US: Yesterday marked the traditional start of the four-yearly US presidential election campaign, but most Americans don't even know who is running against President George Bush for the White House in 2004.
Two-thirds of voters - including two in three Democrats - are unable to name any of the Democratic candidates vying to challenge Mr Bush next year, according to a poll published to mark the Labor Day holiday.
It hasn't been for the want of trying on the part of the nine Democrats who have been criss-crossing the country for months trying to gain attention.
For the record they are Joe Lieberman, Dick Gephardt, Howard Dean, John Kerry, Bob Graham, John Edwards, Al Sharpton, Carol Moseley Braun and Dennis Kucinich.
None has managed to emerge as clear favourite, despite evidence that the political tide is now running against President Bush. Indeed the poll, conducted by CBS News, showed that exactly half of voters believe a Democrat can win and only 38 per cent said that Mr Bush would definitely be re-elected.
The failure of any Democrat candidate to emerge as a clear favourite has encouraged speculation that Hillary Rodham Clinton, the only American politician with a profile to match the President - may yet be enticed to run. Her husband Bill Clinton is pushing her to go forward, according to a Hillary fundraiser who said Mrs Clinton was sounding out close associates about taking her chances now rather than in 2008.
"I am absolutely ruling it out," the New York Senator said as she strolled around the New York State Fair in Syracuse at the weekend, but this may not be her final answer, especially as the Bush presidency falters.
With six million Americans out of work and the unemployment rate approaching 7 per cent, the President's ratings have dropped sharply, and Mr Bush can no longer proclaim, as he did in the Rose Garden at the end of July, that Iraq is becoming more peaceful, al-Qaeda is on the run and there was "pretty good progress" in the Middle East.
The increasing vulnerability of Bush, once considered unbeatable, has already prompted New York Governor Mario Cuomo to call publicly on Mr Al Gore to reconsider his refusal so far to enter the race for a rematch with Mr Bush.
The former vice-president, who won the popular vote in 2000, made a suspiciously campaign-like speech in New York in August calling on voters to fire Mr Bush as the author of the nation's current misfortunes. Mr Gore with former NATO commander Gen Wesley Clark as running mate would be seen by many Democrats as a dream ticket.
Senator Joe Lieberman, former congressman Dick Gephardt and former Vermont governor Howard Dean topped the field in the CBS survey (after those polled had been told who actually was running), with 14, 11 and 10 per cent support respectively.
Massachusetts Senator John Kerry, who got only 5 per cent support, will try to re-energise his campaign in South Carolina today. With the first contests taking place in Iowa and New Hampshire in January, the candidates spread out across the two states yesterday to shake hands at Labour Day parades.
Many attacked anti-war candidate Howard Dean who has a 20-point lead in the key January 27th New Hampshire primary but who is considered unelectable by mainstream Democrats because of his perceived liberal policies and his inexperience.
"The presidency is not the place for on-the-job training in this new security world," said Mr Kerry, a view echoed by Joe Lieberman, the Democratic Senator from Connecticut, who said: "I worry that he cannot win."
Mr Bush returned to Washington from his vacation yesterday - with political adviser Karl Rove in tow - and immediately set off for Ohio to shift his own re-election campaign into high gear. Standing in a field in pouring rain, he told a union audience that he had reduced taxes to help an economy "still bumping along" and promised to create more jobs to replace the three million lost since he took office.