It is barely past the middle of February. The snow is still flying. Glorious spring awaits. Followed by summer activities and then fall colors. Thanksgiving will beckon along with the December holidays.

2024, and especially the presidential race that will be its hallmark feature, seems somewhere off on the distant horizon.

Were it only so.

In an era of perpetual politics and 24/7 political chatter, the presidential campaign is already engaged. Donald Trump and Nikki Haley have announced their candidacies. Ron DeSantis can’t be all that far behind. Tim Scott, Mike Pence and Mike Pompeo will be heard from as well. Who knows how many others?

If you can detect any groundswell for those with the initials M.P., Pence and Pompeo, then your antennae are finely tuned. Or perhaps you have access to an ultra-sensitive, all-knowing balloon operating at 50,000 feet.

On the Democratic side, President Joe Biden looks to make his intentions clear any day now. A breathless nation awaits.

By this time next February, the nominating process will be at full tilt. It remains to be seen whether Iowa can retain its toehold. South Carolina, New Hampshire, Nevada and Georgia will have already conducted their primaries. Other states will be in the immediate queue. Some pretenders will have been sent packing and the field will have narrowed.

Well before the first votes are cast, satellite and cable screens this fall will carry debates, particularly among warring Republicans. What if the GOP set up two debate stages, one for deniers and one for others? On which stage would DeSantis appear?

There will be no shortage of twists and turns between now and next February. And then plenty more as the race picks up intensity between the early months of the nominating contest and the general election still another nine months off in November.

But from this early vantage point, let me present three broad scenarios that could play out.

Scenario #1

In this case, Biden stays upright and consolidates his party behind his reelection, keeping worries as to his fitness and vitality at bay. Assuming he announces a final campaign, he would enter it with substantial dissonance in his ranks. Democrats strongly approve of his job performance, yet a large number of them wish he would step aside in light of his age and the demands of the job.

On the GOP side, Trump’s residual support among the rank and file, combined with his penchant for knocking opponents down to size, are sufficient to ward off all challengers and secure another nomination.

The nation would suffer through a Trump-Biden rematch. A former president aged 78 versus the incumbent president two weeks shy of his 82nd birthday. So much for any notion of turning the generational page.

If this ensues, stock up on Prozac and make sure your community has a well-staffed depression center.

As to the outcome, Trump’s baggage will only become heavier and more strewn about as additional time goes by. In the final chapter of his career, Biden may have but one essential purpose, that being to keep Trump from ever again occupying the halls of power.

Scenario #2

The predicate here is that the shine is permanently off Trump and the stain indelibly attached. Republican voters follow the lead of the Koch enterprise and the Club for Growth as well as every Republican leader with an ounce of integrity and abandon Trump in favor of a newer, fresher messenger. DeSantis (Trump with brains and discipline) is the most likely successor, though there could be a wild card to be played.

The biggest variable here centers on how Trump would handle such a nomination defeat. Somehow, the reaction does not seem likely to be pretty or magnanimous. If Trump was willing to defy all precedent and rip apart the country in reaction to an election loss, imagine what he would do in response to a snub from his own party.

It is hardly beyond the pale to conceive of him mounting some kind of revenge-fueled, third-party effort. Which, of course, would guarantee mutually assured destruction for both him and the Republican nominee.

More than one smart Republican has commented that it may require one more inglorious defeat before the party can truly move into a post-Trump period. If true, that would make for four straight election setbacks – 2018, 2020, 2022 and 2024 – and would be a steep price to pay for a derailment.

Scenario #3

A lower-odds proposition, but my personal favorite, this envisions Trump and Biden being the dominant candidates over the course of 2023, seemingly headed to an inevitable rematch, but then both stepping aside by early next year.

As caucuses and primaries near, Trump would exit in reading the tea leaves and being unable to countenance the prospect of becoming a two-time loser. With the menace of the former president gone, Biden loses a large measure of his raison d’etre as the person best situated to foil Trump. With that obligation out of the way, Biden might defer to the exigencies of age and mortality.

Such twin withdrawals would be quite the thunderbolt. Suddenly, both nominations would be fully open competitions.

Republicans could opt for the new and improved Trump 2.0 or go in a notably different direction. Democrats would be forced to squarely face the dilemma of what to do about Kamala Harris.

While she has detractors galore, one should not underestimate the challenge of traipsing through South Carolina, Nevada and other early states arguing in a party fixated on identity politics that the nomination should be denied to the sitting vice president who happens to be the first woman and minority to hold the post.

Nonetheless, Harris would have to battle hard for the nod. A slew of other ambitious types would enter. Maybe even a western governor.

Those are three scenarios for your perusal. If you are the wagering type, the smart bet would be on #4. Or #5.

Eric Sondermann is a Colorado-based independent political commentator. He writes regularly for Colorado Politics and the Gazette newspapers. Reach him at?EWS@EricSondermann.com; follow him at @EricSondermann