When are they going to get this started?

I'm kind of glad no one has. Once they do, there will be nothing else in the "news" until November 2012. If I were thinking about running, I'd hold off for as long as possible...why give the media/pundits/etc. anymore time to trash you and your family/friends than you have to?

Mike Huckabee said something about the end of summer to decide if he's running. So that might when a lot of them are planning to make announcements. Romney is still polling pretty high from what I have heard so far. He's probably going to run. I doubt Sarah Palin will. (My personal opinion, she should wait till 2016.)

A lot of maybes, people want to test the waters. Who has called for an exploratory committee?

Since you first posted this discussion I've heard and read several theories as well as the opinions of some of the potential candidates as to why they're waiting so long and whom it may benefit. Except for the things the perspective candidates said themselves, it might just be a bunch of BS...lol! Rick Santorum said the slow start to the campaign could help him...personally, I think his Presidential aspirations are beyond help. According to polls here he couldn't even win back his Senate seat if he tried as of now. Rudy said he may be more likely to run if Palin runs, which I don't quite get his reasoning there unless he thinks her far-right extremism may make him seem more moderate and therefore more attractive to voters. I've also read, I forget just where, that Fox News may be encouraging the perspective candidates to wait to announce presumably because they have so many potential candidates on their payroll and they'd have to resign as soon as they announce. They BETTER have to resign as soon as they announce, I think there should be a clause that they can't have appeared as pundits within so many months of campaigning for office themselves. Remember the uproar when there was talk of some on the left wanting Ed Schultz to run for Senate? The same thing happened when there was speculation that Chris Matthews may seek Arlen Specter's seat. Neither were even seriously considering it, it was just talk in the media that they should, yet the right jumped right on it! Annie

Herman Cain is the one that I have heard about but I think that Santorum and Gingrich may be putting out feelers in a quiet way while Michelle Bachmann showed up in Iowa to get tongues wagging about her possible intentions. No one seems to be making a commitment. In a way, it might be a good move. Keep the media guessing and they won't have as much time to try to smear you and create an image for you in the minds of voters. Seeing the way the media has gone after other people when they ran for office, and continues to dog them even when they are not running for anything, I don't think I would be too quick to throw myself to the hungry hounds myself.

They are all to scared to run...wouldn't you be? It will take a totally arrogant bull to run this time. The "Big 0" is sure he will win again so he is going to intimidate the hell out of any democrats who want to run. Any Republicans will have to face some tough issue just to run against him. I sure would not want to try it. Of course I'm not a crook so I wouldn't run for office anyway...lol