NYT Interactive, Hurtling Toward a Nomination: Click-on crucial dates that will determine nominees

[DeepModem Mom]

Hurtling Toward a Nomination
What to expect when you're electing: Sure, the presidential campaign is under way. But just wait: the months ahead are pockmarked with increasingly crucial moments that will determine which candidates emerge as their party's nominee.
By ADAM NAGOURNEY
Published: Sept. 2, 2007

It is hard to imagine a tougher year to be a presidential candidate — or at least, someone managing a presidential campaign. Never before has so much been up in the air so close to the first vote. Even as the campaigns spent the past few days planning for the unofficial kickoff that comes with Labor Day — rallies, bus trips, house parties, speeches and the like — they were struggling with what veteran aides described as the most unsettled landscape they can remember.

Just yesterday several Democratic candidates said they would not campaign in Florida and Michigan because these states moved up their primaries, further complicating calculations over which early contest states will be pivotal beyond Iowa and New Hampshire.

By the traditional measures of fund-raising, endorsements and polls in early primary states, there is no dominant front-runner in either party. Beyond terrorism and the war, no one has figured out what issues are most going to define the candidates, and with the debate over Iraq policy coming to a head in Washington, even the war could prove to be a moving target politically.

The race has been proceeding for eight months at an intensity that candidates normally do not face until the fall. It has come in a wave of debates, high-volume candidate skirmishes, a need to raise huge sums of money and a round-the-clock Internet-fueled news cycle always putting the campaigns on edge. The result? The campaigns are not only anxious about an uncertain future but weary even before the final rush to the primaries....

CLICK-ON CALENDAR OF CRUCIAL DATES AT LINK: http://politics.nytimes.com/election-guide/2008/crucialdates/