Now that Lieberman has pulled out...

...showing us the limits of "Joe-mentum," Jon Schwarz and I mused on what other types of "mentum" are making their presences felt in this primary season.



Howard Dean: Early in the campaign, Garry Trudeau-mentum. But after his outburst in Iowa, definitely crow-mentum. Will h.m.o-mentum get him back in the race?

Al Sharpton: 'fro-mentum, naturally. The thing he has to watch out over: Jim-Crow-mentum.

John Edwards: A sort of golden-glow, golf pro-mentum, don't you think?

John Kerry: Thanks to his wife, lotsa-dough-in-escrow-mentum.

Wesley Clark: Kosovo-mentum. Perhaps he needs a shot of Garry Hart-style ho-mentum. It couldn't hurt.

Dennis Kucinich: More than a little Henry-David-Thoreau-mentum, hence low-mentum, but perhaps eventually a little Perot-mentum.





Gephardt had the E-I-E-I-O-mentum, and any farmer could've told him that gets you nowhere. It used to be automatic that Democrats would get the A.F.L.C.I.O-mentum, but that's no longer a given.



Will any Dem have what it takes to defeat Bush's formidable C.E.O/status-quo-mentum? Given the example of the last Democrat to run and win, the most important question of all may be this: who has the blow-mentum?