With the results of the "Super Tuesday" primaries now complete Vice President Al Gore is assured of the Democratic Party's nomination. The likelihood that Governor George W Bush will be his opponent from the Republican Party is only slightly less absolute. Mr Gore won every contest against his rival, Mr Bill Bradley, but while Mr Bush was a convincing winner in most of the Republican primaries he lost New England to Senator John McCain. Now the real campaign begins. Mr Gore and Mr Bush can divert their attentions from rivals within their own parties and concentrate on the important race - the contest for the presidency itself.
The openness and democracy by which Americans chose their candidates is admirable in theory but in practice some flaws have emerged. States vie to get their primaries in early in order to gain publicity. The result is that with more than seven months to go before polling day, with dozens of primaries still in the pipeline and before truly important issues have emerged, the candidates have effectively been chosen. There is a good deal of sense in proposals that the primaries should be divided into four regional events in the style of "Super Tuesday". Under this plan the dates of the regional polls would rotate while, in deference to tradition, the New Hampshire primary and the Idaho caucuses would continue to signal the start of the campaign.
It will take some time to decide on any new format and in the meantime the real race will take the limelight. Up to now it had been thought that the phenomenon known as "Clinton Fatigue" would dominate the campaign. It was argued that President Clinton's demonstrable untruthfulness leading to his impeachment - though not his removal from office - would have an extremely deleterious effect on any candidate closely associated with the White House. "Super Tuesday" has shown that this is not the case. Mr Gore was by far the most successful of the four runners from the two major parties. He did not lose a single state. The phenomenal growth of the economy, the ensuing prosperity and the "feel-good factor" have, it would seem, outweighed qualms about the probity of the current administration.
No candidate made more of "Clinton Fatigue" than did Senator McCain. He made his point forthrightly and with clarity from the start of the campaign in New Hampshire. He also had the courage, if not the political sophistication, to launch a strong counterattack on the Religious Right in the course of the South Carolina primary. As he prepares to bow out of the presidential race there is considerable consolation for Mr McCain and his supporters. They have, for example, won the support of the liberal New England states, with the single exception of Maine. More importantly they have, to a greater extent than on any previous occasion, opened a debate within the GOP on the morality of associating with groups whose stated aims fall little short of bigotry and racism.