Quotes of the Day

For a guy who had been given up for dead as recently as a month ago, John Kerry was looking pretty robust on Monday night. His second victory, in New Hampshire, was as impressive as his first, the week before in Iowa. For much of the day, the exit polls had suggested a squeaker; the actual result was a comfortable double-digit margin that gives him the momentum he hopes will propel him to a sweep of the seven states that vote next Tuesday. The campaign starts its ads in all seven on Wednesday, with the Massachusetts Senator himself visiting each between now and Primary Day.  

  Now, it is Dean — the candidate who once boasted the only nationwide strategy — who finds himself trying to figure out how to pick his shots. And there was telling evidence of how hard that may be in the hastily assembled schedule the Dean campaign put out at 7:28 p.m. tonight. The first stop they listed for the next five days of campaigning: Lansing, Michigan. That's not a Super Tuesday state, but one that votes the following Saturday, February 7. Also listed are stops in Wisconsin and Washington State — which don't vote until mid-February. But if Dean can't win at least one state next Tuesday, it's hard to imagine he will get anywhere with a late strategy in anywhere else.

  Nor is it any easier to see a long-term battle plan for either North Carolina Senator John Edwards or retired General Wesley Clark, who were duking it out for a third-place New Hampshire finish. Edwards once thought he merely needed to win South Carolina; now, he must dazzle there to even stay in the race. And of course, South Carolina doesn't count as much as it did, now that Dick Gephardt's departure from the race has put Missouri back in play, with its larger trove of delegates. Barring some unforeseen development, Edwards is likely to soon be in the fallback position of The Guy to Beat for Running Mate. As for Clark, his fumbling New Hampshire campaign proved how hard it is for him to run without Dean as a viable foil. He may pick off a state or two next Tuesday, but he's got to find a message to run on, as well as a resume.

  The prevailing winds of the 2004 campaign have shifted before. But with the race now dispersed across the map, it is harder to see where or how they can alter the fundamental course that it has taken. From here, the questions will be less about the war or health care or the economy. They will all be about John Kerry. The Republicans are already painting him as hopelessly liberal; Dean is saying Kerry doesn't stand for anything at all. But for most Democrats, who are just now waking up to the fact that there is a presidential election this year, it looks as though it will boil down to something far more fundamental: Is John Kerry the winner that Iowa and New Hampshire think he is?

• Karen Tumulty
• John Kerry comes out of New Hampshire the clear front-runner. Can any of the other Democratic candidates come back?