RALEIGH — I can’t think of a more festive way to begin the Christmas long weekend than to curl up in front of your computer screen, with a mouse that is certainly stirring, to point and click your way through an assortment of beautifully wrapped political meanderings.

So here they are, red bows and all:

* In the middle of all the hubbub about the Democratic presidential race — hubbub is the right word, isn’t it? — it might be easy to ignore the growing likelihood of Republican gains in the U.S. Senate. The GOP now hold on the barest of majorities in the chamber, but as former Clinton consultant Dick Morris writes, the odds favor a gain of several seats in 2004, particularly sinces most of the competitive races will be in the increasingly Republican-flavored Southern states.

Morris gives the GOP a strong shot at picking up seats being vacating by Democratic incumbents in South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida. He’s not sure about open seats in Oklahoma and Illinois, which are currently Republican, and has no early pick in Louisiana. Interestingly, Morris is picking Erskine Bowles as the favorite to win John Edwards’ seat here in North Carolina. I haven’t seen any other national pundit go out on that limb yet, though few have called either for likely Republican nominee Richard Burr, either.

* There’s a must-read cover story in the current issue of the magazine that used to employ me, The New Republic. Associate editor Franklin Foer takes a look at Howard Dean’s religious affiliation and how this much-overlooked issue might influence the 2004 vote. Basically, there isn’t much of an affiliation, and Foer thinks this could have a major influence on undecideds and on the intensity of the turnout among Republican-leaning evangelicals. I’m not sure I buy all of Foer’s argument, but I suspect he’s on the right track. Dean’s religion problem is part of a larger image problem I think he has: he just doesn’t look and feel (thanks Virginia) like a president.

* North Carolina politicians are hurrying up their publicly funded political ads — I mean, their “public-service announcement campaigns” — to comply with .a new deadline. Thanks to recent state legislation, folks like Attorney General Roy Cooper, State Treasurer Richard Moore, and Secretary of State Elaine Marshall can’t appear in person in “public-service advertising” during an election year, for the obvious reason that the practice, whatever its intention, misuses public dollars to give incumbents an unfair advantage over challengers in elections.

Now even Gov. Mike Easley is getting into the act. Having brought this issue squarely into the political debate by shamelessly routing public dollars to his own political consultant to fashion “public-service ads” back in the 1990s, Easley is now cooperating with the North Carolina Medical Society on a series of ads urging seniors to learn about the state’s new prescription-drug plan. The fact that the physicians’ organization is deeply involved in the political process and has lobbied the administration heavily on the medical-malpractice issue is, naturally, irrelevant, as is the fact that close Easley ally Dave Horne is also a lobbyist for the Medical Society.

* It’s no fair, for political junkies, if the Democratic presidential race is already over. Some political observers are already saying that, and they are pointing to evidence such as these latest national polls to show that Howard Dean is far out in front and impossible to catch. But others disagree, and I’m with them. It isn’t just wishful junkie thinking: yes, Dean seems to have between a quarter and a third of the national Democratic electorate familiar enough with him to pick him out to pollsters. But look at the rest of the field. There’s no standout for second place. Instead, mainstream Democrats are divided among many choices. Not all will survive past the first two contests in January. And many of these voters, having already heard about Dean and his claims to fame, aren’t going to move directly into his column.

The race remains fluid. For at least another month or so.

Hood is president of the John Locke Foundation and publisher of Carolina Journal.