It's all over but the voting. Late to Blogland today, but didn't want to let the latest Dean-Kerry poll numbers slip by.

The Boston Herald's David Guarino plays it up big today: the latest Zogby poll of New Hampshire Democrats shows Howard Dean at 42 percent and John Kerry at 12 percent. The Manchester-based American Research Group has Dean 45, Kerry 13.

What this means is simple. It's over. It's so over that I realize I'm rather late in saying this.

Today's Washington Post has a big piece by Dan Balz on how Kerry plans to come back. The spin from the Kerry campaign is pretty unconvincing -- so much so that The Note calls Balz's article a "para-obit."

At this point, a Dean loss would qualify as the worst choke job since the 1978 Red Sox. Consider:

-- Dean has not only held a big lead since last summer, but it keeps growing.

-- He's got more money than anyone else.

-- Potential voters are going to tune out presidential politics until after New Year's. The New Hampshire primary takes place on January 27, just a few weeks later.

-- Though Dean has a penchant for putting his foot in his mouth and for being slow to apologize, his supporters don't seem to care.

There are a few clouds on Dean's horizon. He's got to back down from his ridiculous refusal to release his gubernatorial papers, for which he got poked by Boston Globe and New York Times editorials today.

But short of the Mother of All Gaffes, it's hard to imagine how Dean could blow the enormous lead he now has in both poll numbers and money. Democrats, meet your nominee.

As for Kerry, how does secretary of state sound?

Of course, his nephew is a lot smarter than Sean Hannity.

Alan Colmes, the liberal co-host of the Fox News debate program Hannity & Colmes, lost an argument to his nephew Bryan while babysitting the 8-year-old Monday.

Read the whole item at The Onion ("News in Brief").