1.   Unless the two main parties can agree on a successor a contest seems inevitable.

2.   But the September contest also seems likely to be important for another reason.

3.   By not doing so, he made the contest seem more important than it would otherwise have been.

4.   By outward appearances, the Robb-North contest seems ripe for a moderate independent candidate like Coleman.

5.   On the surface, the Peters courtroom contest seems to be a fairer fight than the Simpson tribunal.

6.   That underscored how contests, at least in this state, seem to be turning on the characteristics of individual candidates and not on partisan advantages.

7.   The Republican primary contest seemed destined to be determined by the absentee voters, whose ballots will be counted today and later this week.

8.   A friendly contest seems to have changed things quite a bit.