Start of marathon or warmup for a sprint?

George Will:

Like the Roman god Janus, from which this godforsaken month takes its name, the two parties' voters in two states have looked in different directions. After six months of intense campaigning, in just six transformative days Iowa spoke and contrarian New Hampshire said: On the other hand ...

These states perhaps started a marathon -- it might not reach a decisive crescendo on Feb. 5 when 22 states choose -- between two formidable Democratic candidates with ardent constituencies. Meanwhile, Republicans, illustrating this year's elemental asymmetry, may be contemplating a choice among John McCain, Mike Huckabee, Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani.

If McCain, who in 2000 won Michigan after winning New Hampshire, takes it again next Tuesday, Romney will be, in E.E. cummings' words, "a recent footprint in the sand of was." None of the four candidates is close to enkindling a substantial plurality of the party to a temperature comparable to that of Hillary Clinton's and Barack Obama's cohorts.

The wrong question about Obama has been "Where's the beef?" -- "beef" meaning policy substance. Policy papers in profusion can be ginned up by campaign advisers, of whom Obama has plenty. The right question is whether he is a souffle -- pretty and pleasing, but mostly air and apt to collapse if jostled. Presidential politics is an exhausting, hard, occasionally even cruel vetting process -- necessarily so, given the stakes -- and now that he has been bumped hard we shall see if there is steel beneath the sleek gray suit.

Regarding Clinton, Iowa Democrats seemed to experience a great flinch, contemplating, then recoiling from, the prospect of a Clinton restoration. New Hampshire Democrats, however, demonstrated that her candidacy might not be so brittle after all. But Iowa might have been a harbinger of flinches to come, especially if her husband continues to behave as he perhaps cannot help but behave.

...

She, the afterthought, arrived in New Hampshire spoiling for a fight but missing the point. Mountaineering on molehills, she said Obama has changed some positions. But people inebriated by "hope" for "change" are not smitten about issues, concerning which the differences between him and her must be measured by ideological micrometers. Voters are attracted to him as iron filings are to a magnet. Mind hardly enters into this response to his nimbus of novelty, and it is impossible to reason people out of affiliations they have not been reasoned into.

...

Huckabee -- Where is Pakistan? Who is Darwin? Why is Wall Street so icky to Main Street? -- might be a fluke of the nominating schedule that put Iowa, planted thick with evangelicals, first. He won just 14 percent of Iowa's nonevangelicals, among whom he finished fourth. Where would McCain be if the schedule had not offered him an early chance to romance New Hampshire again? Giuliani, supposedly able to compete in the Northeast, spent $3 million on advertising without elevating his New Hampshire numbers, but he waits down the road, where 97.2 percent of the convention delegates -- the currency by which the prize will be purchased -- remain unallocated.

...

Will provides a metaphor rich environment today.

His point in that last quoted sentence above is the perspective that is needed in looking at the race. However, with 22 states voting on the same day that will be pretty much of a sprint and who has the money to compete in those states may decide the race. Right now on the GOP side, the "winners" of the first two states are underfunded candidates hoping to catch up with donations based on early performance. McCain has laid his next bet in Michigan and Huckabee has laid his in South Carolina. Romney seems to think Michigan is now a make a break state. In the meantime, Rudy is sticking with his tortoise like approach and making his bet on Florida.

With Richardson joining the dropouts, the Democrat race is quickly becoming a Hillary Obama contest, with Edwards doing his trial lawyer schlock drawing about 20 percent or so which is enough to deny either of the leaders a majority vote. It is important to remember that no one has yet to get 50 percent in any contest. That is too small a sample to declare anyone a winner.