In the sport of track & field - in the 10,000 meter race - there is a poorly paid and very demanding job, and it's usually performed by young Kenyans. It is the job of the rabbit, the guy who runs in front of everybody and spurs on the pack so they can break records later on in the race - on the home stretch, when the rabbit will be long gone. That's because he usually leaves the race after 5,000 meters.

The Democrats' rabbit is named Howard Dean.

Howard Dean, general practitioner and former governor of Vermont, blond and feisty, attacked George W. Bush. He reproached the president of the United States for giving tax breaks to the rich, for lying about the weapons of mass destruction, for the more than 500 dead GIs in Iraq, and for America's isolation in the world.

"Exactly. That's the way it is," thought May Scheve, "so why hasn't anyone said this before?"

Howard Dean was clever and sharp, Howard Dean was on the covers of Time and Newsweek, he was the next president. Then Howard Dean became obstinate and shrill. Recently, he stood on a stage with a wild look in his eyes and yelled into the cameras, listing the places he would go next: "North Carolina! And Arizona! And New Mexico!" What it sounded like was: "I'll get you all, wherever you are, and you should hide your children." Since then, Howard Dean has been out of the race, he's running out of steam, is what they call "unelectable," and will soon drop out. He intends to make that decision on February 17th, after the Wisconsin primary.

The pace is fast, too fast for the rabbit. It's a pace that only John Kerry, John Edwards and Wesley Clark can keep up. "Three real leaders," says May Scheve, three men who in these primaries are fighting for the chance to beat George W. Bush in November.

It is a Tuesday in St. Louis in the state of Missouri, shortly after 6 p.m., and the Democrats of St. Louis have gathered at John D. McGurks. There they stand, under Guinness posters, photos of Samuel Beckett and James Joyce, and three TVs. McGurks is an Irish pub. And May Scheve is the chairman of the Democratic party of Missouri, a short, blonde women in a blue outfit, 39 years old, a Democrat, she says, ever since Ronald Reagan changed the country.

These are big days for the Democratic Party, big days for St. Louis, for May Scheve. Yesterday, for example, Teresa Heinz was in town, and what a first lady Mrs. Heinz would make!

Teresa Heinz: She wore her brown hair loose, a white blouse and a colorful scarf over her right shoulder, and she drank a little white and ate a little salad. The dinner was at the Metropolitan Square Building. It was one of those boring fundraising dinners that suddenly cease to be boring when a woman like Teresa Heinz shows up. He husband is "like a good wine," she tells the crowd, one that has matured for years and is now ready to drink.

Her husband: John Kerry, the favorite, the man who would undoubtedly become president if the presidential election were held this Tuesday. John Kerry is five years younger than Teresa Heinz. She's 65, but she did get Botox injections, as she likes to say.

In fact, Heinz, born in Portugal, likes to talk. About her childhood in Mozambique and her time as a UN interpreter. About her first husband, Senator Jack Heinz, of Heinz Ketchup fame, who died in plane crash in 1991. She still calls him the "man of my life." And she talks about Kerry, her second husband, who was in the bath when he found out about his victories in Iowa and New Hampshire. In explaining why John, this outsider, is now so far ahead of the pack, Teresa says, in all seriousness: "He's always good when he comes from behind."

And she smiles softly.

Teresa Heinz inherited almost 500 million dollars after the plane crash. She gives away a great deal of the money year after year. She is America's philanthropist, the kind of guest who hasn't been in St. Louis in a long time. What a first lady!

This Tuesday, a "Super Tuesday," was also a big day. Seven states voted, but none is as important as Missouri, because Missouri is considered a bellwether state, a state in which the distribution between rich and poor, black and white matches that of the rest of the country. Missouri is a mini-America within America. That's why the outcome of its primary will be used as a predictor for the United States.

It was an icy Tuesday, with snow flurries and storms in Missouri, and people like Theresa Savio, a helper and supervisor during these primaries, sat in the hallway of the Shaw School in St. Louis' The Hill neighborhood, at 5329 Columbia Avenue, and watched the voters. There were lots of voters. Theresa is 75, a Democrat since birth, she says. She liked Truman and didn't like anyone else for a long time after Truman. Theresa says that she isn't easy to convince, and that she herself is surprised to find that she actually likes all three candidates: Kerry, Edwards, and Clark.

And now it's 6:15 p.m. on primary Tuesday, they're serving chicken wings and raw vegetables at McGurks, and party chairman May Scheve's assistants bring her a cold bottle of Budweiser every 15 minutes. The room is full. CNN announces some "breaking news," their prediction that John Edwards will win South Carolina.

"Breaking news - Bush has been the only breaking news in this country for the past three years, ever since September 11th," says May Scheve.

Of course, everyone here knows that election day is not every day, and that the conservative defamation machine has barely started running. They know it, but they also see the numbers. Kerry would beat Bush by a clear margin. Edwards would tie Bush. Clark would lose by a small margin. Today, that is. And what if Kerry, the serious winner from the north, wins the primaries and then makes Edwards, this southern state Robert Redford of the Senate, his vice-presidential candidate? What would things look like then? And what if the economy still hasn't recovered by November? And if Osama bin Laden is still at large and soldiers are still dying in Iraq?

It's 7 p.m. More breaking news: Kerry wins Missouri (with more than 50 percent) and Delaware, and Kerry, Edwards and Clark are running neck-and-neck in Oklahoma. Edwards, the winner in South Carolina, appears before the cameras on national television. John Edwards is a trial lawyer. He can win over juries. He says that somewhere in America, right now, a little girl is cold and hungry. He says that he can see this girl, hug this girl, that this girl is the reason he is running for president: "We live in two Americas," and he is talking about Bush' America of Texas oil conglomerates, and about the lost America of the poor. "If the American people give me a chance, I will give them back the White House," he says. It may sound dramatic, but this is the message of the Democrats: The country should have a social side again, and other countries should be able to respect the United States.

"Yeah," says Jay Bleeke, 25, a guy wearing a T-shirt and red Converse shoes, "we're going to Washington." Bleeke is standing at the bar. He is one of these kids who launched the new wave of the Democratic Party. He's a student of American history and a volunteer in the Edwards campaign. He spends his mornings calling voters on the phone and his evenings going from door to door. He's taking time off from school because, naturally, Bleeke hopes to get a job at the White House. And if that doesn't materialize? Then he will have learned something.

Breaking news, 8:17 p.m., and the results are slowly becoming more certain: Kerry has Arizona, Delaware, New Mexico, North Dakota and Missouri, Edwards has South Carolina, and Clark has Oklahoma.

It has been a whirlwind of an election campaign since Howard Dean got everyone going. The candidates are flying around the country, they're more active online than ever before, and they're running spots and ads based on strategies that are reviewed three times a day.

Symbolism is everything. John Edwards likes them to play the song "Small Town" when he storms onto the stage. John Kerry has had red, white and blue covers put on the headrests in his Boeing 737. The words on the covers read "John Kerry President" - Kerry has now dropped the word "for." Wesley Clarks eats a lot of gummi bears, but he also swims five days a week. Howard Dean lives off of strawberry shakes. Wait a minute, who was Howard Dean again?

"It's a two-way race," says Edwards after his first victory, "maybe still a three-way race," but that depends whether Wesley Clark is included.

It is now Wednesday, and the battle has moved on to Nashville, Tennessee, where primary elections will be held next Tuesday. At the Forum, a sort of auditorium at Tennessee State University, Wesley Clark is about to take to the stage. He's still standing at the entrance, shaking hands. Wesley Clark, 59, parts his hair on the side and hunches his back. He wears corduroys and a shirt open at the neck. He looked better in his U.S. Army uniform. According to surveys done for Wesley Clark, women don't vote for uniforms.

And now Clark is standing on the stage, telling his audience to call him "Wes." He has four topics - faith, family, leadership and patriotism - and for each topic Wesley Clark tells a story. How he and the enemy found each other at the same time in Vietnam and the enemy shot first, but didn't aim well. How his mother earned 30 dollars a week and his father died when Wes was four years old. How he rose to the top of his class at West Point and then marched his way to the very top. Clark, a four-star general who was the supreme NATO commander during the war in Kosovo, says: "I've forgotten more about national security than George W. Bush ever knew."