Each of the four Democratic senators in the 2008 White House race has or will have legislation with his or her proposal for getting U.S. soldiers out of Iraq.

And it is highly unlikely any of them will become the lead names on whatever is the official Senate Democratic leadership bill.

While the 2008 playing field in the early-primary states is not even —what with the over-the-top attention given to hopefuls Sens. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) and Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) — the floor of the Senate is level.

The latest bill was filed on Tuesday by Obama and includes a goal of redeploying troops from Iraq by March 31, 2008.

Obama, Clinton and the other Senate Democratic contenders — Joseph Biden (D-Del.), who filed his papers for the Federal Election Commission yesterday, and Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.) — all want to put their plans, concepts and ideas in play.

Clinton acknowledged how hard it will be to pass a piece of signature legislation. When she proposed cutting money to support Iraqi personnel, she noted the challenge with a pithy statement. “I can count,” she said.

Democratic Senate leaders want to first deal with the non-binding resolution and get a healthy bipartisan roll call on a measure that will send a strong message to President Bush that the Senate disagrees with his plans to send 21,000 more troops to Iraq.

The votes on the “surge” or “escalation” resolution will provide the leadership with a valuable roadmap on how to proceed on tougher legislation forcing Bush’s hand on first capping and then withdrawing troops. The bigger-picture items will likely come up in consideration of the budget or in supplemental spending requests.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) will likely pick as the leader someone who is not running for president. Reid would face a management nightmare if he was perceived as picking a favorite from the pack. Reid’s flock includes two members who have already dropped out of the 2008 field, Sens. Russ Feingold (D-Wis.) and John Kerry (D-Mass.)

The logical names to be on whatever is the leadership bill would be Sens. Jack Reed (D-R.I.) and Carl Levin (D-Mich.). They authored the measure that was the official Democratic position in the last caucus. By doing that, no one in the Dem 2008 pack gets helped — but no one gets hurt, either.

Watch for more of the 2008 primary campaign to be played out in the Senate because of the number of senators who are running. If the senators can’t get the attention of the national press in the crucial primary states, they can play to the gallery in Washington.

The four Democratic 2008 rivals are joined by the three Republicans aiming at a run for president, Sens. Sam Brownback (R-Kan.); Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.) and John McCain (R-Ariz.), who casts a long shadow on his lesser-known colleagues.

Inside Dem retreat: The House Dems gathering at the Kingsmill Resort in Williamsburg, Va., are asking some of the nation’s highest-profile Democratic governors for advice. The theme of the retreat is “governing for a new direction.” A Friday-morning panel features Janet Napolitano of Arizona, Deval Patrick of Massachusetts, Kathleen Sebelius of Kansas and Eliot Spitzer of New York.

Sweet is the Washington bureau chief for the Chicago Sun-Times. E-mail: This email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it