Good points.
True, no candidate has yet emerged among Republicans, but that is obviously going to change, and I find it hard to believe that the Republican primary fight will feature as many candidates as the 2004 DP primary, or be as nasty.
Hillary is a liability for the DNC, and they must be aware of that. But with Howard "Yeow" Dean as the party chair, Right To Life now officially repudiated, and the party having had its ass kicked *again* in 2006, perhaps she will be rushed to the front as it were in a shallow effort to place the first woman in the presidency.
First she has to win the 2006 senate reelection campaign in the face of the possibility that A) she won't serve out her second term and everyone knows it, B) even if she lost a presidential bid, she will be expected to make one, meaning an absentee senator in a shrinking minority party, and C) if she wins the presidency a Republican could succeed her, growing the Dim Deficit by one more seat.
She'll pick up right where she left off, with her buddies in Europe, attacking militias and right wing hate groups. Only this time she'll throw FOX News and Talk radio into the bag.
She'll work with Europe to, first, villify anything "right wing" (ie conservative) and then she and the our demon Euro "allies" will find a way to ban conservative, far right (meaning anything right of whackoism) parties.
That's my bet.