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It's spring. That's when a politician's fancy turns to thoughts of.... The next presidential race?

Apparently so. Think of it as spring training, when hopes run high for the coming season. What's true of baseball players also holds for political players. The scouts are out there, eye-balling hot prospects for the next Republican pennant race.

At present, the field is wide open. "We don't have one spokesman right now," former Massachusetts Gov. and 2008 presidential candidate Mitt Romney acknowledged last month. "That's just one of the features of not having either house in Congress or the White House. You don't have an official place to be heard."

Romney is the Republicans' power hitter. Republicans have a history of nominating candidates who ran and lost before -- Ronald Reagan, Bob Dole, John McCain. Romney wins straw polls of conservative insiders all the time, including the 2007 Iowa straw poll and the last three such polls taken at the Conservative Political Action Conference.

Speaking to a GOP fundraising dinner in Washington last week, Romney sounded eager to take on President Obama. "I think he incorrectly believes that the 2008 elections settled the great issues that divide America," Romney said. "I don't believe that's the case." Romney had better not think so. The 2008 elections were very bad for Republicans.

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin got a late-season call-up last year when McCain chose her as his running mate. In March, she urged Alaska Republicans to keep the conservative faith. "Sometimes the middle of the fence is really the most uncomfortable place to be," she said at the Lincoln Day Dinner in Anchorage.

Palin declined an invitation to address a national Republican fundraising dinner in June. Taking her place will be the party's leading pinch hitter, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich. Is he an old-timer looking to make a comeback? Gingrich remarked last month, "I am not undertaking any steps at the present time to do anything about a presidential campaign."

Former Arkansas Gov. and 2008 contender Mike Huckabee is the Republicans' position player. He got most of his support last time from Southern Republicans and religious voters. At the 2008 CPAC meeting, Huckabee said, "My conservatism is rooted in my understanding of the Scriptures."

The leading rookie prospect? That would be Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, who created a stir when he spoke at a Republican dinner last month. Jindal took up the case first made by talk-radio host Rush Limbaugh, who told CPAC in February, "What is so strange about being honest and saying I want Barack Obama to fail if his mission is to restructure and reform this country so that capitalism and individual liberty are not its foundation?"

Jindal joined the fray. "Make no mistake," he said. "Anything other than an immediate and compliant 'Why, no sir, I don't want the president to fail' is treated as some sort of act of treason, civil disobedience, or political obstructionism. This is political correctness run amok."

Was Jindal crossing the line between fair and unfair criticism? Where is the line anyway?

It is fair for critics to oppose the president's policies. That's politics. It's harsh but fair to predict that those policies won't work. And if you feel that way, it's fair to hope that Congress defeats those policies. But is it fair to say that unless the president does what I want, then I hope his policies fail?

"Do you want the president to fail?" Jindal asked himself. His answer: "It depends on what he is trying to do." If you see the president's policies as bigger government, more debt, and failed by definition, then you might say, "I hope he fails." But that response assumes that Obama's policies are doomed, that they have no chance to succeed. Not everyone shares that assumption.

Ideologues believe that if a policy is wrong, it can't possibly work -- even if it does work. Pragmatists believe that whatever works is right. Most Americans are pragmatists.

Is it too early to start the next pennant race? You might say that the 2008 Democratic race started four years earlier, when an unknown player was selected to make a speech at the party's national convention. That was a rookie by the name of Barack Obama.