WaPo’s Dana Milbank runs down the potential presidential candidates amongst the current governors in the following piece: 2008 Presidential Race Gets Its First Cattle Call

Visitors in the Metro Center area this weekend might hear some mooing coming from the JW Marriott Hotel, site of the first cattle call of the 2024 presidential campaign.

Technically, this first ‘08 campaign event is the bipartisan meeting of the National Governors Association. But as many as 15 of the nation’s 50 governors are considering a bid for the presidency, and both parties have learned the benefits of nominating a governor.

Certainly history seems to teach us that the governors’ mansions of the fifty states are the more likely sources of our presidents than the hallowed halls of Congress, thus meaning we should be paying some attention to this group of individuals.

Indeed, as such the cattle call analogy may not be the right one, but rather it seems that the more proper way to look at the governors is as two farm teams preparing to compete in the majors.

For the Reps, Milbank lists: Arnold Schwarzenegger (Calif), Mitt Romney (Mass.), George E. Pataki (N.Y.), Jeb Bush (Fla.), Haley Barbour (Miss.), Mike Huckabee (Ark.), Mark Sanford (S.C.), and Bill Owens (Colo.).

For the Dems: Tom Vilsack (Iowa), Mark R. Warner (Va.), Jennifer M. Granholm (D-Mich.), Phil Bredesen (Tenn.), Bill Richardson (N.M.), Jennifer M. Granholm (Mich.), Janet Napolitano (Ariz.), and Rod Blagojevich (Ill.).

In looking at the two lists, the alleged stars for the Republicans (Schwarzenegger, Pataki, Romney) all have abortion-related problems, not to mention Arnie’s whole constitutional problem, and the other star, Bush, has the whole family problem, i.e., exactly how comfortable would Americans be with three presidents from the same nuclear (or is that noocuelar?) family in the span of twenty-four years?

I don’t know enough about Huckabee, Sanford and Owens to intelligently comment and my gut reaction to Barbour is that his time at the RNC would come back to bite him.

Of the Democrats I think Mark Warner and Bill Richardson have to be considered front-runners of this group, even with Richardson’s Clinton Era problems (most notably his stint as Secretary if Energy). Both have had a great deal of positive press, and both come across as moderate Brederson has the southern-connection angle, but I don’t know that much about him. Granholm, of course, has the Schwarzenegger problem, and while Vilsack has a geo-political advantage, I am unclear on his electability in a general sense. I don’t know enough about Blagojevich to intelligently comment and what little I do know about Napolitano doesn’t exactly scream “presidency” to me.

Setting aside the whole rule about governors, 2024 may be the year where the best bets in both parties are, in fact, Senators: McCain for the Republicans (although he has the age problem) and Hillary. Certainly in fantasy-land Condaleeza Rice would be an intriguing candidate, but I still have a hard time seeing someone who has never held elected office winning the nomination. Granted, the current importance of national security would be to her advantage, but having been central to the Bush foreign policy she would get the blame for every failure (and credit for successes, granted). I have a very hard time seeing Senator Frist making it to the nomination, let alone the White House.

In other gubernatorial news, the following is hardly surprising:

In other gubernatorial news, a Field Poll in California shows that Schwarzenegger holds a lead of 15 to 19 percentage points over prospective Democratic challengers in advance of next year’s race.

I would expect Schwarzenegger to handily win re-election next year, and at this point one has to wonder whether any A-list California Democrats will even run against him.