That Sound You're Hearing

Is the air going out of General Wesley Clark's campaign. If the early numbers from Iowa are correct (and there's every reason to believe that they are -- more or less), then Senator John Kerry is well on his way to front-runner status in New Hampshire. The tracking polls will mark the shift by Wednesday and by Thursday, Kerry will be even with or ahead of Dean.

And then, sometime around 6am on Thursday morning, the Clark campaign will be faced with a choice: go hard negative on Kerry or be done. The entire premise of the Clark campaign was to be the "not-Dean." But if Dean is "not," then what is Clark?

Postscript Make that: sometime around 6am on Wednesday morning.