With the 2008 Presidential election a scant 20 months and two weeks away, how is it possible we haven't been eyeballing the poll numbers much yet?

A few cycles back, polls nearly a full year ahead of the Iowa caucuses could be readily dismissed as meaningless. The political battlefield changes rapidly, though, and the proliferation of weapons of mass communication in the hands of ordinary citizens has helped take the control of the flow of events from the political parties and the formerly Mainstream Media. News spreads faster and farther now, and more people than ever read stories once consumed only by diehard political junkies. A minor kerfluffle in Wichita, like the "Butterfly Effect," can bring hurricanes to the halls of Washington, D.C.

The polls, then:

Real Clear Politics long ago adopted an agnostic approach to polls. Instead of worrying about biases and sample breakdowns, they simply average all the most recent polls together. The theory is that since all polls have errors in sampling, methodology, or analysis, the sum of results will tend to balance all these out.

On the GOP side, the RCP averages show Guiliani averaging the choice of 32.3%, followed by McCain with 24.0, Gingrich at 11.0, and Romney with 6.7. None of the others beats the Margin of Error - which means their actual support could be negligible.

Arguments can be made that Guiliani's appeal could erode as Republican primary voters learn more about his less conservative stands on social issues, or that Romney has the biggest potential "upside" because he is the least well-known. Gingrich's strength has to be somewhat surprising, since he left office under a cloud of scandal and isn't even running.

The most disappointed, though, has to be McCain. Republicans have tended to give their nomination to "the next guy in line," usually the second-place finisher in the last contested primary cycle. Hence, Reagan in 1980, Bush the Elder in 1988, and Dole in '96 all found themselves frontrunners after having only "placed" the last time around. This year was supposed to have been McCain's "turn." His 24% average doesn't reflect that.

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Among Democrats, Hillary Clinton leads with a 38.5% average, followed by Obama's 18.0, Edwards' 12.0, and Al Gore with 10.4. While Clinton's number is only 5 points higher than Guiliani's respective showing, her lead is more than double the one he enjoys. That level of support and that sort of lead is very close to an insurmountable advantage in a multi-candidate field. It's not impossible for a challenger to overcome her edge, but it will take a good bit of cooperation from Hillary.

Obama is seeing the wind quickly leaving his sails. His support average has dropped a bit since his candidacy was announced. It seems some of the hype about his potential candidacy attracted more support than his answering the call of the media.

But the worst news is for John Edwards. He was the Vice-Presidential nominee last time, and while that is no guarantee of love on the Democratic side (see Lieberman), he has said all the right things to appease and please the base, and sucked up to all the key constituencies (well, except for Catholics and devout Protestants with the Marcotte debacle, and now Jews with the stupidity about Israel in the next post down, but people who attend religious services regularly tend to vote Republican anyway), and yet his numbers remain stuck. He hasn't topped 15% in any single poll going back to October. Edwards' best hope, then, may be his strong organization in Iowa, where he finished a surprising second in 2004 and where he has visited at least once a month ever since. If he isn't able to make noise in Iowa, stick a fork in him.

Al Gore, like Gingrich, has tried to reposition himself as a thinker on his side of the spectrum. He also mirrors Newt in his low-double digit appeal and the fact he isn't running. This has to be encouraging to Gorons - he's neck and neck with Edwards, who has been running fiercely for over two years while Al makes movies and gives speeches on global warming in ice storms. Gore has enough personal money now, made from Google and other tech stocks, to fund his own run if he chooses, so he doesn't have the fundraising benchmarks and deadlines other challengers need to meet. Still, the most likely scenario for a Gore candidacy would be a growing conviction among the base that Hillary can't win the general election but none of the current crop can beat her in the primaries. "Al Gore flies in on a private jet to save the Democratic Party from itself, trailing swirling clouds of greenhouse gases . . . "

Amusing, but far-fetched at this point. Right now, by all appearances it is Hillary's to lose.