Peggy Noonan:

Just a month ago it was easy for pundits: Howard Dean's in the lead, Dean's got the mo and the dough. That was the common wisdom. But it has changed. There's a story now. The new common wisdom is that Mr. Dean is no longer the lead car in the race, that he's hit an oil spot and is spinning, maybe losing control.
I am a conservative and do not hope for a Democratic victory, but I do hope for a Democratic fight, and I think Mr. Dean would lose in a rout. He seems too odd, too politically immature and too essentially ungrounded to be president. So the new storyline is in my view good news.

The polls say Mr. Dean's lead in the caucuses is tightening; Dick Gephardt and John Kerry are duking it out for second place; John Edwards is rising. Zogby says it's Dean 24%, Gephardt and Kerry tied at 21%, Edwards at 15% and moving up. So even if Mr. Dean wins with something like these numbers, his competitors will immediately start saying, "Seventy-five percent of our party did not vote for Howard Dean." And that will win them all more time.

She writes like I wish I could. I'm glad Peggy is back for the primaries.