MICKEY KAUS says that if Kerry keeps winning at his current rate, the nomination won’t be sewed up for over a month. (I’m not sure that linear extrapolation is appropriate here — isn’t there likely to be a tipping point? — but read it and decide for yourself.) He also points to this WP analysis of Kerry’s contradictory positions on war and defense, and observes: “there is a simpler principle that completely–without contradiction or complication–explains both Kerry votes, namely he did what he thought was the politically safest thing to do.”

What was it the original JFK said about physical versus political courage?

Meanwhile, Dave Winer says that Howard Dean is being snuffed by Big Media: “To Blitzer, Sawyer and Russert, to Viacom, GE, Time-Warner and Disney, Kerry seems safe, but Dean is dangerous, he routes around them, he goes direct. To accept his candidacy would be to accept the end of television-dominated politics.”

UPDATE: Meanwhile the “Kerry Inevitability Index” has hit a new high! And it looks like part of the problem with the Dean campaign was the role of big TV commissions.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Roger Simon makes an interesting comparison.