Tick Tock

From The Washington Post:

CLINTON, Iowa -- Standing in front of a large banner that blared "Clinton," surrounded by students in Clinton Community College sweat shirts, Sen. Barack Obama offhandedly mentioned the obvious.

"Hillary, you know, she's interesting," Obama said, acknowledging that he understood they would consider other candidates before making up their minds.

Interesting, indeed.

In the month since the presidential nominating contest got underway, Obama (D-Ill.) and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) have barely mentioned each other's names in public or even greeted each other in the Senate halls. But each campaign has increasingly fixated on the other, engaging in a shadowboxing match in which they intentionally cross paths but dodge to avoid each other's subtle jabs. With an intensity unusual for this stage of the campaign the two are indirectly engaging, invading each other's terrain and going to great lengths to contrast their candidacies.

There are people, mostly oldsters, who know intellectually that the timing of next years primaries has been changed to make the "decision time" both earlier and more compressed than it has ever been before but still can't get their heads around the fact. They sit around moaning about how it is "too soon" to get interested in any of the candidates and worrying that by the time voting starts that people will have burned out on the election.

However the campaign is happening right now. By this time next year both parties will be locked into a candidate. Barring some "live boy or dead girl" event the person in each party who is running in front by September will be that party's nominee.

Mrs. Bill Clinton and B. Hussein Obama both realize that. The "Big Three" Republicans also realize that. Newt, who wants to run but is waiting till September to stick his finger int he air, does not realize that. September is too late this time around.

I just hope that if Fred Thompson is listening to the "Draft Fred" voices and is being swayed by them that he realizes that he has maybe till the end of April to throw his hat in and still have a hope of winning.