Edwards Celebrates Birthday With Low-Dollar, High-Volunteer Drive
Most presidential candidates celebrate their birthdays with big-dollar fundraisers, attracting elite donors. By contrast, John Edwards honed his populist message Sunday with a 54th birthday party held as a backyard barbecue. The minimum donation to enter was a mere $15. Instead of shaking down attendees for money, Edwards appealed to the 500 people assembled to help out the campaign with their labors. "If you want to see big, bold change in this country — your country needs you. It needs you badly," Edwards said. "The great movements in the American history did not start in the Oval Office, they started out across America."

McCain: Bush Has Made America Safer
Speaking at an Iowa college campus, John McCain said on Saturday that President Bush deserves more credit on national security. "We haven't had another attack since 9/11, thank God, and I think, frankly, the president of the United States deserves some credit for that," McCain said. "And I'm disappointed that Americans aren't giving him more credit for that, to tell you the truth. He'd certainly get the blame if there was another one."

February 5 Glut Upends GOP Strategies
The Boston Globe reviews the ways in which the February 5 national primary is changing the plans of Republican presidential candidates. "Where Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina have been the must-win early primary states in the past, big, delegate-rich states such as California, New York, and Illinois have blown up that calculus by moving up their primaries to Feb. 5 or earlier," the Globe writes. For example, the Giuliani campaign's decision to skip the Iowa straw poll might presage a decision to place less emphasis on the caucuses entirely, and instead look to large states like New York, New Jersey and California on February 5.

Mormons React To Romney Candidacy
The New York Times has a feature story about the reactions of Mormons in Utah as well as across the country to Mitt Romney's candidacy. "We struggle with those outsiders who see us as weird — the magic underwear stuff," said 30-year old University of Utah student John Hatch. On the other hand, talk-radio host Tom Grover said some of his callers were actually uncomfortable with Romney's repudiation of the church's polygamist history, during his appearance on 60 Minutes. "That’s a tough thing for people to hear when their ancestors sacrificed a lot to live that life," Grover said. "They probably wouldn't bring polygamy back, but they honor the place of it in church history."

Bush: Immigration Bill Will Pass
President Bush is planning to head to Capitol Hill tomorrow to meet with conservative Republican Senators to convince them the immigration bill that died in the senate last week is better than the status quo."I'll see you at the bill signing,"Bush said to the press while traveling in the Balkans.

GOP Will Stall Appropriations Process This Week
Republicans will try to thwart an effort by House Democratic leaders to change the way earmarks are added to appropriations bills. Some 30,000 requests have been made and Democrats are planning to put them into bills during conference committee and not on the floor.

Gingrich Think Tank Promotes Ideas Favored By Donors
The Associated Press reports that Newt Gingrich's health care think tank, The Center for Health Transformation, is bankrolled by industries that would benefit from his ideas, such as empowering individuals to be free agents in the insurance market, and the promotion of electronic medical records. Gingrich's aides say this is not a conflict of interest — the business groups contribute to Gingrich because he has formed ideas that they like, not the other way around.

Fred Thompson Goes To California
Fred Thompson is headed out to California this week to court conservative activists. First he'll stop at Stanford University's Hoover Institution, where he'll court their conservative research fellows. Then, tomorrow night, he'll appear on The Tonight Show With Jay Leno.

Bono To Lobby Presidential Candidates on Poverty
The rock star Bono's ONE advocacy organization has announced a $30 million campaign to sway the presidential candidates into making policy changes to fight poverty and disease in the third world during their first 100 days in office. The organization has 2.5 million members and the initiative will be co-chaired by Bill Frist and Tom Daschle.