Hillary's Herd.(ISSUES & INSIGHTS)(EDITORIALS)(Editorial)

Democrats: The primaries are two years off, but few seem to doubt that the former first lady has the nomination in the bag. Maybe that's because she so closely reflects what her party has become.

Karl Rove, who knows something about campaigns, reportedly thinks Hillary Clinton will win the Democratic nomination in 2008 and lose in the general election. He's far from alone in that view. If there's anything like a consensus these days among observers of politics, it's that Sen. Clinton has a near lock on the nomination, but faces tough going after that.

This is strange on at least a couple of counts. First, it's hard to remember a time when the party out of power settled so early on a standard-bearer. Second, a politician as controversial as Hillary Clinton would not normally have an easy walk to the nomination.

But Democrats don't seem worried. Clinton may be out of synch with Middle America, dogged by past scandals and widely seen as an angry ultraliberal doing a poor imitation of her husband's good-natured moderation. But she continues to sail along.

The most recent trial-heat surveys among Democrats show Clinton getting large pluralities, if not quite majorities. She typically outpolls her two nearest competitors combined.

Which brings us to an unusual editorial in Monday's Tampa Tribune headlined, "Dear Hillary: Don't Run." The paper, which broke a long string of Republican endorsements in 2004 by refusing to back George W. Bush, speaks here for what it calls the "vital center." It argues that Clinton is just too "polarizing" to attract enough moderate and independent voters to regain the White House for her party. That much is conventional political talk.

What's odd and revealing is ...