A recent cartoon in the New York Post featured a man wearing a T-shirt that read on the front “Four More Years.” On the back it read “‘Til Hillary vs. Rudy.”

This presidential race is just hitting the home stretch, but there is still a high degree of dissatisfaction and distraction. The usual carping about the quality of the candidates is compounded by a nervous fascination with future races – and these hypothetical matchups boast an almost all-New York cast.

While the Sunbelt has eclipsed New York’s traditional weight in electoral math during recent decades, the political news of 2006 and 2008 seems likely to be dominated by the Empire State.

The marquee race of 2006 is already set up to be Hillary Clinton’s run for re-election to the Senate. While her fellow New York Democrat in the Senate, Charles Schumer, has been met with only token Republican resistance in his re-election effort this year, Hillary Clinton is a national lightning rod with the ability to polarize households across America in a single sound bite. Ever since her “listening tour” in 2000 led to a successful Senate campaign, her detractors have been grumbling about how it is all part of a carefully constructed plot – a vast left-wing conspiracy, if you will – to put another Clinton in the White House. Her attempts to position herself as a centrist in the Senate have done little to calm the fury of her opponents. The 2006 Senate race will be seen by many as their best chance to cut her off before the starting gates of the next presidential race. The fact is that few statewide Republicans have the combination of star power and substance to stop her re-election: among these are Mayor Giuliani, Governor Pataki, and television host Bill O’Reilly.

Despite the fact that the nation was denied a Hillary-Rudy Senate race in 2000 because of the mayor’s diagnosis with prostate cancer (which proved to be a blessing in disguise for New York City when the attacks of September 11 were launched), Mr. Giuliani has always possessed more of an executive – rather than legislative – temperament. That is why many Republican insiders are urging him to run for governor in 2006 or to aim straight for the presidency in 2008.

Mr. Pataki, on the other hand, has always seemed to have the conciliatory personality of a legislator rather than a hard-charging executive. And while those ensconced in the Albany cocoon of Pataki-land cling to notion that the White House is the birthright of all New York governors this side of the Roosevelts, a September Quinnipiac poll shows that even New York Republicans would prefer to have Mr. Giuliani rather than Mr. Pataki run for president, by a staggering 71% to 21%. Mr. Pataki’s best shot at the White House would seem to be a bold attempt at re-charging his original reputation as a liberal giant-killer that was born when he knocked Mario Cuomo out of the governor’s mansion in 1994. He could do that by challenging Mrs. Clinton for the Senate in 2006.The governor remains highly popular in crucial upstate districts, and such a race could make him a national cause for conservatives who would flood his coffers with donations while dramatically increasing his name-recognition nationwide.

In the event that a comfortable 10 years in public life has dulled the governor’s enthusiasm for uphill political combat, television host Bill O’Reilly has been making noises about his hunger for just such a fight. The Long Island native is host of the nation’s no. 1 one rated cable news show – “The O’Reilly Factor” on Fox – and though he is reportedly a registered independent, he is already an icon to right-leaning Americans. His self-celebrated “no-spin zone” style of attack would provide a perfect antidote to lingering perceptions about the hyper-calculating Clinton approach to politics. These debates could draw a profit on pay-per-view – it would be full-contact political combat of the highest order.

If none of the above choose to step up to the plate, a strong final possibility for a Republican contestant could be the New York secretary of state, Randy Daniels. While his name recognition does not currently register in the same universe as these other folks, Mr. Daniels – an African-American Republican – is clearly one of the party’s rising in-state stars, and his eloquence and intelligence could quickly enable him to develop a national reputation. However, it seems more likely and more prudent for Mr. Daniels to run for governor in 2006, if Mr. Giuliani ultimately decides to forgo that step.

Looking ahead, it does appear that all roads from New York lead to Washington. An all-New York cast for the 2008 presidential general election seems a strong possibility. It would mark the first time since 1944 – when Governor Dewey faced President Roosevelt during World War II – that two New Yorkers squared off for the highest office in the land. New York politics is the place to be.