Should they stay or should they go?

So. You want to run for office.

Or maybe not. But maybe so. You might run…it kinda depends.

Better make up your mind. Soon.

All around the state – all around the country, in fact – a whole lot of people are working on exactly that decision: whether or not to take the big leap.

They better hurry. Campaign season begins in earnest in less than three months. If a potential candidate is to dump the word "potential," he/she has to get started.

If he/she hasn't already.

The bigger the office, the more true that is. There’s a lot to do: name recognition takes a long time by itself. Raising money takes time. Finding and securing the best staff – if you don’t call early, somebody else will.

In fact, for the top-level jobs – U.S. Senate, Governor, etc. – if you aren’t well on your way already, you're already too late.

Seems like the race for President got going even before the ink was dry on 2004. Clinton and, to a lesser extent, Obama have been fighting this thing out for well over a year, maybe longer.

No wonder they’re making fools of themselves. They’re exhausted.

But as much as the neverending campaign might annoy us, that’s how they’ve had to do it.

For lower-level jobs – state legislature, maybe Congress – you still have time, but not much.

At the very latest, you have to be moving by mid-June, because your paperwork – including your nomination signatures (200, minimum, for an Assembly race) – are due on July 8.

Miss that deadline, and you don’t get on the ballot.

So there’s a lot of decision-making going on right now. People are weighing the pros and cons. The sheer amount of effort involved. The financial effect. The chances of winning.

And those decisions are being made on very incomplete information. And there’s no way to make said information any more complete. And that incompleteness may already have consigned some candidates to the second-place club.

Because you never know what might make or break you three months from now.

Two Novembers ago, following the Great Republican Disaster of 2006, I wrote:

These opportunities don’t come along every day, and even if things look bad six months out, well, things change fast in politics. The right event, issue, scandal can flip political fortunes faster than a middle-aged Congressman can learn to use e-mail. The only thing more fickle than fate is public opinion.

So, back in May, and June, and July…perhaps we should have anticipated more fully the effects of the marriage amendment. Perhaps we should have anticipated the Doyle campaign’s expert ju-jitsu on his ethics problems.

But could we have known then that Iraq and the President’s numbers were going to drag Republicans down, come November?

…No. Not in July.

One might have written something similar following the Great Democrat Disaster of 1994.

Now, an electoral sweep like those in 2006 and 1994 come along once in a…well, historically, it’s more than every 12 years. Conventional wisdom has been that 2008 will be another good year for the Democrats, but not as good as 2006.

That was, of course, before the top of the Democrat ticket went completely dysfunctional. Ah, but perhaps I’m giving that too much weight. There’s still plenty of time for Democrats to get their house back in order.

Plenty of time for the war, the economy, gas prices to come around. Or get worse. Plenty of time for a new scandal, a new issue, a new crisis to make one side look better. Or worse.

And that’s the point: there are so many variables – so many things that could go right, or wrong, between now and then.

There’s no way to tell. Not from here. Not from August. Not from October 15.

You have to sign the papers, buy the signs, knock on the doors, record the commercials. Work your butt off, and hope fate doesn't bite you there.