Bayh is out for the 2008 presidential race

It is not even 2007, and the presidential candidates are already dropping out. This is off The New York Times:

WASHINGTON, Dec. 16 — Senator Evan Bayh of Indiana, who just two weeks ago took the first steps toward a White House bid in 2008, announced on Saturday that he was quitting the race. He said he had concluded his hopes of winning were too remote to make it worth continuing the battle.

Mr. Bayh’s abrupt withdrawal, which stunned many Democrats, came less than a week after he saw his own visit to New Hampshire overshadowed by the crush of attention surrounding a trip there the same day by Senator Barack Obama of Illinois. Nationally, much of the coverage of the 2008 contest has portrayed the contest, notwithstanding the expanse of the Democratic field, as a two-way race between Mr. Obama and Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, complicating efforts by lesser-known candidates to hire staff, raise money and get noticed.

“The odds were always going to be very long for a relatively unknown candidate like myself, a little bit like David and Goliath,” Mr. Bayh said in a statement. “And whether there were too many Goliaths or whether I’m just not the right David, the fact remains that at the end of the day, I concluded that due to circumstances beyond our control the odds were longer than I felt I could responsibly pursue. This path — and these long odds — would have required me to be essentially absent from the Senate for the next year instead of working to help the people of my state and the nation.”

The statement was posted on the Web site of The Indianapolis Star, which first disclosed news of Mr. Bayh’s decision in its newspaper on Saturday.

The race is really about Obama and Hillary--which one is going to throw their hat into the ring? In this early stage of the presidential game, neither candidate is willing to make the announcement that they are running for the White House, or that they are not running for the White House. And with all the media attention focused on both Obama and Hillary, it is going to be next to impossible for the lesser-known candidates to get their own message out, or to raise money.

It is still very early in the race.