Will we know the two parties’ nominees in less than a year, after a February "national primary"? It’s quite possible. But, along the path to such an early nomination decision, new pitfalls will undoubtedly be discovered -- and fallen into.

It looks increasingly likely that a bunch of big states, including California and New York, will move their presidential primary to Feb. 5, 2008. So that day -- call it Super-Super Tuesday -- could prove decisive for all Republican and Democratic hopefuls. Which is to say, from their point of view, there’s not much time left.

No wonder the president-picking process has accelerated. Former Iowa Democratic Gov. Tom Vilsack announced, for example, on Nov. 30 -- that’s nearly two years ahead of the next presidential election. And then, proving that acceleration works two ways, he just as quickly realized he wasn’t competitive. He announced Feb. 23 he was giving up his bid.

But political junkies need not worry: There are still nearly two dozen candidates. And almost all of them are on breakneck schedules, eagerly searching out opportunities to distinguish themselves from the herd. Such events may be "pseudo-events," in that no actual delegates are chosen, but they are real enough in that perceptions are altered; they are, literally, reality shows. Two of these reality-perception-changing spectacles occurred last weekend, one for each party.

The Republicans had CPAC, the Conservative Political Action Conference, in Washington. And the results of a straw poll of activists, gathered from around the country, were announced Saturday: former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, in first place, at 21 percent; former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, 17 percent; Kansas Sen. Sam Brownback, 15 percent; former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, 14 percent; Arizona Sen. John McCain, 12.

One big shock was McCain’s poor showing. The onetime front-runner, who chose to snub the conference, was rewarded with a dismal fifth-place showing. And, when his name was mentioned at the conference close, loud boos erupted from the multitude.

The other surprise was Gingrich, who so far has not announced his candidacy and made minimal organizational effort at the event -- in contrast, most visibly, to Romney, who trucked in busloads of supporters to goose his numbers.

Indeed, Gingrich might even have netted money for his proto-campaign, since he had a table full of books and tapes, all selling briskly. When the first and second presidential choices of CPAC straw-pollers were aggregated, Gingrich tied for a close second, behind Giuliani and alongside Romney.

And of course there will be dozens, maybe hundreds, more straw polls the rest of this year. Each event might be "pseudo," but the cumulative effect on the Republican field in momentum gained and momentum lost will be plenty real.

Meanwhile, on the Democratic side, the top two candidates, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York and Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois, had their own faceoff. As with the GOPers, it was perceptual and real.

Both candidates traveled to Selma, Ala., to march in the 42nd anniversary procession marking Bloody Sunday, the legendary civil-rights march. But on this Sunday the name of the game was presidential politics. So, just as Sovietologists once studied the lineup of Russian leaders atop the Kremlin wall to see who was up and who was down in the hierarchy, now American political savants were studying the spectacle in Selma.

And here’s the judgment of The Washington Post: "The crowd in and around Obama’s appearance was decidedly larger -- his audience included 15 members of Congress, compared with four who went to hear Clinton." The insiders’ conclusion? Score one for Obama.

Of course, there’s plenty of time for the losers in the weekend’s politicking to make a comeback by figuring out a "reality show" of their own to win. Except that there’s not much time -- less than 11 months till Super-Super Tuesday.