Watch This...

Things are moving quickly on primary front. The rallying of the Kennedy clan behind Barack Obama may be only the first salvo of a series of blue-ribbon endorsements intended to sweep the Illinois Senator to victory on Super Tuesday.

Here's the tipoff: The Party leadership's choice of Governor Kathleen Sibelius to respond to the President's final State of the Union address.

You have to assume that large segments of the Democratic Party - even within the Beltway - are restless with the notion of returning the Clintons to the White House.

And even more unnerved by the prospect of following the Clintons to defeat in November.

Senator Clinton continues to generate high negatives in the polls, and her husband - thanks to his suddenly-public temper and recourse to racial politics - is rapidly gaining on her. These factors alone would not be sufficient to cause Democratic insiders to desert the Clinton banners, but there is more.

The GOP, against all odds, is beginning to rally behind the one candidate who could actually win in November - Senator John McCain. It's too soon to be certain. Movement conservatives - following the lead of Rush Limbaugh and the rest of the AM radio tribunes - might yet tempt Republican regulars into an act of mass self-immolation.

But McCain has a hidden asset. Unusual among US Senators, he has a gift for forming genuine personal friendships. This shows in such things as the loyalty of fellow Senator Lindsay Graham - and in the curiously cordial relations between the McCain and Huckabee campaigns. Fred Thompson - who is yet to endorse a rival - is reported to harbor feelings of genuine friendship for McCain.

Combine this with the fact that virtually all of the Republican field actively loathes Romney, and it looks possible that Republican insiders - led by McCain's fellow Senators and fading rivals - may likewise rally to a champion with a real chance of becoming President.

This has to worry Democrats. In too many scenarios, McCain whips Clinton in the general election.

But Obama might be another story.

Which brings us back to Governor Sibelius. If, as I begin to suspect, Capitol Hill Democrats are slowly lining up behind Obama, there is one segment of the Democratic coalition which will have to be conciliated - white women over 50, the core of the Clinton base.

How better to do this than to nominate an articulate, pragmatic, rising star like Governor Sibelius - a moderate from the red-state heartland - as Obama's running mate?

I'm going out on a limb here, but if Florida comes in for John McCain - and does enough damage to Rudy Guiliani - it's going to start looking a lot like the tide has turned in McCain's favor.

And if that happens, expect to see a host of big-name Democrats beginning to endorse Senator Obama - a few names every day from now until Super Duper Tuesday.

And that could do it.

So watch this: Obama becomes the consensus choice of the Democratic Party leadership. Sibelius begins to be seriously discussed as his running mate.

And the GOP - unwilling to cede the enormous, wealthy demographic of over-50 white women - starts looking for someone like New Jersey's moderate, pro-environment Christine Todd Whitman as a running mate for Senator McCain.