WASHINGTON – Here are two observations on the snowy road to spring.

First, 2008 could be the year of the first American woman as the presidential nominee of a major political party.

Never before in U.S. politics have two women emerged so strongly, so early, on opposite sides of the political fence. Yes, today’s speculation could be laughable by ‘08. Remember the Republican boomlet for Colin Powell?

But it may be different for Hillary Rodham Clinton and Condoleezza Rice. Each woman has attributes that seem fit for their respective parties, in this time. Gender could be an attribute in an “it’s-about-time” way. Since Shirley Chisholm ran in the 1972 Democratic primaries, there has been a slow but steady acceptance of women at the top of a presidential ticket.

The buzz over Clinton, a senator from New York, is so strong among Democrats that even one of her potential competitors sees her as the odds-on-favorite to win the party’s nomination in 2008.

Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del., who is considering a run himself, said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” last Sunday that Clinton would be “incredibly difficult to beat.”

“I think she is likely to be the nominee,” Biden said. “She’d be the toughest person. And I think Hillary Clinton is able to be elected president of the United States.”

Not all analysts agree, given Clinton’s New York base and the big problems Democrats face in the South and rural Midwest, where the label of Northeast liberal is a big negative. But within the party itself, there is such a strong nostalgia for the budget-surplus presidency of her husband that Clinton benefits on legacy alone. She also is one of the few prominent Democrats who could bridge the chasm between the party’s MoveOn.org liberals and Democratic Leadership Council centrists.

Rice’s Republican prospectus is more complicated. She hasn’t even indicated she wants to run for president, she is not a favorite in polls and some in her party think she should build presidential credentials by first challenging one of the two Democratic women senators from California, Dianne Feinstein or Barbara Boxer. But Rice for president was a buzz at a recent Conservative Political Action Conference.

Rice could fade even before she runs if, for example, it turns out that her views on social issues like abortion are too liberal for the party’s social conservatives. That’s what helped doom a Powell presidential run. But Rice’s first steps as secretary of state during a 10-day European trip were well received on the skeptical continent. Commentators and politicians there lauded her confidence, assurance and strength. “The French fell in love with Condi Rice,” France’s ambassador to the United States, Jean-David Levitte, told USA Today.

For a Republican Party that has stressed fighting terrorism and projecting freedom around the globe as essential to U.S. security, Rice made a strong first impression in her first trip as the nation’s top diplomat.

Secondly, Howard Dean is worth watching.

Democratic National Chairman Howard Dean is on a “red, white and blue” grass-roots tour of states not so favorable to his party. On March 23, he will be in Nashville, Tenn., a state that rejected favorite son Al Gore in the 2000 presidential campaign. For now, Dean is eschewing the talking-head circuit to focus on rebuilding state Democratic parties that Dean’s predecessor, Terry McAuliffe, said were in deplorable shape.

But old habits – in Dean’s case, provocative, divisive rhetoric – do die hard. Traveling through Kansas last week, Dean said at a fund-raiser in Lawrence that “this is a struggle of good and evil. And we’re the good.”

The statement – uttered a few weeks after Dean declared, “I hate the Republicans and everything they stand for” – drew scarce commentary among pundits.

A double standard? When Republicans were coming into power in the mid-1990s, Republican House leader Newt Gingrich labeled Clinton Democrats as the “enemy of normal people.” Pundits and political foes widely rebuked him, helping to burnish an image of intolerance for the ascending Republicans in Congress. More than 10 years later, Gingrich’s statement still comes up, as it did on a Tom Brokaw special for NBC in November.

“Do you regret saying that the Clinton administration is the enemy of normal people?” Brokaw asked.

“Yes,” Gingrich said, “truth is, occasionally, we’re not very smart.”