Steve Forbes

WASHINGTON -- To the average voter, the following names probably mean little or nothing: Tony Coelho, Gina Glantz, Bill Dal Col, Karl Rove, Rick Davis, Frank Cannon, Sal Russo, Dan Godzich. But in the roster of shakers and movers for the presidential politics of 2000, one of them likely will be hailed a year from now as the maker of the next president.They are the campaign managers and/or chief political strategists of the two Democratic and six surviving Republican candidates.Except for Coelho, the former California congressman who is running Vice President Al Gore's campaign and getting celebrity treatment in the media as a hard-nosed, take-charge guy in a turbulent operation, the group is relatively anonymous -- by intent.

AMES, Iowa -- In a record straw-poll turnout, Iowa voters last night confirmed the front-running status of Gov. George W. Bush of Texas for the 2000 Republican presidential nomination with a clear victory over nine competitors. Magazine publisher Steve Forbes ran second in a day of partying, speeches and courting voters.With 24,549 votes cast, Bush ran first with 7,418 (31 percent) to 4,921 for Forbes (21 percent). The others finished this way: Former Cabinet secretary Elizabeth Hanford Dole, 3,410; Gary Bauer, the conservative activist, 2,114; conservative columnist Patrick J. Buchanan, 1,719; former Gov. Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, 1,428; Alan L. Keyes, a former Reagan administration official, 1,101; former Vice President Dan Quayle, 916; and Sen. Orrin G. Hatch of Utah, 558.Candidates who did not contest the straw poll: Sen. John McCain of Arizona, 83; Rep. John R. Kasich of Ohio, nine; and Sen. Robert C. Smith of New Hampshire, eight.

WASHINGTON -- With surprising suddenness, Sen. Bob Dole removed almost all suspense from the Republican presidential contest last night, sweeping to lopsided primary victories in Maryland and seven other states.His string of commanding victories puts him well within reach of the prize he has pursued for the better part of two decades: the GOP nomination.With Mr. Dole having amassed more than a quarter of the delegates he needs, Republican analysts said the real question no longer is whether the Senate majority leader will lock it up, but when.

WASHINGTON -- The conventional wisdom of the moment is that the Iowa straw poll on Saturday will be curtains for some of the Republicans competing for the party's presidential nomination. If they do poorly, the argument goes, they will have to quit because they won't be able to raise the money to continue.But that bit of political logic doesn't apply, of course, to Steve Forbes. He is financing his own campaign and doesn't need the good opinion of others to continue.Indeed, it is fair to say that the Forbes campaign demonstrates more starkly than any other the bizarre and pernicious role that money has come to represent in U.S. politics.

WASHINGTON -- While Vice President Al Gore is turning up the rhetorical heat on former Sen. Bill Bradley in an effort to turn back his surge that threatens the "inevitability" of Gore's Democratic presidential nomination, the Republican candidates are suddenly making nice with each other. What gives? The GOP debate among the six presidential aspirants in Arizona the other night was an absolute lovefest compared with their often scrappy encounter in New Hampshire just four nights earlier.

ALTAMONTE SPRINGS, Fla. -- A Category 5 campaign storm that had been forecast for Florida last night failed to materialize as the Republican contenders shied away from direct clashes in a nationally televised forum. Sen. John McCain, who has slipped behind Mitt Romney in recent polling in this state, hinted earlier in the day that he would challenge his rival's economic record as governor of Massachusetts. But when McCain was asked by one of the debate questioners whether he thought that the hundreds of millions of dollars in fees that Romney's administration levied on businesses was a tax increase, the Arizona senator replied mildly.

MONTEREY PARK, Calif.-- Al Checchi, the 49-year-old multimillionaire businessman who is on his way to shattering all campaign spending records in pursuit of the California governorship, was speaking at a Latino lawyers' dinner here the other night.After 2 1/2 years of campaigning and "30 million dollars later," he said, drawing laughter, "I'm asking myself what was the value of all this. And you know something, irrespective of what happens on June 2 [the date of the gubernatorial primary]

WASHINGTON -- The nation having just been run over by the freight train that was the six-week presidential primary period producing Al Gore and George W. Bush as the two major-party nominees, the parties are now looking at ways to slow it down four years from now. Democratic National Chairman Joe Andrew and Republican National Chairman Jim Nicholson met the other day, along with former Sen. Bill Brock, head of a GOP commission on the subject, to start...

WASHINGTON -- Jim Nicholson, the chairman of the Republican National Committee, is kidding himself with his declaration that he will not stand for fellow Republicans attacking each other during the contest for the party's presidential nomination. What a pipe dream. Mr. Nicholson dragged out that old chestnut, the 11th Commandment: "Thou shalt not speak ill of another Republican." It was the brainchild of a California party chairman in the 1960s, one Gaylord Parkinson, and highly recommended by Ronald Reagan as both governor and president.

Malcolm S. "Steve" Forbes Jr., rising star of the Republican presidential campaign, is but a faint glow on the political horizon in Maryland.Surging in polls in the early voting states of Iowa and New Hampshire, Mr. Forbes has no campaign office in Maryland and no state organization.His national headquarters in Bedminster, N.J., does not respond to questions about his strategy for the March 5 Maryland primary.But the multimillionaire publisher with his flat-tax proposal seems to be making inroads in Maryland anyway.