Once there were more than 15 presidential candidates. Now there are four. Once there was a sense of unity on the Democratic side of the campaign. Now there is a range war. Once there was mere contention on the Republican side. Now there is turmoil and tumult.

Things haven’t become less complicated. They’ve become more complicated. The campaign’s passage hasn’t become clearer. It’s become more unclear. There aren’t fewer questions. There are more. Here are some of them. Just don’t expect reliable answers.

l Is Hillary Rodham Clinton cooked? Let’s agree that losing eight consecutive contests is not customarily regarded as the fast track to a presidential nomination. Let’s agree, too, that Barack Obama has emerged as a formidable force in American politics, and a phenomenon as well. But his eight-game win streak has given him only a slender lead in convention delegates, which in Democratic contests tend to get passed out in a stingy, even-handed fashion. Clinton has been winning by losing.

That can’t go on forever. Clearly Obama has the whip hand in this contest (if you’re talking horse-race, you might as well use equestrian metaphors). He has won states in every region of the country, with large black populations (South Carolina) and with infinitesimal black populations (North Dakota). In the Chesapeake contests he had a strong showing among Hispanic voters and women.

All this is by way of saying that in the middle course of this nomination fight Clinton became a niche candidate and that Obama has nibbled away at her niche. Everyone knows this is a campaign about convention delegates, not states, but even HQ at HRC Inc. cannot ignore the notion that Mr. O has the Big Mo.

l Does Clinton need an inside straight? The question is a reference to the importance of the three big contests to come, in Ohio and Texas on March 4 and then in Pennsylvania on April 22. If she wins all three states, she will have stopped Obama’s momentum and added substantially to her delegate count.

It’s doubtful that a Democrat can carry Texas in the fall; the state has abandoned the Republicans only once since 1972, and that was when a true Southerner, Jimmy Carter, was the Democratic candidate. Four years later, he lost Texas by 14 percentage points to Ronald Reagan. But it’s also doubtful that any Democrat can win the White House without Ohio and Pennsylvania; no Democrat has become president since 1964 without winning both states.

The head says that if either candidate wins Ohio and Pennsylvania, he or she will be the nominee. The heart suggests a slightly different verdict. If Clinton wins all three states – Texas, Ohio and Pennsylvania – she and her strongmen will be in a very strong position to tell the super delegates that she is the electable Democrat and deserves the nomination. If she loses even one of those states, her argument is severely weakened and her campaign’s longtime suggestion that the super delegates should side with the stronger candidate could doom her campaign.

l Can the Republicans stop fighting each other long enough to take on the Democrats? The short answer is: Apparently not.

For a while, conservatives like Ann Coulter will say they cannot live with John McCain, not now, not ever. (Her actual remark is a Coulterkampf for the ages: “I would vote for the Devil over John McCain; thus, my claim that I would vote for Hillary over John McCain.”) But though Clinton is good for business – just as the inroads abortion foes made were good for business for the proponents of abortion rights, and vice versa – conservatives really, really do not want her to be president. Really, they don’t.

George W. Bush is no pal of McCain’s; while some politicians have a mutual admiration society, these two for many years had a mutual destruction policy, and it almost worked. But the president’s remarks this month at a conservative convention were a harbinger of what is to come in the general election campaign. It can be distilled down to this argument: John McCain is one of the great military heroes still among us, he is of unassailable integrity, he considers himself a conservative and he possesses the divine spark of Barry Goldwater, the founding father of modern conservatism. Plus he wouldn’t have Bill Clinton as his roommate or Nancy Pelosi on speed-dial.

l What makes Mike Huckabee run, and when will he stop? Huckabee is no Budd Schulberg character. He’s authentic, he knows his roots, he is in touch with his inner skinniness. But he’s not stopping now – he, like the Pittsburgh Pirates, has not been mathematically eliminated, though the baseball season hasn’t started and the political season is well under way.

The reason for the former Arkansas governor to quit is obvious. He’s not going to be the GOP presidential nominee. (Am I the first to tell him that?) The reasons for him to press on are less subtle but compelling, at least if you’re Mike Huckabee. He is getting attention. His issues are getting aired. He’s seeing the country. He’s having some good meals (but watching those carbs). He has nothing else to do. It truly may not be any more complicated than that.

Besides, it’s early. You may be experiencing election fatigue, but look at the date at the top of this page. Voting has been under way for only seven weeks. In the 1968 campaign, the first contest was still nearly four weeks away. And the most important development of that campaign, Lyndon Johnson’s avowal that he wouldn’t run for another term, was seven weeks away. Give the guy a break. He’s having a good time. Someone should.