The Des Moines Register, the largest newspapers in Iowa, has endorsed Hillary Clinton and John McCain in their respective caucuses.

The endorsement of Hillary also took some shots at Barack Obama, agreeing with the Clinton campaign's criticisms about his experience in office: "When Obama speaks before a crowd, he can be more inspirational than Clinton. Yet, with his relative inexperience, it’s hard to feel as confident he could accomplish the daunting agenda that lies ahead."

In 2004, the paper endorsed John Edwards in the Democratic caucus, even though at the time he was way behind in the polls — and he ultimately finished a strong second. The question is, can these endorsements help McCain, who is virtually invisible in this state's polls, and can it aid Hillary in her dogfight against Obama?

Bill Clinton is definitely taking the gloves off against Barack Obama. In an interview with Charlie Rose, taped last night, Bill said the following:

• That "it's not close" in terms of how much better prepared Hillary is to be president;

• That picking Obama would be a "risk";

• Likened nominating Obama to picking "a gifted television commentator";

• Criticized Obama for beginning his presidential campaign after only one year in the Senate;

• Called Obama a mere "symbol for change," adding that "symbol is not as important as substance";

Bill also sought to downplay expectations for Hillary in Iowa, saying that "It's a miracle she even has a chance."

The bottom line: The next three weeks ought to be really fun.

Late Update: Check out this truly brutal excerpt:

Late Late Update: The whole thing is available here.

Rep. Julia Carson (D-IN) has died, less than a month after announcing that she had been diagnosed with terminal lung cancer, and would not be running again. The diagnosis was made over this past Summer.

Carson was 69, serving her sixth term, and was both the first African-American and the first woman to represent Indianapolis in Congress.

The Associated Press asked all the Presidential campaigns to name their principal's most "prized possession." Fred Thompson's answer:

Trophy wife

A gaffe? Naah. The AP reassures us that Thompson's answer was meant to be "tongue in cheek."

Barack Obama comments on Hillary Central Command's role in the drug flap, says he believes Hillary's promise that it wasn't planned:

“I take the Clinton campaign's word that they didn't know what this guy was doing and I understand all that," Obama said, "but the one thing I will say is I told my staff that if I catch you guys doing any kind of stuff like this you're fired. Period."

"And I think what we need to do -- and I told this to senator Clinton yesterday -- is that we need to send a strong message to all of our surrogates and all of our staffs, that we don't play that," he said. "I know my staff has gotten that message because it's one that I delivered several months ago and I haven't seen that come out of their mouths."

Does the Clinton campaign want to keep the Obama drug flap story alive?

That's what New York Times reporter Kit Seelye asserted in The Times today, based on nothing more than the fact that Hillary pollster Mark Penn used the word "cocaine" on Hardball yesterday. And the question is being debated in political circles today, albeit no one will speak about it on the record.

Today, Hillary gave an interview to an Iowa radio station that sparked a new round of talk about this. Here's the key exchange:

QUESTION: Why are you the most electable?

CLINTON: People are asking -- number one, who would be the best president? Who is ready on day one. We are not going to have time to wait. Economy, wars, terror. There is no way to describe the pressures and stresses of this job.

The second important question is who can win – if you decide who is the best president, clearly we want to be able to win. I offer 35 years of experience and not just talking about change. You can’t demand change, you can’t hope for change, you have to work hard to create change and that is what I have done. If you want to know what I am going to do – look at what I have already done. I have been tested and vetted, there are no surprises.

Over at The Politico, Ben Smith interprets this as an effort on Hillary's part to draw "a contrast with unnamed rivals." The suggestion being that she is making an implicit reference to "surprises" that just might lurk in Obama's past.

It's true that Hillary was asked why she's the most electable, and that her answer to the question -- that there are "no surprises" in her past -- could be interpreted as wanting to keep the implicit comparison in the air. This is similar to the line from her New Hampshire chair that caused all the controversy -- i.e., that GOP rivals could start asking if there's more to Obama's drug past than we know -- which naturally gives rise to the suspicion that the Hillary campaign wants the drug talk to kind of hang out there.

Anyone who wants to believe this will also see nefarious doings behind the fact that Penn referred to Obama's "cocaine" use last night on Hardball. It's easy to see dark motives at play with Penn, obviously, because he's such an unpleasant figure and because he's become a kind of stand-in for everything that's wrong with the uglier side of Clintonian politics.

But Hillary's claim that she was vetted comes at the very end of a long answer that veered into a discussion of her own electability, and it seems equally likely that this could simply be a reference to just that -- her own electability. The Hillary campaign is getting killed on this story -- the Obama people have skillfully ridden it for all it's worth for days now, raising money off of it and using it to paint her as a dirty campaigner in the eyes of purist Iowa voters.

Indeed, it seems clear to me that the only thing the Hillary people want from this story right now is that it go away. Of course, suggestive answers like the above from Hillary make it easier for the press to hang on to the story. But it's hard to imagine that Camp Hillary wants this talked about any longer.

But I'd like to hear what you all have to say about this, and wanted to throw this one open to readers. Have at it.

Late Update: Steve Benen has a good post on the broader context here, and Michael Crowley has some color from the press conference that followed. They both seem to conclude, as did I, that Hillary's comments are worded in such a way that guarantees that this story keep going, but both also tilt more strongly in the direction of suggesting that the campaign's "no surprises" line is partly designed to keep the drug talk hanging in the air.

Late Late Update: Here's some video of the subsequent press conference:

Still Later Update: Obama weighs in.

The Edwards campaign has been notified that the Federal Election Commission has decided to deny matching funds for contributions collected for him by ActBlue, upholding its earlier draft opinion and rebuffing the Edwards camp's request that the funds be matched.

Edwards campaign spokesman Eric Schultz sends over the following statement:

"Although today's decision by the FEC is a setback to the progressive grassroots movement, our campaign has all of the resources it needs to aggressively make our case to voters. Even without the ActBlue contributions included, we will meet our projected $10 million in matching funds."

Though the Edwards camp didn't budget for the matching funds, the move will deprive them of needed funds going into the early voting. And it is a big disappointment to progressives who had mounted a pressure campaign against the FEC, arguing that grassroots contributions such as those collected through ActBlue should be matchable, just as funds collected by lobbyists and special interests are.

This morning, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid announced on the Senate floor that the Senate FISA renewal bill containing immunity for the telecoms would go to the floor on Monday. The move, which many expected, dismayed opponents of telecom immunity.

Now the campaign of Senator Chris Dodd, who has promised to put a hold on and filibuster the bill, has just sent out an email to supporters containing a challenge for the other Dem Senators running for President: Will you stick by your promise to publicly support my filibuster of the bill?

Back when Dodd first announced his planned filibuster of the measure in October, the Dem Senators running for President came under heavy pressure to say they'd publicly support it. Senators Clinton, Obama and Biden all said they would.

Now the Dodd campaign is reaffirming that he is going to come back to D.C. and stage his filibuster -- and it's asking people to put a new round of pressure on the other Senators to stand with him. From the Dodd campaign's email from Dodd Internet guru Tim Tagaris:

Remember when this all started playing out? A lot of people rushed to send out strongly worded press releases about how committed they were to "supporting a filibuster."

They'll have a chance to show they are true to their word.

Call or email the Senators that pledged their opposition to this bill to support the Dodd Amendment and a filibuster if necessary. And ask them to be there with Dodd when it counts.

The Dodd campaign is clearly mindful of the fact that when Dodd announced his filibuster in October, it gave his campaign a boost in fundraising and media attention. And it'ss surely aware that the same thing might happen again if and when the bill comes to the floor and Dodd takes a stand against it. As it did last time, the campaign is again looking to use the issue to highlight the fact that he's been out front on this in a way his Dem rivals haven't. The full email after the jump.

Late Update: Senators Leahy and Wyden have now commented on this. Their statements after the jump.

Read more »

Mike Huckabee may now be able to claim frontrunner status in yet another early primary: Florida. The new Rasmussen poll gives him 27% support, followed by Mitt Romney at 23%, Rudy Giuliani at 19%, and nobody else in the double digits.

Numbers like this have to really hurt Rudy Giuliani's strategy, as Florida has been one of the few January contests where he was polling well recently. In addition, it says a lot about Huckabee's fellow Southern candidate, Fred Thompson — he used to lead or come in a close second here, but is now down to 9%.

The new Research 2000 poll of Iowa gives Barack Obama a healthy lead in the caucus, at 33% support, with Hillary Clinton and John Edwards tied at 24% each. On the Republican side, Mike Huckabee leads with 31%, followed by Mitt Romney at 22%, with nobody else breaking into the double digits.

A separate poll from Hotline/Diageo puts Obama and Hillary at 27% each, with Edwards at 22%. On the Republican side, Huckabee has 36% to Romney's 23%.

This has gotten a bit of attention already, but it's worth a quick note: The chairman of the Wyoming Democratic Party, an Obama backer, has taken a shot at Bill Clinton, saying that the Lewinsky mess should lead us to question Hillary's electability and ensures that her candidacy would damage the electoral hopes of the state's Democrats.

In a letter to the Denver Post, the Wyoming chair, John Millin, writes:

For reasons I don't agree with and don't completely understand, most voters in Wyoming seem to hate Hillary Clinton. This is in part due to the perception of her as being someone who supports big government, most notably through a federal government takeover of the health care system. She is also paying a heavy price for the sins of her husband.

If Barack Obama is the democratic presidential nominee, we will be the party of new ideas that understands that a united America will be much better able to address the serious problems facing our country than a divided America. If Hillary Clinton is our party's nominee, every democratic candidate in Wyoming will be painted with that same liberal, big government brush. We will also be the target of the locker room jokes that rightfully belong to Bill Clinton.

The letter's author has no official role with the Obama campaign. The letter carries a message about Hillary's vulnerability that the Obama campaign would probably want to push, but there's no way they can push the letter or associate themselves with it because of the attacks on Bill. Full letter here.

Late Update: The Denver Post also notes that Millin is a superdelegate.

Hillary Clinton just bagged a great endorsement in Iowa, picking up the support of six-term Congressman Leonard Boswell, who cited Hillary's electability and experience.

Within the Iowa Democratic delegation, John Edwards has been endorsed by freshman Rep. Bruce Braley, while freshman Dave Loebsack has yet to publicly endorse. Senator Tom Harkin has not endorsed, but his wife is publicly supporting Hillary.

The new Research 2000 poll has some bad news for Hillary Clinton and good news for Barack Obama and Mitt Romney. On the Democratic side, Obama now has a one-point lead, with 32% to Hillary's 31%, followed by John Edwards at 18%. It's not a statistically significant lead, but it's definitely big news when you consider that Hillary used to have an enormous edge here.

They key point here: Among registered Democrats, Hillary actually leads with 36%, with 27% for Obama and 21% for Edwards. But among independents who are likely to vote in the Democratic primary, Obama has 40%, Hillary 23% and Edwards 13%. So this primary could well hinge on how much of the electorate is made of core Democrats versus independent voters.

On the Republican side, Romney can still count on the state as a firewall against a loss in Iowa — he leads with 31%, with Rudy Giuliani at 18% and John McCain with 17%. Mike Huckabee hasn't caught on here, either, with only 9% support.

Yesterday the Rudy campaign released a new ad highlighting how tough on immigration he is -- but as we reported below, the spot is directly contradicted by multiple past pro-immigration statements Rudy made as Mayor of New York.

Now the Romney campaign is seeking to drive this point home by releasing this new Web video highlighting Rudy's past tolerance, and even embrace, of illegal immigration:

It's a pretty slam dunk case. Rudy not only tolerated illegal immigration as Mayor; he embraced it and thought it was a good thing. But tolerance doesn't sell in a GOP primary -- so now all that is out the window. Lovely guy.

The new CNN poll in South Carolina shows Mike Huckabee leading in the Republican primary with 24% supporter, followed by Fred Thompson at 17%, Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney at 16% each, and John McCain with 13%.

For some context: In the last CNN poll here in July, Huckabee was at only 3%, and Rudy Giuliani was at 30%.

On the Democratic side, Hillary Clinton leads with 42%, with Barack Obama at 34% and John Edwards at 16%.

Hillary hits the airwaves in Iowa and New Hampshire with another ad featuring her mother -- and this one also includes Chelsea, too:

Though the exchange between Hillary and Obama at the debate was most attention grabbing to the media, it was John Edwards who most impressed the voters who were assembled by CNN and Fox News to gauge reaction.

The Edwards campaign sends over this quote from CNN's Mary Snow, announcing that Edwards won the network's session:

Twenty-three registered Democrats came in here undecided. We asked them who they felt performed the best in this debate and they concluded they felt that John Edwards performed the best, with Senator Clinton right behind him.

Meanwhile, ABC News' Rick Klein kept an eye on the Fox News dial sessions with voters and says that Edwards' answers repeatedly drove voter responses high up and off the charts, live-blogging as follows:

Here's Edwards shooting broad once again – ‘join together to take this democracy and take this country back.’ At least the fourth time he's sounded that theme -- if you're an angry Iowan, you've got to love that message. And the Fox dialers certainly do."

...and, later:

Fox News is doing running dial-testing -- and John Edwards is quite literally off the charts with that answer about the tax system being rigged.”

So these voters, at least, call it for Edwards.

Late Update: In fairness, Obama also earned high marks from Fox's focus groups.

Billy Shaheen, the Hillary official who said Obama's past drug use would make him vulnerable to GOP attacks in a general election, steps down from the campaign with a statement:

“I would like to reiterate that I deeply regret my comments yesterday and say again that they were in no way authorized by Senator Clinton or the Clinton campaign. Senator Clinton has been running a positive campaign focused on the issues that matter to America’s families. She is the best qualified to be the next President of the United States because she can lead starting on day one. I made a mistake and in light of what happened, I have made the personal decision that I will step down as the Co-Chair of the Hillary for President campaign. This election is too important and we must all get back to electing the best qualified candidate who has the record of making change happen in this country. That candidate is Hillary Clinton.”

Chris Dodd really got screwed today. First the debate moderator, Des Moines Register editor, Carolyn Washburn, asked Dodd a silly and insulting question about his father:

"Senator Dodd, you write in your book that you still struggle with the memories of when your father, former senator Thomas Dodd, was censured by the Senate in 1967 for alleged misuse of campaign money. How much are you motivated in your run for president by a desire to restore the Dodd family name that was hurt by this censure?"

Really, now. It's hard to know which question is more frivolous, inane and catty, this or the one she asked Biden about race.

And then, to top this off, CNN's Wolf Blitzer interviewed Dodd after the debate and asked him about everything except for...Chris Dodd. Well, not quite, but almost. The first three questions Wolf asked Dodd were about the tone of the debate, as if Dodd's a pundit, the Mitchell Report, and the Hillary-Obama drug flap yesterday. Only in the fourth question did Dodd finally get asked about, you know, himself and his policies.

This might have been the debate's best moment. Toward the end came this exchange:

MODERATOR: Senator Obama, you have Bill Clinton's former National Security Adviser, State Department policy director and Navy Secretary among others, advising you. With relatively little foreign policy experience of your own, how will you rely on so many Clinton advisers, and still deliver the kind of break from the past that you're promising voters?

(Laughter)

Obama: You know I am --

Hillary: (Laughing) I want to hear that.

Obama: Well, Hillary, I'm looking forward to you advising me as well. (Laughter)

I'd say that this exchange very neatly captures many of the Campaign 2008's various underlying tensions and absurdities, wouldn't you?

Late Update: Here's video of this moment:

Okay, this is just pathetic. The moderator of the debate, Des Moines Register editor Carolyn Washburn, just asked this question of Joe Biden:

Senator Biden, you and your campaign have had a number of occasions to correct or clarify things you've said relating to race, including your remarks about Senator Obama being, quote, "clean and articulate," your comment about Indians working at 7-11, and recently to the Washington Post in which you spoke about race while describing disparities between schools in Washington, D.C. and Iowa.

Do these gaffes, or misunderstandings, or however you characterize them indicate you're uncomfortable talking about race, or are people just being too sensitive?

Look, this is just absurd. Biden has been forced multiple times to defend this comment about Obama being "clean and articulate." Here's what he said of Obama at the time:

"I mean, you got the first mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice-looking guy."

Some have pointed out convincingly that if you add a missing comma, Biden very clearly could have meant Obama is "mainstream" and in addition is "articulate and clean." At any rate, asking Biden to answer for this yet again is just a big waste of time.

Thankfully, Obama stepped forth to defend Biden, saying:

"I have absolutely no doubt about what is in his heart and the commitment he's made to racial equality in this country."

Good.

Hillary's just delivered her opening statement at the debate. Key line:

"Well, everybody on this stage has an idea about how to get change. Some believe you get change by demanding it, Some believe you get it by hoping for it. I believe you get it by working hard for change. That's what I've done my entire life. That's what I will do as president."

The "demanding change" formulation clearly looks like a reference to John Edwards, and the "hoping for change" formulation is obviously a reference to Barack Obama and his "politics of hope." Hillary's reference to "working" for it is in keeping with the campaign's message -- it's meant to charicature Obama as a pretty talker and use that as a foil to her longer career.

The Hillary campaign has been trying for months now to undercut Obama's argument that he's the race's real change agent by saying that she has the experience to realize actual change. Here she's pushing this message in a newish way -- will it work?

Here's the first sentence of Obama's opening statement at today's Dem debate:

You know, 40 years ago, Dr. King challenged America to act on what he called the "fierce urgency of now," and I feel that urgency today.

The phrase has become a frequent one for Obama since his Jefferson Jackson Dinner speech, but here he leads with it. The quote seems designed to call attention to the historic nature of his candidacy -- but also to give historical sheen to his "urgency" to become President right now, at his relatively young age.

The Dem debate sponsored by the Des Moines Register is now underway, and it's hard to overstate how much is at stake for the candidates here, given that the Iowa caucuses are right around the corner and that this debate will focus relentlessly on issues important to Iowans.

First interesting moment: Asked if balancing the Federal budget every year would be a "priority" under her administration, Hillary went out of her way to evoke her husband's fiscal record:

"Fiscal responsibility is a very high priority for me. We don't have to go back very far in our history, in fact just to the 1990s, to see what happens when we do have a fiscally responsible budget that does use rules of discipline to make sure that we're not cutting taxes or spending more than we can afford I will institute those very same approaches. You can't do it in a year, it'll take time, but the economy will grow again when we start acting fiscally responsible."

And, suggesting that she's making a concerted effort to remind Iowans of the prosperity of the 1990s, she just made another reference to the Bill years, saying:

"During the nineties, the typical Iowan's income rose several thousand dollars."

We'll be blogging the debate right here.

Rudy tries to arrest his plummeting support among conservatives by going up on the air in New Hampshire with a new get-tough-on-immigration ad:

In the ad, Rudy promises to "end" illegal immigration -- but back when he was Mayor of New York in 1996, Rudy said:

"We're never, ever going to be able to totally control immigration to a country that is as large as ours, that has borders that are as diverse as the borders of the United States, and as a society that wants to be a country that values freedom -- that values freedom of movement, freedom to do business...So we just have to accept that if we want to be the kind of country that we are."

In the ad, Rudy says that in order to become a citizen, "you have to be able to read English, write English, speak English." But back when he was Mayor of New York in 1996, he said the following about an English-only law:

"There's no reason to pass a bill like this except, maybe, to exclude people, insult people or offend people."

In the ad, Rudy says that in order to end illegal immigration, "what we need here is leadership." But back when he was Mayor of New York in 1994, Rudy's idea of leadership was to say the following about illegal immigrants:

"If you come here and you work hard and you happen to be in an undocumented status, you’re one of the people who we want in this city."

Trifecta!

Who needs Oprah when you've got a mom to campaign for you? Hillary -- or, more accurately, her mother Dorothy -- goes up on the air in this new Iowa ad:

The Obama campaign clearly thinks its got a winner in the dust-up yesterday over Hillary New Hampshire co-chair Billy Shaheen's claim that Obama's past drug use could make him vulnerable to GOP attacks in a general election.

So much so, in fact, that Camp Obama has just sent out an email to supporters trying to raise money off the fight.

"The only way to stop these kinds of tired, desperate attacks is to
demonstrate very clearly that they have a real cost to Senator Clinton's
campaign," reads the email, from Obama campaign manager David Plouffe.

"If 5,000 people donate in the next 24 hours, we can show their campaign
that we reject this kind of divisive politics. Make your donation of $25
now."

The Hillary campaign -- and Shaheen himself -- have emphatically declared that the comments were not authorized by the Hillary camp in any way. Plouffe's full email after the jump.

Read more »

GOP Senate leader Mitch McConnell, whose support for the Iraq War has made him vulnerable to a challenge in 2008, officially has a challenger: Andrew Horne, a retired Marines lieutenant colonel who served in Iraq and who's also a senior adviser to the antiwar group VoteVets. Here's his announcement video:

Presumably Horne will be making an issue of McConnell's recent comments belittling the deaths of professional soldiers.

His official Web site, complete with bio and other stuff, is here.

Okay, this is interesting. Take a look at this new and absolutely brutal Web video that slams Mike Huckabee over his role (first reported by The Huffington Post) in pushing for serial rapist Wayne Dumond:

Who's behind this video?

The only clue to who made this vid is that it includes the web address of something called HuckabeeFacts.com. That site is right here. It's apparent that this was just set up, probably to post this video -- indeed, this video is the only thing posted on it, and it was posted at 1 A.M. today. What's more, the site offers no clue as to who is behind it -- the only contact info given is an email address: huckabeefacts@gmail.com.

But here's the thing: The mother of Dumond's victim clearly participated in the shooting of this ad. So who shot it?

Late Update Mystery solved by Max Brantley on the Arkansas Times blog. The culprit is an Arkansas political operative named Keith Emis.

A new Quinnipiac poll gives a bit of weight to Rudy's argument that he's the Republican who can put blue states in play, finding that he's in a virtual dead heat with Hillary in New Jersey, 45%-44%.

It's true that Jersey is notorious for having the polls show close races between Dems and Repubs, only to tilt blue on a reliable basis, but these numbers are noteworthy.

In one surprising finding, the survey also finds that though Rudy enjoys a wide lead over his rivals in the state's GOP primary, he has slipped 10 points since October -- and much of that went over to Mike Huckabee.

Still another report of tensions inside Camp Hillary, this one centered on the performance of Hillary pollster Mark Penn:

With Clinton barely holding her own against Barack Obama and John Edwards in Iowa, dissatisfaction is growing with Penn, who some say has mistakenly run Clinton as a de facto incumbent...

For months, tension has been building between the "Hillary" and "Bill" parts of the team, say several people familiar with the situation. Bill Clinton -- along with former White House hands -- have counseled her to adopt a far more aggressive approach with Obama.

Penn, sources say, has counseled moderation, believing an attack would elevate her already-high negatives and drive her too far to the left to win a general election.

Again, it's impossible to know whether this reflects real internal struggles or garden variety internal disagreements and discussion over strategy. Reporters are generally under tremendous pressure to get the "campaign infighting" stories -- particularly now, with so many stories appearing about alleged tensions within Camp Hillary -- so often routine disagreements are elevated into reports of real discord.

The new poll of Iowa from GOP firm Strategic Vision shows Barack Obama leading the caucus with 33% support, followed by Hillary Clinton at 25% and John Edwards with 24%. This result is not significantly changed from their last poll five days ago.

On the Republican side, Mike Huckabee leads with 30%, followed by Mitt Romney at 25%, Fred Thompson 13%, Rudy Giuliani 10%, and John McCain at 5%. Again, these numbers have not changed significantly since the last poll.

• The transcript for this afternoon's Republican debate in Iowa is available here. Beware: This transcript was clearly done with voice recognition software, and has its fair share of errors.

• The debate — the last GOP event before the Iowa caucus — was in many ways a total bust. It was dull, the candidates were not really put on the spot in tough ways, and moderator Carolyn Washburn, editor of the Des Moines Register, openly said they would avoid high-profile national issues like Iraq and immigration. It's hard to pick out a winner, but there was one surefire loser: Carolyn Washburn.

• The best moment was when Fred Thompson led a candidates' revolt against hand-raising questions, regarding climate change. Thompson refused to do a show of hands, then asked for 30 seconds to give a more detailed answer. When Washburn said no, he stood firm and declared, "Well, then I'm not going to answer it." He then got his 30 seconds.

• John McCain gave the best answer on climate change: "Suppose that climate change is not real and all we do is adopt green technologies which our economy and technology is perfectly capable of, then all we've done is given our kids a cleaner world. But suppose they're [the skeptics] wrong, suppose they're wrong and climate change is real and we've done nothing? What kind of a planet are we going to pass on to the next generation of Americans?"

• Rudy Giuliani defended himself on the Shag Fund story, insisting that none of this information was ever a secret: "All that information was available, and known to people, known six years ago, and I would make sure that government was transparent," he said, then alluding humorously to the scandals surrounding his 2000-2001 divorce. "My government in New York City was so transparent that they knew every single thing I did almost every time I did it."

• Not surprisingly, given his online following, Ron Paul praised the Internet: "The Internet is delightful for finding the information, and if there's a question that I need, ask, you can find it. So I spend a lot of time getting information that was at one time in my life was very difficult to find." On a side note, it's also made it easier for him to get money that was once difficult to find.

Read more »

The Hillary campaign is condemning remarks made by New Hampshire co-chair Billy Shaheen, who said earlier today in an interview that Barack Obama's past drug use could be used against him by the GOP, thus calling his electability into question.

The Obama campaign directly blamed Hillary for the remarks this afternoon, saying that it was born of a "desperate effort to slow her slide in the polls."

Now Clinton spokesman Phil Singer has sent us this statement:

Senator Clinton is out every day talking about the issues that matter to the American people. These comments were not authorized or condoned by the campaign in any way.

Late Update: Shaheen himself adds in a statement: “I deeply regret the comments I made today and they were not authorized by the campaign in any way."

The Obama campaign has just slammed Hillary for an interview her New Hampshire co-chair Billy Shaheen gave earlier today, in which he brought up Obama's past drug use and used it to question Obama's electability by suggesting the GOP would attack him for it. Here's the statement just out from Obama campaign manager David Plouffe:

“Hillary Clinton said attacking other Democrats is the ‘fun part’ of this campaign, and now she’s moved from Barack Obama’s kindergarten years to his teenage years in an increasingly desperate effort to slow her slide in the polls. Senator Clinton’s campaign is recycling old news that Barack Obama has been candid about in a book he wrote years ago, and he’s talked about the lessons he’s learned from these mistakes with young people all across the country. He plans on winning this campaign by focusing on the issues that actually matter to the American people."

Still no word form Camp Hillary on this.

Late Update: The Hillary campaign says it does not condone the remarks in any way.

Late Late Update: Shaheen himself adds the following in a statement: “I deeply regret the comments I made today and they were not authorized by the campaign in any way."

Woah -- the Dem primary's getting pretty vicious now. Billy Shaheen, the co-chair of Hillary's New Hampshire campaign, has just raised the specter of Obama's past drug use in an interview, arguing that it will give Republicans an opening to attack him, raising questions about his electability in a general election:

"The Republicans are not going to give up without a fight ... and one of the things they're certainly going to jump on is his drug use," said Shaheen, the husband of former N.H. governor Jeanne Shaheen, who is planning to run for the Senate next year.

Billy Shaheen contrasted Obama's openness about his past drug use -- which Obama mentioned again at a recent campaign appearance in New Hampshire -- with the approach taken by George W. Bush in 1999 and 2000, when he ruled out questions about his behavior when he was "young and irresponsible."

Shaheen said Obama's candor on the subject would "open the door" to further questions. "It'll be, 'When was the last time? Did you ever give drugs to anyone? Did you sell them to anyone?'" Shaheen said. "There are so many openings for Republican dirty tricks. It's hard to overcome."

A top Hillary campaign official attacked Obama for candor and contrasted that unfavorably with Bush's handling of such questions? Seems like an unorthodox approach in a Dem primary.

No word yet from the Obama campaign -- or Camp Hillary headquarters -- on this.

Late Update: The Obama campaign hits back.

Late Late Update: The Hillary campaign says it does not condone the remarks in any way.

Still Later Update: Shaheen himself disavows the remarks and confirms they weren't authorized by the Clinton campaign, saying in a statement: “I deeply regret the comments I made today and they were not authorized by the campaign in any way."

In case you weren't aware of this: The Federal Election Commission is set to make a decision Friday on whether to match contributions collected for Edwards through ActBlue.

The FEC's answer will have far reaching implications both for the John Edwards campaign, which stands to lose a substantial amount of campaign cash heading into the early voting, and for grass-roots fundraising in general.

The FEC recently indicated that they might not match the contributions -- prompting the Edwards campaign, with the help of bloggers and other activists, to launch a campaign to press the FEC to match the contributions.

The Edwards camp and others rallying in favor of the match are arguing that since contributions collected by lobbyists and special interests get matched, not matching the ActBlue contribs would unfairly disenfranchise grassroots fundraising efforts such as this one. It "would be a body blow to the whole concept of public funding," Edwards online suprema Tracy Joan Russo wrote recently.

Anyway, the FEC is set to rule Friday. Stay tuned.

It's been simmering at low heat for weeks, but now it's flaring up into a major issue: The campaigns of Hillary and Obama are exchanging heavy blows over the question of whether Iowa students who live outside the state should have the right to vote in the state's caucuses on Jan. 3.

Yesterday, Bill Clinton himself entered the fray, drawing a fresh round of attention to the issue.

Read more »

With the Dem primary coming down to the wire in the early states, a key thing to check out will be the battle for the endorsements of the local papers.

Today, for instance, Hillary picked up the endorsement of the New Hampshire Salmon Press papers, a string of nearly a dozen weeklies across the state, with a combined readership of 74,000. It'll be running in all the Salmon Press papers today and tomorrow.

You can't access the papers without a log-in, but you can read the endorsement right here.

More mail from Edwards in New Hampshire:

The rest of it after the jump.

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Two new Rasmussen polls give close results for the Democratic contests in Iowa and New Hampshire. In Iowa, Hillary Clinton leads with 29%, followed by Barack Obama at 26% and John Edwards with 22%. In New Hampshire, Obama is the one who is ahead with 31%, followed by Hillary at 28% and John Edwards with 17%. Both results are within the margins of error — but this may just be the first poll ever with Obama ahead in New Hampshire.

Obama can find some more good news in the internals, with his favorables higher than Hillary's among Democratic voters in both states. In Iowa, Hillary has 72% favorable to 27% unfavorable, compared to Obama's 84% favorable and 14% unfavorable. In New Hampshire, Hillary has 74% favorable and 26% unfavorable, with Obama at 79% favorable and 20% unfavorable.

Today's New York Times sketches in a bit of detail about alleged tensions within Camp Hillary:

At a time of growing tension in Mrs. Clinton’s campaign, her aides described former President Bill Clinton as increasingly frustrated that his wife’s campaign has not fought back even more forcefully against efforts by Mr. Obama and former Senator John Edwards to raise questions about Mrs. Clinton’s character. They said that Mr. Clinton had warned for weeks that they were taking a toll on his wife’s candidacy.

Mr. Clinton, they said, is still confident that his wife can regain momentum if her campaign presents her message — and particularly criticism of Mr. Obama — more sharply. He took matters into his own hands Monday, campaigning at four events across Iowa to deliver that message: that Mrs. Clinton was a “change agent.

In a sign of internal strains, some of Mrs. Clinton’s associates said they thought Mr. Clinton was struggling to make the adjustment from principal candidate to supportive spouse. In one example of this, Mr. Clinton asserted in Iowa last month that he had been against the war in Iraq “from the beginning,” a statement more absolute than his public statements at the time. His remark produced a round of criticism that the Clintons too frequently parse their positions for political gain.

It's interesting that her aides, as opposed to his, are describing Bill as "increasingly frustrated," though it's hard to gauge whether this stuff amounts to serious internal infighting or routine internal disagreements and discussion over strategy.

Late Update: Hillary herself emphatically assured senior staff in a conference call that rumors about any shakeups were "ludicrous."

Late Late Update: So how long will it be until the same pundits who confidently said Bill would be a "liability" to Hillary's campaign start asking whether Bill will "rescue" Hillary's candidacy?

Congressman Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, released this statement last night regarding the Republican victories in the Ohio and Virginia special elections:

National Republicans, right wing special interest groups, and 527's, like Freedom's Watch, are alive and well in Republican House races. They poured more than $500,000 in to save Bob Latta in a 39% Democratic performing district.

Tom Cole and the NRCC spending 20 percent of their cash on hand to retain one of the most Republican districts in the country — priceless.

In an interview this morning on NBC, Mitt Romney responded to Mike Huckabee's comment about Mormons believing that Jesus and Satan are brothers. Romney declined to address the specifics of Mormon theology, saying that leaders at the LDS Church have already gone over it. "But I think attacking someone's religion is really going too far," He said. "It's just not the American way, and I think people will reject that."

This is probably a sign that the race between them isn't about to get any cleaner anytime soon, and we'll be hearing more about religious differences in the next few weeks whether Romney likes it or not.

Either Mike Huckabee has environmental goals that make Al Gore look like Montgomery Burns, or he has some serious trouble with the English language. In an interview with CBS, he called for ending energy consumption. Perhaps he meant something else — but good luck figuring it out.

"I think we ought to be out there talking about ways to reduce energy consumption and waste," said Huckabee. "And we ought to declare that we will be free of energy consumption in this country within a decade, bold as that is."

(Via Steve Benen)

In an interview posted by the Hotline, Mitt Romney explained why he didn't include any positive mention of atheists in his speech on religion — and he now says non-belief doesn't bother him. It can be seen at about the three-minute mark here:

"Why didn't I mention non-believers?" Romney said. "Well, I thought that was assumed within the general purview of faith. But you know, that doesn't bother me."

In the speech, Romney's only mention of non-belief was to say, "It is as if they're intent on establishing a new religion in America – the religion of secularism. They're wrong," as well as bemoaning the decline of religion in Europe.

The new CNN poll of New Hampshire shows that Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are in a dead heat. Hillary has 31% support to Obama's 30%, a statistically insignificant lead, with John Edwards in third at 16%. In the last CNN poll three weeks ago, Hillary was way ahead of Obama, 36%-22%.

The bottom line: If the Hillary campaign was looking to use New Hampshire as a firewall against a possible loss in Iowa, that doesn't look like it's much of an option at the moment.

On the Republican side, Mitt Romney is still the heavy favorite with 32% support, with Rudy Giuliani and John McCain tied at 19% each. Mike Huckabee, who is surging in GOP primaries around the country, has failed to catch on here so far — he has only 9%.

The new poll in Georgia by the GOP firm Strategic Vision shows Mike Huckabee shooting to the top. Huckabee has 23% support, Fred Thompson 20%, Rudy Giuliani 17%, John McCain 11%, and Mitt Romney 10%. Huckabee was at only 7% in the last Strategic Vision poll of Georgia, back in October. His newfound support seems to have come almost entirely from his fellow Southerner Fred Thompson, who was at 39% back then.

On the Democratic side, Hillary Clinton has 34%, Barack Obama 27%, and John Edwards 12%. In October, Hillary had 40%, Obama an identical 27%, and Edwards 11%.

In addition, GOP Senator Saxby Chambliss easily beats all his Democratic challengers, winning by greater than 2-1 ratios.

It was only a matter of time before Mike Huckabee said something about Mormonism that they would find offensive — and it's now happened. In an interview with the New York Times Magazine, to be published this Sunday, Huck admitted that he didn't know much about Mormon theology, but did say this: "Don't Mormons believe that Jesus and the devil are brothers?"

In fact, as a spokeswoman for the Mormon Church told the Associated Press, Mormons believe that all are the spirit children of God, including all people as well as Jesus and Satan. "Christ, on the other hand, was the only begotten in the flesh and we worship him as the son of God and the savior of mankind," said Kim Farah. "Satan is the exact opposite of who Christ is and what he stands for."

Huckabee also demurred when asked whether Mormons are a cult: "I'm just not going to go off into evaluating other people's doctrines and faiths. I think that is absolutely not a role for a president."

The Republicans have retained their vacant House seat in Ohio, winning the Fifth Congressional District special election caused by the death of GOP Congressman Paul Gillmor. The Associated Press projects that state Rep. Bob Latta has won the seat, defeating Democratic candidate Robin Weirauch.

With 53.24% of precincts currently reporting, Latta has 55.79% of the vote to Weirauch's 44%. Democrats had made a strong push for the seat, taking advantage of the divisive Republican primary, but the district's demographics were just too strong — President Bush carried the area by a 22% margin in 2004. They can take some heart, however, in that they forced the cash-strapped National Republican Congressional Committee to spend over $400,000 on the race.

In today's Virginia special election, state Delegate Rob Wittman has been elected to the remainder of the late Congresswoman Jo Ann Davis' (R) term.

With 96.66% of precincts reporting, Wittman has 62.96% of the vote against Democratic nominee Philip Forgit, an Iraq War veteran. The district is solidly Republican, giving President Bush 60% of the vote in 2006.

The new SurveyUSA poll of South Carolina shows a narrowing Democratic field. Hillary Clinton has a statistically insignificant 44%-40% lead over Barack Obama, with John Edwards way behind at only 11%. In SurveyUSA's last poll a month ago, Hillary led Obama 47%-33%.

Interestingly, the internals show little change in terms of Obama's performance with white voters or Hillary's performance with blacks. The change has come in the demographic make-up of likely voters. A month ago, African-Americans made up 49% of likely voters — whereas now they are measured as taking up 54% of the likely Dem electorate, providing a net boost for Obama.

New poll numbers are just out from The Washington Post and ABC News, and they offer some striking findings: Rudy is falling fast among multiple voter groups, especially conservatives, something that helps explain Mike Huckabee's extraordinary surge.

Check out this chart of Rudy's drop:

The chart shows that Rudy has suffered precipitous declines among all those groups since just last month. Meanwhile, look at this snapshot of the preferences of Republican voters right now -- it shows that Rudy has lost nine points since just last month, putting him at his lowest point this year. But Huckabee has more than doubled his support in the same period, lurching into second place. Also note that Mitt Romney seems to have made modest gains at Rudy's expense, too:

The pollsters say that Huckabee's surge is largely the product of dramatic gains among evangelical Protestants -- his support among them has jumped from 13% last month to 29% now, more than any other in the GOP field.

There's lots more in the full poll, which you can read right here.

National Review, the flagship magazine of American conservatism, has endorsed Mitt Romney for the Republican nomination:

More than the other primary candidates, Romney has President Bush’s virtues and avoids his flaws. His moral positions, and his instincts on taxes and foreign policy, are the same. But he is less inclined to federal activism, less tolerant of overspending, better able to defend conservative positions in debate, and more likely to demand performance from his subordinates. A winning combination, by our lights. In this most fluid and unpredictable Republican field, we vote for Mitt Romney.

Romney will be sure to trumpet the support of such a well-known outlet of the right, and it does help to assuage doubts about whether he is in fact a sincere conservative — the editorial includes a very strong defense on that point. On the other hand, it's questionable whether a single magazine endorsement will make much of a difference with the voters in Iowa, New Hampshire and elsewhere.

The bad weather in Iowa grounded many members of the press and led to the cancellation of a number of events, forcing the Hillary and Obama campaigns to slug it out today via conference call.

First word spread that the Obama campaign would be holding a conference call to trumpet the endorsement of New Hampshire Rep. Carol Shea Porter. The Hillary camp tried to preempt this in advance by calling a conference call of their own to talk about what the new New York Times poll says about her electability.

Result: The two calls ended up happening simultaneously.

For details on the Hillary call, go here. For details on the Obama call, including audio of Obama himself, go here.

Meanwhile, John Edwards continued hovering above it all today, releasing a statement calling on HUD to reverse its plan to begin demolishing public housing in New Orleans. You can read that here.

Here's another blast from Mike Huckabee's Christianist past. As governor of Arkansas in 1997, Huckabee held up passage of a bill to protect storm victims from insurance companies — thus creating a window of time for the companies to cancel people's coverage — on the grounds that the bill used the traditional legal term "acts of God":

The Arkansas Legislature scrambled today to rewrite a bill intended to protect storm victims after Gov. Mike Huckabee, a Baptist minister, objected to language describing such natural phenomena as tornadoes and floods as "acts of God."

Mr. Huckabee said that signing the legislation "would be violating my own conscience" inasmuch as it described "a destructive and deadly force as being 'an act of God.'" The Governor, a Republican, said the legislation was an otherwise worthy bill with objectives he shared.

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Here's another gem of a quote from Mike Huckabee's 1992 run for the Senate, in addition to his call for quarantining AIDS patients. As the world was settling into the post-Gulf War sanctions regime, he opposed taking any further military action against Saddam Hussein — and he phrased it in the most isolationist of terms.

In a candidate questionnaire from the Associated Press, one of the questions was whether the U.S. should kill Hussein. Huck's response: "The U.S. should not kill Saddam Hussein or anyone else."

Just imagine the outrage from the hard right if Ron Paul, for example, were to have said the same thing.

Another day, another Rudy fib. The Washington Examiner reports today that Rudy is now saying that he actually wanted to deport all 400,000 illegal immigrants from New York when he was Mayor.

“If they could, I would have turned all the people over," Rudy, who's trying to win over nativist GOP primary voters right now, told the paper. Rudy claimed that the Immigration and Naturalization Service wouldn't do it, however. "It would have helped me. I would have had a smaller population. I would have had fewer problems.”

Rudy had a funny way of expressing this desire at the time, however. Back in 1994, he said (via Nexis):

“Some of the hardest-working and most productive people in this city are undocumented aliens. If you come here and you work hard and you happen to be in an undocumented status, you’re one of the people who we want in this city. You’re somebody that we want to protect, and we want you to get out from under what is often a life of being like a fugitive, which is really unfair.”

So...even though Rudy explicitly saw illegals as "the people who we want in this city," he secretly wanted to deport them?

This latest Rudy immigration fib has ignited another skirmish between Rudy and Mitt Romney, who has relentlessly criticized Rudy's immigration record.

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The latest Rasmussen poll of Iowa confirms that Mike Huckabee is now very much the favorite here. Huckabee has 39% support among the state's likely Republican caucus-goers — up 11 points from their last poll only two weeks ago.

Mitt Romney is the closest thing Huckabee has to competition in Iowa, with 23% support. Nobody else is in double digits: Rudy Giuliani has 8%, Fred Thompson 8%, John McCain 6%, and Ron Paul 5%.

John Edwards has dropped some lit in New Hampshire featuring his father, the mill-worker, and his mother, who worked in a shop and post office, as part of his pitch that he's the candidate to strengthen the middle class:

Meanwhile, Ben Smith has lit being sent out in Iowa on Edwards' behalf by Caucus4Priorities, a key Edwards endorser. Our full mailer after the jump.

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As we reported here the other day, GOP Senate leader Mitch McConnell appeared to belittle the deaths of American troops, saying the following in a meeting with constituents:

“Unfortunately, most of our friends on the other isle are having a hard time admitting things are getting better; some days I almost think the critics of this war don't want us to win. Nobody is happy about losing lives but remember these are not draftees, these are full-time professional soldiers."

The comment seemed to suggest that the deaths of professional soldiers isn't a huge deal because, well, they signed up for this.

Now McConnell's constituents are teeing off on him for the remark in letters to Kentucky's Courier-Journal.

Troy Torstrick of Louisville wrote: "The naked contempt that this comment displays for the men and women in the military is simply astonishing...If he had any shame, he would resign."

Added Steven Gregson of Owensboro: "Does this mean that he thinks that the lives of professional soldiers are somehow worth less than the lives of draftees? We Kentuckians have a big problem in Washington: His name is Mitch McConnell."

And one out of stater wrote: "Coming from a family with several career-long members of the military, including one in naval intelligence and another who was stationed at the Pentagon for years, I find McConnell's remark abominable and disgusting...I urge the citizens of Kentucky to make sure that this is his last term in the U.S. Senate."

You know, it's an awful cliche to say this at this point, but imagine if a Dem -- Harry Reid -- had said what McConnell said here, irking his own constituents. It would be a story for days and days and days. There's simply no question about it. But has a single major news organization picked up these quotes?

Chris Dodd just let his supporters know that his campaign is opting in for matching funds, with these sentences buried in a fundraising email that just went out to supporters:

We have decided to take matching funds -- your $25 contribution will mean $50 in the campaign coffers today.

Double down, right now!

Which means that John Edwards will no longer be the only candidate facing matching funds questions.

Check out the new, and very long, mailer that Hillary has just dropped in New Hampshire to push her "experience" argument:

The missive has page after page detailing the things Hillary is "ready" for, such as ending the Iraq War and providing universal health care for all. It concludes, "Hillary Clinton: Ready to lead." See the rest after the jump.

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John Edwards' "heroes" ad, versions of which have already run in New Hampshire and Iowa, has been recast and was launched today in South Carolina:

Five years ago, Mike Huckabee denounced the embargo against Cuba, claiming it has harmed American interests and failed to help the Cuban people — in direct contradiction to his new position on Cuba out on the campaign trail.

In the first documented Huckabee flip-flop during this campaign, the the Los Angeles Times found that Huck wrote a letter opposing the embargo, deeming it to be a failure. But now that he's been campaigning in Florida, he's praised that same embargo as "an important tool in keeping the propaganda machine from being so well-funded and putting more pressure on the tyranny, dictatorship of the Castros."

Huckabee apparently tried to explain the shift as a matter of the national interest — while simultaneously giving ammo to those who would say it's all about politics "Rather than seeing it as some huge change, I would call it, rather, the simple reality that I'm running for president of the United States, not for reelection as governor of Arkansas," he said. "I've got to look at this as an issue that touches the whole country."

Today is Election Day in two special elections for the House: The Fifth District of Ohio, and the First District of Virginia, both of which were vacated through the deaths of Republican incumbents.

The race in Ohio might just be the one to watch. Although the district went for President Bush by a 22% margin in 2004, the race has been thrown into the air by a divisive Republican primary and the lackluster general election campaign by GOP nominee Bob Latta. The Politico reports that internal polling for the Latta campaign has actually shown him trailing Dem nominee Robin Weirauch by four points.

A Weirauch win, or even a close loss, would leave the Republicans in very poor spirits heading into 2008.

Some new CNN polling shows that while Mike Huckabee is surging around the country with Republican voters, he still lags far behind the top three Democrats in national polling, more so than the other Republicans. The numbers also show that John McCain is the most electable Republican, and that John Edwards is the strongest Democrat:

Clinton (D) 51%, Giuliani (R) 45%
Clinton (D) 54%, Romney (R) 43%
McCain (R) 50%, Clinton (D) 48%
Clinton (D) 54%, Huckabee (R) 44%
Obama (D) 52%, Giuliani (R) 45%
Obama (D) 54%, Romney (R) 41%
McCain (R) 48%, Obama (D) 48%
Obama (D) 55%, Huckabee (R) 40%
Edwards (D) 53%, Giuliani (R) 44%
Edwards (D) 59%, Romney (R) 37%
Edwards (D) 52%, McCain (R) 44%
Edwards (D) 60%, Huckabee (R) 35%

Mike Huckabee's 1992 call for AIDS quarantines — which he defended in his Fox News Sunday interview — have now attracted a high-profile detractor. Jeanne White-Ginder, the mother of the late Ryan White, says she wants to meet with Huckabee and talking to him about the comments. "We have to treat this disease like a disease, and like Ryan always said, not like a dirty word," White-Ginder told the Associated Press.

Ryan White became famous in the 1980's after he was diagnosed with HIV at age 13, having contracted it through a tainted blood treatment for his hemophilia. He then had to endure a court battle when local parents and teachers in his Indiana hometown worked to bar him from going to school, despite doctors saying the disease could not be spread through casual contact. He died at age 18.

In Chris Dodd's new Iowa ad, the candidate goes over how he isn't the most famous candidate, but also says he is qualified for the office, and is "the candidate who can win next November." Additionally, he clears up some possible confusion — he is not a former first lady:

Fred Thompson will not be making any more visits to New Hampshire between now and the end of the year. While the campaign says they are doing this in order to focus on Iowa, it might also be a sign that they are effectively giving up on New Hampshire — where Thompson has failed to break out of the low single digits in recent polls.

"Obviously, Iowa comes first," deputy communications director Karen Hanretty told the Union Leader. "Iowa is first in the nation, so we'll spend our time in Iowa and then be spending our time in the states that come after it."

Here's Mitt Romney's new ad against Mike Huckabee in Iowa, hitting Huckabee on illegal immigration:

The ad is clearly meant to drive a wedge with Huckabee's conservative supporters — it tells people that Romney and Huckabee are the same on most issues, but that they won't actually like Huckabee on a big one. The ad is Romney's first negative ad against another Republican, a clear sign that his campaign is worried about Huckabee's rise.

Extraordinary. On the heels of today's CNN poll showing Mike Huckabee in a statistical tie nationally with Rudy comes a second national poll finding a tie, though this poll does stress that there are a huge amount who haven't made a final decision whom to support, making the GOP primary a very fluid one.

The new survey by The New York Times finds Rudy with 22% of Republicans, Huckabee with 21%, and Romney in third with 16%.

In one cautionary note for Huckabee, the poll finds that far more (43%) view Rudy as electable than say the same about Huck (13%). Rudy's principle argument to GOP primary voters has been that he's the candidate best positioned to defeat Hillary in a general election.

On the Dem side, the poll found Hillary holding a large lead, with 44% to 27% for Barack Obama and 11% for John Edwards.

The new SurveyUSA poll of South Carolina is simply amazing — Mike Huckabee can now claim the title of frontrunner in both Iowa and South Carolina, in addition to being in a dead heat with Rudy Giuliani nationwide.

Huckabee now easily leads the field in South Carolina with 30% of the vote. Mitt Romney is in second with 19%, and Fred Thompson has 18%, Rudy Giuliani is at 13% and John McCain is at 10% — meaning that Huck's lead is outside the ±4.2% margin of error.

A month ago, Huckabee was at a mere 12%, coming in fifth within the GOP field. Rudy Giuliani has taken the worst hit, falling from 26% last month down to 13% this month — a very drastic collapse. Here's the graph of just how stark the changes have been in the first Southern primary:

Correction: In its original form, this post referred to the results of a SurveyUSA poll of the Democratic field without making clear that the poll was from November. We regret the error.

Woah -- a major, reputable poll has found for the first time that Mike Huckabee has surged into a statistical tie with Rudy Giuliani. The CNN Survey finds that Rudy has 24% to Huckabee's 22%, a statistical tie that's well within the poll's margin of error. And this is nothing short of startling:

Huckabee doubled his support in October and doubled it again in November, going from 5 percent in October to double digits last month to over 20 percent this month, in the CNN poll.

Meanwhile, Romney is in third place with 16%, while John McCain is in fourth with 12%.

There's no longer any doubt that the Huckabee surge is very, very real, and is dramatically upending the GOP race.

In key findings, the poll says that Huckabee is the leader among GOP voters when they're asked which of the candidates shares their values. But, in a potential vulnerability, he's ranked fourth when respondents are asked who leads in "experience."

The New Hampshire Union Leader reports that freshman Congresswoman Carol Shea-Porter (D) has decided to endorse Barack Obama.

Shea-Porter's support means Obama now has the backing of both of New Hampshire's two House members, each of whom are popular among grassroots Democrats. The other representative, freshman Paul Hodes, announced his support for Obama back in July.

A new poll from Republican firm InsiderAdvantage shows Barack Obama leading the Democratic field in South Carolina with 28% support. Hillary Clinton has 22%, John Edwards 14%, and Joe Biden 10%.

All the other recent polls show Hillary still ahead in South Carolina — but it has been narrowing down significantly between her and Obama. We'll find out whether this new survey is an outlier, or the first of a new trend.

As we noted below, a new New York Times poll finds that Hillary's campaign is viewed as the most positive one by national Dems.

At least one other survey, however, shows that in the key primary states of Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina, the opposite appears to be true; hers is viewed as the most negative of the Dem campaigns.

From MSNBC:

Here's a trend line the Clinton folks might want to worry about, in all three states, she's seen as having run the most negative campaign to date.

Over at Open Left, Chris Bowers dropped this surprising nugget in a post about the Obama campaign's ongoing battle over health care with New York Times columnist Paul Krugman:

Back during the Donnie McClurkin fiasco, it has been confirmed to me from multiple sources that the Obama campaign was preparing opposition research papers of this sort against some of the progressive bloggers who were speaking ill of him at the time.

The Obama campaign put together oppo docs against progressive bloggers hitting the campaign over the mess surrounding antigay folk singer McClurkin? That's a strong charge -- but the Obama camp is denying it. I checked in with a campaign spokesman, who told me: "This is absolutely not true."

Be that as it may, if you haven't tuned into it, the Obama camp's battle with Paul Krugman is one of the more surprising developments of recent days. When Krugman attacked Obama's health care plan in a recent column, the Obama campaign responded with an oppo-style document suggesting that Krugman was contradicting a past column about the plan. Krugman then counterattacked.

As I've noted here a bunch of times, one of the more interesting subplots of Campaign 2008 has been the extent to which the Dem candidates have made attacks on right-wing and mainstream media figures a de rigeur part of their courtship of Dem primary voters. Unlike attacks on other "MSM" figures, going after Krugman obviously seems more likely to turn off Dem primary voters than to win them over, since Krugman has become the closest thing to an establishment voice that the Dem activist base has.

At any rate, the Obama camp is categorically denying drawing up research docs on lib bloggers, in case you were wondering.

Late Update: Bowers adds an update saying he only heard that oppo was being conducted by the Obama camp on one blogger:

I know two separate things, and conflating them is a bit of speculation on my part. First, I know that about a year ago, someone was conducting oppo research on most major progressive bloggers, but I don't know who. After I heard about oppo being prepared against one blogger a couple months ago, I speculated that meant the earlier oppo was conducted by the Obama campaign as well. That is purely speculation on my part. Take it for what it is worth.

It look like John Edwards might take a big hit in terms of the money he'll have at his disposal as Campaign 2008 enters the voting period.

A draft opinion by the Federal Election Commission, requested by the Edwards campaign before they formally request a certain dollar amount of matching funds, recommends ruling that online bundled contributions such as those done through ActBlue should not be matched — on the grounds that the money was donated by a committee, not by the individual who signed up with ActBlue. And it's just Edwards' luck, he's heavily courted the blogs for donations via ActBlue.

If the FEC were to adopt the opinion — although as Kos pointed out, they've overruled draft opinions before, and to the blogosphere's benefit — it would damage not only only Edwards but any candidate who hopes to work within the public finance system while also courting the blogs. That candidate would essentially have to forbid ActBlue and other sites from raising money for them, and require all donations to come only through their Web site. As for Edwards, he'd really be in trouble after all the work he's done.

Update: John Aravosis lays out the problem simply: "This is pretty absurd as ActBlue doesn't decide who we're going to support, and they're hardly a front for big bad wealthy corporate donors. They're not a PAC like other special interest groups that raise money for particular candidates, and raise big bucks from very influential people. ActBlue is simply a glorified version of PayPal."

This is pretty interesting: Despite the fact that the Obama campaign has been hitting Hillary pretty hard of late for her "attacks" on him, a new New York Times poll finds that more people think Hillary is running the most positive campaign of any of the Dem candidates:

About seven in 10 Democratic primary voters said she has spent more time explaining, four times the number who said she has spent more time attacking.

Six in 10 Democrats said Barack Obama has been explaining, compared with 25 percent who said he has been attacking. Fewer, 45 percent, said John Edwards has spent more time explaining his positions, while 29 percent said he has spent more time being negative.

We'll bring you the full poll when it's available.

Late Update: Another poll finds that in the key primary states of Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina, the opposite is true: Hillary's campaign is viewed as the most negative.

With Mike Huckabee now surging in South Carolina as well as elsewhere, the anonymous rumor-mongering and mudslinging is now underway in that cesspool otherwise known as the South Carolina GOP primary.

A GOP operative forwards us the following flyer -- bearing no indications of its authorship -- and tells us that it was being handed out outside Huckabee events in the state this weekend. Note the reference to the big Huffington Post story about Huck pushing for the parole of a serial rapist. While Huck tried to dismiss the story as a left-wing smear job, Huck's wingnut opponents, of course, have no problem with the story's origin:

You can view the full flyer here.

A new round of Research 2000 polling, commissioned by Daily Kos, finds two longtime — and scandal-plagued – incumbents trailing in Alaska. Congressman Don Young (R) trails former state Rep. Ethan Berkowitz (D) by a 49%-42% margin, while Senator Ted Stevens (R) is behind Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich (D) 47%-41%.

Berkowitz currently faces a Democratic primary against two opponents, while Begich has yet to announce whether he will run for Senate. If one or even both were to win in November 2008, it would be a huge milestone — the last time a Democrat won a federal election in heavily-GOP Alaska was in 1974.

This kind of slipped by unnoticed yesterday, but a second Hillary volunteer has been asked to leave the campaign after being caught spreading the Obama Muslim smear email.

As we reported below, Camp Hillary already asked one volunteer caught doing this to step down last week. Notably, the Obama campaign is still taking care not to fault the Hillary camp directly over this, and the current example brings no evidence that this was anything more than an individual volunteer screwing up.

Is infighting and tension on the rise in the Clinton camp? Via the Page, Bloomberg's Al Hunt reports that there's some finger-pointing going on in the Clinton camp about Hillary's recent struggles, with senior Hillary advisers upset at Bill over his recent claim that he'd been against the Iraq invasion from the start:

Top Clinton campaign officials were privately furious at the former president, saying he had revived the complaint that the Clintons lack credibility, unfairly tarnishing his wife in the process.

For his part, the former president, one close associate says, has been bouncing off the walls at the campaign's ineptitude in the past few weeks. (It is not known if the Clintons shared any of these sentiments with each other).

The former assertion, that Hillary aides were upset about Bill's comment, sounds credible to me; the latter one comes across a bit like Bill's people trying to wiggle out of blame for his screw-up. Of course, this is based on anonymous sources, so make of it what you will.

Obama's Oprah Weekend really did pay off for him in a big way, at least in terms of local press. Check out these front pages from the New Hampshire and South Carolina papers:

Even though they've had notorious money problems this cycle, the National Republican Congressional Committee is spending a lot of money for tomorrow's Ohio special election — a sign that they could be worried about a weak showing or even a loss, which would profoundly damage them in further fundraising and candidate recruitment.

Roll Call reports that the NRCC has spend over $400,000 on the race, compared to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee spending a little over $240,000. The NRCC's spending has come despite the fact that the Fifth Congressional District, vacated by the death of Rep. Paul Gillmor (R), voted for President Bush by a 22% margin in 2004.

The Republican candidates met last night in Florida for a Spanish-language debate on Univision — minus Tom Tancredo, who considered the debate to be an act of pandering. Of the seven who did show up, they made their pitches to the Latino community, both for their own campaigns and on behalf of the Republican Party, which has been losing a lot of Hispanic votes in light of the recent upsurge in GOP nativism.

"I think some of the rhetoric that many Hispanics hear about illegal immigration makes some of them believe that we are not in favor nor seek the support of Hispanic citizens in this country," said John McCain. "Hispanics are pro-small business, they are pro-life, they are pro-religion, they are pro-less regulation, pro-less spending, pro-military, they're serving in incredible numbers in Iraq as we speak today."

Late Update: The English transcript of the debate is available here.

Mike Huckabee has picked up a major endorsement in Florida, that of state House Speaker Mario Rubio.

The endorsement is a big get in the state's Cuban-American community, where Huckabee will need to build some support, and do it quickly in one of the many states where he hasn't made much of a following or organization until recently.

Oprah Winfrey was really able to pack in the crowds this weekend on her campaign tour for Barack Obama. Oprah brought in a crowd of about 18,500 people in Des Moines and 10,000 in Cedar Rapids on Saturday, then yesterday she and Obama met crowds of 8,500 in New Hampshire and an amazing 29,000 in South Carolina.

The crowds were among the largest, if not the largest, for their respective areas during this primary season. It may be a sign that Obama is building up steam just when he needs to be, in the home stretch before the caucuses and primaries.

Mike Huckabee has a new ad running in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina, a positive spot pitching the candidate's working-class roots, experience as a governor, and his overall compassion. "When you grow up and life's a struggle, you have a whole different understanding of what most people are going through," Huckabee says — a clear contrast with the upper-class Mitt Romney:

The fact that Huckabee is now able to run TV ads in all three of those key states is a sure sign that his fundraising has picked up.

A second ad running in South Carolina, in which Huckabee pledges to secure the borders, is available after the jump.

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Hillary Clinton has a new 60-second ad in Iowa and New Hampshire, in which she declares that America needs a "new beginning" on issues like health care, education and foreign policy:

The line, "it takes strength and experience," is clearly meant to fight off Barack Obama.

A new round of polls from Mason-Dixon shows Hillary Clinton barely ahead of Barack Obama in four different states: Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina. Meanwhile, Mike Huckabee has surged to leads or competitive status in all cases, including a huge lead in Iowa and a narrow one in South Carolina.

Hillary Clinton's once-hailed inevitability will obviously go out the window if she loses these leads, or if a loss in Iowa gives momentum to another candidate in those later contests. Huckabee, meanwhile, might just have a good foundation to build from in other states, should he win a convincing victory in Iowa.

The numbers are available after the jump.

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