NORTH CONWAY, N.H. – The year 2005 ended in an explosion of rain, snow, sleet, ice, fog and, on Monday, even a few terrifying claps of thunder, a reminder of how unpredictable is the climate in this state of unpredictable politics. The forecast for 2006, according to the almanacs the farmers consult, will be much the same. Unpredictability is, when you think of it, especially easy to predict.

“God made the country cold up here,” Ernest Poole wrote in his 1946 classic “The Great White Hills of New Hampshire,” and this time of year he is right, about God and about so much else. Beyond that, no one can say what the heavens hold. Indeed, it’s impossible to discern what God has in mind for the political world up here, which may be why this state retains its curious hold on presidential politics. American politics is a story, and a story requires some drama.

This year the Democrats will examine new ideas about how to begin the presidential political season in 2008, but my bet is that the Granite State will retain its pre-eminence, if not in the calendar (there’s talk about inserting some new caucuses in the schedule, right before New Hampshire) then surely in the minds of the great handicappers. The men and women who would be president will still be found here this year and next.

It is still early in the process. So early that the cast for this drama is not yet settled. So early that the story line can not even be anticipated, that the points of tension (and there always are some) are not yet established – beyond, of course, Iraq. It now seems as if Iraq will always be with us.

By this time next year, the road ahead may be clear, or at least clearer. That makes this year a vital one for the politics of New Hampshire and of the country. Vital but, as you will see, not visual. A lot will happen. Almost none of it will be seen. But the effects of 2006 will be impossible to miss once 2007 arrives. That is part of the mystery, and surely part of the mystique, of presidential politics.

In this year the important connections will be made, the important commitments will be made, the important paths of communication will be established. A rough pecking order of candidates will emerge, and so will a rough outline of what the campaign will be about. There will be plenty to do in 2008, of course, but no campaign will prosper in 2008 that did not lay the groundwork for success in 2006. The organizational part of the campaign begins now.

The people who talk knowingly about the “permanent campaign” are talking about the way Washington is governed, with presidents operating out of the White House as if they were still campaigning for the office. The campaign out in the states is virtually permanent but different. Here the phrase “permanent campaign” means that there is almost no time when a campaign is not on.

On the surface, of course, there is no campaign on now. I went an entire week without hearing an ad, or reading of a candidate’s appearance, or thinking about how something might play here in the North Country or down in the cities or out by the Seacoast. A good thing, too. No one could bear the sight of a campaign bus or an earnest conversation over coffee about the direction of the country.

But the challenges for 2006 are not merely organizational. They are intellectual, too. Here is what has to be accomplished in the next dozen months:

(1) The Republicans have to decide whether to be Republicans or whether to be the party of George W. Bush.

(2) The Democrats have to decide whether they have something to support or whether they merely oppose anything the Republicans support.

(3) The Republicans have to decide whether religious conservatives are a part of the party or whether religious conservatism represents the permanent majority outlook of the party.

(4) The Democrats have to sort out whether they will let the Republicans define “values” – and by values we are talking about family values and the definition of security – or whether the Democrats can define values of their own choosing in their own way.

(5) The Republicans must decide whether they are the party of restricting civil liberties (the old Ashcroft wing of the GOP) or of protecting civil liberties (the old Safire wing).

(6) The Democrats have to figure out whether they can assure the public that they can protect the nation from terrorism and protect civil liberties at the same time, and figure out a language for conveying how to do it.

(7) The Republicans have to figure out how to govern and campaign at the same time, especially if someone with close ties to the Congress (Sen. Bill Frist of Tennessee, for example) or with close ties to the White House (Gov. Jeb Bush of Florida, for example) is the nominee or is on the ticket.

(8) The Democrats have to figure out how to convince the public that they represent the natural party of government, a status they had for decades but that the Republicans have possessed since the Reagan era began.

(9) The Republicans have to decide how to campaign against Hillary Rodham Clinton without dredging up the Starr inquiry, which with the perspective of time and through the prism of terrorism looks like a Cromwellian distraction from another era.

(10) The Democrats have to decide how to deal with a presidential candidate whose husband once held the White House (and once held them in thrall) but whose politics are evolving in different, interesting ways.

(11) The Republicans have to sort out their conflicting feelings about Sen. John McCain of Arizona and decide whether he is an apostate or an apostle.

(12) The Democrats have to figure out how to respond to a former prisoner of war whose views on civil liberties, torture, special interests and campaign finance are more clearly articulated and more nearly congruent with their constituencies than theirs are.

That’s a lot for one year, but it’s only the beginning of the year.”In January now and then we have what is called a wicked night, black and still, when with cracks like pistol shots the frost snaps the branches of trees and jerks out nails in our thick walls,” Mr. Poole wrote of a New Hampshire winter six decades ago. “Go out of doors and the air will feel like a wall of ice, for it is 40 or 50 below.” Wicked nights and air like ice are good for serious reflection, and that’s what these dozen questions – the political challenges of 2006 – require.