efore the New Hampshire primary, most national polls had Vice President Al Gore and Texas Governor George W. Bush as their parties' eventual presidential nominees.
As the New Hampshire primary approached, and the media trumpeted the ability of Democrat Bill Bradley and Republican Senator John McCain to knock off the two front-runners, the national polls held steady for Bush and Gore.
They held steady even as McCain stomped Bush in the Granite State, and Bradley came within four points of upsetting Gore - and as McCain upset Bush in the Michigan primary.
But all along, the media ignored the national polls and continued to call it a horse race - until last week.
After the Super Tuesday voting, the national polls could no longer be doubted.
Gore swept Bradley in all 15 Democratic state primaries on March 7, and Bush trounced McCain in all but four of their 13. Bradley dropped out and endorsed Gore, and McCain ''suspended'' his campaign but did not endorse Bush.
One reason McCain won Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Vermont, and Connecticut may be their proximity to New Hampshire and the media outlets that chronicled McCain's victorious Granite State campaign.
McCain lost Maine not simply because the extended Bush family has a well-established vacation home there, but perhaps because the expansive state is not so connected to the Boston and Manchester-area media. Perhaps for the same reason, McCain barely beat Bush in Connecticut.
In the rest of the country, McCain simply did not catch on with the electorate. His upset win in Michigan can be attributed largely to a very intense effort by Democratic and indepenent critics of Michigan Governor John M. Engler, a Republican who endorsed and actively campaigned for Bush. Those critics pushed McCain as a way to get back at Engler.
But then things began to sour for McCain. He departed from his fiery message of campaign finance overhaul to respond to Bush's charges in such a negative way that it hurt the feisty image that won him New Hampshire. When he lost both the popular and the delegate vote in California, New York, and in the South last week, it was clear McCain had lost his momentum.
In the end, Super Tuesday reminded us that national polls best reflect the voice of the whole electorate - and that being distracted by polls or tallies from individual states can be misleading.
Now most national polls are showing that a Gore-Bush matchup is a dead heat, far different from the polls of two months earlier that had Bush easily defeating Gore.
And no longer do those polls show that McCain - presuming he stayed in the race - would easily beat Gore in November. That scenario changed after Super Tuesday's results. Some polls now show that if McCain were the GOP nominee, he would face a close race against Gore.
With the nominating conventions not until summer, and the November election even further off, there is likely to be much attention paid to independent voters, who could decide the election. Early polls last week show that Gore and Bush would split the independent vote almost evenly.
However, a crucial issue for Bush is whether McCain will endorse and actively support him.
McCain's chilly congratulations to Bush last week show there is still bad blood between the two. No doubt McCain's reluctance to endorse Bush is designed to gain leverage on other matters - perhaps a pledge that Bush will support campaign finance revision in exchange for the endorsement.
Without it, Bush may be unable to win enough of McCain's Democratic and independent backers to put him over the top in November. And if Bush loses, McCain could be viewed as a sore loser who cost his party the election.
Many pundits believe that if Eugene McCarthy, the antiwar candidate in 1968, when he was a Democratic senator from Minnesota, had actively supported Hubert Humphrey's presidential bid, Richard Nixon would not have won the election.
McCain's candidacy has forced Bush to move further to the right than he wanted to be, and it will be difficult for him to move toward the center again without McCain's help. Gore, on the other hand, is already closer to the center, forced there by the more liberal Bradley during the primaries.
Bradley's gracious exit from the campaign and his endorsement of Gore will leave voters with a positive image of him as well as help keep the Democrats united as they move toward November.
McCain could help his own image with Republicans and independents if he and Bush work out an agreement. If not, the polls may well show that Gore has pulled ahead of Bush while McCain was pulling Bush down.
Robert A. Jordan is a Globe columnist.
