One week from today, the preliminary phase of the presidential campaign will finally be over and "primary season" will officially begin, as Iowans brave the cold weather to caucus for the candidates of their choice. For the remainder of February, the other three early-voting states will hold their contests, meaning next month will see the race sharpen for both Republicans and Democrats. As things stand, both parties have two clear frontrunners: Donald Trump and Ted Cruz for the GOP; Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders on the Democratic side. At this point, both races are so close in Iowa that nobody really knows what will happen next Monday night. Will the polls turn out to be correct? Nobody knows. Will enthusiasm trump (pun intended) longtime voter turnout? It could happen on either side, and then again it might not.

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Honestly, how often is it that you get to write such a great headline? In a week that also included a Sarah Palin speech that dominated the news cycle (to say nothing of the late-night comic cycle), writing such snarky headlines is just icing on the cake, really. Good times... yes, good times indeed for Democrats watching the horrorshow that is the Republican presidential nomination process.

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I'd like to take a sober look today at where we could very well be a year from now. One year from yesterday, our next president will be sworn into office. There are two Democrats with a solid shot at reciting that oath. The question for either of them would then become how much they can actually get done with Congress. But I think both Bernie Sanders supporters and Hillary Clinton fans are guilty of glossing over a fundamental problem either one of them will have to face. Because in almost every scenario (excepting the rosiest that can be imagined), Republicans will likely still control at least one chamber of Congress next January.

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Yesterday, Sarah Palin endorsed Donald Trump for president. "Of course she did," was the most common reaction to this news -- heard from both left and right. It is not only the most natural progression, but in fact it completes a circle of sorts. Because Palin really was the original Trump, in the world of Republican politics. Which is why I blame John McCain more than anyone else for the fact that Donald Trump is the clear frontrunner of the Republican pack right now. McCain's pick of Palin as running mate truly set the stage for where the GOP finds itself now.

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So we had the fourth Democratic debate last night, and I suppose we should all be thankful that Debbie Wasserman Schultz didn't somehow manage to schedule it to compete with one of football's playoff games. I wouldn't be surprised if the debate had a pretty low viewership, appearing as it did on a Sunday night during a three-day weekend, but those who did manage to catch it saw a much more high-spirited contest between Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton than we've previously seen.

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In every 1950s "gang rumble" genre film, there comes a point where the fighting gets more serious. This is, literally, where the knives come out. I begin with this image because, metaphorically, that's exactly where we are in the 2016 presidential campaign. The fight's getting a lot more serious, and there is bound to be some blood on the floor afterwards.

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The sixth Republican debate will happen tonight, for those keeping score. Technically, though, that should read "debates," as there will be two debates airing this evening, as there have been in the previous five GOP matchups. Which really begs the question of how long we're going to even bother holding double debates, when the contest has quite obviously narrowed to include only viable candidates. At some point, the secondary debate is going to be seen as so pointless (and so devoid of an actual viewing audience) that it will be eliminated altogether. Hopefully, at any rate. After having watched most of these, for me that time could easily be now -- but then again, I'm not a television executive.

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Every so often, I write what I call a "blue-sky" article, just for fun. This is where you sit back in your chair, allow your eyes to unfocus, and ponder a far-fetched "What if...?" scenario, because you've got nothing better to write about that particular day. And I'll fully admit it -- the more outlandish a proposition you begin with, the more fun such an article is to write. Very occasionally, though, one of these scenarios actually becomes reality. This, of course, allows you to bask in the special pundit's glow of looking downright prescient. Much more commonly, though, the far-fetched remains unreal and never comes to pass, and the outlandish article you wrote predicting it remains (hopefully) forgotten. This is all just an introduction to me revisiting one of those columns, which I wrote last August. It was cheekily titled: "Sanders Versus Trump Would Be Fun."

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Tonight, Barack Obama gave his final State Of The Union speech, and South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley gave the Republican response. Both speeches were unusual -- not in a negative way, but in a more literal "not the usual thing" sense. Obama's speech was not a laundry list of legislative agenda items, but rather a definitional moment for Obama and for the Democratic Party platform. Haley's speech was not a vitriol-filled rejection of all things Democratic while glossing over her own party's faults. The speeches, or at least the general tone of them, were actually more similar than different (again, not on policy but rather on tone).

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Hillary Clinton is not the inevitable Democratic presidential nominee. Clinton was not the inevitable nominee in 2008, and she is not inevitable in 2016 either. Of course, this really isn't new or surprising, because nothing in politics is ever inevitable, really. Elections are always about as "evitable" as one can imagine.

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