Dick Morris made a good point on The O'Reilly Factor on Fox News last night. He said the next two months were crucial for John Kerry's campaign, as it's the period when he can define himself to voters who may know his name but nothing about him.

How that happens depends on whether the national campaign, which has all but formally begun, slides into sleaze at the expense of a fair exploration of the candidates' records, background and character.

At the same time, says Morris, the Bush team knows that if the country remains as closely divided as it seems to be, Bush can't win on his positives alone. He needs to define Kerry on his terms.

Hence, we're seeing the White House stepping up its efforts to defuse the air national guard story - or at least divert attention from it - as it threatens to drown out everything else for now.

Bush's defenders, and those who believe the war was justified, are bound to question the relevance of the circumstances surrounding the president's war service, but as Todd Gitlin writes:

...now that the White House has been exposed for ample deception vis-a-vis Saddam Hussein?s hypothetical weapons, Bush?s tricky, evasive, sometimes flatly wrong statements about his dubious time in the elite Air National Guard in 1972-73 could be cast as prefigurations of a pattern of unreliability ...

History suggests that if the contest gets tighter as it plays out, we can probably expect things to get nastier...

Meanwhile, Gen Wesley Clark is set to endorse Kerry today.

The Kerry-Edwards showdown, for what it might be worth, takes one step closer with Wesley Clark's decision to withdraw.

The challenge for Edwards is whether or not he goes negative on Kerry and assumes that he won't be on the ticket in any form.

There haven't been any states Kerry has won so far - with the exception of Iowa - where the combined Edwards/Clark vote would have been sufficient to overhaul Kerry, (in NH Kerry would have won by 25 votes) so even if all of Clark's support now comes to Edwards, he might figure he's still going to run second.

So a "fast and friendly unity" as the Christian Science Monitor puts it, or at least a swift cessation of hostilities, still seems the likeliest outcome.

With Wisconsin approaching, though, try talking to Howard Dean about 'friendly unity'.

Meanwhile, the uncertainty over the president's service in the air national guard, however, rumbles on... just in time for the latest anti-Bush ad from MoveOn.org.

Well, the front-loaded nominating process seems closer now to producing the sort of result the Democratic party wanted.

With John Kerry heading for seemingly comfortable victories tonight in Virginia and Tennessee, effectively scuppering John Edwards and Wesley Clark's 'pseudo-Southern strategy' - as Time magazine calls it, a "winner take y'all" approach - the Massachusetts senator could be on the brink of clearing out the rest of the field by the time Democrats in California, New York and Texas get to have their say.

But wait a minute. Obviously the twin factors of momentum and perceived electability helped Kerry secure a seemingly unassailable lead - that is, about 20 per cent of the delegates needed to mathematically secure the nomination. Given the DNC's financial resources compared with the fundraising power of the incumbent, not having to go through a primary fight that may even last until the convention would be a plus.

Yet one of the reasons some recent polls show Kerry beating Bush is simply because he's been all over the media looking like a winner. If he's left with no opposition, he has nothing to win, and no platform from which to manifest that 'electability'.

True, he can all but turn his full attention to attacking George Bush, but that will mean the Republicans dipping into their massive election war chest and going on the offensive against their challenger.

Thus, in an effort to get out ahead of a thorny story, the White House, responding to some of the reaction to President Bush's appearance on Meet The Press on Sunday, and the growing questions over his Vietnam war service in the Air National Guard, today released copies of the president's pay stubs from the period in question.

This shows that GOP strategists know they are on shaky ground against Kerry when it comes to military service - the subject, incidentally, of tonight's ABC News Nightline. By putting information out now and then dealing with any follow-ups, they hope to be able to put the matter to rest before the Democrats even choose their nominee.

As expected, Kerry has won the caucuses in both Michigan and Washington State.

Notable, however, are the turnout numbers, which show a growing agitation and disaffection with the President among the Democrats’ vote base. In Michigan, despite some voting problems in Detroit, it was reported that turnout was four times as great as in the last election cycle.

And that comes in spite of the fact that Kerry was campaigning in Virginia and Tennessee ahead of next week’s contests there, while in a bid to target their resources the other challengers virtually ceded the state to the front-runner.

In a further blow to Howard Dean's campaign, a key union endorsement has been withdrawn.

As a Newsweek poll shows Kerry with a clear lead over Bush were the election to be held today, the President spent Saturday in the Oval Office taping Meet The Press.

In the one-hour show, to be broadcast tomorrow morning, Mr Bush says he “welcomes the debate” over whether or not he made the “right call” in removing Saddam Hussein from power.