Always room for one more in the 2008 Presidential race, with some 23 candidates declared, "exploring," or widely expected to declare or explore - and Kansas Senator Sam Brownback has thrown his proverbial hat into the proverbial ring, as Carey Gilliam of Reuters reports:

Republican Sen. Sam Brownback of Kansas, a favorite of religious and social conservatives, formally announced his bid for the White House on Saturday, pledging to keep God in the government.

Brownback, a two-term Senate veteran and staunch opponent of abortion and same-sex marriage, told a cheering crowd of about 800 supporters that he would seek the Republican nomination for the presidency for 2008 because he wanted to renew "the family and the culture."

Brownback set out a partial list of goals that include energy independence, an alternative flat tax, an improved health care system, protecting marriage and opposing abortion.

Read the rest at the link above.

It is said that every Senator looks in the mirror and sees a President. Brownback has extremely limited administrative experience - he served as Kansas Secretary of Agriculture - which tops most of the other Senators seeking the promotion, but hardly qualifies one to run the largest operation in the world.

In this strange cycle without a sitting President or Vice President on the ballot for either party - which hasn't occurred since 1928, although Truman dropped out very early in 1952 - both races are indeed "wide open." The test of credibility is thought to be the ability to raise at least $10 million by June, a task which will prove daunting for Brownback, although he is deservedly popular among "movement" conservatives.

I suspect most of the "dark horses" in both parties' contests have similar thoughts. There are three "early frontrunners" in each party: Clinton, Edwards, and Obama for the Democrats, McCain, Guiliani, and Romney on the Republican side. These top-tier contenders will be forced to "rough each other up" early and often, and the result could easily be that all of them are damaged goods before the first caucuses and primaries, leaving the door open for lesser-known, but unsullied, competition.

The odds are, naturally, against such a scenario. It is far more likely that both contests will follow the recent pattern of one strong frontrunner emerging early and either destroying the competition or self-destructing. While we rarely see BOTH party nominations so "wide open," one or the other is often up for grabs. Usually, out of a large field, one candidate takes an early lead, and one main challenger survives to contest the nomination. It is extremely rare nowadays to see more than two serious candidates survive into late March of the election year (protest or "message" candidates excepted, but they generally never had a chance from the start).