'08 slate short on governors

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Governors, who for the past three decades have been the gold standard for presidential candidates, have dramatically fallen out of favor so far this year.

On the Democratic side, former Virginia Gov. Mark Warner never took the leap; former Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack fled the race just three months after joining; and Sen. Evan Bayh, a former two-term governor of Indiana, also pulled out, leaving just one governor, New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, in the race for president in 2008.

He and the four former governors making bids for the Republican nomination lag well behind the front-runners in their respective parties in early national opinion polls.

"It's a whole new world post-September 11," said Chuck Larson, a former Iowa state senator and a supporter of Sen. John McCain, Arizona Republican. "Foreign policy and national security have moved to the very top of the list for voters' concerns."

Mr. Larson said traditionally he has been a fan of governors running but decided this time around they lack the type of experience the presidency now requires. That is one reason he is backing Mr. McCain, a long-serving legislator who can boast those credentials.

Still, Barry C. Burden, a political-science professor at the University of Wisconsin who studies presidential campaigns, said the governors are due for a comeback.

"The governors are undervalued at the moment. If I were an investor, I'd invest in governors," he said. "During these next few months, they're going to begin to introduce themselves."

Mr. Burden said polls this early in a cycle are usually misleading because they register name recognition more than anything else, and it's usually senators "the people who show up on the Sunday talk shows and are traveling the country doing fundraisers for other people" who have high profiles.

Although this year's candidate crop is heavy on senators, Mr. Burden's research shows just two of the nation's 43 presidents have won election while holding a Senate seat.

Four of the past five presidents were governors. The exception is the first President Bush, who was vice president when he won the White House.