NOT SINCE 1952 has a presidential election lacked a sitting president or vice president as a contestant, and Ike was about as close as one could get to non-official incumbent. Before that, it was the 1928 race, and there, too, Herbert Hoover was, like Ike, a figure of towering popularity. In other words, there has never not been a front-runner in at least one party in the modern scrambles for the presidency. Here is a bit of evidence that the race for 2008 also has a leader, one along the lines of Eisenhower and the Great Engineer.

The National Federation of Republican Women is one of those groups about which not much is ever written, but which functions as one of the circulatory systems of American politics. There’s a Republican Women’s, Federated in practically every county of every size, and their monthly gatherings are full of the stuff of Tocqueville. These are the precincts of the proverbial “blue haired legions,” but also younger, more partisan activists as well.