The game of announcing for president

The Washington Post:

"The entire episode highlights the absurdity inherent in the modern day presidential announcement process.

The simple fact is that Pawlenty is running for president. So is former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney who announced his own exploratory committee on Monday.

Exploratory committee have become just another step in the process of running, just like traveling to early states and hiring staff.

They don’t explore much of anything and you’d be hard pressed to find an example in modern presidential history of a candidate forming an exploratory committee and then deciding not to run."