Don't panic. Really. But don't take my word for it...

...check out Tim Grieve's excellent work at Salon today.

Grieve talks with a wide range of Democratic movers and shakers, and finds the general tone far more confident than some recent press would have you believe. In fact, the only person he could find to go on record with a dissenting view was, unsurprisingly, the ubiquitous Donna Brazille, who's quoted telling the NY Times that "George Bush has had three of the worst months of his presidency, but they are stuck and they've got to move past this moment."

On the other side of the equation, we get former Dean pollster Paul Maslin noting that "I find all the moaning and carping going on right now kind of puzzling," Ann Richards saying "They're anxious for this contest to gel, and it's too early for that... I tell them to focus their attention on what they can do, not what the nominee should be doing," and Clinton strategist remarking "...it's good news that, at this time, the polls show that the race is tied. Bush is anchored by only one thing -- national security and terrorism. His rankings on the economy and the war are negative, and he's in a much weaker position than the overall numbers indicate."

Ruy Teixeira chimes in encouragingly, too. "We're six months away from the election," he says. "People think that just because Bush got a lot of bad news, Kerry should be 10 points ahead. I think they're kidding themselves."

These are smart people, folks, and they're right. It's still very early. One critcism levied against Kerry is that he's had trouble with the transition from primary contender to primary victor. There may be some truth to that. It's a unique year, with a front loaded process that's produced a nominee at an unusually early date, and he doesn't have a lot of models to draw guidance from in these circumstances. It's a problem too, though, for many of the onlookers and commentators. Some folks just don't know what to do with an identified challenger this early on.

If the advantage of the compact primary schedule is that it's given Kerry extra time to unite the Party and build up the bankroll, there's a disadvantage in the expectations that his impressively early victory has created. People are anxiously wondering why he doesn't act like it's October yet. But there's a good reason.

It's May. And there's lots of time, and lots of smart money on a Kerry win.

It'll take hard work. We can never stop fighting back.

But don't panic.