We can thank Iowa and its scheduled Jan. 3 caucuses for the fact that the national news seems to be dominated by the campaign for president even though the election is still nearly 11 months away.

Normally this would be an imposition to people who still have to worry about getting through Christmas, the coming winter and all kinds of events next year before they can devote their attention to presidential politics. But in this case it might actually help, because by the time we have to think about it, we can hope that the number of hopefuls is much reduced.

Television commentators such as Cokie Roberts on ABC-TV sound as though it's remarkable that the Republicans don't have a candidate yet. She meant that it's remarkable that no one has emerged as a clear frontrunner. But this should not be remarkable at all, among the Republicans or the Democrats. It would be far stranger if either party had someone so obviously out front that any further deliberations, caucuses or elections were a waste of time.

So far it's hard to imagine that any of the people running could actually become our next president for four or even eight years. The exception is John McCain, whose life story - including the years stolen from him as a POW in the service of his country - outweighs the others by a ton. (hh)