Election 2012: Already

The next presidential election will not occur until 2012, but potential candidates already are committing consequential news. Republicans have lost two potential contenders, for instance.

The admission of an affair dooms Nevada Sen. John Ensign. The news that he had been sweating around with an associate (who was the wife of an aide) broke soon after he had made one of those toe-dipping trips to a state with an early date on the nomination calendar. Support for Ensign in Nevada immediately collapsed. Although politicians have recovered from scandal before, Ensign's career lies in ruins.

Mark Sanford's problems are similar to Ensign's but of an unprecedented magnitude. The South Carolina governor cheered the GOP base when he rejected stimulus money. The stand transformed him into a presidential prospect. Then he disappeared. In one of the more bizarre political stories of recent years, Sanford at first was reported to be in an undisclosed location but reachable by staff (and wife), then a staffer said he was hiking the Appalachian Trail. Finally, he turned up in the Atlanta airport after flying back to the U.S. from Argentina -- and then Sanford, too, admitted to gymnastics and escapades. As Dave Barry says, we are not making this up.

Politico.com reports that gossip in Alaska suggests Sarah Palin might not run for re-election as governor next year. The circumstances are not illicit, thank heaven. Republicans and Democrats alike say, or are said to say, that she intends to focus on her national ambitions. That would be a mistake. Palin best would enhance her reputation by winning re-election by an emphatic margin and by governing well as the 2012 campaign approached. If she left the governorship, she would risk losing visibility. Her résumé needs experience; a departure from office would keep the questions alive.

The summer of 2009 has just arrived, and here we are speculating about 2012. We need to get a life.