Is there anyone in the 2008 presidential contest who doesn't have one or more major negatives in his or her profile? We presently have a field comprised of nearly 20 candidates, six of whom are considered, for whatever reason, "top tier" -- those six would be joined by Newt Gingrich and Al Gore if either of them were to enter the race. All six of these candidates seem to be objectively weak, in both the primary and general elections. Alphabetically:

Hillary Clinton - The weaknesses fretted about by the pundits -- she comes with "baggage" (i.e., she is married to an extremely popular former president), she's a woman -- are non-starters. But the fact is, she remains the most hawkish Democrat in the Senate. She's basically topped out on name recognition, but most rank-and-file Democrats don't know her policy positions and probably won't like them. She's not a natural campaigner. She will have the support of the remaining centrist power centers in the Democratic coalition, but the new progressive base will do whatever it takes to keep her from being nominated.

John Edwards - Lost twice in 2004. Only came around on Iraq after the second loss. Says his support of the Iraq war was a mistake, but appears to have learned nothing from it when it comes to Iran. Is developing a reputation as a fall-back candidate for after Hillary and Barack destroy each other. Seems to have been running since early 2005 because he has nothing else to do.

Rudy Giuliani - Has been married three times, which is the second least popular of the demographic problems that five of these six will have to face. Lived with gay friends between marriages. Holds generally more liberal views than many prominent Democrats -- bad for the primary -- but is willing to jettison those beliefs for political expediency -- bad for the general. Is a "national security expert" with no expertise on national security issues. Was stupid enough to put NYC's emergency response center in the World Trade Center after it had already been attacked once.

John McCain - Will be 72 next year, which is the first least popular. Is transparently pandering on every possible issue, including at times flip-flopping within a single interview. Authored the plan for a surge of 20K troops, then disavowed the plan as "not enough" when Bush threw in an extra 1500. Has a short fuse and likes to use the word "gook."

Barack Obama - Is viewed as a political savior by many of his supporters, but the rest of us can't get a straight answer about what he would do as president that makes him so great. Seems to have inherited Ralph Nader's tin ear for progressives' concerns on social issues. Can't stop talking about unilaterally disarming the Democratic Party in order to fix "the smallness of our politics." Models himself after Joe Lieberman.

Mitt Romney - If it's possible, a more egregious flip-flopper than McCain. Has spent much of his time since leaving the governorship of Massachusetts explicitly bashing that state. Is a Mormon. Has the endorsement of Ann Coulter, who provided that endorsement just after calling John Edwards a "faggot." No one knows why he's considered top tier.

So the question is, where are the good candidates? Why can no Democrat stand up and condemn the war, or acknowledge that our foreign policy is beyond fucked and leaving options "on the table" can now only be taken a threat of invasion? Why are there no Republicans that actually believe -- and have a record of voting accordingly -- in core conservative positions? Well, there are such candidates, of course, and not just in Gore/Gingrich ponyland.

Bill Richardson seems to have settled into a comfortable fourth place among the Democrats, in what many observers think is a bid for the vice-presidency (though any Democrat that does not demand Russ Feingold join the ticket is wasting a golden opportunity). He's repeatedly made the point that arguing about details while George Bush is still in office is irrelevant -- Bush has destroyed our diplomatic credibility, and anyone who goes along with the kabuki on Iran is just making things worse.

On the other side, actual conservatives like Mike Huckabee and Sam Brownback are struggling to be taken seriously, presumably because they lack the Reagan-esque hair sported by Mitt Romney. These are candidates who lack name recognition right now, but who have the ideological credentials to win voters much more easily once their names are out there.

And yet, here we are, over 10 months from the first ballots being cast, and the fields have already been set for two months. How can this be? I suspect part of it is an unprecedented obsession with early campaign metrics -- polling, money, hires, etc. The big liberal blogs are lousy with polling and strategy information that helps to reify the notion that Clinton, Obama and Edwards are the big three -- sometimes it's information about the whole field, and sometimes it's a focus on one or more from the top tier. What's ironic is that this is just the opposite of what I'd expect the community members of those sites to what their efforts to amount to. The democratic ideal case of Howard Dean (and later Wes Clark) is about as far as you can get from what the Democratic field looks like right now. Progressives are unable to coalesce around a single candidate, because neither of the big non-Clinton candidates are especially good fits, and none of the lower tier candidates count. What's worse is that it's only March 2007, but there's probably no one out there besides Al Gore who can step into that vacuum.