WASHINGTON - It can be hard to keep track of everyone running for president, let alone those who are merely “exploring” it, “unofficially running,” “testing the waters” or “starting a conversation with the American people.”
This is the stutter-step season of the 2008 presidential campaign.
Candidates keep announcing that they are running or almost certainly running, then, a few days or weeks later, saying so again while the news media dutifully record each step.
Last week, for instance, former Gov. Mitt Romney of Massachusetts, a Republican who last month announced formation of an “exploratory committee,” made more headlines by saying he would announce that he was going to run for president this week in Michigan. And former Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani of New York declared last week that “I’m in this to win” after filing something called a “statement of candidacy.”
