ome questions and answers to see if you're paying attention:
1. Who's had the best press, and who's had the worst, in the run-up to the March 7 Super Tuesday primaries?
US Senator John McCain wins hands-down for best press coverage. His open style, easy-breezy insouciance, a life story more dramatic than a Tom Clancy novel, and a willingness to swing his sword of reform in every direction, made him the media's darling.
Worst press? Vice President Al Gore. Al's stilted style, early gaffes, and ties to Bill Clinton's exhaustingly documented travails made the veep a punching bag for journalists out for a little exercise. George W. Bush got a lavish media buildup before he started melting down. And Bill Bradley got a lot of friendly media lather before his candidacy's inherent flaws became too obvious to ignore.
2. Who do you think will be nominated?
Gore, early, and probably Bush, late. Despite the blowtorch intensity of the McCain surge, especially intense in the Northeast, Jarrin' John faces a series of tank traps in the South and West. The rules and the party's rigging of delegate selection formats, plus the GOP's penchant for winner-take-all apportionment of delegates, makes the wobbly Texas governor a slight favorite, a 6-out-of-10 or 7-out-of-10 shot in my back-of-the-envelope calculations.
3. But could McCain win the nomination? Sure. Look what he's already done. He fits the voters' wild and wooly mood.
4. Whom do you think most likely to be holding his hand on the family Bible next January on the platform outside the Capitol?
Looks like Al Gore. Peace and prosperity always enhance the incumbent, which he is, sort of. Absent war or a severe case of Greenspanitis chilling the stock markets, Al will go up against either a Texas governor considerably diminished by his campaign exposure, or a maverick senator whose conservative political positions can be exploited by a skillful Democratic campaign. Either way, the Republicans have been divided badly so far.
That's what prompted Bob Dole to suggest a ''time-out ... before matters get out of control.'' Dole said his '96 primary campaign was so hard, ''When I did win the nomination I was battered, bruised, and broke, and therefore an easier target for the negative Clinton-Gore assault in the general election.''
5. What are Bush's weaknesses if he's the nominee?
So far, he's overspent, and underachieved. He's been unable to craft a coherent message. His great big tax cut is a dead letter with voters. His attempt to don the mantle of reform is ludicrous. Painting a backdrop with 50 ''Reformer with results'' logos doeth not a reformer make. He is press-phobic, often less-than-fully-articulate, and seems in over his head. The ''compassionate conservative'' lost his way in South Carolina, and wound up paired with Pat Robertson, and tarred with the residue of his Bob Jones University speech.
6. And if it's McCain, what are his weaknesses?
Age and stamina - he's 63, has been through horrific treatment for 51/2 years in Hanoi, and as a survivor of three plane crashes, a carrier fire, a bailout, and systematic prison torture, his body has been hammered. That all helped make him what he is - a tough, competitive, rugged individual of strong and exemplary character. But he's still a rookie on the presidential road, and mistakes inevitably dog those assaying a race for the first time. Then there are his views.
7. What about his views? Most people seem to view McCain as a heroic challenger taking on the status quo with verve and gusto. That part's true. But he's also a Sunbelt conservative, in some ways even more conservative than Bush, with very low ratings from mass movement groups like unions, environmentalists, and feminists. He's against abortion, for guns, and against raising the minimum wage. All of these stands can be worked into a Gore campaign for the fall. It's hard to envision either Republican carrying California or New York.
8. But haven't some of Gore's weaknesses been exposed, too?
Absolutely. Gore did not help himself by clumsily responding to a debate question about how much influence he'd give the gay rights lobby in choosing who'd be chairman of the Joint Chiefs. Some of Bradley's attacks on Gore's veracity, candor, and morality will undoubtedly be replayed in GOP TV spots this fall. And dissing New Jersey as the place where racial profiling was spawned was a howler; Al may need New Jersey in November.
9. What happened to Bradley? McCain happened to him. The political system entertains only one volcano at a time. And this year, it's not Bradley. Gore was too strong from the get-go. And Gore proved to be a stronger candidate on the road.
10. How will the Republicans run against Gore? They'll paint him as Clinton Lite, a lying, scheming, Buddhist-nun-chasing campaign-contribution grafter with ties to union bosses, abortionists, and Chinese Army spies. Al's job is to try to make the 20 percent of the voters in the middle think less about Monica Lewinsky, and more about Alan Greenspan. Twenty million new jobs versus one White House intern; on that Gore's election hinges.
11. Is it too early to start thinking which states will determine victory in the Electoral College? It's never too early. Give the Republicans Texas and Florida off the bat, with the Democrats not wasting any money trying to beat the Bushes in their gubernatorial home states. Give the Democrats California and New York; even with Governor George Pataki lusting to be someone's vice president, no antiabortion Republican can take the Empire State.
Then give the GOP the South save Tennessee and maybe one or two others, and the mountain states, leave Oregon and Washington up for grabs given Gore's strong environmental record, and give Al the usual Democratic claque of Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Maryland, West Virginia, and a few more, and it all comes down in the end to that belt stretching west from New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio to Michigan.
Those states all have Republican governors, but prosperity buoys Gore, and turnout will be heavy among blacks and union members. If Gore takes Ohio, is my hunch, he wins.
David Nyhan is a Globe columnist.
