick to point out the difficulties it would raise in negotiations with Arab nations, and they may be right.

Perhaps Lieberman's biggest shortcoming, however, isn't anything quite so tangible. Ask a roomful of people whether Lieberman or Bush is more "presidential" - that vague index pollsters love so much - and the decision will probably be unanimous. During the 2000 elections, Lieberman was constantly ridiculed for his dreary-sounding, monotonous voice. He simply doesn't have a commanding presence.

After that, there are very few remarkable candidates. Senator John Kerry is likely to be next in line, and if you ask me, he's the Democrats' bet.

He recently distinguished himself with his work to block drilling in Alaska, and he's built a good reputation in the Senate. Unfortunately, he will be easy to overlook come nomination time because of the two big-name candidates opposing him.

It would be great if Hillary Clinton would run, but she'll probably stay far, far away from the 2004 election. After all, she wouldn't want to assume undue risk, as is evidenced by her often-criticized campaign in New York, she likes to play the odds.

In the end, we'll almost certainly see Al Gore in the general election.

Only time will tell if he'll be able to pull off a win, but one thing's for sure: He can't run the same campaign he ran in 2000.

If he - or anyone else - wants to beat such a popular president, he'll have to take some risks in order to convince people he's got some backbone. Otherwise, he doesn't stand a chance.

At any rate, it's time the Democrats start asking who is strong enough to be their man.