Is it just me, or are the efforts within the Republican ranks to already begin to angle for the party's 2012 presidential nomination two months before Barack Obama is even sworn in as President more than a bit unseemly?

Two potential candidates will be in Iowa before month's end, multiple prospects -- almost certainly including Sarah Palin -- will make high-profile appearances this week at the Republican Governors Association meeting, and Newt Gingrich's name has already been floated in a Bob Novak column.

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Huckabee, winner of the 2008 Iowa caucuses, returns to the Hawkeye State Nov. 20 for stops in Cedar Rapids and Des Moines to hawk his new book, "Do the Right Thing: Inside the Movement That's Bringing Common Sense Back to America."

[...]

Jindal, elected governor of Louisiana in 2007 after serving in Congress and holding health care posts in state and federal government, makes his first trip to Iowa on Nov. 22.

It's bad enough that the political media is speculating about 2012 already, trying to read as much as possible into the machinations at events like the Republican Governors Association meeting and the like, but for politicians who know better to purposely go out and throw flames on the fire by scheduling trips to Iowa -- again, knowing exactly what such moves entail and imply -- is quite stunning.

While I don't expect Republicans to lay down so that Obama can get everything he wants, decorum would strongly suggest that they at least respect the office of the Presidency to the extent that they would allow the President-elect to assume the office before they begin to vie for it. And considering that beginning a White House effort, even a nascent one, extremely early does not necessarily increase one's chances of winning (see: Patrick Ruffini), the Jindals and Huckabees of the world might actually be better served holding off for two months -- or better yet two years -- before hitting the hustings.