Tom Vilsack, the former centrist Democrat governor of Iowa and first declared presidential candidate for 2008, has bowed out of the race largely because he can't come up with the cash.

"It is money and only money that is the reason we are leaving today," Vilsack told reporters at a news conference, later adding, "We have a debt we're going to have to work our way through."

Vilsack has only about $400K in the bank and would need 20 million by June to be competitive--an impossible mountain to climb.

Among Democrats this cycle, the moderates just aren't competitive, which explains why the entire party has lurched far left. It also explains why all the viable Republican candidates are moderates. The Democrats may have tacked left, but the American public hasn't--ideological demographics have remained constant for decades. There is all this room in the center, and it reflects the shift in Republican electoral politics--its no accident that McCain, Giuliani and Romney are all moderates.

I fully expect that we'll elect a moderate Republican in 2008.