A year ago, no politicians worth their salt were predicting the tumult - or excitement - which has gripped the US during the presidential primary season.
If anything, the punditocracy foresaw a very different campaign. The Vice-President, Al Gore, a wooden candidate, was facing a challenge from what passes here as a fresh face: former Senator Bill Bradley, basketball star, Rhodes scholar and a man of conscience, affectionately nicknamed "the priest".
Bradley was widely thought to have at least a decent shot at wresting the Democratic Party nomination from Gore. In any event, it would be a bitter and expensive contest which would probably leave the eventual Democratic nominee bruised and bloodied as he entered the November general election.
The Republican contest, on the other hand, would provide no such entertainment. The money - and the phrase is quite literal - was on Texas Governor George W. Bush, son of the former president.
He and his Republican Party supporters were so rich they rejected federal matching funds for the campaign, which would have imposed limitations on their fund-raising.
Moreover, Bush was touted as the kind of centrist Republican who could attract support from much-needed Democrats and independents. Without those voters, it was agreed, the Republicans could not hope to take back the White House, which they last won in 1988.
Bush's record in Texas provided the basis for that hope. He had built a political coalition there based on some stands that distinguished him from his more extremist party colleagues, including his support of a more liberal policy towards immigration, Hispanic immigration in particular. A year has passed and, to use the Texas vernacular: "Boy howdy - was everybody wrong!"
Tuesday's primary election in 16 states did indeed decisively produce each party's nominee, the initial front-runners Gore and Bush. But both men have been redefined by the primary season.
For Gore, this is very good news, for Bush, it portends some serious difficulties. Gore, after some initial stumbling - stumbling so severe that many Democrats wondered if he would survive the primaries at all - transformed himself and his campaign. He moved his headquarters away from Washington DC to his home of Nashville, Tennessee.
Instead of the stiff, mono-toned mannequin who has often appeared at President Clinton's side, voters saw an animated, passionate campaigner. At rallies, he waved his arms, jabbed the air with his finger, grabbed microphones, stepped in front of the lectern and moved through audiences like a political Oprah Winfrey.
It worked, and in handing Bradley a resounding defeat, Gore emerges a stronger campaigner leading a unified party. Importantly, Gore never shifted any of his fundamental positions nor was he perceived to do so.
The Republican race could not provide more of a contrast. Bush and his advisers were visibly shocked by Senator John McCain's early victory in New Hampshire. How could this have happened? Worse, the Bush campaign looked at worrying poll numbers from around the country.
The excitement that McCain was creating was not just media hype. He was drawing new voters to the polls, young people, baby-boomers. He was winning resoundingly among moderates and independents. A solid conservative voting record in the Senate did not seem to alienate more liberal voters.
McCain's compelling biography - he spent 5 1/2 years as a prisoner of war in Vietnam - and his aura of reform and integrity were threatening to rout Bush. In the early California polls, McCain held a solid lead over him; if he was going to be stopped, it would have to be in deeply conservative South Carolina. Bush held nothing back, conducting a brutal campaign, at various times accusing McCain of being pro-abortion, a liberal in conservative clothing. He spoke at Bob Jones University, a place that prohibited inter-racial dating and was known for its anti-Catholicism. It all worked. In the weeks following, McCain did something that most analysts now blame for his loss. He took Bush's bait.
In a speech in Virginia, McCain attacked Pat Robertson, the television evangelist who is president of the right-wing Christian Coalition, and the Rev Jerry Falwell, calling them "agents of intolerance".
It was a calculated risk, as well as being reflective of his convictions. He believed the statement would bring moderates to his side. Instead, he unleashed the wrath of the Christian right. The party's number-crunchers and pollsters are already cal ling them decisive in the Republican contest. They came out to vote in unprecedented numbers, even in states not normally thought of as right wing, such as California.
There, for example, some 60 per cent of all Republican voters described themselves as "conservatives". Some 20 per cent of them even described themselves as "part of the religious right". This, in the US, would not be thought of as a flattering self-description, as it accurately conjures up images of Bible-thumping extremists who believe that most of us are going to burn in Hell.
By aligning himself with ideological Republican extremists - a group which some are now calling the "death wish Republicans" - Bush has moved away from the centre. In every state contest, he lost among those who called themselves moderate.
He emerges from this contest a weaker more marginalised candidate, facing an energised Gore, a united Democratic Party, and a general electorate which he can only hope has a short memory between now and November.
