Conservative blogger La Shawn Barber and I were on MSNBC this afternoon discussing possible 2008 contenders. I got to bash John McCain and Rudy Giuliani. Not surprisingly, La Shawn agreed. They aren't conservative enough for her and are too conservative for me.

We also talked about Hillary and Obama. Both La Shawn and I thought Obama needs more experience and didn't know if Hillary would run. I said I'd like to see a woman in the White House, La Shawn thought she's too polarizing to win. Neither of us were big on Tom Vilsack.

As for who we would like to see run, I said Russ Feingold and John Edwards. La Shawn said Tom Tancredo, at which I burst out laughing.

If you'd like to watch the segment, you can do so here, courtesy of Hot Air. It was fun because I like LaShawn, and even though normally we don't agree on a lot, we did today.

I totally don't get James Carville's attack on Howard Dean as Chair of the DNC. Carville wants Dean out and suggests replacing him with "bible-thumping" Harold Ford.

In an attempt to reinvent himself as a Bible-thumping good ’ol boy, Ford consistently voted — and ran hard — against his party’s mainstream, and even harder against its left flank. He sided with the Republicans on such controversial issues as the bankruptcy bill, the Schiavo bill, the torture, bill, and the wiretapping bill. Throughout his campaign, Ford never missed an opportunity to crow over his ability to frustrate and confound fellow Democrats.

As The Plank notes:

Perhaps he's not aware that under Dean in this midterm election the DNC has raised record cash — all hard dollars — including three times as much from major donors, eight times as much online and made a $30 million investment in the '06 cycle, three times as much as the DNC put into the last midterm. Not to mention we made an $8m overhaul of our voter file which was successfully used in 47 states and through the 50 state strategy invested in states like Pennsylvania, Kansas, Indiana and Montana where we had critical victories on Tuesday.

Have you had time to catch your breath after Tuesday's election? If not, take a deep one, because it's time to start thinking about 2008.

Despite their presidential aspirations, it's a good bet that (soon to be ex-) Sen. George Allen, (soon to be ex-) Sen. Bill Frist, and (soon to be ex-) Sen. Rick Santorum will not be in serious contention for the presidency in 2008.

On the Democratic side, the first candidate to make an official announcement is Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack. Here's Vilsack at a glance, courtesy of the Des Moines Register.

Wolf Blitzer as CNN calls the Ohio Senate race for Sherrod Brown and the New Jersey race for Bob Menendez.

I just returned from a blogger roundtable (much as we had with President Clinton last month)with Sen. John Edwards. About 15 Colorado bloggers attended the get-together at the downtown Denver Hyatt Hotel.

In a nutshell, color me impressed with him and his ideas. It was all q&a, no speeches, for about 45 minutes. Everything was on the record.

Pictures and details of the conversation to follow later this afternoon tonight. Also check out the Colorado blogs on the right side of TalkLeft, many were there and will be writing about the event.

A big thanks to Bobby Clark of Progress Now Action for putting this together.

Update: Other bloggers writing on the event:

Froomkin, commenting on a Time Magazine puffball interview with the vice president that included seemingly serious encouragment to run for the presidency:

Here is a vice president who has repeatedly misled the public about Iraq, arguably exercises all the power of the presidency in almost complete secrecy, quite possibly stage-managed the leaking of a CIA agent's identity for political purposes, holds inexplicable sway over Congress, appears to be in a state of denial that transcends even that of the president, and has basically no credibility left with the American people -- and Time plays footsie with him.

From Big Tent Democrat

Mark Warner is not running for President. Unlike Markos and Jerome, I never saw the window for Warner. Their view appeared to be summed up today by Markos, by implication -- Warner was a Southern Governor. Seemed like a thin reed to me. In any event, does this give space for an Obama run? Markos says:

Obama? Perhaps still too raw, but he's ambitious and the rumors are flying fast and furious. His recent dis of Daily Kos might even be a sign he's burnishing his "centrist" credentials . . .

Um, that centrist credential burnishing has been going on for some time. As those who have read me on the subject know, I am not impressed:

Obama has learned nothing from Lincoln and nothing from Hofstadter. As wonderfully talented a politician he is, until he does, he will not best serve the interests of progressives and the Democratic Party.

And the quote Markos references seems more of the same:

Here's Mark Warner's statement today saying that he will not seek the Democratic nomination for President in 2008.

This past weekend, my family and I went to Connecticut to celebrate my Dad's 81st birthday, and then we took my oldest daughter Madison to start looking at colleges.

I know these moments are never going to come again. This weekend made clear what I'd been thinking about for many weeks--that while politically this appears to be the right time for me to take the plunge--at this point, I want to have a real life.

Denver may have just moved up a notch in the competiton to host the 2008 Democratic National Convention. Why? Because its chief competitor, Minneapolis, was just chosen to host the Republican convention.

Party and state officials announced the selection Wednesday. The convention is slated for Sept. 1-4, 2008.... Democrats also had been considering holding their convention in the Twin Cities, but the Republican announcement left Democrats with two competing cities to choose from -- New York and Denver.

Can Denver beat New York?

(Guest Post by Big Tent Democrat)

Dan Bartlett: "We proposed a more direct approach to bringing clarification. This one is more of the scenic route, but it gets us there."

[I]t's hard to credit the statement by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) yesterday that "there's no doubt that the integrity and letter and spirit of the Geneva Conventions have been preserved." In effect, the agreement means that U.S. violations of international human rights law can continue as long as Mr. Bush is president, with Congress's tacit assent. If they do, America's standing in the world will continue to suffer, as will the fight against terrorism.

This very well may be McCain's Waterloo with the Beltway. Hiatt has put the Dean, David Broder, between a rock and a hard place. He loves the "Maverick" but if Hiatt calls something a Bush Rubberstamp what is Broder left to do?

Columnist Bob Novak reports today that he has confirmed Rudy Giuliani will run for President. I'd take ten Liebermans over one Giuliani any day, so if this is true, it's dismal news:

A footnote: A report in this column that Rudy Giuliani intends to run for president has been confirmed by one of the former New York mayor's closest Republican friends. He said Giuliani definitely is running.

Perhaps the report that Bernie Kerik is now under federal investigation although denied by his lawyer, is true. If so, Rudy may be entangled in it -- at least it promises to be another example of his poor judge of character when it comes to appointing officials within his administration:

The Democratic National Committee has selected Nevada as an early caucus state, beating out Colorado and other states that had vied for the position. The Nevada primary will now take place in between those of Iowa and New Hampshire.

Sen. Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) had this to say (received by e-mail, no link yet):

"I am thrilled that the Democratic National Committee has selected Nevada as an early caucus state for the 2008 presidential election and I want to thank everyone who worked so hard to make this possible. Specifically, I want to thank co-chairs Alexis Herman and James Roosevelt, the members of the Rules and Bylaws Committee and the other states that competed in this process.