Here are a few updates on the movements of the candidates:

* Hillary Clinton will be off to Iraq this weekend, accompanied by Sen. Evan Bayh and GOP Rep. John McHugh.

* John McCain has picked up a key endorsement in South Carolina: Secretary of State Mark Hammond. McCain is also heading to Alabama on Monday, Martin Luther King Day, to attend the inauguration of Republican Governor Bob Riley to a second term. Alabama will holds its primary on Feb. 5, 2008.

* Rudy Giuliani is dismissing the issues raised in his leaked campaign playbook — relating to his liberal social stances and past divorces — saying, "I sure have strengths and weaknesses ... I think that sort of puts me in the same category as just about everybody else that's running."

* Mitt Romney is hard at work burnishing his conservative image today with a vist to the firearms industry's national trade show.

* Tom Vilsack will formally hand over the Governorship to fellow Democrat Chet Culver at Culver's inauguration today, officially becoming the ex-Governor of Iowa. Vilsack will also be resigning as head of the Democratic Leadership Council, to be succeeded by Harold Ford.

* Chris Dodd will be traveling to Iowa today, where he'll campaign and attend Governor Chet Culver's inauguration.

* Rep. Ron Paul, R-TX, has filed papers to run for the GOP nomination for President. Paul was previously the Libertarian nominee for President in 1988.

Update: In down-ticket news in New Hampshire, Democratic Portsmouth Mayor Steve Marchand announced that he will run against GOP Senator John Sununu. He said his decision was clinched by the DSCC's announced targeting of the race and the decision by former Governor Jeanne Shaheen, who narrowly lost to Sununu in 2002, not to run.