So damn much can happen between now and November.

A few observations:

- Bush is carrying a lot of baggage, even in the eyes of some Republicans and while the enthusiastic media is piling more on as fast as possible, no reasonable person can deny that Bush picked up a lot of it himself (campaign finance reform, tariffs, a flawed education bill, another bloody entitlement, and the NEA, if you can believe it.)

- Kerry has a lot of baggage too, and once he is nominated and the glory of the primary season fades a bit, a lot of it is going to become obvious.

- Tax cuts are growing the economy, although a number of people would eat a bug before admitting it.

- The true deficit numbers for 2004 won't be in until after the election, probably. The number for 2003 were lower than predicted, and I'll bet they will be this time around, too.

- Employment is improving, but slowly. This is the last economic indicator to take off, and Democrats are going to cling to it tightly. Look for the goalposts to keep moving: 200,000 new jobs? Didn't we need 300,000? Wait, maybe these are lousy jobs, right? Hey, aren't work-related injuries increasing under the Bush administration?

- What will the final budget look like once Congress is done with it? A BIG question. Will fiscally-conservative Republicans in the House dig into the back of their sock drawers and find their 1994 balls again? Will the budget that finally crosses the President's desk be a lot smaller? Or larger, as it usually is? Will Bush dig into HIS sock drawer and locate that damn veto pen?

- If more politically positive things happen in Iraq and Afghanistan, those would be a plus. The insurgents in Iraq seem to have largely collapsed into desperation, but that is when they will be the most violent. They are mostly killing Iraqis now, in a deliberate attempt to destroy any chances of peace. There is a long way to go, yet. Even if Iraq becomes a reasonably democratic nation, with rights for all, twenty years from now terrorists will probably still be blowing up cars there. Look at Israel.

- We finally have a foreign policy that does not declare France and the U.N. to be a fourth branch of the American government. Kerry would go the other way, and this will present a clear choice to voters.

- If tax breaks are extended, businesses, which work in the long term, will make near-term decisions accordingly. The economy will grow even more. It will be interesting to see the extensions work their way through the legislature. Ted Kennedy will have "deficits" tatooed to his forehead. A temporary tattoo, of course. A Democrat might be elected to the presidency.