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The first contest of the Presidential election season is finally upon us with Thursday's Iowa caucuses, and for our money it comes both too early and too late.

Iowa arrives too early this cycle in that it comes a full 10 months before the general election next November. We think the public was better served when the first primaries didn't begin until much later. In 1976, Ronald Reagan barely lost to President Ford in New Hampshire in February, but he was still able to make a contest of the nomination by winning the North Carolina primary in late March. That the Iowa home stretch is taking place this year when most families are preoccupied with the holidays is especially silly.

But Iowa comes late because the truncated nature of this primary season means the candidates have already been campaigning for more than a year. As Karl Rove wrote on these pages, both parties need to think about changing a nominating process that has turned into a two-year marathon yet could still yield nominees the public barely knows. There has to be a better way. Our own suggestion would be for primaries that began in the late spring and played out over three months, culminating in the nominating conventions close to Labor Day. Either that, or bring back the smoke-filled room.

This time we are nonetheless stuck with what we have, and at least Iowa will begin to cull the field. This year the state's caucuses seem especially important to the Democrats. Barack Obama and John Edwards need a victory to show they can challenge the Hillary Clinton juggernaut. Mr. Edwards has invested heavily in the state, and if his message of "two Americas" can't win amid the liberals who dominate Iowa's Democratic caucus-goers, it's not going to win anywhere.

With his recent rise in the polls, Mr. Obama has the new burden of higher expectations. Mrs. Clinton can afford to lose and fight on with her money and organization. As the upstart, Mr. Obama has to show he can put together enough of an organization to defeat her in Iowa and develop momentum to overtake Mrs. Clinton's lead in New Hampshire and beyond.

At least Mr. Obama has begun to challenge Mrs. Clinton on her central claim that her candidacy represents a return to the Age of Pericles, a k a the 1990s. The Clinton candidacy--everyone knows it is a her-and-his affair--is at its core an appeal to selective nostalgia. We are supposed to remember the lack of a hot war, not the "holiday from history" as al Qaeda gained strength. We are supposed to recall the late-1990s boom, not that it began only after the GOP took Congress and repudiated many Clinton policies.

And we are supposed to forget entirely about Travelgate, Whitewater, lost billing records, the Rose law firm, the Lippo Group, Johnny Chung, Harold Ickes, miraculous cattle-future winnings and lying under oath. So selective is our memory supposed to be that we are asked to credit Mrs. Clinton as a kind of co-President during her husband's eight years, while her husband blocks public access to his Presidential records that might let us examine her actual contribution.

Mr. Obama's agenda is conventionally liberal. But his personal charisma and message of uniting the country seem to fit the public desire for change better than does Mrs. Clinton's transparent triangulation. He has nonetheless been reluctant to tell Democrats openly about the electoral risks they are taking if they nominate Mrs. Clinton. This week he began to sound those notes, but if he loses we suspect it will be because he feared taking on the Clinton legacy as forthrightly as the moment demands.

As for the Republicans, Iowa may do little more than knock out the minor players. The rise of former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee as the favorite of many social conservatives has complicated Mitt Romney's strategy of betting on early state victories to catapult him into the lead elsewhere. A second place finish would be a blow to Mr. Romney, who spent heavily in the state trying to prove he's a social conservative and tough on immigration. Mr. Huckabee's campaign of one-liners and religious symbolism has worked in the caucus state but may not in other parts of the country. He remains, if we can put it this way, a leap of faith for GOP voters who still know little about him.

Iowa is also Fred Thompson's chance for a breakthrough. The former Senator has many good ideas but has only recently shown the energy that voters expect in a candidate for the nation's highest office. Both John McCain and Rudy Giuliani have downplayed Iowa, so their first big tests will come in New Hampshire and South Carolina.

Among the striking facts about the Presidential race so far is how little ideas seem to have mattered. The debate in both parties has been more about biography, resume and records than about what the candidates want to accomplish if elected. This may change as the campaign unfolds--and we hope the contest continues long enough so that the voters have more than a news cycle or two to assess these potential Presidents.