On the other side of this weekend lies Super Tuesday — or Super Duper Tuesday in its new, 24-state form that could well determine both parties' presidential nominees.

New Mexico is part of it — a small part, given our big state's small population, but there's enough of a role that the two remaining Democratic challengers are mounting campaigns for the 26 of our 38 convention delegates to be chosen that day — out of 2,000 nationwide — in what's being called a party caucus.

Far from being a gathering of politically like-minded people, and unlike the barn-dance event it's become in first-in-the-nation Iowa, ours amounts to a single-office primary election (more about this tomorrow).

But at least our half-million registered Democrats, at costs being picked up by their party, will have a say on the day most of the American people can choose a nominee. As for the human-gestation stretch of time between Feb. 5 and Nov. 4, how 'bout putting the candidates in cold storage — at least until Labor Day ...

The nation needs a Democratic president — mostly for the sake of the Supreme Court and the rest of the federal judiciary, but also because our government's policies, foreign and domestic, are badly out of kilter.

There are many good Republicans embarrassed to tears by the Bush-Cheney administration — and they'll be quick to remind their fellow Americans that, come January, those two are outtahere. So elect John McCain or Mitt Romney, and things will be fine; at least finer than they are now ...

Not good enough; eight years of the best that party could offer us is plenty for now. Despite our high personal regard for Sen. McCain, we think it will take Democratic leadership to undo past wrongs, recover the reputation of our globally humiliated country and restore economic and social justice.

But the same operatives who fooled our nation not once, but twice, into Bush-Cheney already are plotting another puppet regime controlled by corporate scoundrels. They'd be ecstatic at the prospect of Democrats floating a Clinton co-presidency, and they've been rubbing their hands with glee during recent weeks as the former president mounted the stage on behalf of his wife, one of the two remaining candidates.

This is the president who unnecessarily lied about an affair with a White House intern; who fecklessly fired off missiles to distract the nation from his all-too-human failings; who, as we noted at the time, should have resigned, or should have been impeached — and was.

Bill Clinton back in a White House he left in the wake of scandalous presidential pardons? The Karl Roves of this world would have a field day with a dual-Clinton candidacy, whether or not the ex-president were to go back in the closet and let the extremely sharp senator run on her own. The nation's newspaper readers and TV audiences would be in for nine months of propaganda far beyond mere mudslinging.

Hillary Clinton is only one of two outstanding candidates for the Democratic nomination, and The New Mexican endorses the other: Illinois Sen. Barack Obama.

Shorter on experience, he also is unsullied by the quid-pro-quo world of Washington. That puts him in excellent position:

* To lead a long-overdue initiative toward universal health care;

* To lead another overdue initiative, on a new nationwide energy source;

* To lead our public schools out of the doldrums;

* To lead the country back to financial solvency and economic independence.

To lead, indeed. Sen. Obama is someone Americans can rally 'round.

His honesty will confound those trying to twist voters' perception of him and the working-people's party; his genuineness will disarm critics jaded over politics-by-rote; his academic brilliance and organizing skills will allow him to handle the complexities of the presidency; and his oratorical skills and compelling personality will inspire a long-lax nation to get off its collective butt and achieve what we're capable of.

New Mexico Democrats can catch an exciting new wave with votes for Barack Obama on Tuesday.