The Concord Monitor has yet to endorse a candidate for either the Republican or Democratic primaries, but their editors have reached an agreement on one thing: Mitt Romney must be stopped.

In a new editorial, the liberal paper attacks Romney's candidacy and his shifting views, and even goes so far as to say the state's reputation is at stake in defeating him:

When New Hampshire partisans are asked to defend the state's first-in-the-nation primary, we talk about our ability to see the candidates up close, ask tough questions and see through the baloney. If a candidate is a phony, we assure ourselves and the rest of the world, we'll know it.

Mitt Romney is such a candidate. New Hampshire Republicans and independents must vote no.

Barack Obama is now going after John Edwards on campaign finance, specifically regarding the involvement of a former Edwards aide, 2004 campaign manager Nick Baldick, in the independent 527 ads on the candidate's behalf in Iowa.

Edwards has publicly distanced himself from the third-party ads but says that he cannot directly order them to stop because it would be illegal for him to coordinate directly. An example is this New Hampshire appearance from Wednesday:

More after the jump.

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So exactly which Democrat is ahead in Iowa? Mark Blumenthal of Pollster.com has written up a summary of the latest surveys — and the short answer is that we don't know. The biggest problem is figuring out who exactly qualifies as a "likely voter" in such an unpredictable system as a caucus.

"What makes Iowa different is that the last source of variability. It is bigger and more consequential than for other types of polls," Blumenthal writes. "So if we take into account both the closeness of the Democratic race and all sources of potential poll error, we really have no idea who is truly 'ahead' at this point in the race. The polls are simply too blunt an instrument, especially given all the uncertainty about who will participate."

According to today's Washington Post, the Hillary campaign is planning to close out the Iowa and New Hampshire races with a "tight embrace" of her husband's legacy, an argument that only she is equipped to handle future foreign policy crises, and even an evocation of 9/11:

Clinton is preparing to make a closing argument to Iowa and New Hampshire voters that would center on the challenges of the presidency, arguing that only she can be trusted to handle the surprises and rigors of the job, according to her senior advisers. That emphasis, on her experience and her track record, makes the previous Clinton administration a vital part of her case.

Right after Christmas, these advisers said, Clinton plans to make the case on national security grounds, citing the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, as evidence that unexpected crises can arise. The argument is in some ways similar to the one President Bush made in 2004, when he campaigned on what he described as his proven leadership in the aftermath of the 2001 attacks and said the terrorist threat called for keeping him in the job. But Clinton is playing on more than just national security concerns, discussing economic security, as well.

"Time to pick a president" is the new theme, which will be unveiled in Iowa next week.

Obama's counterargument has been that whatever the successes of the 1990s, it has also saddled Hillary with a kind of political baggage that will make her less effective as a President than his "new politics" will. His response that it's "time to turn the page" is an implicit argument for a generational shift in leadership as well as a bid for the support of younger voters. Finally, Obama's also sought to undercut Hillary's arguments by saying that she's only claiming credit for the successes of her husband's era, not its failures.

At any rate, this is what it's partly come down to: An argument about the 1990s. The Post says Hillary's advisers think it's an argument she can win. We'll see what happens.

A nice catch from Steve Benen: He reminds us that John McCain criticized John Kerry's use of his Vietnam experience for campaign purposes back in 2004. At the time, he said he was "sick and tired of re-fighting the Vietnam War," adding that Kerry's use of his war heroism in the campaign was nakedly political.

Now, though, McCain is happy to use his own Vietnam experience for campaign purposes, most recently sending out a new mailer he's dropped in New Hampshire recounting the Christmas inspiration he took solace from during his days as a war prisoner in Vietnam.

To be clear, McCain should of course talk as much as he wants about his past experiences. But he shouldn't have criticized Kerry for doing it.

Third party groups supporting Hillary plunked down an astonishing sum of nearly $300,000 in political spending in one day yesterday, a cash outlay that will almost all fund mailings and phone-bank calls.

FEC filings show that the pro-choice group Emily's List shelled out nearly $190,000 yesterday for mailers and phone banks, while the American Federation of Teachers spent nearly $95,000 yesterday, all on direct mail. The filings show the dates of the expenditures, but not necessarily when the mailings will be sent or the calls will be made.

The nearly $300,000 is a big one-day buy that will almost certainly unleash a wave of mailings in the next few days, most likely in Iowa and perhaps in New Hampshire. At least one third-party mailing has already caused controversy in the race: Yesterday John Edwards criticized the Hillary campaign over a mailer sent out by a pro-Hillary labor union attacking Barack Obama's health care plan, saying that the mailing's inclusion of an Edwards quote was designed to suggest that Edwards was behind it.

As the race nears the voting, we'll see more big one-day money drops like these -- and we'll be cataloging them all here at TPM Election Central.

Okay, this could be significant. For the first time, a reputable poll has found that Rudy is behind, and Mike Huckabee has edged into a slight lead, in the national GOP primary.

The GWU Battleground poll finds that among likely voters, Mike Huckabee is first with 24%, Rudy is second with 22%, Mitt Romney has 16%, John McCain has 15%, and Fred Thompson has nine percent.

Though Rasmussen has found Huckabee with a national edge, those are robo phone polls; the GWU poll is a reputable telephone survey. Several other polls have found the two tied.

But now, for the first time, Huckabee has earned more respondents in a reputable poll.

A source close to the McCain campaign tells me that online fundraising is up 500 percent this week over the previous weekly average -- a reflection of the Arizona Senator's lift in the polls and some key endorsements he garnered in recent days, such as that of the New Hampshire Union Leader.

"We had the Union Leader, and we had a kick-ass six day trip," the source says.

In another positive development, the source says there's been a rise in the number of people calling the campaign to volunteer their services. Interestingly, the callers are volunteering on the strength of having seen the mailer that McCain recently dropped in New Hampshire telling of the Christmas inspiration he felt during his days in captivity as a war prisoner in Vietnam:

"It's incredible," says the source. "People who see the mailing are calling in, saying they want to join."

At any rate, such developments are producing something approaching good cheer in the McCain camp.

Late Update: One necessary caveat: As Josh says, "big percentage jumps are a lot easier to put together when you're coming back from near zero."

A new Zogby poll shows that Barack Obama is the most electable of the top three Democratic candidates, followed by John Edwards and Hillary Clinton.

Of the three Dems, Obama is the only one to beat five Republicans in all match-ups. Hillary loses to Mike Huckabee, Rudy Giuliani and John McCain, while Edwards can beat Huckabee but loses to Giuliani and McCain.

The full numbers are available after the jump.

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Check out this new campaign mailer we've obtained that John Edwards has just dropped in Iowa. It highlights one of the most important cases of Edwards' trial lawyer career -- his representation of Valerie Lakey, who was injured by the drain suction at the bottom of a pool because of a faulty drain cover.

The mailer features a riveting letter written to Iowa caucus-goers by Valerie's parents about Edwards' role in helping their daughter. The text of the letter is after the jump.

The mailer is designed to coincide with a big economics speech Edwards is giving today at a community college in Des Moines. Today Edwards is spending the day campaigning in Iowa with Valerie and her parents.

The mailer, as well as his tour today with the girl, is obviously meant to advance his campaign's argument that the fighting he did in court was good preparation for the fight Edwards is looking to wage as President against entrenched interests in Washington, D.C. The backdrop for this argument, of course, is Edwards' claim that only he fully understands the extent to which fighting, as opposed to consensus building, is what will be required if the next President is serious about realizing genuine reform.

Text of the letter from Valerie's parents is after the jump.

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Big, big questions abound in the Democratic Presidential primary today. Such as: Exactly what, or who, is the Obama campaign calling "desperate" with the new Website they launched today?

This morning the news broke that the Obama camp has produced a site called DesperateHillaryAttacks.com.

This naturally gives rise to the question: Is Hillary being called desperate here? Or are her attacks being called desperate? Is "attacks" a noun or a verb here?

Well, the Obama campaign says only the attacks are being called desperate, not Hillary, presumably because the Obama camp doesn't want to open itself to the charge that it is attacking her personally:

Obama campaign spokesman Bill Burton denies that his campaign is calling Clinton "desperate." Rather, he insists, they are calling her attacks "desperate."

But wait! Over on DesperateHillaryAttacks.com, we find this:

As her lead in the polls shrinks, Senator Clinton's flagging campaign grows more desperate each day.

It looks as if Obama is saying that Hillary, or at least her campaign, is desperate, after all. Which means the Obama campaign may have just opened themselves up to...a potential attack.

In fairness, it should be noted that most of the site is devoted to saying that her "attacks," not her campaign, is desperate. And that gives rise to one final question which we'd love to hear from readers on: Does calling someone's attacks desperate count as an attack, too? Or does calling someone's attacks desperate fall short of an attack?

Let us know.

Late Update: I feel almost embarrassed to add this, but this post was intended as a joke -- as a spoof of the fact that the campaigns are all attacking each other relentlessly for attacking. This whole effort by all the campaigns to portray everyone but themselves as the real attacker seems to me misguided -- primaries should have conflict in them; they should be animated by aggressive disagreements.

Mitt Romney has a new ad running in the land of his birth, Michigan, talking about his concerns regarding the state's economy — and using footage from the Dearborn debate back in October:

By running the ad here, Romney may be shoring himself up against the Huckabee insurgency — a recent poll showed the two of them tied here. Michigan's primary will be held one week after New Hampshire, so it's important to be ready to go, and have good poll numbers ready in advance.

On Wednesday, John Edwards challenged his rivals to join him in supporting a hike of the minimum wage to $9.50 an hour. Late yesterday, Hillary announced that she'd introduced a bill to accomplish just that:

“With stagnant wages and skyrocketing costs for healthcare, energy and college, working families in America need a break. That is why yesterday I introduced legislation to raise the minimum wage to $9.50 by 2011, and link the minimum wage to Congressional pay raises after that,” said Clinton in a Thursday statement. The senator said the measure was “the first bill ever to call for a $9.50 minimum wage.”

The Hillary campaign says that Hillary actually introduced the bill Wednesday, though it didn't announce this until late yesterday. Whatever the sequence of events here, it's clear that Edwards' impact on this race has been to yank the debate to the left on a bunch of fronts, including this one.

Late Update: The Hillary campaign points out that she has a long record of working to raise the minimum wage. For instance, she introduced legislation to do this back in 2006.

Bill Richardson, who previously decried attacks against Hillary Clinton, is now going after her for saying she would withdraw nearly all American troops from Iraq within her first year as president. It's a big change from his previously friendly rhetoric, and might go a way in dispelling the idea that he's just angling for the VP slot.

"Senator Clinton's comments are a stunning flip-flop," Richardson told the New York Times. "She's been saying she would keep troops in Iraq for five years, until 2013, and now she comes up with an inconsistent, incredible turnaround."

Late Update: The Hillary campaign already has their rebuttal posted. Richardson is actually misquoting her by saying she called for all troops to be brought home. This is what she really said:

“I think we can bring home one to two combat brigades a month,” Hillary said. “I think we can bring nearly everybody home, you know, certainly within a year if we keep at it and do it very steadily.” This would still allow for a small residual force.

Mike Huckabee has become the first known presidential candidate to comment on Jamie Lynn Spears, the pregnant 16-year old sister of Britney Spears. "Apparently, she's going to have the child and I think that is the right decision, a good decision, and I respect that and appreciate it," Huckabee told reporters in Iowa. "I hope it is not an encouragement to other 16-year-olds who think that is the best course of action.

"But at the same time I'm not going to condemn her. There'll be plenty of people in line to do that and I always look for the shortest lines. I just hope that she will make another right decision and that's to give that child all the love and kindness and care that she can."

A new American Research Group poll finds that incumbent GOP Senator John Sununu leads former Democratic Governor Jeanne Shaheen by a 52%-41% margin. This is the first time since polling began on this race that Sununu is ahead, and previous polls have all shown Shaheen leading by a healthy margin.

Sununu's upsurge could be happening for any number of reasons — or this poll could just be an outlier — but there is one particular possibility: That the recent attacks from Jeanne's husband Billy, against Barack Obama's teenage drug use, might have taken a toll on her Senate campaign.

The new Gallup poll in New Hampshire shows a tied race on the Democratic side, with Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama at 32% each, and John Edwards with 18%.

On the Republican side, John McCain appears to be securing a position as the anti-Romney candidate. Mitt Romney has a 34%-27% lead over McCain, with a three-way tie for the distant third place: Rudy Giuliani 11%, Mike Huckabee 9%, and Ron Paul 9%. If Rudy Giuliani comes in fourth or even fifth in New Hampshire, behind Huckabee and/or Paul, can he really remain a viable candidate?

Mitt Romney has been forced to get into some serious verbal gymnastics over his previous declaration about seeing his father, the late Michigan Gov. George Romney, marching with Martin Luther King. A close examination of the historical records shows that the elder Romney, while he was a strong support of civil rights, never actually appeared with King.

"I've tried to be as accurate as I can be," Romney told reporters. "If you look at the literature or look at the dictionary, the term 'saw' includes being aware of — in the sense I've described."

"I'm an English literature major," he added, after the questions didn't stop. "When we say I saw the Patriots win the World Series, it doesn't necessarily mean you were there." (Yes, he did speak off the cuff about the idea of a football team winning the World Series.)

Mitt Romney can now claim an intriguing distinction in the presidential field: He is a candidate who has had both major hometown newspapers endorse somebody else. The conservative Boston Herald published its editorial today in favor of John McCain, whom the paper called "a steady, experienced leader, a person so trusted that we would put the fate of this country in his hands."

The other major Boston paper, the larger and more liberal Boston Globe, has also endorsed McCain for the Republican nomination.

The new Strategic Vision (R) poll in Iowa has a statistical three-way tie on the Democratic side: Barack Obama 30%, Hillary Clinton 27%, and John Edwards 27%. In their last poll a week ago, it was Obama 33%, Hillary 25%, Edwards 24%. Now, it's anybody's game.

On the Republican side, Mike Huckabee's lead over Mitt Romney has not changed significantly, with Huckabee at 31%, Romney 25%, and Fred Thompson 16%. A week ago it was Huckabee 30%, Romney 25%, and Thompson 13%.

At a campaign appearance in Iowa today, Hillary ramped up her argument that she's the only candidate in the race who is "up to speed" on "military matters," offering the following construction:

"It is tempting any time things seem quieter for a minute on the international front to think that we don't need a president who is up to speed on foreign affairs and military matters," Clinton said.

"Well, that's the kind of logic that got us George Bush in the first place," she said to laughter from her friendly audience at a high school auditorium. "Experience in foreign affairs is critical for ending the war in Iraq, averting war in Iran, negotiating a Middle East peace and dealing with North Korea."

In response, Obama aides were quick to point to past remarks by Hillary adviser Howard Wolfson, in which he appeared to aggressively criticize the idea of comparing any Dem candidate to Bush. On CNN back in July, Wolfson said the following in a discussion about Obama's comparison of Hillary foreign policy to "Bush Cheney lite":

And, with all due respect, if you want to talk about tactical political maneuvering, it's about one Democrat comparing another Democrat to George Bush. That's the worst kind of tactical political maneuvering.”

I'm going to let you guys fight this one out.

Late Update: Ben Smith has more here.

A new SurveyUSA poll finds that Virginia — which hasn't voted Democratic for president since the Lyndon Johnson landslide of 1964 — may be on the verge of going Dem in 2008. When matched against four top Republicans, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama win seven out of eight heats:

Clinton (D) 52%, Giuliani (R) 42%
Clinton (D) 53%, Romney (R) 40%
Clinton (D) 54%, Huckabee (R) 40%
Clinton (D) 48%, McCain (R) 46%
Obama (D) 48%, Giuliani (R) 45%
Obama (D) 50%, Romney (R) 43%
Obama (D) 51%, Huckabee (R) 42%
McCain (R) 50%, Obama (D) 44%

It's interesting that despite the conventional wisdom that Hillary Clinton is too polarizing for red/purple states, she actually runs better in this particular state than Barack Obama does.

Another national poll -- the new Fox News survey -- finds that Rudy has lost his national lead. And strikingly, it also finds a three-way tie nationally for the Republican nomination — with the previously moribund John McCain one of the trio.

Rudy has 20%, Huckabee 19%, and McCain 19%. Behind them are Mitt Romney at 11% and Fred Thompson with 10%. A month ago, Rudy had a healthy lead with 33%, with McCain his closest competitor at 17%. Huckabee, meanwhile, has shot up 11 points.

On the Democratic side, Hillary Clinton has actually widened her national lead even as she's started to struggle in the key primary states. Hillary has 49%, Barack Obama 20%, and John Edwards 10%. A month ago it was Hillary 44%, Obama 23%, and Edwards 12%.

Tom Tancredo dropped out of the presidential race today at a press conference in Des Moines. On his way out the door, he did in fact endorse a candidate: Mitt Romney.

We'll find out in the next two weeks if Tancredo's support will help Romney at all among the sort of rabidly anti-illegal immigration voters that Tancredo had long courted, despite Tancredo's own inability to have made any way in the polls.

Late Update: Tancredo declared at the press conference, "For the same reason that I launched the campaign, I must now end it." Presumably he was referring to his stated purpose at the campaign's outset, to drive the Republican Party his way on immigration.

And he very much succeeded, with even formerly conciliatory pols like Mike Huckabee and Rudy Giuliani embracing a harder line. As Tancredo wryly stated at the YouTube debate, "all I've heard is people trying to out-Tancredo Tancredo."

Hillary Clinton's new ad in New Hampshire features the candidate speaking directly to the camera, rebutting a point often made by her competitors — especially Barack Obama — that this election needs to be about change. Instead, she says, change comes with experience, the kind she can offer:

Rudy Giuliani's pollster, Ed Goeas, held a conference call with reporters that was designed to let them know that the campaign isn't at all worried about his precipitous plunge in the polls. But a couple of things he said inadvertently indicate in stark terms just how bad things have gotten for Rudy.

In response to a WSJ/NBC poll released yesterday that showed that Rudy's national lead has effectively evaporated, Rudy's pollster made two points. The more predictable one was that Rudy's grand strategy turns on winning in Florida, meaning that the national numbers don't matter.

But in that state, which is the centerpiece of Rudy's game plan and represents his last hope, Rudy has seen his lead slip as Mike Huckabee and Mitt Romney have both surged.

More interesting was this reaction from Rudy's pollster to the WSJ/NBC poll:

Goeas dismissed the poll, saying that he prefers to pay attention to the average of the last several polls, which he said still puts Giuliani ahead by several points.

Now Rudy's pollster is taking solace from the fact that his national lead is "several points." That's pretty revealing, considering that Rudy's national lead over the summer was in double digits.

Quite a fall.

"I don't plan to fight with him. He's throwing punches and I'm saying 'Merry Christmas.'"

— Mike Huckabee, quoted by CNN, dismissing Mitt Romney's attacks against him as the product of desperation and sagging poll numbers.

Mike Huckabee is mounting a serious counter-attack against Mitt Romney's recent efforts to tar the Arkansas governor over the explosive story that he pushed for parole for a serial racist who later went on to commit murder.

In repeated appearances, Huckabee has pushed back against Romney's charge with a strategy that seems counterintuitive for a Republican primary: He's attacking Romney for not granting clemency, in a case where Romney denied the request of an Iraq War veteran over a juvenile incident involving a BB gun. Making this veteran even more sympathetic, he wanted Romney to grant the clemency so that he could be eligible to become a policeman.

Here's some video of him making this argument yesterday on Morning Joe:

More after the jump.

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Okay, stay with us on this one: John Edwards is going after Hillary over a mailer that is attacking Obama. We'll explain.

This morning MSNBC broke the news that a new mailer had been dropped in Iowa faulting Obama's health care plan as follows: "For those without insurance, Barack Obama's band-aid solution is no change at all."

The mailer also uncritically showcased a quote from Edwards, something that could lead readers to think that it came from Edwards -- but in fact, it was produced by a local union that's backing Hillary.

Now the Edwards campaign has stepped forward to criticize the tactic, suggesting that Camp Hillary was deceptive while stopping short of saying outright that the Hillary campaign is the target of its criticism. In a newly-released statement, Edwards Iowa state director Jennifer O'Malley Dillon said: "There have been a lot of misleading tactics and tricks in the last few weeks, but we've just never seen anything like this...It's fine to have an honest debate about policy, but Iowans deserve better than planted questions and campaign fliers designed to fool them.”

So, to recap: Edwards is hitting Hillary over a mailer attacking Obama.

Only two more weeks to go until the voting begins, ladies and gents. At this rate, it can't happen soon enough.

Late Update: Some commenters are saying this post looks like it's critical of Edwards. If that's how it was received, I didn't intend it. I'm not faulting Edwards for his criticism of Hillary -- rather, I was just pointing to the overall merry-go-round intra-Dem attacks and saying that it'll be nice when it's over.

One of the lines of criticism that Hillary Clinton has employed against Barack Obama has been to fault him for his tendency to vote "present" on difficult votes, rather than for or against.

Now today's New York Times has front-paged an article examining Obama's voting record as a state senator in Illinois. They found that he voted "present" on a total of 130 votes, including 36 times when Obama was one of six or fewer legislators to do so. Some of the votes included criminal justice bills where a "No" vote would have made him appear to be soft on crime.

More after the jump.

Late Update: ABC News reports that the Hillary campaign is taking advantage of the situation by registering two domain names, presumably for future anti-Obama sites — VotingPresent.com and VotingPresent.org.

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The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee continues to hold a strong cash advantage over their Republican counterparts, Roll Call reports, and it's only getting bigger.

The DSCC raised $4.1 million and spent $2.1 million for the month of November, and has $25.5 million cash on hand. The National Republican Senatorial Committee, on the other hand, only brought in $2.3 million and spent $1.4 million, and has $10.4 million on hand.

The new NBC/Wall St. Journal poll appears to show that Rudy Giuliani's national lead has evaporated. Rudy is tied with Mitt Romney at 20% each, followed by Mike Huckabee at 17%, John McCain with 14%, and Fred Thompson at 11%. A month ago, Rudy had 33%, McCain 16%, Thompson 15%, Romney 11%, and Huckabee 8%.

Hillary Clinton continues to have a big national lead on the Democratic side: Hillary 45%, Barack Obama 23%, and John Edwards 13%. There have been no significant changes since last month.

The new SurveyUSA poll in South Carolina shows a dead heat between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. Hillary has 41%, with Obama at 39%, and Edwards with 17%.

In their poll last week, Hillary had 44%, Obama 40%, and Edwards 11%.

Former Senator Bob Kerrey (D-NE) has sent a letter to Barack Obama, apologizing for the recent flap over his public references to Obama's background and Muslim heritage, made at an event where he endorsed Hillary Clinton. In the letter, he also called Obama "exceptionally qualified by experience and judgment to be president of the United States."

"I answered a question about your qualifications to be president in a way that has been interpreted as a backhanded insult of you," Kerrey wrote. "I assure you I meant to do just the opposite."

The full letter is available after the jump.

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The new CNN poll in Iowa shows a three-way statistical dead heat on the Democratic side: Hillary Clinton 30%, Barack Obama 28%, and John Edwards 26%.

On the Republican side, Mike Huckabee leads with 33%, followed by Mitt Romney at 25%, Rudy Giuliani with 11%, and Fred Thompson and John McCain tied at 9% each.

Another poll, this one from WaPo/ABC News, finds that Mike Huckabee is holding his lead in Iowa over Mitt Romney. He's beating Mitt 35%-27% among those likely to caucus.

And check out this number in the poll, which shows the extent to which his support is driven by evangelicals, who make up almost four in 10 likely caucus goers: They are choosing Huckabee over Romney by the astonishing margin of 57%-19%.

Full poll here.

John McCain's campaign is getting serious about Common Sense Issues, the independent group running a series of robo-push-polls promoting Mike Huckabee and ripping on all the other Republicans. The campaign has sent a letter to the New Hampshire Attorney General's office, asking them to investigate the group on the grounds that the calls fail to disclose that they are are working on Huckabee's behalf.

The Union Leader noted today that the calls do not fall under the state's push-polling ban, as that law expressly exempts calls made for the presidential primary. However, the McCain camp may just have them on another statute.

"Among perhaps other violations of New Hampshire law, these reported calls clearly violate RSA 664:16-a," the letter says, "which requires any person engaging in push-polling to 'inform any person contacted that the telephone call is being made on behalf of ... a particular candidate.'" The calls reportedly do not actually say they are in favor of Huckabee.

The full press release is available after the jump.

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Well, the nativist demagoguery was fun while it lasted. Tom Tancredo is expected to drop out of the presidential race tomorrow, two weeks to the day before the Iowa caucus. Tancredo had also indicated previously that he is not running for re-election to the House.

Tancredo had struggled to break through as a candidate in his own right, but he can probably take some satisfaction in seeing so many of the other candidates take a hard line on immigration, including those who had been more conciliatory in the past. As he said at the YouTube debate, "all I've heard is people trying to out-Tancredo Tancredo."

One of the more intriguing subplots of Campaign 2008 has been the ongoing battle between the Obama campaign and liberal NYT columnist Paul Krugman. In an interview with TPM Election Central, Krugman reiterated his critique of Obama, which centers largely but not exclusively on health care policy, and added a whole lot more.

Here's a quick sample of Krugman quotes from the interview:

On health care Obama is behaving as kind of, "Let's make a deal." The idea that he would be talking even in the primary campaign about the big table is suggesting that he is not all that committed to taking on special interests.

On the big problems there's a fundamental, deep-seated difference between the parties. I've always just felt that his tone was one suggesting that his inclination is to believe that we can somehow resolve these things through a kind of outbreak of good feeling...

Among the Dems he seems to be the least attuned to what progressives think.

A full transcript of an edited version of our conversation is after the jump.

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John Edwards has his own holiday-themed ad out, asking viewers to not forget homeless veterans, people living in poverty, and others who have been left behind:

"In America, the chance to build a better life is a promise made to each of us," Edwards says. "And the obligation to keep it, rests with us all."

Attacks on the traditional press have become a key political weapon in the arsenal of mainstream Dem primary candidates, but this is taking things to a higher level.

We've just obtained an advance copy of a snarky, pointed memo that the Edwards camp will soon send out calling out the press for its general coverage of his campaign. While most such broadsides against the press from campaigns come in response to individual stories, this one is aggressively disputing a broader media meme: That Edwards, unlike Obama and Hillary, isn't really running a national campaign.

From the memo:

Dear Friends in the Press Corps,

We here at the Edwards Campaign urge you to not swallow the spin of our rivals. John Edwards is, in fact, running a national campaign. In addition to the well-reported strength of our operation in Iowa, we have less-well-reported, but just as strong operations in states all across the country. We have eight times the number of field staff in the state of New Hampshire than the Edwards campaign had in 2004; we recently added two dozen field staffers in Nevada; and we were the first candidate to run ads in South Carolina (the state John Edwards was born in and won by 15 points in 2004). Given our support throughout the labor community and advisors at work in all February 5th states, we will have the infrastructure in place to seize on momentum from strong early place finishes. But you don’t have to take our word for it.

Introducing, Edwards By The Numbers...

The memo then comprehensively makes the case that his campaign is a national one with a fusillade of statistics. Full memo after the jump.

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John McCain has a new ad in New Hampshire, detailing how he called for the surge in Iraq early on, which is now "a remarkable success," and how he didn't back down from criticism:

"One man does what's best for America," the announcers says, "not what's easy."

New polling from Rasmussen shows John McCain surging in both Iowa and New Hampshire, while Mike Huckabee has lost some of his previous advantages.

In Iowa, Huckabee now has a narrow lead of 28% to Romney's 27%, with McCain now in third with 14%. That's a huge change from their last poll a week ago, when Huckabee had 39%, Romney 23% and McCain was in fifth place at 6%.

In New Hampshire, Romney has 31%, McCain 27%, Rudy Giuliani 13%, and Huckabee 11%. A week ago, it was Romney 33%, McCain 18%, Giuliani 15%, and Huckabee 14%.

On the Democratic side in New Hampshire, Hillary Clinton has 31% to Barack Obama's 28%, with John Edwards at 18%. A week ago it was Obama 31%, Hillary 28%, and Edwards 17%.

An intense new ad from Mitt Romney in New Hampshire:

Interestingly, it features Romney invading Rudy's turf -- he apparently came to New York with a friend whose daughter was missing in the city. You can probably guess the outcome.