So, who does that leave? (Erin)

Respectfully, has anyone but journalists shown any interest in talking about the 2012 election yet?

A politician interested in running for President has a lot a ground work to do, and will tend to start early. Perhaps some of the politicians who have or will visit Iowa soon are doing just that. But I so far no politician has discussed 2012, except when asked about it directly by the media. And they always try to get out of making any firm statement about it.

I think the midterm elections will always form a firewall, since announcing a campaign before them would be silly. I agree that two years is far too long for a campaign, but I also recognize that we will never be able to restrict the Presidency to people who never did any preparation or thought about running at all until the spring before the election. I would argue that will we should consider ways to shorten the period of open, explicit campaigning, one of the key ways to do that is for the press to stop trying to start the next election as soon as the last one ends.

I'm glad Jindal doesn't want to run in four years. I think Obama will be tough to run against. But I would like to see Jindal in 8 years, however. And I bet he's looking toward that time frame as well.

Given the importance of the job, I don't see a problem the a more or less constant campaign. It will ebb and flow, but it's good that potential candidates have to work hard and long for the position. And even as a strong Democratic supporter of Obama, I think it's good that he keep an eye out over his shoulder from time to time.

(And as a side note, why does the Firefox spellchecker still flag "Obama" as a misspelling? Couldn't someone fix that in one of the gazillion updates I download all the time?)

@ public defender: right-click, "add to dictionary". Fixed. Also, what Michele said.