No one really in lead of presidential pack

WASHINGTON – Cancel the coronations: Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton has a fight on her hands for the Democratic presidential nomination, while Sen. John McCain faces mounting obstacles in his quest for the Republican mantle.

A flurry of activity last week – from eye-popping fundraising totals to McCain’s tragicomic trip to Iraq – shook up the 2008 presidential field, signaling that Americans are nowhere near ready to choose a leader from either major party in the most wide-open election since 1920.

For the Democrats, Clinton found her claim to her husband’s political legacy enough to raise a record $26 million in the first three months of the campaign – but not enough to pull away from the field or bend the party to her will.

Instead, the New York senator found that she’ll face a surprisingly well-financed challenge from Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois, who raised $25 million, plus a resurgent former Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina, who raised more than $14 million. They and several other candidates raised enough to stay on her heels through early contests in Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire and South Carolina, leading up to Feb. 5, a make-or-break day when a block of large states will hold primaries.

“We’re seeing a situation where up to five or six Democratic candidates will have enough money to run serious races through the first four contests,” said Bill Carrick, a Democratic strategist who isn’t affiliated with any campaign. “The momentum out of the first four will have a big impact on who’s around to play on Feb. 5.”

While polls show Clinton still leading, the robust fundraising of the non-Clintons, particularly Obama, suggests continued unease with her candidacy among many Democrats.

“Six months ago, when we didn’t know whether Obama was running, if anybody had told you somebody who wasn’t even in the race would tie Hillary Clinton, you wouldn’t have believed them,” said Larry Sabato, a political scientist at the University of Virginia. “The Clintons have been building this fundraising network for 30 years.”

This phenomenon could benefit candidates other than Obama. Recent polls show Edwards running second, behind Clinton, in Iowa and New Hampshire. New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, who wields the broadest resume among Democratic contenders, raised an impressive $6 million despite being more focused on his day job. Sen. Christopher Dodd of Connecticut raised $4 million and Sen. Joseph Biden of Delaware $3 million, respectable totals by previous standards.

On the Republican side, polls and first-quarter fundraising totals portend major problems for McCain, who now can be described fairly as the former front-runner.

The Arizona senator came in third in first-quarter fundraising with about $12.5 million, an abysmal showing for someone who’s been running for president for nearly a decade. He trailed former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, who raised $20 million, and former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who raised $15 million.

Polls showed that McCain’s former leads in Iowa and New Hampshire evaporated to virtual ties with Giuliani, while national polls – notoriously unreliable this far from the primaries – found McCain trailing Giuliani by double digits.

The worst part of McCain’s week may well have been his trip to Iraq, where he visited a Baghdad market to prove his contention that the city was more secure. He did so clad in a bulletproof vest, protected by attack helicopters and more than 100 American soldiers. Video of his expedition shot around the Web, making him look less than Churchillian.

The next day’s New York Times, on its front page, quoted Iraqi merchants at the market McCain had visited saying it was all a media stunt and the market usually wasn’t secure.

The incident served only to highlight McCain’s problematic support for an unpopular war. “Concerns about Iraq are creeping into the Republican campaign,” said Dan Schnur, a Republican strategist in California and a veteran of McCain’s 2000 presidential campaign. “A lot of loyal Republicans have increasing concerns about the war.”

Indeed, neither Romney, a Mormon mired in single digits in polls and with suspect conservative credentials despite his golden touch, nor Giuliani – thrice-married, twice-divorced, supportive of gay rights and public funding of abortion – is positioned to fully capitalize on McCain’s troubles.

That all helps explain increasing interest in two candidates who are flirting with Republican voters like a pair of doe-eyed debutantes: former senator-turned-actor Fred Thompson of Tennessee, and, to a lesser extent, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich of Georgia.

“Thompson would be a credible candidate,” Schnur said. “But there’s no question that the strength of support is based on conservative dissatisfaction with the rest of the field. … When Fred Thompson can parlay an appearance on a Sunday TV program into third place in the polls, that’s not a race cast in concrete.”