KEY POINTS:
Rarely has there been a race like this. The battle to be the next President of the United States has so far been a dramatic story of momentum lost and of momentum regained.
It has been a story of pundits and pollsters getting things wrong, of comebacks, and
of Democrat and Republican hopefuls competing in extremely tight races as they inch nearer to the White House.
And this is just the beginning. Watching the glitzy, yet gritty, battle at first hand is unlike observing any other political fight.
At the front in public view are the highly polished, media-savvy candidates, slick in their performance and easily able to work a crowd.
They are sold to voters through expensive and emotional television advertisements, funded by huge budgets built on hundreds of millions of dollars of donations.
Prisoner of war hero John McCain, who now looks a clear front-runner to be the Republican candidate despite his 70-plus years, is a gifted communicator whose "straight-talk" approach has won him many votes.
Mitt Romney carries a strong business background that he regularly trumpets. Hillary Clinton is gradually shaking off her cold exterior and becoming a more animated figure, one who can both sell herself as a safe pair of hands and snipe at her chief rival all in the same breath.
Barack Obama, a gifted orator, is a JFK-in-waiting, according to Senator Ted Kennedy and the daughter of the late John F. Kennedy, Caroline. Advertisements for Obama featuring Caroline Kennedy's voice over black and white images of her father have been screening in recent days.
It is a safe bet the next President of the United States will be one of those four people, but just which one depends in part on the frantic work going on behind the scenes that the public doesn't see.
All the big money, heart-string advertisements and much needed momentum would not be possible without the machine of campaign staff and volunteers operating behind the candidates.
Just minutes after the televised Republican debate at the Ronald Reagan Library in California, campaign staff were hard at work trying to convince journalists how they should interpret the events of the evening.
In what is blatantly labelled the "Spin Room", communications staff and strategists answered questions from journalists for an hour, pointing out the "new message" their candidate had put forward, and making a case for why their person had won on the night.
Each of the campaign staffers had someone next to him holding a sign over his head so journalists could move easily around the crowded room from camp to camp, knowing exactly who was who.
This year's election is being seen in some quarters as the Democrats' to lose. Approval ratings for Bush have not been healthy and the Republicans could suffer the spin-off of that.
On the flip side, unless Clinton or Obama emerges from Super Tuesday as a clear front-runner, the Democrats could be headed for a difficult and divisive fight.
If they can settle their own match without first tearing each other apart may well determine whether the Democrats can win the Oval Office.
Roll on Super Tuesday.
