these numbers. march of 1999, 12 years ago, when the republican presidential contest was firming up, 52 percent of bush had 52 percent of the primary, elizabeth dole second at 20, dan quayle at nine and nine other candidates including john mccain had a combined total of 15 percent, mccain had 3 percent. there was a front runner and his name was bush. there is no frontrunner this time around. everybody is the better known candidates are glumped together in the top 30s. the final thing is look, we ve got 11 months to go and this race is going to gel like the democrats did in 2007. it wasn t until literally the jefferson-jackson dinner, i think it was december of 20 07, that barack obama started to look like a big player with his dramatic speech to the dinner in demoines. jon: also karl, i want to turn your attention to this argument going on on capitol hill, it s all about an exchange involving the secretary of health and