Is Kadima the first casualty?

This might be a bit premature, and some might say inappropriate at this stage, to talk about, but very soon the analysts will re-evaluate the whole election playbook and will redo all the polls. Whatever happens to Ariel Sharon now (may he have a refuah shleimah), it seems like it will be impossible for him to remain as PM (even if he miraculously has a complete recovery). We wish him well, but the country must continue functioning and preparing for the future.

What will be with Kadima and the elections? Will they continue with unabated support, as they have until now? Will Ehud olmert enjoy the popularity Ariel Sharon has in drawing supporters and potential voters to kadima? Will they still sweep the upcoming elections as has been predicted until now? The Kadima ministers have been quick to say that Kadima is not a one-man party and is made up of more than Ariel Sharon. They are trying to inspire confidence in the people that they are worthy of our votes, even without Sharon at the helm.
I reject that premise. People were flocking to Kadima solely because of Sharon. Nobody was excited by Olmert or Bar-Ron or Ramon or any of the other politicians. Au Contraire - the politicians themselves were flocking to Kadima because of Sharon's popularity and they were trying to ride his coattails.
Nobody was attracted to Kadima as an independant party. nobody even knows what Kadima stands for. They have not yet decided who would be its representatives (after Sharon) and they were only in the early stages of the process of writing and proposing a party platform. Get that? Nobody knew what Kadima stands for! They all (including the politicians) flocked there because of Sharon. With Sharon out of play, nobody has any reason to support Kadima (except for each politicians personal friends, family and personal supporters).
Kadima, in my opinion, will drop drastically, and possibly not even be the third largest party come election time.
The next question is, what will be with all those pols who bolted their natural parties to join Sharon? Will they try to hang on to Kadima? Will they bolt and form new parties? Will they attempt to return to their former parties? I for one hope that the Likud and Labor parties refuse to allow any of them back into their ranks. Thsi will be a great opportunity to clean up the benches of power in Israel and freshen the party lists with new, energetic and idealistic people.

We are living in interesting times...