This is, in some ways, everything that I could have hoped for. John F. Kerry might well, for the moment, be in the lead: but that lead is far too fragile at this time to honestly crown him as the “front-runner” for the Democratic nomination. Nay, what looks likely now is a long and bruising fight for the nomination which leaves all of the contenders broke, battered, and bloodied. This race is moving too fast and is far too confusing to, at this point; make any truly accurate prediction of the final result. It should be recalled that, just a month ago, virtually every major pundit and political insider was proclaiming Howard Brush Dean III the Democratic nominee. We’ve still got more than a month to go until Super Tuesday. That’s a lot of time for gaffes, scandals, and whatever other nonsense can be dreamed up.

Some are living under the false impression that this will be settled within a week. February 3rd will be helpful to Kerry only if he manages to win virtually all of the primaries that day, which seems unlikely. More likely is that, attempting to administer the final blow to his opponents; Kerry will over-extend himself by seeking to run the table and, therefore, will expose himself to a vicious counter-attack.

What happens if, next week, Edwards wins in South Carolina and Clark wins in Oklahoma, with the rest of the primaries being variously split and Dean performing well (20% or so) everywhere? Who’s the ‘front-runner’ then?

One of the great disadvantages of the short primary schedule is that it allows candidates to survive who would otherwise be driven from the race. In the old system, Clark would have been out of the race after last night and Dean would be tottering on the edge. The rapidity of the season now gives them a second chance. In other words, by giving people less time to think and manoeuvre, the rapid-fire primary schedule gives time for little more than frantic scrambling.

The race now must look ahead to March 2nd, which offers the best chance of a decisive day in this contest. If Kerry can beat back the other candidates, if he can raise enough money, if he can avoid getting hit too much, he can emerge as the nominee by winning California and New York on that day. Or, maybe not.

Suppose that Edwards wins South Carolina, polls in the teens in the North, and wins Tennessee and Virginia as well. Dean manages to win Michigan, Washington, Maine, and a few other scattered primaries, keeping himself in the fight. Kerry wins the rest, but fails to really emerge with a clear lead. Then, on March 2nd, the fight between Edwards and Kerry over who is more electable manages to hand Dean a narrow win in California, while Kerry takes New York, Ohio, and splits most of the rest of the North with Dean. Edwards wins in Georgia.

But then, a week later, Edwards sweeps “Southern Tuesday”, winning Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas. Who is the front-runner then? And, by this point, there aren’t enough primaries left to really tip the balance to one side or the other.

And all of this, I might add, is assuming that Clark is on the way out. Were he to win Oklahoma and Arizona on February 3rd, he’d be right in the fight with everyone else.

The most notable thing about this fight is that none of the Democrats really disagree with eachother about everything. The details of their exact plans differ slightly, but those differences don’t matter very much anyways since any of their plans will be mauled and rewritten by the Congress. What does this leave us with, then? Biography and attacks. John Kerry and Wesley Clark will both try and run on their military backgrounds. Watch for this to get truly nasty over the next little while, with Clark and Edwards using various tricks to attack Kerry for his anti-war activism, while Kerry and Edwards will probably seek to attack Clark for his record as NATO Supreme Commander. There probably won’t be ads in the subject, but a lot of people in South Carolina will soon be (or possibly already are) getting some… interesting… phone calls. At the same time, John Edwards will be attacked for having so little experience, while John Kerry will be attacked both for his liberal voting record and his lack of legislative accomplishments in the Senate. At the same time, Dean will attack Kerry and Kerry’s people will suggest that Dean is mentally unstable. John Edwards will have a hard time being heard over all of the attacks.

If I were Howard Dean, I would go before a camera somewhere tomorrow and announce that I’d had a change of thought on gay marriage: I’m now for it 100%. In order to sell this, I’d find a really sympathetic gay couple and movingly explain how they convinced me of the moral rightness of “treating all people equally” or some other nonsense. I’d then attack all of the other candidates for opposing gay marriage while, at the same time, I’d tout my record in Vermont.

The main reason why Dean and the other major Democrats have yet to take this position is obvious: they fear it will kill their chances in a General Election. But Dean’s got little to lose: he can’t fight in the general unless he first wins the nomination. Polls show that gay marriage is supported by both a majority of Democrats and a majority of young voters. This would put Dean back on the cutting-edge of the race issue-wise and would force everyone else to respond to him. Frankly, it would expose the stupidity of the present position of all the major Democrats on the issue (for Civil Unions, against gay marriage, but opposed to doing anything to try and stop gay marriage because it would be ‘mean spirited’ to do so).

In any case, there’s little to do now but wait, watch, and research all of the likely nominees. Hopefully, we’ll have until Boston to do so.