Okay, it's starting. After a bunch of debate in the Hillary camp over how directly to draw "contrasts" with Obama, the Hillary campaign has sent out a new mailer in New Hampshire attacking Obama directly on abortion.

Click on the images below to enlarge:

The Obama campaign has sent us a response to debunk the mailer's charges: Two links. This one, and this one.

A second poll from New Hampshire, conducted by Research 2000, shows no real post-Iowa bounce for Barack Obama — he and Hillary Clinton are tied. Meanwhile, John McCain has doubled his support since three weeks ago, to lead Mitt Romney.

Here are the numbers, as compared to their last poll released about three weeks ago:

Democrats:
Obama 34% (+2)
Clinton 33% (+2)
Edwards 23% (+5)

Republicans:
McCain 35% (+18)
Romney 29% (-2)
Huckabee 13% (+4)
Giuliani 8% (-7)
Paul 7% (+4)

John McCain now has the lead in New Hampshire, according to the new CNN poll, which was conducted by the University of New Hampshire after the Iowa caucuses.

Here are the numbers, compared to their last poll released only three days ago:

McCain 33% (+4)
Romney 27% (-2)
Giuliani 14% (+2)
Huckabee 11% (+1)
Paul 9% (+2)

The new CNN poll, conducted by the University of New Hampshire after the Iowa caucuses, gives the smallest movement for Barack Obama out of any post-Iowa poll so far — it has him tied with Hillary Clinton, with no statistically significant changes at all.

Here are the numbers, compared to their last poll released only three days ago:

Obama 33% (+3)
Clinton 33% (-1)
Edwards 20% (+3)

Mitt Romney has a new ad up in New Hampshire, promoting himself as the champion of conservative values and of America as the world's superpower. It uses old footage of his speech at CPAC about a year ago:

Another new ad from Barack Obama shows a feel-good face to New Hampshire — it features footage from his Iowa victory speech, and touts the endorsements of multiple NH newspapers who praised him as an independent, common-sense leader:

Mitt Romney now has a victory under his belt after his previous loss in Iowa, winning today's Wyoming Republican caucus. With 12 delegates up for grabs, Romney has won 7, Fred Thompson and Duncan Hunter took 1 each, and the rest are still undecided.

The Wyoming GOP chose to hold their caucuses ahead of New Hampshire, potentially endangering the integrity of the primary calendar by stepping on NH's turf. However, the caucus itself did not attract huge headlines, and only Romney, Thompson, Hunter and Ron Paul even campaigned there — Mike Huckabee, John McCain and Rudy Giuliani never even showed up.

It remains to be seen whether Romney's big win in the land of Cheney will be noticed and help him get momentum with GOP voters, but it certainly couldn't hurt.

The new American Research Group poll in New Hampshire, conducted entirely after the Iowa Caucus, shows John McCain with a big lead over Mitt Romney. Here are the numbers, compared to ARG's final pre-Iowa poll:

McCain 39% (+4)
Romney 25% (+0)
Huckabee 14% (+2)
Giuliani 7% (-1)
Paul 6% (-3)

These numbers are quite different from the Rasmussen poll, which shows a closer race between McCain and Romney, with Paul in third place. New Hampshire polls are ARG's stock-in-trade, but we'll find out in just a few days who's right.

The new American Research Group poll gives Barack Obama a 12-point lead over Hillary Clinton in New Hampshire. Here are the numbers, compared to their last pre-Iowa tracking poll:

Obama 38% (+7)
Clinton 26% (-9)
Edwards 20% (+5)

Like today's Rasmussen poll, which shows similar numbers, this poll was conducted entirely after the Iowa Caucus results were known. The margin of error is ±4%, giving Obama a lead outside the margin.

Barack Obama has this positive ad up in New Hampshire, reminding voters that he opposed the Iraq War five years ago, and promoting him as the best candidate to unite a divided country and get things done:

(Via Ben Smith)

The latest tracking poll from Suffolk University shows that Hillary Clinton's lead over Barack Obama has nearly been cut in half. This is a three-day tracking poll, incorporating one day of post-Iowa sampling and two days of pre-Iowa samples. Here are today's numbers, as compared to yesterday's:

Clinton 36% (-1)
Obama 29% (+4)
Edwards 13% (-2)

Here's some perspective: Suffolk's tracking poll has been something of an outlier all this cycle, giving Hillary a bigger edge than other pollsters. Their tracking poll yesterday, conducted entirely before Iowa, gave her a 37%-25% lead over Obama. So if only one day of post-Iowa sampling cuts her lead from 12 points down to 7, then that one day must have been really good for Obama.

Barack Obama has taken a huge lead in the first pure post-Iowa poll of New Hampshire. Rasmussen gives Obama 37%, Hillary Clinton 27%, John Edwards 19%, and Bill Richardson 8%. Rasmussen's last poll from two weeks ago had Clinton at 31%, Obama 28%, Edwards 18%, and Richardson 6%.

The poll was conducted on Friday, a one-day poll with the margin of error at ±4.5% — meaning that Obama's ten-point lead is just outside the margin. Also, Obama leads Hillary by 5 points among core Democrats, and by 16 points among independents. Indies are expected to make up 40% of the Dem primary electorate, according to the survey.

On the Republican side: John McCain 31%, Mitt Romney 26%, Ron Paul 14%, Mike Huckabee 11%, Rudy Giuliani 8%, and Fred Thompson 5%. Two weeks ago it was Romney 31%, McCain 27%, Giuliani 13%, Huckabee 11%, Paul 7%, and Thompson 5%.

The New Hampshire Republican Party has pulled out as a co-sponsor of tomorrow night's Fox News debate, due to the controversies surrounding the exclusion of Ron Paul. Fox News is barring Paul from the debate, with many people believing it is because of his opposition to the Iraq War.

Bear in mind that Fox News is excluding Paul from the debate, despite the absence of any objective criteria that would shut out Paul and still include some of the other people they're inviting. For example, Paul got 10% of the vote in Iowa, while invited candidate Rudy Giuliani took only 4% and is at about the same place as Paul in New Hampshire polls.

The Hillary campaign, which has promised a sharpening of "contrast" between her and Obama in the days ahead, appears to have concluded that they won't be running any ads against Obama in the run-up to the New Hampshire primary on Tuesday:

Clinton advisers said Friday that they would not mount a negative advertising campaign against Mr. Obama in New Hampshire, saying the primary was too soon for such an onslaught to have any effect.

Relatedly, Mark Halperin quotes a source telling him that a new Hillary spot has been delivered to New Hampshire stations that may or may not have aired yet. Halperin describes the spot as a "postitive ad with subtle contrast on experience."

I can confirm that this is correct. I spoke to an official at WMUR yesterday, and he told me that they did indeed have a Hillary spot in the can set to run. He told me that the spot wasn't a negative one, adding that the gist of it was that Hillary is "the only candidate set to lead on day one." It's unclear whether it has run -- or whether it will.

The first post-Iowa tracking poll for New Hampshire is out from Zogby, incorporating one day's worth of data after Iowa along with two days of pre-Iowa numbers, and it shows diminishing leads for both Hillary Clinton and John McCain. Here it is, as compared to yesterday's tracking poll:

Democrats:
Clinton 32% (+0)
Obama 28% (+2)
Edwards 20% (+0)
Richardson 7% (+0)

Republicans:
McCain 32% (-2)
Romney 30% (+0)
Huckabee 12% (+2)
Giuliani 9% (+0)
Paul 7% (+0)

"Overall the numbers have not moved that much but there was the beginning of a post-Iowa bounce for Obama and Huckabee," John Zogby told Reuters. "We will see more tomorrow but I think we will clearly see them make gains."

Fred Thompson has performed dismally in New Hampshire polls, and he clearly knows it — he says he's skipping the state. Thompson admitted today on MSNBC: "We're not competitive in New Hampshire. And we won’t be campaigning there other than to go in for the debates which are tomorrow night and sunday night."

Instead, his campaign sent out a fundraising e-mail today asking for help so that they could compete in South Carolina, where the Republicans will vote on January 19.

Can this strategy have any hope of working, with Mike Huckabee already having won Iowa, taken the lead in South Carolina polls, and on the whole occupied the role of the Southern conservative candidate? Quite frankly, it's starting to sound like Rudy Giuliani's improbable February 5 strategy — but on a smaller, less ambitious scale.

It's rare that a candidate runs an ad that names the kind of people who are donating to him, but Ron Paul has managed to make it work. His new ad in New Hampshire and South Carolina boasts that he is a candidate who supports the troops, and in return the troops have financially supported him more than the other candidates:

There are two ways to read this ad: That Paul is in fact a patriotic man, despite what you may have heard about his anti-war stance — or that ironically, Paul is engaging in a militaristic pitch, claiming the collective endorsement of the troops and urging civilians to fall in line behind it.

American Research Group has their first daily tracking poll out for New Hampshire, composed of data collected before the Iowa Caucus — thus making it an effective benchmark for measuring the changes in days to come. Here are the numbers, as compared to their previous poll from last week:

Democrats:
Clinton 35% (+4)
Obama 31% (+4)
Edwards 15% (-6)
Richardson 5% (+0)

Republicans:
McCain 35% (+5)
Romney 25% (-5)
Huckabee 12% (+1)
Paul 9% (+2)
Giuliani 8% (-1)

ARG's final Iowa poll was amazingly off the mark, but their real specialty is polling in New Hampshire, where they are based. So this one is probably worth taking seriously, with their solid record in local elections.

This is fun. In yet another sign of how high the stakes of the coming New Hampshire primary have grown for both Mitt Romney and John McCain, Romney laid into the Arizona Senator today as follows:

“There’s no way that Senator McCain is going to be able to come to New Hampshire and say that he’s the candidate that represents change -- that he’ll change Washington. He is Washington,” Mr. Romney said while speaking to reporters on Friday.

In response to Romney's claim that there's "no way" McCain could present himself as the candidate of "change," the McCain campaign dug up an absolute gem that they're now circulating among reporters.

Camp McCain found a quote from 2002, when Romney was running for governor of Massachusetts, in which Romney said precisely the opposite thing about McCain -- that he has always represented change:

One of the reasons the people of America honor Senator McCain and why I'm so proud to have him standing with me today is that he has brought American values to the debate on the issues we care about.

He has always stood for reform and change.

Whoever in McCain's camp dug up this beauty really did earn his or her money today.

In the wake of her humbling loss to Obama in Iowa yesterday, Hillary is planning to start drawing sharper "contrasts" between herself and the Illinois Senator in the days leading up to next week's New Hampshire primary -- and little by little, details are leaking out about Camp Hillary's evolving strategy.

Here's a quick rundown on what we're learning:

* Hillary aides are reportedly studying whether they can hit Obama on gun control, an issue where Obama has taken a hard line that might turn off some New Hampshire voters.

* Hillary, who isn't known for frequent Q and As with reporters, made herself extensively available to them in New Hampshire today, and quickly made it clear that she would now get serious about "drawing contrasts" with her "leading opponents." This was apparently part of a concerted effort on the Hillary camp's part to prevent Obama from coasting off his Iowa victory.

* Bill Clinton will spend the next five days campaigning for Hillary in New Hampshire, though he had reportedly not planned to.

* In another effort to signal that Camp Hillary would be playing rougher in the days ahead, Hillary also said this today:

"Of all the people running for president, I’ve been the most vetted, the most investigated, and my goodness, the most innocent it turns out."

The one thing that no reporter seems to be able to nail down yet is whether Hillary's "contrast drawing" will include negative ads. The Clinton camp won't rule out their use, but no one's been able to confirm precisely what changes in ad strategy are in the cards.

Fresh off their successful predictions for the Iowa Caucus, the first Zogby tracking poll of New Hampshire has come out.

The data comprises phone calls made up through yesterday afternoon, meaning it has no measurement whatsoever of the impact of Barack Obama and Mike Huckabee's Iowa wins. However, this is in fact a good thing, as it gives us a benchmark against which to measure poll movement over the next few days:

Democrats:
Clinton 32%
Obama 26%
Edwards 20%
Richardson 7%

Republicans:
McCain 34%
Romney 30%
Huckabee 10%
Giuliani 9%
Paul 7%

Rudy Giuliani, speaking about his sixth place finish in Iowa yesterday:

"None of this worries me -- Sept. 11, there were times I was worried."

As a GOP operative I know loves to say, the man has "9/11 Tourettes." Can't help himself.

John Edwards has a new spot in independent-rich New Hampshire that, interestingly, marries his populism with a trans-partisan message.

"Corporate greed is not just stealing the future of the children of Democrats," Edwards says. "It's doing the same thing to the children of independents; the same thing to the children of Republicans."

With the candidates already stumping in New Hampshire, the thing to watch now is how Edwards and Hillary retool their approaches to adapt to the new political realities that have been created by Obama's seismic win last night.

Today in New Hampshire he employed a contrast with Obama that we haven't heard before:

"I am not the candidate of glitz; I am not the candidate of glamor," Edwards said. "I am the candidate who will fight with every fiber of my being every step of the way."

Edwards' approach now is to cast yesterday's results as simply a Hillary loss and a victory for an abstract desire for change, rather than a victory for Obama, as well as casting the rest of the contest as a head-to-head battle between himself and Obama for that change mantle. Hillary has been airbrushed from the picture, in Edwards' telling.

And as the above references to "glitz" and "glamor" suggest, Edwards wants this contest with Obama to shape up as, "Who can best deliver change -- a lover or a fighter?"

Barack Obama, speaking on the campaign plane after last night's win, offered this analysis of what transpired in Iowa:

"We felt good for the last two weeks because we were so proud of what was happening on the ground. We were seeing the crowds, and so regardless of how the numbers played out exactly, we were really confident about us having changed how politics operated in this caucus. And it makes me very optimistic about the country. I think we can do it for the country as a whole."

Here you see the kernel of Obama's emerging post-Iowa case for his own national electability: The successes he had in Iowa in bringing new demographic groups into his coalition can be duplicated nationwide.

Relatedly, Chris Bowers compares the Iowa entrance polls from 2008 and 2004 and concludes that the new voters Obama brought out were almost all Democrats, not independents, and concludes that Obama won "on the back of the creative class vote" -- young and educated voters, and self-identifying liberals.

Here's another figure from the entrance poll: An astonishing 57% of caucusers were first-time participants. And how did they vote? Barack Obama carried them with 41% of the people going in and before second-choice reallocations, followed by Hillary Clinton at 29% and John Edwards at 18%.

And among the returning caucus-goers? Edwards was carrying them with 30%, with Obama at 26% and Hillary with 24%.

This tells us two things. First, Obama's strategy of bringing in new caucus-goers worked, the first time in recent history where such a strategy actually did so in the caucus. It's a big change from when Howard Dean tried it with less than impressive results. As for Edwards, his problem was that he fought the last war — if the caucus' turnout had been more like 2004, he may well have been the winner.

So how exactly did those much-coveted second-choice votes in the Iowa Caucus work out — did they deliver a victory for Obama through all these mysterious deals? The answer is actually pretty surprising. According to the entrance poll, which only measured first preferences of the participants going in, the numbers were: Obama 35%, Hillary 27%, Edwards 23%.

If we assume that the final state delegate numbers actually approximated the votes of the caucus participants, this means John Edwards was the big second-choice winner, as he boosted his final score by seven points, compared to only three points for Obama and two for Hillary. It was enough to just overtake Hillary for second place, but not enough for first — because it turned out that Obama entered as the clear winner from first choices alone.

John Edwards makes his interpretation as clear as you could possibly want: Though Edwards edged Hillary by a hair, tonight's results represent a rejection of Hillary, and all that's left is a contest between he and Obama.

"What happens now is we go to New Hampshire and other states, where the voters are going to have to decide who, between myself and Senator Obama, can best bring about change," Edwards says.

Separately, The New York Times reports that aides to Hillary say that Bill Clinton will spend the next five days campaigning intensively in New Hampshire on her behalf.

The numbers are final -- with all 1,781 precincts reporting, it's:

Obama: 37.58%

Edwards: 29.75%

Clinton: 29.47%

So, Edwards does come in second, and his team will be making the case that he beat Hillary, despite being outspent by a huge margin. The truth is that it couldn't have been closer, really. But the same reporters and commentators who portrayed this as a two person race -- Obama versus Hillary from the outset -- will now portray Hillary's virtual tie with Edwards for second place as a crushing loss to Hillary.

Joe Biden is dropping out of the race, according to sources familiar with ... oh, heck, according to Joe Biden himself, who said so in a dropout speech a few minutes ago.

A source close to Chris Dodd's campaign tells me that he's expected to drop out of the race later tonight.

Edwards is currently speaking to his supporters, and he declared victory for second place over Hillary, though the full results aren't in.

Here's what's interesting: He interpreted tonight's results as meaning that "change won" -- and went on to characterize the rest of the contest as a fight over who is best suited to deliver change -- he or Obama.

Basically, he's arguing that he main significance of tonight's results is that Hillary lost, which obscures the fact that Obama won decisively over Edwards tonight and that Hillary is far from eliminated. But Edwards is arguing that this race is now about just the two men.

Edwards, his voice hoarse, said: "What happened tonight, is that the Iowa caucus goers said, `We want something different.'"

Now that Obama has been projected as the winner, Edwards adviser Joe Trippi is already out there declaring that the main significance of tonight's race is that Edwards held his own against Hillary.

"It's really a repudiation...of the Clinton campaign," Trippi just said on MSNBC, interpreting tonight's results.

"Clinton doesn't have a lot to talk about," Trippi continued, adding that the vote tonight showed that voters "don't want the status quo that the Clinton campaign represents."

A sign, obviously, that the Edwards campaign wants the story tonight to be all about Hillary's loss, rather than Obama's win.

Both networks just projected an Obama win right now, based on a combo of entrance polls and current precincts reporting.

Chris Matthews just described Obama's projected win as "deliverance."

Earlier today there were reports that the Obama and Richardson camps had reached a deal where Richardson would throw his second-choice supporters to the Illinois Senator.

The Obama camp denied this today. But a little while ago, Obama adviser Samantha Power went on Fox and appeared to admit that such a deal had been reached, saying: "The fact that we got Richardson to basically say that his people should turn towards Obama ... "

But Richardson denied today that any such deal had been cut.

Right now, Hillary, Obama, and Edwards are basically in a statistical dead heat -- each has roughly 32%, with 513 of 1,751 precincts reporting.

A caveat: The small, rural precincts report first, which is why Edwards has been ahead for the early part of the evening. Now they're effectively tied, but it seems likely that the dynamic will shift soon...

Keith Olbermann just got off a good one-liner on Hillary's frequent expectations-depressing claim that an early poll showed her in "single digits" in Iowa.

Olbermann described it as "a poll done so long ago that no archaeological dig can manage to locate it."

MSNBC says that early entrance polls put Hillary and and Obama ahead of Edwards, a development that Tim Russert just said reflects the fact that independents, young people, and women are showing up in much bigger numbers than before.

Caucusing underway.

We're posting the results as they come in on our nifty scoreboard at TPM's homepage. We'll also be doing updates here, too, so check back...

It will never end: Obama gets hit again by questions from a voter in Iowa who doesn't know he's a Christian.

I know fundraising doesn't matter today, what with the actual caucusing and all, but it seems worth noting that the Obama campaign hit the half-million donor mark today.

Total donors, as of right now: 500,190.

Okay, the New Hampshire attorney general's press release on the probe of the anti-Mormon, anti Romney calls has now been released. And the AG has identified the firm behind the calls as Moore Information.

But the AG has not been able to determine who contracted the company for the calls, which obviously is the crucial info here:

Attorney General Kelly A. Ayotte is requesting the public’s assistance in identifying who employed Moore-Information of Portland, Oregon to conduct a poll in New Hampshire, in November 2007, which has been alleged to be a push-poll. New Hampshire’s voters deserve to know whether any candidate in our Presidential Primary violated New Hampshire’s push-poll statute.

Apparently Moore Information is dragging its feet and asking for more time before it coughs up info the AG wants that could help her track down the sponsor of the calls. And this info looks like it won't be forthcoming until safely after the January 8th New Hampshire primary.

Had the identity of the sponsor of the calls become known in time, it could have had a big influence on the primary's outcome. Some have charged that John McCain's camp is behind them; others have wondered whether someone connected with Romney himself might have done them, to test anti-Mormon messages or diffuse the Mormon issue by airing it publicly.

According to the AG's release Moore Information outsourced the job to Western Wats, the firm that actually made the calls -- and Wats was tied to Romney in various ways, giving weight to the theory that Romney himself was behind the calls.

More in a bit.

The Times political blog is quoting anonymous sources claiming that there's now a "deal" between Obama and Richardson in which the New Mexico governor will direct his supporters to caucus for Obama.

But the Richardson camp is adamantly denying the report:

Robert Becker, Iowa director of the Bill Richardson for President campaign, took particular offense with reports circulated this morning that his campaign was encouraging non-viable supporters to switch to Illinois Sen. Barack Obama.

"Here we are the day of caucus and there are all these rumors about deals being made," he said. "I'm just sick of it. We have not directed our supporters to caucus for anyone other than Bill Richardson."

The Obama camp is denying it, too.

I'm gonna go out on a limb and suggest that what could actually be going on here is that the Obama people are merely planning an all-out push to win over Richardson voters, which is a natural part of the caucus process.

That's what the New Hampshire attorney general's office has just confirmed to us.

The AG is about to start a press conference, we're told, at which the AG is going to announce preliminary results of their probe into the source of those now-notorious calls raising negatives about Mitt Romney's Mormonism.

The calls became a big issue in the New Hampshire GOP primary, with some politicos charging that John McCain was behind them, while others suggested that someone connected with Romney himself was doing the calls, perhaps to test negatives about his Mormonism or diffuse it as an issue.

The results of the probe could have a major impact on the NH primary, but it's unclear as yet what the AG has found. More as we learn it.

John McCain has a new ad up in New Hampshire, reminiscing about his 2000 primary victory and asking the state's Republican primary voters to put their trust in him once more:

"I've learned a lot in eight years. And I feel better prepared than ever to lead this country," McCain says. "Once again, I need your help."

Here it is: Your Official Election Central Idiot's Guide to the Iowa Democratic Caucuses.

Tonight is the big night when Iowa Democrats will gather in precinct caucuses, normally held in school gymnasiums and other public places, to voice their support for different presidential candidates. So what exactly will they be doing in there?

A Democratic Party caucus is not a conventional primary. Instead, it has its own peculiar processes, with their virtues and deficiencies. For example, it has a form of instant runoff that allows people to initially support minor candidates and then go for a front-runner. On the other hand, the system is undemocratic in that it's only open to people who can show up at 6:30 p.m. and then stay for two hours. And on top of that, there is no such thing as a secret ballot — a participant's vote is made in the full view of his friends, family and neighbors.

But what on earth actually happens, and how does a candidate win?

Our guide to the whole process is after the jump.

Read more »

Mitt Romney has a new ad up in New Hampshire, hitting John McCain in a very gentlemanly way. The ad features New Hampshirites first talking about how much they respect John McCain the human being, with his war record and his commitment to his country — then they go after him on tax cuts and illegal immigration:

If Romney loses to Mike Huckabee tonight in Iowa, he's really going to need more of these ads against McCain in New Hampshire.

A spokesman for Joe Biden is denying reports that the Biden and Obama camps are in talks about a possible deal whereby Biden would shift support to Obama in certain precincts.

Via Ben Smith, The Washington Post reports the following about such conversations:

A source close to the Biden campaign described a possible arrangement, now under discussion between the two camps, that could apply to certain precincts where Biden can't meet the 15 percent viability threshold, but where he is backed by local officials with the clout to move Biden supporters to Obama. In return, Biden could capture some of Obama's overflow in precincts where the Illinois senator has more than enough support to win.

WaPo quotes an Obama source confirming that the talks are underway.

But Biden spokesperson Mark Paustenbach is denying unequivocally that there are any discussions at all taking place. He sent us this:

"No discussions have taken place. We have not made any deals or arrangements. We are strong enough on our own."

We're seeking official word from the Obama camp on this. More as we learn it.

Late Update: Obama spokesman Bill Burton also just denied to us that there are any talks underway. He sent us this:

"Iowans are independent thinkers. We hope that we're everyone's first choice but if we're not, we hope that we're they're second choice."

Is Fred Thompson really going to quit the race before New Hampshire if he posts a weak showing in Iowa, as an anonymous adviser said this morning?

Thompson himself says it isn't happening. Here's what he had to say in an interview this morning with KCCI-TV in Des Moines:

"That is absolutely made up out of whole cloth," said the former U.S. Senator from Tennessee.

Thompson said a rival campaign was likely the source of that rumor.

"Can you imagine such a thing in politics?" he asked.

The Thompson campaign is working overtime this morning to shoot down the rumor, which has it that if Thompson folds, he'll throw his support to John McCain.

Some further data from this morning's Zogby poll points to Hillary Clinton doing very poorly as the second choice of non-viable candidates' supporters, and Barack Obama and John Edwards both doing quite well.

In an exclusive get by Election Central, we asked Zogby for information on how the final poll result would look after second choices are reallocated for voters who were in favor of candidates under the 15% benchmark for viability, thus adding those respondents to the top three candidates' totals. Here's what they gave us: Obama 37.5%, Edwards 33.7%, Clinton 28.8%.

The pre-reallocation numbers were Obama 31%, Edwards 27%, Clinton 24%, showing that Hillary's deficit only worsened after second choices were taking into account. There is, however, a caveat: The other candidates' voters are naturally a much, much smaller sample set than the sample as a whole, meaning that second-choice calculations carry a very large margin of error.

The new American Research Group polling out of Iowa has has some good news for Hillary Clinton — they give her a healthy lead in the Iowa Caucus, though they are the last major pollster at this point to be doing so.

Here are the numbers, as compared to their previous polls from last week:

Democrats:
Clinton 34% (+3)
Obama 25% (+1)
Edwards 21%(-3)
Biden 8% (+3)
Richardson 6% (+1)

Republicans:
Huckabee 29% (+6)
Romney 24% (-8)
Thompson 13% (+6
McCain 11% (+0)
Giuliani 8% (+2)
Paul 6% (+0)

Yet another House Republican is set to retire this year. Roll Call is reporting that six-term Rep. John Peterson (R-PA) will announce his retirement this morning, and that the 69-year old will cite health problems as the reason for his decision.

Peterson's rural district is likely to stay safely in Republican hands, having cast 61% of its votes for President Bush in 2004 and 59% in 2000.

It's looking like Joe Biden's Iowa supporters might just go for Barack Obama as the second choice in precincts where their first candidate isn't viable. A consultant for Biden told the Huffington Post last night that the campaign will make a choice on where to direct their voters, but they expect them to naturally go for Obama.

"A decision will be made tomorrow about who we'll encourage our supporters to stand behind if we aren't viable in a precinct," the anonymous staffer said. "Right now, I'd guess Obama gets our support because we're more inline with his vision of foreign policy than any of the other candidates, and besides, we like him and how he's run his campaign."

Late Update: It turns out the Biden campaign won't give a second-choice instruction to their supporters. But this staffer's observations about the thinking among their supporters is still be a favorable sign for Obama.

The Des Moines Register reports that independents are expected to break heavily Democratic in tonight's caucuses, a result that could potentially help Barack Obama. According to the Register's latest poll, 40% of Dem caucusers will be independents, compared to only 20% of Republican caucus voters.

Turnout for the Dems is expected to be higher overall, so this means more than two thirds of indies will go for a Democratic candidate. The non-affiliated and even people registered with the opposite party can vote in a caucus by changing their registrations at the door, and these swing voters could make a huge difference.

Tonight's Iowa Caucus might just be the end of the line for Fred Thompson. The Politico reports that Thompson will likely drop out if he doesn't get third place, and could drop if it turns out to only be a weak third. He would then likely endorse John McCain, who he'd actually been supporting early on, before he looked in the mirror and saw a presidential candidate there.

"Without a solid third-place finish, there's no point in going on," said one anonymous Thompson adviser. "It was an honorable race, and he turned out to be a good candidate. The moment had just passed."

Today's Zogby tracking poll in Iowa, the final daily Zogby poll for the caucus, makes for an astounding outcome if it turns out to be true. Here are the numbers, as compared to yesterday's tracking poll:

Democrats:
Obama 31% (+3)
Edwards 27% (+1)
Clinton 24% (-4)
Richardson 7% (+0)
Biden 5% (+1)

Republicans:
Huckabee 31% (+3)
Romney 25% (+1)
Thompson 11% (-1)
McCain 10% (-2)
Paul 10% (+1)
Giuliani 6% (-1)

Here it is: Obama's two minute closing appeal to Iowans, which ran during 6PM newscasts in the state tonight...

New polling from Franklin Pierce college shows Hillary Clinton clinging to a statistically insignificant lead in New Hampshire, while John McCain appears to have overtaken Mitt Romney.

Here are the numbers, with comparisons to their last poll from mid-September:

Democrats:
Clinton 32% (-4)
Obama 28% (+10)
Edwards 19% (+7)
Richardson 8% (-2)

Republicans:
McCain 37% (+23)
Romney 31% (+1)
Giuliani 10% (-13)
Paul 6% (+3)
Huckabee 5% (+3)

Romney's problem is not that he's lost any support. Instead, he's stayed in one place while McCain has shot up in the polls and solidified the opposition. Rudy Giuliani, meanwhile, has withered away, with most of his former supporters probably going over to McCain.

Remember that ad attacking Mitt Romney that Mike Huckabee unveiled at a press conference before announcing that he wouldn't be running the ad?

Well, it turns out that the ad, which attacked Romney on a host of fronts, seems to have run on Iowa television anyway -- at least a day and half after Huck promised at the presser he'd pull it, touting his decision as proof of what a noble campaign he's run.

This morning, a reader reported to us that the ad ran last night in Cedar Rapids, on TNT, during a rerun of Law and Order. And a day of run-arounds by the local cable company and unreturned calls by from the Huckabee campaign makes it pretty clear our reader is right.

We've spent a fair amount of time trying to track this one down. First we checked in with a low-level official at the cable provider, an outfit called Mediacom. They put us in touch with the people who do their ad booking, a company called Onmedia. The people at Onmedia were friendly and helpful and went back to check for us -- but once they did, the higher-ups abruptly clammed up and stopped returning our calls.

Then we went to a higher level official at Mediacom. This official, Thomas Larsen, would not confirm or deny that the ad had run. But he did confirm that on Monday they received an order from the Huckabee campaign to yank an ad -- and that the ad hadn't in fact been yanked until today. So was it the ad Huckabee ostentatiously announced he was yanking at his news conference on Monday? Larsen refused to say. To the best of our knowledge there wasn't any other ad the Huckabee folks yanked on Monday. And the Huckabee camp has refused to answer our queries.

So the mystery still remains. Did a bunch of techies forget to yank the ad because of extreme New Year's festivities. Or did Huckabee's media folks fail to put a rush on the yank order? No one's talking.

Rudy Giuliani has a new ad in New Hampshire and Florida, the only two January states left that he's contesting. The ad's message is simple, and shows just how blatant the Rudy campaign has become in their appeals to fear — that if we don't vote for Rudy, we'll be vulnerable to Osama Bin Laden, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the people who assassinated Benazir Bhutto, and every other radical Muslim villain out there:

Republican Congressman Roger Wicker (R-MS) was named as the appointee to Trent Lott's Senate seat only two days ago, but the legal wrangling has already begun. State Attorney General Jim Hood (D) has made good on his promise to sue Gov. Haley Barbour (R) over when the special election for the rest of the term ought to be held.

Hood says that the election must take place within the next 90 days under state law, while Barbour maintains that Wicker can serve until the November election. A spring election might give a relatively conservative Democrat a decent shot, while a November race would be much more in favor of the Republican incumbent, running alongside the presidential election.

We've just heard from an in-the-know TPM reader that Hillary will be making an appearance on David Letterman's show tonight, which is an interesting move given that it's right on the eve of the Iowa caucuses.

The Hillary campaign confirmed the appearance to us. More in a bit.

Late Update: Asked for a comment, Hillary spokesman Howard Wolfson emailed: "Tune in!"

Rep. Tom Lantos (D-CA), the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee as well as the only Holocaust survivor to ever serve in Congress, has announced that he is retiring. The 79-year old Lantos cited a serious health problem as the cause of his announcement — he has been diagnosed with cancer of the esophagus.

"It is only in the United States that a penniless survivor of the Holocaust and a fighter in the anti-Nazi underground could have received an education, raised a family, and had the privilege of serving the last three decades of his life as a member of Congress," Lantos said in a press release. "I will never be able to express fully my profoundly felt gratitude to this great country."

Hillary Clinton has a new ad out in New Hampshire, where she is currently clinging to a narrow lead, touting the endorsements of various state newspapers:

Edwards has a new spot in New Hampshire -- it hits "corporate greed" and promises a "wave of change" on January 8 in New Hampshire, where he's trailing in third in many polls:

During an interview shown this morning on the Today Show, Hillary Clinton made an interesting claim about the peculiarities of the caucus system — that it's socially more difficult for women voters:

"They would rather just keep their vote to themselves," Hillary said. NBC then followed this with Meredith Vieira's narration that Hillary's campaign had previously carried an air of inevitability — perhaps a subtle commentary that Hillary is trying to massage expectations against a possible caucus loss.

With his candidacy cratering in multiple polls, Rudy Giuliani has hit on a new campaign strategy designed to turn things around: He's calling for more war on multiple fronts.

The New York Sun has the scoop on his new approach:

WASHINGTON — Mayor Giuliani will announce a new four-point war strategy in New Hampshire today, an effort to refocus a primary campaign season for Republicans that has centered in recent weeks less on foreign affairs and more on immigration and domestic issues.

Specifically, Mr. Giuliani will call for a new military surge in Afghanistan, a change in the way America's spies are promoted so that officers are rewarded for finding actionable intelligence and not just the number of agents they recruit, and a new war on Al Qaeda's intricate network of Web sites, sites used both to communicate with its agents in the field and to recruit new jihadis.

What's interesting is that the Rudy foreign policy adviser who leaked this to The Sun is being very explicit about the fact that this shift in direction reflects a belief within the Rudy camp that the Bhutto assassination has given him a political opening to turn things around:

"I think the problem in Pakistan and the assassination of Benazir Bhutto has raised a lot of concern and questions," the Giuliani campaign's senior foreign policy adviser, Charles Hill, said in an interview yesterday. "The media has focused on it, the American people have asked questions anew, it has certainly made clear that the challenge of Islamic radicalism is very much alive and very much a threat."

Not particularly subtle.

In his speech, which is coming later this morning in New Hampshire, Rudy will stick to four major themes, which The Sun describes as follows: "Expanding the military, improving intelligence, homeland security, and winning the war of ideas against radical Islam."

Asked where the new troops for the Afghanistan "surge" will come from, Rudy adviser Hill declined to go into detail, but notably, he did tell the paper that a Giuliani administration would seek to expand the military considerably.

The speech comes as a new poll released today shows that Rudy's national lead has evaporated completely -- John McCain now boasts more national support than Rudy does, while Mike Huckabee is running just behind him. The new Pew survey finds McCain with 22%, Rudy with 20%, and Huckabee with 17%.

The poll also finds that Rudy has sunk an astonishing 13 points nationally since September. This chart from Pew tells the story rather dramatically:

Rudy's whole game plan from the beginning has been to use the imagery of himself walking through the smoke and dust on 9/11 to persuade the national electorate that they need him to defend America against the terrorists lest we get hit with another 9/11 or worse. This hasn't worked out so well, as the above numbers show. So now he's doubling down on the strategy with a call for yet more war. Intriguing.

We'll bring you video of the speech as soon as it's available.

In a sign that Mitt Romney is really going all out to win this thing, and also that genuine grassroots support could be slowing down, he revealed yesterday that he did indeed put more of his own money into the campaign during the fourth quarter — but he won't reveal how much.

"I'm sure I made additional contributions in the fourth quarter, but I don't have any numbers for you," Romney told reporters in Iowa. "And we're not going to get into the numbers probably until sometime in the middle of the month. Right now, we're focused on voters."

Today's Zogby tracking poll in Iowa illustrated just what a tight race this is. Here are the numbers, compared to the three-day tracking poll released yesterday:

Democrats:
Clinton 28% (-2)
Obama 28% (+2)
Edwards 26% (+1)
Richardson 7% (+2)
Biden 4% (-1)

Republicans:
Huckabee 28% (-1)
Romney 26% (+1)
McCain 12% (+0)
Thompson 12% (+2)
Paul 9% (+2)
Giuliani 7% (-1)

Mitt Romney is facing some more media fire in New Hampshire. The New Hampshire Union Leader's publisher, Joseph W. McQuaid, has written a front-page editorial bashing the candidate over his attacks against John McCain:

McQuaid writes that he has no particular problem with negative campaigning in and of itself, but that Romney's attacks are simply untrue: "One of the reasons this newspaper has endorsed U.S. Sen. John McCain over former Gov. Mitt Romney has become clearer in recent days: When the campaigning gets serious and the gloves come off, McCain sticks to the facts; Romney plays loose with them."

(Via Mark Halperin)

Late Update: Response from Romney spokesman Kevin Madden, after the jump.

Read more »

The new CNN poll in New Hampshire shows the primary races to be dead heat on both sides, with ties or margins well within the ±5% margins of error. Here are the numbers, as compared to the last survey conducted by the same pollster, the University of New Hampshire Survey Center, which was conducted two weeks ago:

Democrats:
Clinton 34% (+6)
Obama 30% (+0)
Edwards 17% (+3)
Richardson 5% (-2)

Republicans:
McCain 29% (+4)
Romney 29% (+1)
Giuliani 12% (-2)
Huckabee 10% (+0)
Paul 7% (-1)

A key statistic: Among independents who plan to vote in the primary, 63% will vote in the Democratic race, up from 60% two weeks ago and 54% three weeks ago. A trend like that should help Obama and hurt McCain, both of whom are courtiing indy votes.

Say what you want about Ron Paul and his supporters, but his fans are certainly willing to put their money where their mouths are. The campaign has announced that they raised almost $20 million for the fourth quarter, quite possibly beating the rest of the Republican field for final quarter before the primaries.

The exact number has yet to be released, and probably has not been calculated by the campaign itself. But in all likelihood, Paul will have beaten Fred Thompson for the quarter — though it probably won't count for much in terms of Paul's exclusion from the upcoming Fox News debate.

Here's the final two-minute TV appeal that Hillary will make to Iowans during tonight's 6PM newscasts:

As Mark Halperin notes, the "entire spot has Clinton making direct eye contact with the camera, using soft tone paired with confident language." Key Hillary quote:

“If you stand up for me for one night, I will stand up for you every day as president.”

Three new polls out today show the Iowa caucuses to really be anybody's game — on both sides. For the Democrats, any one of the three top candidates could plausibly win it. Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee are in a dogfight on the Republican side, with Romney quite possibly taking back the lead he enjoyed before Huckabee's rise:

Democrats:

Zogby
Clinton 30%
Obama 26%
Edwards 25%
Richardson 5%
Biden 5%

CNN
Clinton 33%
Obama 31%
Edwards 22%
Richardson 7%
Biden 4%

Strategic Vision (R)
Obama 32%
Edwards 29%
Clinton 27%
Biden 5%
Richardson 2%

The Republican numbers are available after the jump.

Read more »

Here's John Edwards' powerful closer ad in Iowa -- the entire spot features the testimonial of Doug Bishop, a worker who was laid off at the Maytag plant. Bishop speaks emotionally about an encounter with Edwards in which the former North Carolina Senator promised his seven-year-old son that he would fight for his dad's job as President. The only thing Edwards says in the ad is the disclaimer at the end:

A new Bill Richardson mailer in New Hampshire -- forwarded our way by a Dem operative -- attacks Hillary, Obama and Edwards by name on Iraq, claiming that he's the only candidate who will pull all our troops out of Iraq. "Clinton, Edwards, Obama: Tens of thousands left behind," the mailer warns.

Click on each image to enlarge:

A new 7News/Suffolk University poll finds that Hillary has opened up a double-digit lead over Obama in New Hampshire:

Clinton 36% (33% a month ago)

Obama 22% (26% a month ago)

Edwards 14% (15% a month ago)

Meanwhile, among Republicans, the poll shows that McCain jumped a healthy 12 points since last month to take the lead:

McCain 31% (19% last month)

Romney 25% (31% last month)

Giuliani 14% (17% last month)

Huckabee 9%

The final Des Moines Register poll before the Iowa caucus shows Barack Obama and Mike Huckabee leading their respective parties. Meanwhile, Rudy Giuliani is in sixth place behind Ron Paul, having lost more than half of his support since last month's poll:

Democrats:
Obama 32% (+4)
Clinton 25% (+0)
Edwards 24% (+1)
Richardson 6% (-3)
Biden 4% (-2)

Republicans:
Huckabee 32% (+3)
Romney 26% (+2)
McCain 13% (+6)
Thompson 9% (+4)
Paul 9% (+2)
Giuliani 5% (-8)

Barack Obama has a new radio ad up in Iowa that appear to be the first paid "contrast" ad (read: ad attacking rivals) on the airwaves from a top-tier Dem candidate.

The spot hits Hillary Clinton and John Edwards by name, and faults them for their health care plans because they contain mandates. The ad quotes something called the Daily Iowan criticizing mandates because it will "force those who cannot afford health insurance to buy it."

Ben Smith, who had the ad first, notes that the Daily Iowan is the paper for the University of Iowa.

Barack Obama has this ad up in Iowa, reminding people in the home stretch of the campaign about his campaign themes of inspiration and positive change:

(Via Ben Smith)

By now you've probably heard that Mike Huckabee held a very bizarre press conference today in which he announced that his campaign had decided not to run an Iowa ad attacking Mitt Romney -- but played the very same ad in front of a roomful of national reporters, anyway.

Here's some video of the presser that was taken by an operative on the scene, so you can watch for yourself the explanations Huck offers to reporters who grilled him about his rather odd play here. It's quite a scene.

Is Barack Obama broadening his criticism of John Edwards to suggest that his lucrative trial lawyer past indicates less of a commitment to public service than Obama has?

That's what The Washington Post concluded in a piece on an Obama campaign appearance yesterday, at which he discussed his family's relatively modest means:

In one of his standard riffs, Obama asserts that his career choices -- community organizer, civil rights lawyer, elected official -- underscores his commitment to public service and to bringing about political and social change. He always mentions the lucrative job offers he turned down, but today he added a new line.

"That's why I didn't become a trial lawyer," Obama told the Newton audience -- a clear dig at Edwards, who made millions in the courtroom.

In response, the Edwards campaign said that nothing they could say could respond as effectively as this video they sent us of Sandy Lakey, the mother of a little girl who was injured because of a faulty drain cover in a swimming pool and who was subsequently represented in court by Edwards:

Here's another way that appearing on the morning shows, as John Edwards did this morning, can pay off.

A source familiar with the Edwards camp's fundraising numbers tells me that between 11 AM and noon today -- after Edwards appeared on CBS, CNN and The Today Show -- the campaign raised more money online than they have in any previous hour of the campaign.

The source says that more than one third of today's donors are first-timers, and adds that virtually all the contribs are under $100.

What's more, the source claims that the Edwards campaign has raised more money online during this quarter, which ends today, than in any previous quarter. All in all, these are perhaps more signs of Edwards momentum heading into the Iowa caucuses.

The campaign may make exact figures known a bit later this afternoon -- stay with us.

Late Update: I left out perhaps the most interesting thing. This morning the Obama campaign announced in their Powerpoint presentation that they have an average of 1.6 contributions per donor.

According to my source, the Edwards campaign will announce later today that they've surpassed that, with 1.8 contributions per donor.

Late Late Update: I should have clarified that these numbers don't change the fact that Edwards' fundraising disadvantage is very real -- but they are worth sharing as a possible indicator of Edwards' momentum.

The gloves are definitely off, over in the Republican race. Appearing on CNN this morning, Mike Huckabee ripped into Mitt Romney. "I think a lot of people are deceived," Huckabee said, "and you have to ask do people want to elect a president who has been dishonest in order to get the job and said things about his opponents that simply aren't true?"

Huckabee pledged to support the Republican nominee, but went further in laying out why he doesn't think Romney will get it: "I don't believe Mr. Romney is going to get there because I think Republican voters are looking for somebody who really not just reflected in his recent rhetoric, but actually reflected in his record a Republican record, a conservative record, a pro-life, pro-Second Amendment record and that's not what they're going to find if they keep looking."

As Ben Smith noted over the weekend, conservative writer Daniel Pipes has authored a new piece that unveils the next Obama Muslim smear. Pipes wrote:

"If I were a Muslim I would let you know," Barack Obama has said, and I believe him.

...suggesting that the next conservative attack on Obama could be, "he says he's not a Muslim, and I believe him."

It's worth adding a second point: That Pipes, whose hostility to Islam is well documented, is one of Giuliani's foreign policy advisers.

As reported here over the weekend, the co-chair of New Hampshire Veterans for Rudy was forced to resign after he said some unkind stuff about Muslims. There's just something in Rudy's rhetoric that seems to prick up the ears of folks with views like these.

The Jackson Clarion-Ledger is reporting that Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour (R) will appoint Congressman Roger Wicker (R) to the United States Senate, filling the vacancy created by Trent Lott's resignation. Wicker would take office immediately, possibly followed by legal wrangling over whether the required special election should take place within 90 days or instead coincide with the 2008 general election.

As for Wicker's House district, from which he would resign in order to take the appointment, President Bush carried it with 62% of the vote in 2004, so the Republicans would be initially favored in the special election.

Late Update: Barbour has made it official.

Mitt Romney's new ad in Iowa gives a positive note to the home stretch of the campaign, with the candidate talking to the camera about how he has experience in turning around large enterprises in both the private and public sectors, and how Republicans can come together and fix the country's problems:

In a conference call with reporters this morning, plus a new Powerpoint, the Obama campaign is voicing confidence that they are well positioned to win the early contests, are already picking up steam in the later contests, and that Obama would be the strongest Democratic candidate.

One key claim is that Obama's crowds in Iowa since Christmas have been larger than those of the other candidates:

In the electability department, John Edwards comes under some criticism for his acceptance of public financing, and the way the accompanying restrictions on spending would hamper him after the primaries:

And to persuade voters further, they argue that Hillary Clinton is less electable than Al Gore and John Kerry, who both lost:

Late Update: The full presentation is available here.

Rudy Giuliani's campaign has put out a new memo arguing that they're right where they want to be for winning the nomination, seeking to deflate the emerging conventional wisdom that Rudy has collapsed. The memo doesn't just downplay the early states where Rudy has gone downhill — it compares the candidates who are pursuing those states to two Democrats that Republicans love to hate:

As voting nears in the Republican nomination process, our campaign remains convinced that our strategy we have long had in place is right – bold, innovative and designed to deal with the radically different election calendar. While many of the beltway insiders seem to remain committed to the old “Carter/Clinton” approach and have questioned the adjustments we have made to our strategic thinking based on the new calendar, we clearly have a winning plan to secure the nomination in an election cycle unlike any other. History will prove us right.

(Via Mark Halperin)

We'll all find out today who the new senator from Mississippi is going to be. Gov. Haley Barbour (R) will announce who he is appointing to fill the vacancy caused by the resignation of Trent Lott, at 12 p.m. ET today.

After that, expect some legal wrangling with state Attorney General Jim Hood (D) over when the special election should be held to complete the rest of the term — Hood says it should take place within 90 days, while Barbour's position is that it can wait for the November 2008 general election.

Late Update: Barbour has appointed Congressman Roger Wicker.

In a further sign of just how settled the Rudy Giuliani campaign is on their late-state strategy, the candidate himself will be spending Thursday, the night of the Iowa caucuses, in Florida. Rudy's unorthodox idea has been that he can focus on Florida and then win the big states on February 5, but now he is quite literally skipping Iowa.

Recent polls in Iowa haven't been good for Rudy — he is tied with Ron Paul in most of them, and in serious danger of coming in 6th place.

John McCain has another spot up in New Hampshire, responding to Mitt Romney's ad that attacked him over illegal immigration. The ad has two points — that Romney is being disingenuous, and that McCain himself has learned some lessons on the issue, and won't be bothering grassroots Republicans over it anytime soon:

"Before I can win your vote, I know I have to win your respect," McCain says. "And to do that, you know I'll always be straight with you. And on this issue, I've learned that we've got to restore trust in government, and secure our borders."

New polling from American Research Group shows that the Democratic race has narrowed considerably in New Hampshire, since their last poll ten days ago. Meanwhile, Rudy Giuliani has declined significantly on the Republican side, and is in danger of slipping into fifth place, behind Ron Paul:

Democrats:
Clinton 31% (-7)
Obama 27% (+3)
Edwards 21% (+6)
Richardson 5% (+0)

Republicans:
Romney 30% (+4)
McCain 30% (+4)
Huckabee 11% (+0)
Giuliani 9% (-7)
Paul 7% (+3)

Two new Iowa polls released this morning tell us yet again that the Iowa contest is completely up in the air, with one finding Hillary leading narrowly while the other finds Edwards showing real movement to take the slimmest of leads.

Reuters/Zogby:

Hillary 31%

Obama 27%

Edwards 24%

McClatchy/MSNBC:

Edwards 24%

Hillary 23%

Obama 22%

On the Republican side, MSNBC finds Mitt Romney has regained a narrow lead over Mike Huckabee, while Zogby finds the two statistically tied.

The New York Times has a very good rundown on the extensive and sophisticated turnout operations the leading Democratic candidates are mounting in Iowa -- efforts that are more elaborate than any in the history of the Iowa caucuses. The piece is replete with details such as this:

Mrs. Clinton’s office here is filled with hundreds of new green snow shovels that were being strategically distributed on Saturday to precinct captains to clear the walks of older women who might be particularly wary of going out to the caucuses in bad weather. The campaign has printed doorknob hangers with caucus locations printed in extra-large type, also to accommodate these older first-time caucusers.

While the Hillary camp digs deep for every last woman over 65, Barack Obama is hunting for Iowans who have never participated in the caucuses -- students and independent voters under 50. And John Edwards, the only one of the three who ran for President in 2004, is more focused on previous caucus participants, particularly those who showed up four years ago.

The piece offers this sobering conclusion: "Aides to the candidates said this contest could be determined by a swing of as few as 1,000 voters."

With the primaries rapidly approaching, it's only natural that some of the more sleazy campaign tactics would intensify. CNN has obtained a mailer in heavily evangelical South Carolina, purporting to be a holiday card paid for by the Mormon Temple in Boston, wishing fond holiday wishes from the Romney family.

It also contains an old quote from the late Orson Pratt, one of the early fathers of the LDS Church, reminding people of the church's original tradition of polygamy:

"We have now clearly shown that God the father had a plurality of wives, one or more being eternity by whom he begat our spirits as well as the spirit of Jesus, his first born, and another being upon the earth by whom he begat the tabernacle of Jesus, as his only begotten in this world."