MANCHESTER, N.H. ? There’s not much snow up here this mild February, so the presidential candidates who are making their ritual early stops in New Hampshire can be forgiven for not leaving footprints behind them. But it’s not the weather that’s troubling Democratic political professionals. It’s the political climate.

They look at President Bush and see his approval ratings staying steady. They look at the polls and see that the public so evenly divided only a year ago now prefers Republicans to Democrats on issues such as the economy, foreign affairs and the struggle against terrorism. They look at their own field of potential candidates and see them almost apologizing for thinking about challenging the president.

Almost two centuries ago, the United States, as unprepared psychologically for war in 1812 as it was in 2001, confronted the terrorism of the time the impressment of American merchant seamen, British provocations on the high seas, mischief and agitation on the American frontier. President James Madison responded, as he recalled years later, by “throw(ing) forward the flag of the country, sure that the people would press onward and defend it.” In 1812, some Americans did press onward, but many others (especially in New England) did not.

President Bush responded to four hijackings and the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon by throwing forward the flag of the country and watching the people press onward and defend it with vigor and enthusiasm. The result is a surge of national sentiment that Madison never experienced and a level of support that Madison (and many of his successors) could only dream of.

And so two questions the most important domestic political questions of the time linger, one in the minds of Republicans, the other in the minds of Democrats, each as surprising as the other, each as vital to the shape of politics in the new century as the other. Neither question is verbalized by any partisan. But neither question is far from the calculations of any partisan.

The Republicans’ question was as impossible to anticipate six months ago as it is to avoid today: Is President Bush on the verge of creating a new governing philosophy that will produce a sturdy political majority for a generation? The Democrats’ question, as difficult to conceive of six months ago as it is to answer today: How can Democrats run against a popular president in the middle of a popular war against a nearly incomparably unpopular foe?

One factor is a cause for sobriety for the Republicans, solace for the Democrats: The terrorism attacks of September showed how swiftly the political landscape can be altered, especially in times of national peril and international strife. Confidence about President Lyndon B. Johnson’s ability to steer the nation in wartime in 1964, for example, was gone 30 months later, about the amount of time between now and the time voters will decide whether to give President Bush another term.

But there are big differences between the circumstances faced by the two Texans. Johnson was involved in a conflict by choice; Bush was drawn to war by a sneak attack. There was no home front in Johnson’s war, but in the war against terrorism the home front is the front line. Johnson governed by pressing against the Republicans’ every small-government impulse. Bush is governing domestically by engaging Democratic ideas and icons the Peace Corps of President John F. Kennedy, the education emphasis of Sen. Edward M. Kennedy.

So what’s a Democratic presidential candidate to do? Top party strategists have come up with a strategy of necessity: Work aggressively to preserve Democratic rule in the Senate and win back control of the House. Emphasize the people at the middle and bottom of the economic pile, raise questions about the Republicans’ ties to big business, big energy and the big mess at Enron, but don’t push too hard to put off the tax cut the most surprising, most significant and most overlooked aspect of House Minority Leader Richard A. Gephardt’s response to the State of the Union message.

All that plus one other thing, which goes against the new calendar (designed to reward candidates with quick starts), against political form and against every instinct in every politician: Hang in there … and wait. Gephardt didn’t do that three elections ago, and neither did Sen. Albert Gore Jr. Both thought that President Bush’s father, fresh from victory in the Gulf War, was unbeatable, and as a result they relinquished the field to Gov. Bill Clinton and spent perhaps the best years of their political lives playing supporting roles to another Democratic politician.

By February 2004, the contours of the next election will be set. But the shape of that contest and the identity of the combatants will be determined by how the two parties answer the two questions that can neither be spoken nor avoided in February 2002.

David Shribman is a columnist for The Boston Globe.