 How does the author seem to feel about the upcoming presidential race?
Newspapers, cramped for space, confined their headlines to Bush, Forbes, and Dole. As Fox News' Carl Cameron put it: "The other seven candidates could not crack double digits." At a news conference, an aide introduced Dole as the straw poll's "real winner." Her spokesman told reporters that "on a dollar-per-vote basis, Elizabeth Dole trounced George Bush and Steve Forbes." To prevent this, Dole needs to create a semifinal playoff--Forbes vs. Dole--to determine who gets to play Bush. The first of these is political experience, of which Bush has little and Forbes has almost none. On Meet the Press , he called himself the "breakout candidate."
 excited to see how the contestants "battle"
 surprised by the atypical political happenings  excited to see how the contestants "battle"  confident that it will be a close race between the four  convinced that he already knows how the race will end