President Obama has only been in office for one month, yet there are already subtle signs of several Republican politicians gearing up for both the Congressional midterm elections and the 2012 Presidential primaries.

On several conservative websites, such as the Drudge Report, political action committees (PACs) are running ads asking for donations. The ads are featuring photographs of prominent conservative figures, such as Alaskan Gov. Sarah Palin and former Republican Presidential candidate Mitt Romney.

Palin has managed to stay in the public eye since her unsuccessful Vice Presidential run with Sen. McCain. And it looks as though she will have her platform as Governor of Alaska up through the 2012 election.

Looking back at the 2008 Republican Primary, Mitt Romney stepped while he still had a fighting chance for the Republican nomination, avoiding a long drawn out battle with Sen. McCain. There is no doubt that this was a strategic measure for Romney to stay on good terms with Republican leadership as he eyes a 2012 run for the Presidency.

Even the Sunday morning political talk institution Meet the Press set aside time to talk 2012 election politics with Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal. Jindal was asked about his 2012 Presidential ambitions and sidestepped the question. But the fact Jindal has gone out of his way to speak at fundraisers in Iowa, the home of the first and most important contest of the 2012 Presidential election season.

So if the 2012 election has already started, even to a small extent, what does this eternal campaign mean for the governance of this country?

The United States experienced the other end of the spectrum from the eternal campaign with the “every four year check in” with the Bush administration. Perhaps more than anyone in the administration Dick Cheney was not shy about only caring about public opinion every four years and even then just enough to get them into office.

The Republicans in Congress are now already wagering against the nation’s economic crisis going away before the midterm elections by binding together in staunch opposition to the stimulus package.

So is there a happy medium somewhere in the middle that would serve both the ambitions of those seeking office (who campaign for years) and the needs of the American people?

Or perhaps the days of the seemingly lackadaisical declaration of a politician’s candadicy (the role Bobby Jindal played perfectly yesterday) are numbered. Maybe someday kids who display political prowess at a young age will be forced to declare their target year for a Presidential run before leaving high school, if they hope to ever have a chance to occupy the Oval Office. Sound ridiculous? Well we could be headed that direction and be there in a few decades if something isn’t figured out soon.