2008, here we come.(Politico)

By the time you read this, the voting for the 2004 Presidential election (and, one hopes, the counting) will be over. That means we are already tardy in focusing our attention where it belongs next--on the Presidential race of 2008.

The Republican Party nomination for President and Vice President is an open field with no obvious favorites. Bush is out of the running, and Dick Cheney's heart troubles make him an unlikely candidate in 2008. That leaves three tiers of politicians the GOP can draw on for a candidate four years hence.

The first tier is made up of Republican governors operating with Republican control of their legislatures: Florida's Jeb Bush, Colorado's Bill Owens, and Texas's Rick Perry. These governors would be able to campaign not on speeches and promises, but on track records. Republican voters could judge them by what they did with power. Did they cut taxes, pass school choice, limit spending, expand Second Amendment rights, pass tort reform, corral union abuses? A governor who actually enacted school choice trumps a governor who gives a great speech about it.

The second tier of candidates is made up of governors with Democratic control of one or both houses of their state's legislature: Mitt Romney of Massachusetts, George Pataki of New York, Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota, and Haley Barbour of Mississippi. Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush came from this field. Reagan won some welfare reform in California, and Bush won some tax reduction and a concealed-carry law in Texas. But mostly, Reagan and Bush foreshadowed how they would govern as President by fighting for legislation that did not pass--in Bush's case for school choice, tort reform, and state pension reform--and through speeches about what they would like to do.

Before the Republican Party took control of the House and Senate in 1995, it was a Republican President's job to show that he could successfully rein in the Democratic power base in Congress--stand up to the Democratic Congress and the liberal national media while making good on one or two campaign promises. Now, the bar has been raised. Voters want to know, "What will you actually do with your power to move and enact an agenda?"

The third tier is senators: Bill Frist of Tennessee, George Allen of Virginia, and Chuck Hagel of Nebraska. ...