"Oh, this is the guy who is supposed to get it," Pam Earle-Benbow said as John Kerry addressed a candidate forum that drew several thousand advocates for low-income families to the Township Auditorium in Columbia, South Carolina, four days before that state's February 3 primary. "He's the favorite son of the day, but he's not very exciting, is he?" said the construction worker. Kameelah Khaalid, a single mom and college student, who was seated near Earle-Benbow, nodded. But as Kerry finished his by-now rote review of his impressive Vietnam War record, his admirable anti-Vietnam War record and his gently liberal list of stands on everything from education to immigration, Khaalid said, "He does sound like a President." "Yes," added Earle-Benbow. "And he looks like a President."

Both women said they remained skeptical about Kerry. But, Khaalid explained, almost apologetically, "You see, we gotta have someone who can beat Bush."

That sense that Kerry has the capacity to dispatch the nation's forty-third President, as opposed to any newfound love of the man or his patrician-populist message, has lifted the Massachusetts senator from also-ran to prospective nominee in the course of two months. On February 3, Kerry parlayed wins in Missouri, Arizona, New Mexico, North Dakota and Delaware, and solid finishes behind Wesley Clark in Oklahoma and John Edwards in South Carolina, into official front-runner status. And in one day he went from trailing former front-runner Howard Dean in the count of pledged convention delegates to leading Dean by a 2-to-1 margin. (Dean has won a scattering of delegates in primaries and caucuses, but ninety-eight of his total of 121 are "super-delegates"--mostly members of Congress and party leaders who announced their support for him when he was running strong.)

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