RALEIGH — I have a date with Lorne Greene.

Well, to be accurate, it’s a standing date not only with Greene but with Pernell Roberts, Dan Blocker, Michael Landon, Victor Sen Young, and the rest of the gang. Yes, I’m talking about the Ponderosa, where “with a gun and a rope and a hatful of hope,” the Cartwrights “planted [their] family tree.” (Extra points if you can sing the rest of the forgotten words of Bonanza‘s famous theme song, originally sung by none other than my regular dinner companion, that Canadian recording sensation and future leader of the remnants of the human race).

Anyway, about that date thing. What I mean is that since I typically rustle up the vittles at the Hood ranch on Saturday evenings, I try to plan it so I’m chopping things, preferably edible, at around 5 p.m. That’s when Bonanza comes on a Johnston County channel carried by my local cable operator and thus available on my kitchen TV (most of my viewing is in front of the evil, soul-stealing upstairs satellite system monstrosity).

This past weekend, one of the better Bonanza episodes had the town drunk, a formerly famous Indian scout, aided by Dan Blocker’s Hoss to return to his former glory. The exciting program got me to thinking about the role of the cavalry scout in warfare, dating back to the savage lands of the steppes and continuing past the knights-in-armor phase to the last hurrah of the mounted soldier in the 19th century, and more generally about the importance of intelligence gathering in most successful military campaigns.

Speaking of campaigns, if you look around carefully and apply some Kit Carson-like trail smarts, you can probably spot enough signs to let you get the general lay of the land for the upcoming 2004 political season. Now that we’re into January, there are a number of significant events to look out for:

• Final campaign reports on 2003. As news begins to trickle out in the coming days and weeks about candidates’ fundraising totals for the final months of 2003, keep an eye out for the performance of the stragglers. In the presidential race, did Richard Gephardt really perform as poorly as many predicted last week? Why did Wesley Clark’s people put out a $12 million goal for the last quarter that he apparently didn’t meet? You’re supposed to low-ball those numbers. And separate from the fundraising totals, who’s actually got cash on hand? John Kerry, for example, has raised a fair amount of cash, when you include his own, but he may well have already blown through a bunch of it.

In the North Carolina governor’s race, 2000 nominee Richard Vinroot was far ahead of his rivals in name recognition throughout last year. But Senate minority leader Patrick Ballantine was even farther ahead, proportionally, in the money race. Former GOP chairman Bill Cobey started late. For Ballantine or Cobey to catch Vinroot, they’ll have to have significantly outraised him last quarter and have enough cash to begin running aggressively this year. Of course, much depends on. . .

• The timing of the 2004 primaries. Redistricting litigation seems likely now to push the May primar for all offices back into the mid to late summer. Delay probably benefits incumbents and frontrunners, with the only exception being the (somewhat remote) possibility that an elongated GOP primary for government will winnow the field enough for a single main candidate to emerge as an alternative to Vinroot. Of course, more important than its impact on primary dates will be . . .

• The outcome of the latest redistricting case. Look for news in the coming days about the intentions of Republican plaintiffs either to appeal the recent district court ruling on jurisdiction or simply to move forward with their new round of challenges in front of a three-judge panel to be picked by Chief Justice Bev Lake. If the current set of House and Senate maps stand, for whatever reason, GOP chances dim to control either chamber of the state legislature after the 2004 election, though I do not believe these chances will drop to zero. More importantly, the citizens of the state will have once again lost their ability to decide their political fate themselves, at the ballot box, rather than having it handing to them by political insiders armed with memory-bloated computers.

• Delay and the winnowing. There’s another couple of races in which a primary delay could prove influential. In the competitive GOP primary for the 5th Congressional District, the likelihood of having to hold on until August or September of 2004 could well have the effect of inducing several of the middle-tier candidates to exit the race — the top-tier, well-financed candidates having already put too much effort into the race to give up and the bottom-tier, non-spending candidates having no real need to pack it in. Meanwhile, in the 10th Congressional District seat being vacated by Cass Ballenger, Republicans could see a potentially large field narrow to just two or three as would-be candidates face the daunting prospect of raising enough money to campaign against the well-financed George Moretz for much of the year.

• Preparations for the 2004 legislative session. I think an important indicator about how the governor’s race will unfold will be seen in the statements emanating from Gov. Mike Easley’s office in the weeks prior to the convening of the General Assembly’s short session in May. Will he bring an ambitious agenda before the members? Will he try once again to push a state-run lottery monopoly through, at least as a means of putting the issue into the mix for the fall campaign? Will he push again for his version of a cap on state spending growth, in an effort to move closer to the center and away from his tax-raising record?

• Where the outside money goes. In the U.S. Senate race, most North Carolina observers currently believe that an Erskine Bowles-Richard Burr matchup will be a close one. Outside the state, the buzz is a bit different, and more favorable to a Republican win. Bowles will certainly raise a healthy amount of money from business, family, and political contacts within North Carolina. But will smart Democratic money from elsewhere flow his way, as a sign of confidence in his ability to buck a probable Republican trend in the South? Or will Democratic donors focus on other races they (mistakenly) deem more in play?

As for me, I promise to be scanning the political horizons and reporting back in this space — in between reruns of my second-favorite Western series of the 1960s.*

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

(*Even more extra points if you can guess what my favorite one might be. I’ve left a clue in today’s “Daily Journal.”)