The Note

W A S H I N G T O N, March 16&#151;<br> -- TODAY SCHEDULE (all times ET)

FUTURES CALENDAR

NEWS SUMMARY

Today, it's very likely that Sen. John Kerry will collect the 99 or so delegates he needs to put him over the top for the Democratic presidential nomination, according to both our ABC News delegate estimate and the campaign's own tally.

Illinois, which votes today, will send 156 pledged delegates to the convention, and Kerry is expected to receive the lion's share.

We'll be watching the Senate primaries there, too.

They've been bruising by any standard, with details of messy divorces and personal allegations dripping out from both sides. Setting the pace at the moment in the Democratic field: State Sen. Barack Obama, endorsed by Bill Bradley and the League of Conservation Voters, among others.

Obama is the son of a Kenyan father and a Kansan mother and, as the Washington Post noted, if elected he would be the Senate's only current black member and "'just the third'" since Reconstruction.

His party competition includes state Comptroller Dan Hynes, Cook County Treasurer Maria Pappas, and investment banker Blair Hull.

On the Republican side, teacher and former investment banker Jack Ryan currently looks the favorite against dairy company owner Jim Oberweis, paper company executive Andy McKenna Jr., and state Sen. Steve Rauschenberger, among others.

In Washington, the Fed's aggressive monetary policy gets an internal once-over, at the FOMC meetings this morning.

Which reminds us — with some seemingly positive hiring data out today — what will interest rates be like on election day? What will the housing market be like? Gas prices? The number of Americans without access to health insurance?

In Colorado, will Dick Cheney find some new way to tease Sen. Kerry?

With all these question, it's about high time we put our flag in the sand. It's time for … . Signposts.

As we said in yesterday's Note, political vectors can be changed by positive pressure from an external force.

Mickey Kaus didn't quite agree with our physics lesson yesterday and suggests voters still getting to know Kerry combined with an idle press could cause the campaign to chart a less predictable course. " … (I)n September we are much more apt to look back and say that Bush's political vector has darted this way and that rather than followed a stately ballistic course." LINK

Most darts and zigs we cannot predict.

In fact, we are asked all the time to predict: Who will Kerry pick as his running mate? When will the debates be? How many? And, of course, who will win?

While these mega things we cannot predict, many we can.

Before you think the results of this election are baked in the cake, try and factor each and every one of these Signposts into your calculations.

And send your own to politicalunit@abcnews.com .

Clip-n-save, and let us know on Nov. 3 how right (or not) we were.

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-- There will be a huge wave of SCOTUS retirement speculation in June; the potential of a juicy, base-rousing confirmation fight looms; somehow, the Judiciary Committee MemoGate factors into all of this.

--Someone (probably David Brooks) finds a more creative way to say "battlegrounds" and "swing states."

--Folks realize that the Kerry campaign/Miner-Sefl-through-Jano/CAP/Thunderroad/527 rapid response operation far surpasses anything congressional Democrats have ever come up with.

--The highway bill pork-loads; the energy bill confuses; Hastert finds some way to vent again. Jill Zuckman is all over the story.

--The ABC News Campaign Buses return!

--Journalists write articles speculating on an all-Catholic ticket if Kerry chooses Vilsack.

--41 and Barbara sit down with Jamie Gangell at least once and cluck in some newsworthy way about the state of the campaign.

--Carl Pope's media star continues to rise.

-- The 9/11 commission produces damaging leaks (to some party).

-- A week after the Boston Globe's book on John Kerry comes out, some hugely controversial aspect of his past (not mentioned in the book at all) surfaces.

--No European leader comes out as a Kerry supporter at next month's NATO meeting. The Washington Times revisits the French and Czech homes of Sen. Kerry with barely concealed sarcasm.

--European elections influence elite perspectives on Bush's foreign policy; coverage is framed differently, but Americans don't really care.

--Maxine Isaacs resumes her status as It professor at the Kennedy School as enterprising students try to get to her leak veepstakes tidbits.

--The Administration never finds a convincing spokesman for its economy policies, even if job growth picks up.

--More 1970 Harvard Crimson articles on Kerry's youthful verbal indiscretions surface.

--Three Ohio storylines will dominate, courtesy of Barone, Broder, Brownstein: state struggles to regain economic footing after structure of economy shifts; social and economic gulfs between Democrat-tending metro areas and Republican-tending suburbs; noticing that Ohio is William McKinley's home state, thus implicating Karl Rove's Mark Hanna typology.

--Supreme Court's ruling on the Cheney energy task force records, on Gitmo detainees and on the Pledge and one other issue TBD provoke high political consequences.

--A conservative publication writes the TRUE story about why Sandy Rios left CWA.

--Potential ballot initiatives to watch in battleground states: smoking in Washington State, Senate vacancies in Alaska, alternative energy in Colorado, parental notification and felon's rights in Florida, affirmative action in Michigan, gay rights in Kansas City, Missouri and Ohio.

--California judges decide the status of the state's marriage laws … .but some enterprising mayor or official somewhere decides to solemnize new ones.

--The Olympics … .do you believe in miracles? Yes!

--Kerry is caught by an open mic saying something that will actually be damaging.

--The FEC will create rules for the non-registered 527s, and whatever the results, Steve Rosenthal will still find a way to get out that vote.

--Bob Shrum and Harold Ickes will clash over message in ads, but through surrogates.

--MoveOn and the Media Fund will clash over message in Thursday conference calls.

--Corzine's DSCC scrapes together the cash from hopeful donors to create the illusion that the Senate is competitive for Democrats. Inez Tennenbaum still has her work cut out for her.

--Tom DeLay, Mark Halperin, and Michael Bloomberg will dine together convention week at Il Mulino and fight over who pays the check.

--Kevin Sheekey doesn't pay for a single meal between now and the day the convention starts.

--Traffic in Boston will be bad before, during, and after the convention, and forever there after.

--Ben Ginsberg and Bob Bauer will both become even more powerful and more famous than they are now.

--Both parties' bravado about throwing out the "business as usual" convention rule books will turn out to be just that — bravado.

--Ken Mehlman will not deliver his homestate electoral votes for George Bush; Dick Cheney will.

--Jonathan Epstein will not deliver his homestate electoral votes for John Kerry; Mary Beth Cahill will.

--John Kerry and Mary Beth Cahill will assign a top, well-known Democratic strategist to run Ohio, and the Bush campaign will know it.

--Paul Begala will use words on "Crossfire" that, if one of his boys used them, Diane Friday would wash the offending mouth out with soap.

--Ralph Nader will realize just how many of his old friends he has alienated. (Just kidding about this one.)

--The front-of-the-book political coverage of Time and Newsweek will continue to converge to the point that Time adds a "Watching Conventional Wisdom Watch," with up and down pitchforks (instead of arrows).

--Rick Berke will come out of retirement (or whatever it is he does now … ) to write two important pieces in the New York Times : one about how the word "STAR" insidiously appears in three frames of an RNC attack ad against Kerry; and one about where Bush advisers sit at the White House political meetings (complete with boffo graphic).

--The President will sign the highway bill, or he'll veto it.

--One of the two leading presidential candidates will go on Oprah and, in a desperate attempt to save his campaign, will cry while talking about his wife.

--The Bush campaign will bungle the debate about debates.

--Jay Matthews will trot out the latest version of his quadrennial "the taller guy always wins" essay.

--The Kerry campaign, having been given the gift of the Bush campaign bungling the debate about debates, will mess it up even more.

--John King, Bob Novak, Claire Shipman, John Cochran, Dan Balz, and Ron Fournier will all claim to have broken the story of who Kerry picks as his running mate.

--The President will appear with gold-medal-winning athletes from the Olympics; John Kerry will appear with Silver Star medal-winning veterans from the Vietnam war.

-- Clever travel writers will compare the B&Bs, ice cream choices, and lobster entrees of Kennebunkport versus Nantucket.

--Travel writers who are even more clever will tale-of-the-tape Nantucket versus Crawford.

--The winning presidential candidate (or, at least, the one who gets the best coverage) will be the one whose campaign first figures out the importance of well-spiced chicken fingers constantly available on the press charter upon boarding.

--An entire day of political coverage will be dominated by some Midwestern congressperson's quote/sound bite about what his/her state's economy is doing to the President's re-election chances.

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Today,

President Bush is meeting with the Prime Minister with the Netherlands at the White House.

Vice President Cheney is in Denver, Colo. to speak at a luncheon for Rep. Bob Beauprez.

Sen. Kerry is in West Virginia.

Ralph Nader is in Washington, D.C.

ABC News Vote 2004: "foreign leaders" for Kerry:

All right, Mr. Healy … make that:

ABC News Vote 2004: "more leaders" for Kerry: