Going into the critical final months before presidential primary season, the top question on the minds of politicos is: Can she be stopped?

Hillary Rodham Clinton's brilliantly managed presidential bid is taking on an air of inevitability among Demo-crats. Last quarter, Mrs. Clinton bested Barack Obama, her closest rival, for the first time all year in fundraising, and last week's ABC News/Washington Post poll showed her expanding her commanding national lead over opponents.

When's the last time you heard anything about John Edwards?

Even so, it would be nuts to declare the Democratic contest all over but the shoutin'. John Kerry was in fifth place at this time in 2003, but rode an Iowa victory to the nomination. The Iowa polls today show a close three-way race, including Mr. Edwards. Mrs. Clinton's ahead in New Hampshire, but Mr. Obama has loads of appeal to independent voters.

True, the compact primary schedule — 27 states vote in 32 days — benefits the candidate who heads into the early January primaries with the most momentum. But if Mrs. Clinton loses Iowa and New Hampshire, her Achilles heel — electability — would be exposed. Nothing is ever inevitable in politics. Ask Howard Dean, whose front-running 2004 campaign collapsed with a single ill-advised scream.

Going into this final pre-primary turn, the Republican horse race is less high-spirited but arguably more interesting. Fred Thompson's launch flopped. Mitt Romney can't get national traction. John McCain's Straight Talk Express is running on fumes. Rudy Giuliani is the only candidate steadily rising — and that's revealing a fascinating dynamic on the right.

Old-guard religious conservatives have been trying to thwart the pro-choice, pro-gay New York mayor's candidacy, to no avail. Mr. Giuliani polls respectably among evangelicals. His success heralds a potential tectonic change in the GOP base. The demise of the Religious Right as kingmakers in U.S. politics is the biggest story on the GOP side now.

The other big news is the unexpected rise of Ron Paul, the Texas congressman who raised five times as much cash in the third quarter as second-tier leader Mike Huckabee. The ornery libertarian's antiwar stance, fiscal conservatism and opposition to international trade deals strikes a minor populist chord among the angry GOP base — a startling 60 percent of whom told NBC News/Wall Street Journal pollsters that free trade has been bad for the United States. Dr. Paul is still polling in the shallow end, but could play spoiler.

2008 is going to be the most unusual presidential year in decades — and candidates' strategies playing out in 2007 could set the course of U.S. politics for a generation. Democrats are likely to have a woman or an African-American as their standard-bearer. Republicans are watching their bedrock coalitions crumble for the first time in nearly 30 years. Think politics are dull? Check your pulse.