In the present lull between big primary elections, a number of things could radically change the candidates’ perceived relative strengths. Among them:

In the rickety leftwing corral of the wild Obama herd, how many mustangs will break out and say something that is predictably sarcastic, tasteless, and critical of the U.S. (After all, why would one allow a controversial foreign-policy adviser to do a no-holds-barred book promo overseas in the middle of a campaign?).

When the Clinton tax- records are released, we will learn (?) how much Bill made from how many authoritarian, creepy figures abroad? This is a different matter from the circumstances surrounding his pardons, since it is a joint tax return and a partnership in which a married couple equally benefit from, and are responsible for, the sources of income.

What will both candidates say on the stump about trade in the post-industrial regions of Pennsylvania, given that past anti-NAFTA pandering has been now tainted as cynical and to be written-off as mere politics?

With the end of the first week of March, there has so far been only a single American fatality this month (incurred in a non-combat Iraqi helicopter crash). If that were to continue (and it could change tomorrow), we are in a period in which the entire war could be redefined as something analogous to ongoing operations in Afghanistan or even the Balkans. And that, coupled with Iraq’s strong economic performance and political improvement, would radically change the Obama message of Iraqi as an ungodly horror worthy of abject withdrawal.