MSNBC and the Associated Press call it for McCain. CNN called it for McCain a few moments ago, too.

McCain was able to prevail in a tight race with Mike Huckabee because, according to exit polls, McCain basically tied Huck among GOP voters while prevailing handily among independents, 42%-25%.

The victory is a big one for McCain, partly because this is the state where his "insurgent" challenge to George W. Bush in 2000 was stopped dead.

Prediction: McCain's victory tonight -- and his reinvigorated candidacy in general -- will be uniformly described by pundits as having been caused by his heroic support for "the surge."

The Hillary campaign has a new statement out responding to the Obama camp's claim that they won more delegates in Nevada:

Hillary Clinton won the Nevada Caucuses today by winning a majority of the delegates at stake.

The Obama campaign is wrong. Delegates for the national convention will not be determined until April 19.

Meanwhile, the Nevada Dem party releases this statement:

“Today, two out of three Nevadans who caucused chose a Democrat instead of a Republican for president. That is an overwhelming majority vote for a new direction. Just like in Iowa, what was awarded today were delegates to the county convention. No national convention delegates were awarded. The calculations of national convention delegates being circulated are based upon an assumption that delegate preferences will remain the same between now and April 2008. We look forward to our county and state conventions where we will choose the delegates for the nominee that Nevadans support.”

Late Update: The Nevada Dem party releases this clarification:

"No national convention delegates were awarded. That said, if the delegate preferences remain unchanged between now and April 2008, the calculations of national convention delegates being circulated by the Associated Press are correct. We look forward to our county and state conventions where we will choose the delegates for the nominee that Nevadans support."

Okay, I know none of you care about the GOP South Carolina primary, but just f.y.i., McCain looks like he may be on his way to winning this thing handily. With more than one-fifth reporting, here's where we stand:

McCain 36%

Huckabee 28%

Romney 15%

Thompson 15%

And Thompson is already sending signals that he's about to drop out of the race.

On a conference call with reporters just now, Obama top adviser David Plouffe made a surprising claim: He said Barack Obama actually won more federal nominating delegates out of the caucus, despite their six-point loss to Hillary. The Obama camp's final count: Obama 13 delegates, Hillary 12.

That flips around the totals that were reported, which were Hillary 13, and Obama 12.

The Obama camp's argument: The state Democratic Party set up rules for apportioning the federal delegates across the Congressional districts, and then further sub-divided the Second District into three portions. Hillary's support was concentrated in Clark County (the Las Vegas area), while Obama ran ahead of her in the rest of the state — meaning that he was able to prevail among the delegates given over to the rural areas.

Of course, it's unclear whether any of this matters, absent an official declaration from the Nevada Dem party, which we haven't seen yet. And it's also unclear whether a delegate victory, rather than the electoral outcome, will be seen as a win -- though in fairness, when Hillary was losing, Hillary advisers described this battle as a delegate fight.

On the conference call (which was reported by TPM's Eric Kleefeld), Obama adviser Plouffe was asked whether this means that Obama won the Nevada Caucus. Plouffe's response: "Well, honestly, we'll leave that to you guys."

Late Update: The Associated Press says that Obama officially won the delegate count:

She captured the popular vote, but Obama edged her out for national convention delegates at stake, taking 13 to her 12.

As others have noted, one of the big stories of the night is the disappointing finish of John Edwards, who came in with less than 5%. Here's the statement just out from the Edwards campaign, in full:

“Congratulations to Senator Clinton for her win in Nevada. Our campaign is very grateful to all those who demonstrated the loyalty and dedication to stand up for John Edwards in the face of very difficult circumstances and long odds, including our brothers and sisters in Nevada from the Carpenters, Steelworkers, Transport Workers, and Communications Workers of America.

“John Edwards is the underdog in this campaign, facing two $100 million candidates. But that is nothing compared to the real underdogs in our country – working men and women, middle class families, and all those who have no voice in Washington.

“John Edwards is in this race to fight for the real underdogs and to make sure the voices of the American people are heard in Washington, not the special interests. That’s why he’s the only candidate in this race who has never taken a dime from PACs or Washington lobbyists; the only candidate who will ban corporate lobbyists from his White House; and the only candidate who is honest enough to say we are in a fight for our country and we need to take on the special interests if we are going to have a country that works for hard-working families and the middle class.

“The race to the nomination is a marathon and not a sprint, and we’re committed to making sure the voices of all the voters in the remaining 47 states are heard. The nomination won’t be decided by win-loss records, but by delegates, and we’re ready to fight for every delegate. Saving the middle class is going to be an epic battle, and that’s a fight John Edwards is ready for.”

A little while ago CNN reported that the McCain campaign was seeking a court order to extend voting in eastern South Carolina, after learning that voting machines in that part of the state were malfunctioning today. Such a move could have a dramatic impact on what's expected to be an extremely tight contest.

CNN quoted a top backer of McCain, State Rep Tracey Edge, vowing that the campaign would be heading for court.

But it looks like it might not happen, after all.

I just checked in with McCain's South Carolina spokesperson B.J. Boling. He said: "Representative Edge did not have all the necessary information," he told me. "Whether the McCain will take any action will be known shortly."

Apparently McCain lawyers are holed up examining the situation to see what, if anything, can be done. The success or failure of such an effort could conceivably impact the outcome.

Late Update: It's official: The McCain campaign did not go to a judge to try to extend the voting. The campaign tells me they decided against it.

If you look at the entrance polls of the Nevada Dem caucuses today, it's striking how starkly the vote is breaking down along racial, ethnic and generational lines.

Among Latinos, Hillary is beating Obama, 64%-24%.

But among blacks, Obama dramatically increased his lead over Hillary from earlier in the contest, beating her 79%-16%

Meanwhile, Hillary beat back what appeared to be a stiff challenge from Obama for the female vote, beating him 52%-35%

And the vote broke down sharply along generational lines, too. Hillary beat Obama handily among both the 45-59 and the 60 and older set, while Obama won by sizable margins among voters aged 18-44.

MSNBC calls it for Hillary. With 84% reporting, it's ...

Hillary 50%

Obama 45%

Edwards 4%

An Obama adviser is on MSNBC, explaining the loss by saying that "this will continue to be an insurgent campaign." More in a bit.

Late Update: CBS calls it for Hillary, too. And so does CNN.

Late Update: The entrance polls show some very interesting things about how today's vote is breaking down along racial, ethnic and generational lines.

MSNBC calls it for Hillary. With 84% reporting, it's ...

Hillary 50%

Obama 45%

Edwards 4%

An Obama adviser is on MSNBC, explaining the loss by saying that "this will continue to be an insurgent campaign." More in a bit.

Late Update: CBS calls it for Hillary, too. And so does CNN.

Late Update: The entrance polls show some very interesting things about how today's vote is breaking down along racial, ethnic and generational lines.

A last minute dirty trick in Nevada? The Obama campaign is claiming that a last-minute call, perhaps a robocall, has gone out to numerous Nevadans -- a call that repeatedly refers to Obama as "Barack Hussein Obama."

The Obama camp just released a recording of the call, and says it has received "numerous" reports of it from recipients. We have not been able to independently confirm the call or its origins. Give it a listen:

The call says: "I'm calling with some important information about Barack Hussein Obama. It repeats "Barack Hussein Obama" several times. For instance: "Barack Hussein Obama says he doesn't take money from Washington lobbyists or special interest groups but the record is clear that he does."

And: "You just can't take a chance on Barack Hussein Obama."

It's unclear whether this is a robocall. To our ears it sounds more like someone reading from a call script.

Ben Smith reported today that Bill Clinton alleged in an appearance in Nevada that he personally witnessed voter suppression by the culinary workers. Smith posted a transcript he obtained of the event.

I've now obtained audio of Bill's comments. Give it a listen:

Here's the key quote (it starts a little less than halfway through the audio):

Today when my daughter and I were wandering through the hotel, and all these culinary workers were mobbing us telling us they didn’t care what the union told them to do, they were gonna caucus for Hillary.

There was a representative of the organization following along behind us going up to everybody who said that, saying 'if you’re not gonna vote for our guy were gonna give you a schedule tomorrow so you can’t be there.' So, is this the new politics? I haven’t seen anything like that in America in 35 years. So I will say it again – they think they're better than you.

Since the audio I have is limited, I can't vouch for the full context. But the charges are eye-opening. Smith has more of the story's details -- and the culinary workers' denial of the charge -- right here.

Audio of Bill after the jump.

We could all use a bit of comic relief while we wait for today's results. So here goes: The Obama and Hillary campaigns are now battling over who has the better interpretation of the career of ... basketball great Magic Johnson.

Hillary kicked things off with a radio ad on black radio in South Carolina in which Hillary supporter Johnson suggested that Obama is a hyped rookie, just as he himself was -- and that we need a seasoned player in the White House:

My rookie year, we won our first game on a last-second shot. I was so hyped. But the captain of my team said, “take it easy rookie, it’s a long season, it’s a long road to the championship.” He was right. Winning comes from years of hard work and preparation. Whether it’s winning championships or a president who can lead us back to greatness, I’ll always want the most prepared and experienced person leading my team.

The Obama campaign pushed back on the ad by pointing out that Magic himself was a really terrific rookie indeed who went on to accomplish magical things. The Obama camp actually supplied statistics and video clips to make this case (you can't cede an inch of ground anywhere in modern campaigns, clearly).

Now, let's parse this. Magic, on behalf of Clinton, is saying: "Yeah, a rookie can have a really attention grabbing first year -- but nonetheless, what we really need in a President is someone who's proven him or herself over the long term." Also, there seems to be a suggestion here that Magic sees Hillary as the equivalent of his captain at the time -- the leader of the team (or the country). In other words, Magic as Obama; Hillary as Magic's captain.

The Obama camp's reply is that this particular rookie in fact went on to greatness -- proving that a rookie needn't be dismissed as an overhyped flash in the pan. Rather, we should see a rookie's awesomeness not as something random or arbitrary, but as a harbinger of future greatness.

Kind of dovetails neatly with the campaign's larger argument.

The Obama campaign is really doing its damndest to puncture the false Obama-is-a-Muslim smears before they take hold. In the latest move, the Obama camp released an "open letter to the Jewish community" today from seven Jewish U.S. Senators condemning the smear.

The key is that none of the Senators has yet endorsed a candidate in the Presidential race.

"Over the past several weeks, many in the Jewish community have received hateful emails that use falsehood and innuendo about Senator Barack Obama's religion and attack him personally," reads the letter. "Jews, who have historically been the target of such attacks, should be the first to reject these tactics."

The signers are Senators Carl Levin, Barbara Boxer, Ben Cardin, Russ Feingold, Frank Lautenberg, Bernie Sanders, and Ron Wyden. Full letter after the jump.

Separately, we'll be blogging the returns from the Nevada Dem caucuses and the South Carolina GOP primary throughout the day today right here at Election Central. So check back for frequent updates.

Read more »

The final American Research Group poll for the South Carolina Republican primary shows some very wild swings in the home stretch, with Mike Huckabee taking the lead over John McCain. Here are the numbers, compared to yesterday's poll:

Huckabee 33% (+10)
McCain 26% (-7)
Thompson 21% (+8)
Romney 9% (-11)
Giuliani 3% (-1)
Paul 2% (+1)

Is this poll a massive outlier, or could it be an indicator of some genuine, last-minute Huckmentum? We'll all find out Saturday night.

The final SurveyUSA poll before the South Carolina Republican primary gives John McCain a narrow lead over Mike Huckabee. Here are the numbers, as compared to yesterday's poll:

McCain 31% (+2)
Huckabee 27% (+1)
Romney 17% (+0)
Thompson 16% (-1)
Paul 5% (+0)
Giuliani 2% (-1)

The ultimate Hillary surrogate -- Bill himself -- has also teed off on Obama today over his contention in the Reagan interview that the GOP has been the party of ideas:

"Her principal opponent said that since 1992, the Republicans have had all the good ideas," Clinton told a crowd in Pahrump this morning. "It goes along with their plan to ask Republicans to become Democrats for a day and caucus with you tomorrow, and then go back and become Republicans so they can participate in the Republican primary. I'm not making this up, folks."

That latter bit is a reference to that mailer that an Obama precinct captain pushed urging that GOPers and indys switch for a day and caucus for Obama. It wasn't the work of the Obama campaign, and they disavowed it.

Bill also said:

"I can't imagine any Democrat seeking the presidency would say they were the party of new ideas for the last 15 years. But it sounded good in Reno I guess," he said. "So now it turns out you can choose between somebody who thinks our ideas or better or the Republicans had all the good ideas."

Did I mention that the Clinton camp is pressing this one pretty hard today? More on the validity of this Clinton criticism here.

Separately, it's not surprising that Bill would be personally put off by Obama's interview. While the Hillary campaign is reacting primarily to Obama's contention that the GOP was until recently the "party of ideas," Obama also explicitly said in his original interview that Bill's presidency wasn't transformational, the way Reagan's was.

This video -- posted over at MyDD -- is definitely worth a watch: It shows Edwards at an event in Reno demanding that Obama repudiate the controversial radio ad, aired by the Illinois Senator's labor ally, saying Hillary doesn't respect Latinos:

Edwards points out that Obama raised holy heck about the fact that Edwards' third-party labor allies ran positive ads on his behalf, and asks why Obama won't condemn this "divisive" third-party effort. The Obama camp has replied that this is only one ad and is dwarfed by the third-party spending on behalf of his rivals.

Interesting political context: After Iowa, Edwards went after Hillary heavily in the belief that she could be knocked out of the race, leaving only a two-man contest. Now Edwards is hitting Obama for politics as usual, perhaps a belated recognition that Obama is his real competitor, in that he's sopping up much of the "change" vote.

And around and around we go...

The new AP/Ipsos poll has some bad news for Rudy Giuliani: The early losses he's suffered have caused his national numbers to plummet since the last poll from six weeks ago — in fact, his support has fallen by half.

The GOP numbers: McCain 22% (+9), Huckabee 16% (-2), Romney 16% (+4), and Rudy 13% (-13).

The Democratic numbers: Clinton 40% (-5), Obama 33% (+10), Edwards 13% (+1).

Obama spokesman Bill Burton responds to Hillary's Obama-Reagan blast with this:

“It’s hard to take Hillary Clinton’s latest attack seriously when she’s the one who supported George Bush’s war in Iraq, the most damaging Republican idea of our generation. While others were triangulating and poll-testing their positions, Senator Obama has been fighting for progressive ideals for over two decades."

Pulling it away from a discussion about Obama's conciliatory streak and back onto turf where Obama is more comfortable: Hillary's support for the war, and their argument about political caution and triangulation.

The Hillary campaign clearly made a decision to go all out on Obama's Reagan comments today. Hillary herself just lit into Obama over them in Las Vegas, according to a transcript provided by her campaign:

"I have to say, you know, my leading opponent the other day said that he thought the Republicans had better ideas than Democrats the last ten to fifteen years. That's not the way I remember the last ten to fifteen years.

"I don't think it's a better idea to privatize Social Security. I don't think it's a better idea to try to eliminate the minimum wage. I don't think it's a better idea to undercut health benefits and to give drug companies the right to make billions of dollars by providing prescription drugs to Medicare recipients. I don't think it's a better idea to shut down the government, to drive us into debt."

In fairness, Obama didn't really say that Republicans had better ideas than Dems (more on this here). This is what Obama said:

"The Republican approach I think has played itself out. I think it's fair to say the Republicans were the party of ideas for a pretty long chunk of time over the last 10 or 15 years, in the sense that they were challenging conventional wisdom. Now, you've heard it all before. You look at the economic policies, when they're being debated among the presidential candidates, it's all tax cuts. Well, we've done that, we've tried it."

Between this and what Hillary's surrogates said today about this, it looks like the Hillary campaign is waging all-out war over the Reagan comments to "win" the last news cycle, as the political pros like to say. We'll see what happens.

Late Update: The Obama camp responds.

Late Late Update: Bill Clinton weighs in, too.

Still Later Update: It's probably worth pointing out that Obama's quote is saying that the GOP "challenged conventional wisdom" and suggests by default that the Dems didn't have any ideas. At the very least this is a poor choice of words on Obama's part.

It's official: Camp Hillary is making a campaign issue out of Obama's comments about Reagan.

In a conference call with reporters that ended moments ago, several Clinton campaign surrogates just excoriated Obama's assertions about Reagan and recent political history, which he made in an interview with the Las Vegas Review Journal a few days ago. Interestingly, the Clinton camp seized on this Obama comment from the interview:

"I think it's fair to say that the Republicans were the party of ideas for a pretty long chunk of time there over the last 10-15 years in the sense that they were challenging conventional wisdom."

Hillary supporter and Congressman Barney Frank, who was on the call, said: "I was stupefied by the comments...It's baffling to me that he would speak so highly of him."

Frank also grabbed onto Obama's description of the "excesses" of governance in the 1960s and 1970s, saying: "When I think about the 60s and the 70s, I think about Medicaid, Medicare, the Environmental Protection Agency, Community Development Block Grants...It's astounding to me to have this blanket endorsement of a right wing attack."

Frank added: "When he says government in effect grew too much in the 60s and 70s...Reagan agreed with that. This is not simply a tribute to Ronald Reagan's rhetoric but an endorsement of some of the substance."

In fairness to Obama, later in the interview he did take a step towards denouncing some of the "ideas" he'd referred to in the "party of ideas" comment. And he didn't endorse the substance of any GOP idea in particular. As for the "excesses" comment, Obama was perhaps referring to the perception of governmental excess that Reagan so skillfully exploited, but it seems clear that at the very least there were some poor choices of words by Obama here.

For those of you who care about such stuff, here are Hillary's talking points of the day for Nevada, sent out by the campaign to surrogates and forwarded to us by a source:

Daily Talking Points, January 18, 2008

SOLUTIONS FOR THE AMERICAN ECONOMY

* Hillary continues her focus on the economy today in Las Vegas, holding a discussion with small business employees to hear directly about their struggles.

* She knows it will take a hands-on leader to manage our economy and hold government accountable for delivering results.

* Her aggressive $110 billion stimulus plan would assist the people who have been hardest hit by the economic downturn and who are most likely to spend new resources, which would boost the economy.

* Hillary would immediately stem the tide of foreclosures. Her plan would place a 90-day moratorium on subprime foreclosures and freeze rates on subprime mortgages for at least five years.

* She would also provide tax rebates, energy assistance grants, and extended unemployment insurance to those who need it most.

* Working families who are being left behind in Bush economy will no longer be invisible when Hillary is president.

So if you hear some of this stuff, you'll have an idea where it might have come from.

The new Fox News poll gives John McCain a decent lead in the South Carolina primary, with little overall change from last week's poll:

McCain 27% (+2)
Huckabee 20% (+2)
Romney 15% (-2)
Thompson 11% (+2)
Paul 4% (-1)
Giuliani 3% (-2)

The undecided number is awfully big in this poll, weighing in at 19%, so anything could happen.

John McCain has been endorsed by the Charleston Post and Courier, which also supported him last time around in 2000.

This endorsement gives McCain a clean sweep of the top three newspapers in South Carolina — he has also been endorsed by the single largest paper, The State, as well as the Greenville News.

Rudy Giuliani's new ad, running in the West Palm Beach area, uses actual video footage from 9/11 to promote Rudy's candidacy -- and includes this surprising line about the terror attacks:

"When the world wavered, and history hesitated, he never did."

The suggestion appears to be that Rudy's response to the disaster was better than that of literally the rest of the world -- better than Bush's, better than that of the first responders or the people depicted in the ad running from the disaster, better than America as a whole. Indeed, Rudy's response showed him to be stronger and more unshakable than all of history.

Of course, in reality Rudy had nothing to do with America's response to the disaster. Take a look:

UNITE -- the Obama labor ally that stirred controversy yesterday by airing a radio ad in Nevada attacking Hillary for not respecting Latinos -- has just laid out nearly $14,000 for a new TV ad in the state, according to records filed with the FEC today.

Is it another negative hit?

The filing says that UNITE spent $13,645 on an ad that "supports" Obama, which suggests that it might be a positive spot.

But here's the thing. That radio ad hitting Hillary referenced above was also described in the FEC filings by the group as merely being supportive of Obama, even though it was a pretty hard hit on Hillary. The justification for this is presumably that the ad also praised Obama.

So it's fair to ask whether the new TV spot will do the same -- combine praise of Obama with a negative slam on Hillary. If so, look for it to become an issue today.

We're checking in with UNITE about the ad and will keep you posted.

Late Update: In terms of the size of the buy, it's worth keeping in mind that it's one day and it's on Univision, according to the filing.

Late Late Update: It turns out that the ad is all positive. Here's the full text, emailed over by a union official:

Together we built our Culinary Union and together we are winning the Las Vegas Dream.

The companies can't divide us by race or by casino or by the job we do.

Senator Barack Obama believes that the way to change America is by bringing all people together.

Together we can elect a President who will unite people.

Barack Obama for President.

Together we win. Como Siempre.

I've revised the hed to reflect this.

The New Republic's Jason Zengerle takes issue with our earlier posts, arguing that the media didn't screw Edwards.

My response is here.

Hillary gets the Las Vegas Sun, while Obama picks up the Reno Gazette-Journal.

Separately, the Sun has an amusing lament about the state of the Nevada contest:

The contest in Nevada has featured disingenuous advertising, attacks based on flimsy evidence, faux-outraged surrogates and the pitching of insubstantial stories to reporters.

And the Sun is surprised by this? As Eric Kleefeld points out, this shows that this really is the first time Nevada has had a serious contest.

This morning's Zogby poll of South Carolina shows John McCain still in the lead, but underneath the tracking numbers there might be some movement in the wrong direction for him:

McCain 29%
Huckabee 22%
Romney 15%
Thompson 13%
Paul 4%
Giuliani 2%

Some commentary from John Zogby: "There is movement afoot in the Palmetto State. The precise three-day rolling average is McCain 28.6%, Huckabee 22.3%, Romney 15.4%, and Thompson 13.2%. The very first day of polling McCain led by double digits. In the single day of polling on Thursday alone, Romney hit 19%, while McCain’s lead over Huckabee stood at only 3.2%. If Romney continues to gain after Michigan it will hurt McCain."

This morning's Zogby poll shows Hillary Clinton with a small lead over Barack obama in Nevada:

Clinton 42%
Obama 37%
Edwards 12%

Commentary from John Zogby: "Clinton holds a slight lead in Nevada but it will all depend on organization. Nevada Democrats have no real history for us to go on, so we will have to see how powerful the unions, civil rights, and other organizations are in bringing out their constituencies."

A new Mason-Dixon poll shows Hillary Clinton and Mitt Romney leading their respective caucuses in Nevada:

Democrats:
Clinton 41%
Obama 32%
Edwards 14%

Republicans:
Romney 34%
McCain 19%
Huckabee 13%
Thompson 8%
Paul 7%
Giuliani 6%

There are two important caveats here. First, there has never before been an important, high-turnout Nevada caucus, so nobody can really be sure how to model turnout. Second, with John Edwards seemingly below 15% statewide and thus likely to fail to meet viability in many precincts, the second choices of his supporters could be truly decisive, along with the remaining undecided voters.

The pro-Obama UNITE-HERE union — the parent organization of the Culinary Workers Union — is running a Spanish radio ad in Nevada that lambastes Hillary Clinton, calling her "shameless." The subject of the ad is the failed lawsuit filed by Clinton supporters, against the special caucus sites created on the Las Vegas Strip in order to help Culinary members participate. Hillary declined to condemn the suit, and Bill Clinton publicly defended it.

"Senator Obama is defending our right to vote. Senator Obama wants our votes," the ad says, according to Ben Smith. "He respects our votes, our community, and our people. Senator Obama's campaign slogan is 'Si Se Puede.' Vote for a president who respects us, and who respects our right to vote."

A pro-Confederate Flag third-party group is running new radio ads in South Carolina praising Mike Huckabee's pro-state's-rights stance on the flag issue -- and slamming John McCain over his repeated criticism of the controversial symbol.

"Mike Huckabee's stand is a breath of fresh air," say the ads, which are paid for by the Americans for the Preservation of American Culture. "Gov. Huckabee understands that all the average guy with a Confederate Flag on his pickup truck is saying is: He's proud to be a Southerner."

McCain has been dogged by the flag issue in South Carolina since his 2000 Presidential run; he's repeatedly denounced it, calling it a "racist symbol." There are two versions of the ad, one attacking McCain, the other attacking Romney, who's also condemned the flag. Listen to them both (the second starts roughly at the one-minute mark):

Huckabee has not distanced himself from the ads. Huckabee's position on the issue is that the Federal government should stay out of states' disputes over the flag.

Ron Wilson, an official with the group airing the ads, declined to say how big the buy was. But he confirmed that it was running on all South Carolina radio stations that carry Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and Bill O'Reilly.

Barack Obama's view that Ronald Reagan changed the country in a way Bill Clinton didn't — and his aspiration to be more like Reagan in this respect — has endeared the Illinois Senator to some former Reagan aides, who do admit they see something of the Gipper in him.

The Huffington Post talked to several former Reagan staffers, and got some interesting perspectives. "Ronald Reagan was an inspirational leader who also was a uniter. There was never any vindictive stuff to the other side," said Lawrence Korb, a former Reagan aide and current Obama supporter who now serves as a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress. Korb added: "I think Obama is trying to get us back to that pleasantness."

Others weren't so convinced — they say Obama isn't anywhere near as great as Reagan.

The rest is available here.

Hillary goes up on the air in a Feb. 5 state for the first time, with this California spot about the economy:

New Obama radio ad in Nevada appeals to Repubs and indys to caucus for Obama (both the short and long versions can be heard here):

No mention anywhere of Democrats. And a lot of promise of unity.

(H/T Jed Report)

The Las Vegas Review Journal has just posted advance notice of the Nevada poll it's releasing on Friday:

On the GOP side former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney leads his closest opponent by 15 points.

On the Democratic side Hillary Clinton outdistances Barack Obama by 9 points.

The actual numbers in the poll -- which was conducted Monday through Wednesday by Mason-Dixon Polling & Research -- won't be available until tomorrow.

Key caveat: No one really has a good idea how to poll a contest like this, since there's never been a crucial high-turnout Nevada caucus before and no one can predict who will turn out.

The new Mason-Dixon poll in South Carolina shows this Saturday's Republican race to be a dead between John McCain and Mike Huckabee, while Barack Obama currently has a decent lead for next Saturday's Democratic primary:

Democrats:
Obama 40%
Clinton 31%
Edwards 13%

Republicans:
McCain 27%
Huckabee 25%
Romney 15%
Thompson 13%
Paul 6%
Giuliani 5%

In the GOP race, a potentially good sign for Mike Huckabee: Evangelical voters are somewhat more likely to be undecided — and he's running ahead of McCain among them as it is.

On the campaign trail today, John Edwards offered an interesting take on Barack Obama's comment yesterday that Ronald Reagan changed America in a way Bill Clinton didn't. It's worth quoting Edwards extensively:

“I would never use Ronald Reagan as an example of change...

"He was openly -- openly -- intolerant of unions and the right to organize. He openly fought against the union and the organized labor movement in this country. He openly did extraordinary damage to the middle class and working people, created a tax structure that favored the very wealthiest Americans and caused the middle class and working people to struggle every single day. The destruction of the environment, you know, eliminating regulation of companies that were polluting and doing extraordinary damage to the environment...

"I can promise you this: This president will never use Ronald Reagan as an example for change."

As Ben Smith notes, Obama wasn't praising Reagan in terms of policy specifics. At the same time, though, Obama did talk in neutral terms about Reagan's reversals of the "excesses" of the 1960s and 1970s, whereas the changes wrought by Reagan are more customarily understood by Dems as the depredations that Edwards starkly described here.

The Edwards campaign releases a new video spoofing the media's lack of coverage of itself.

It's fun stuff. View it here.

A ruling has come down in the Nevada caucus lawsuit, which was filed by the state teachers union against the special caucus locations set up for Las Vegas Strip workers. U.S. District Court Judge James Mahan ruled in favor of the state and national Democratic Party's plan for the caucuses. "State Democrats have a First Amendment right to association, to assemble and to set their own rules," Mahan said in his ruling.

The ruling should definitely be seen as a win for Barack Obama. Leading figures behind the suit have links to the Clinton campaign, and none other than Bill Clinton has publicly defended the lawsuit — which was itself filed only days after the Culinary Workers Union, whose members will make up the vast majority of participants at the caucus locations, voted to endorse Obama. As it is, the net effect of this suit might only be to rile up union members against Hillary.

Late Update: Obama campaign spokesman Bill Burton responded to the ruling in this statement:

We're glad that the Nevada court upheld the Nevada Democratic Party's caucus plan which encourages voter participation. While the Clinton camp clearly believed the voices of workers should be silenced in service of their perceived political interest, they enjoyed a twenty five-point lead two months ago and have much of the party establishment in their camp. So, despite their inherent advantages we are pleased this should be a close and competitive contest Saturday.

With the Nevada caucuses only days away, it's only natural that the Hillary and Obama campaigns would square off today over Yucca Mountain.

The Obama campaign convened a conference call with reporters today to denounce a new radio ad that the Hillary campaign is running in Nevada. The ad tells listeners that Barack Obama is "hip-deep in financial ties" to a major nuclear energy company heavily involved in supporting the long-delayed opening of the Yucca Mountain nuke waste dump, and says that only Hillary can be trusted to stop Yucca for good.

So on the call the Obama camp rolled out longtime anti-Yucca activist and Obama endorser Bob Fulkerson. He told reporters that it was "completely ludicrous and disingenuous to suggest that Barack Obama has somehow been soft on Yucca Mountain." He said that he has spoken with Obama on the subject, and that while Obama does have links to the energy industry — Illinois is a coal state, and also has an extensive nuclear power infrastructure — he is confident that Obama would make the best decisions for the whole country and oppose the Yucca dump.

The Obama campaign — which has made campaign finance reform a centerpiece of its argument — is not denying the ad's charge about his donor, but is disputing its significance and arguing that it doesn't compromise his opposition to the project in any way.

In response, Hillary spokesman Howard Wolfson sends us this: "The facts speak for themselves. While Senator Clinton has consistently stood against Yucca, one of Senator Obama's biggest financial backers is a huge proponent of Yucca."

We have the script of Hillary's radio ad after the jump.

Read more »

Rudy Giuliani has a new ad in Florida, with text going across the screen of various conservative figures praising his record on cutting taxes. The final name stands out the most: None other than one of his opponents, Mitt Romney.

It's unclear how successful this ad could be — with only text and no announcer, it requires the average TV viewer to read.

At some point you'd think Mike Huckabee's views would be seen as so controversial that there's no way he could possibly be a contender for the nomination of one of America's two main political parties.

Especially now. In an interview with Beliefnet.com, a religion Web site, Huck has just clarified his view that the Constitution should be amended to be brought in line with God's will -- and he directly equated homosexuality with bestiality.

Huck, in elaborating on his views that the Constitution should be subjected to Biblical standards, had just wrapped up a discussion of the fact that marriage has meant "a man and a woman in a relationship for life." With this context firmly established, this exchange followed:

QUESTIONER: Is it your goal to bring the Constitution into strict conformity with the Bible? Some people would consider that a kind of dangerous undertaking, particularly given the variety of biblical interpretations.

HUCKABEE: Well, I don’t think that’s a radical view to say we’re going to affirm marriage. I think the radical view is to say that we’re going to change the definition of marriage so that it can mean two men, two women, a man and three women, a man and a child, a man and animal. Again, once we change the definition, the door is open to change it again. I think the radical position is to make a change in what’s been historic.

That's pretty clear cut. Changing the definition of marriage so it can mean "two men" or "two women" is equivalent to changing it to mean "a man and an animal." No ambiguity here whatsoever.

Late Update: John Aravosis makes a key point about this latest Huckism:

This guy thinks it's fair game to talk about Romney's Mormonism? Fine, then let's have the media start talking about Huckabee's fringe views on Christianity.

Really, there's been surprisingly little discussion of this.

Separately, it's worth pointing out that Huck's quote above doesn't even use the tried-and-true "slippery slope" argument to couch his view that homosexuality is akin to bestiality. It's a direct equivalence.

As expected, Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) just formally endorsed Barack Obama in a conference call with reporters. "We need a president who can reintroduce America to the world, and reintroduce America to ourselves," Leahy said, later adding, "Barack Obama represents the America we once were and want to be again."

Leahy likened his support of Obama to the 1968 presidential campaign, when as a young prosecutor he endorsed Robert Kennedy over Hubert Humphrey. "He was bringing us a sense of hope, bringing us together," Leahy said. "I know those are intangibles, but it encouraged me to go against the establishment in my own state, and go with Bobby Kennedy."

Leahy also came out strongly against the ongoing lawsuit in Nevada, where the state teachers union and some Clinton backers are trying to shut down the special caucus locations for Las Vegas Strip workers. "If you're shutting people out from the nominating process, you're going to be discouraging people all the way down," Leahy said. "And that's not the approach we want to take in the United States."

The Obama campaign has been touting a mystery "major endorsement," to be announced on a conference call today.

I've just learned from a source familiar with the decision that it's Senator Patrick Leahy.

That's a big endorsement for Obama -- he's a major liberal standard bearer who's been in the Senate for over three decades. More in a bit.

Late Update: Leahy speaks out about his endorsement of Obama here.

Mitt Romney has a new ad running in Florida, in which he pitches himself as the man who can truly bring change to Washington and solve the problems that other politicians keep promising to fix:

More interesting than where the ad is running is where it's not running — South Carolina. It could be a sign that Mitt is already looking passed this Saturday's primary, and setting his sights on a win in Florida instead.

The Last Vegas Review-Journal, the largest paper in Nevada, has endorsed Mitt Romney for this Saturday's Republican caucuses. And unlike their back-handed endorsement yesterday of Barack Obama — more of an anti-endorsement against Hillary Clinton — this time the conservative paper actually shows some enthusiasm for Romney's pro-business platform.

"Each GOP candidate can make — and has made — a reasonable case that he's best suited to ensure the party again embraces the ideas and concepts that made this nation a beacon of freedom and economic opportunity," the editorial says. "But in our opinion, the viable candidate most likely to lead Republicans in such a direction is Mitt Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts."

Fred Thompson's campaign is running this 60-second ad tonight in South Carolina — the same "Consistent Conservative" ad he used in Iowa, but with different visuals — during the six o'clock evening news time slot:

Rudy Giuliani's poor performance in the primaries so far — in three major contests, he's only beaten Ron Paul once — is starting to be noticed by his own backers back home in New York. In fact, the New York Times reports that some of them are starting to doubt that Rudy will even win his home state's primary.

"If he carries Florida, he carries New York," said Fred Siegel, a Cooper Union historian and former Rudy adviser/biographer. But as for that Florida win, Siegel said, "I wouldn't bet on it."

This morning's Zogby poll in South Carolina shows John McCain still holding the lead in the key Southern primary, though not much of the data was collected after the Michigan primary. Here are the numbers, compared to yesterday's tracking poll:

McCain 29% (+0)
Huckabee 22% (-1)
Thompson 14% (+2)
Romney 12% (-1)
Paul 5% (+0)
Giuliani 5% (-1)

Although the Clinton and Obama campaigns have agreed to dial back all of the talk about race and civil rights, the Obama campaign might just have to answer for some comments made today by a very prominent supporter — none other than Rev. Joseph Lowery, one of the original founders of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.

"No matter how much education they have, they never graduated from the slave mentality," Lowery said at a community forum in Atlanta, in which he was asked about African-Americans who have said Obama should have waited longer to run for president, or doubt his electability. Lowery added, "The slavery mentality compels us to say, 'We can't win, we can't do.'"

This might lead to a headache for Obama. But bear in mind that Lowery's remarks were not made at any kind of campaign-sponsored event, but rather were made on his own time at an unrelated venue.

The new Strategic Vision (R) poll from Florida shows John McCain holding a lead in the big state, though it's not yet known how Mitt Romney's victory in Michigan — not to mention this weekend's contests — could shift the momentum. Here are the numbers, compared to the last poll from December:

McCain 27% (+12)
Huckabee 20% (-1)
Giuliani 18% (-7)
Romney 17% (+4)
Thompson 10% (+0)
Paul 5% (+1)

The Florida GOP primary is winner-take-all — whoever has the plurality will win all 57 delegates, in addition to the momentum boost going into Super Tuesday.

Meanwhile, here are the Democratic numbers, although this rogue primary has been stripped of all Dem delegates, and the candidates aren't campaigning here:

Clinton 45% (-3)
Obama 39% (+8)
Edwards 11% (+5)

The new Hotline/Diageo poll shows the Democratic race to be a close one nationwide, while John McCain has opened up a strong national lead — though the numbers were collected before the Michigan primary, and nobody knows how future primaries will ultimately affect the numbers:

Democrats:
Clinton 38%
Obama 35%
Edwards 15%

Republicans:
McCain 32%
Huckabee 17%
Romney 15%
Giuliani 12%
Thompson 7%

The general election match-ups also show that while any of the Democrats could beat most of the Republicans, Barack Obama is more electable than either Hillary Clinton or John Edwards — and it's not even close. John McCain is the most electable Republican, trouncing Edwards and narrowly edging Clinton, but loses to Obama in a statistical dead heat. Those numbers are available after the jump.

Read more »

The Project for Excellence in Journalism has done a study of which candidates have gotten the most media coverage in recent days.

It found that poor John Edwards has gotten the least attention of any major candidate from either party.

Check out this negative mailer that Hillary has dropped in Nevada hitting Obama on Social Security and taxes (click on the images to enlarge):

The mailer -- which was also dropped in New Hampshire before the primary -- has some anti-tax, anti-Washington language that might sound out of place in a Dem contest. Such as: "Nevada families need to keep more of their hard-earned dollars -- not less..."

And: "We need a President that will help hard-working families keep more of what they earn..."

There's also a reference to Nevada families sending more of their "hard-earned dollars to Washington."

At a town hall meeting today in Nevada, Obama responded personally to the mailer.

Read more »

This is interesting -- Obama is turning up the volume of his argument with what he terms Clinton style "incremental" change, arguing that Ronald Reagan fundamentally changed the direction of America in a way Bill Clinton didn't.

Obama made his case in a sit-down interview with officials from the Reno Gazette-Journal...

Some will find Obama's words about Reagan overly kind. And this is the first time I've heard him mention Bill Clinton in the context of saying such generous stuff about Reagan.

But Obama is also making an argument about the readiness of the electorate for change, comparing today's desire for a new direction with the electorate's mood in 1980. In this context, Obama is presenting himself as a potentially transformational figure in opposition to Hillary, who, Obama has been arguing, is unequipped to tap into the public's mood due to her coming of age in the sixties and her involvement in the political battles of the 1990s.

Juxtaposing Reagan and Bill Clinton in this way, however, decidedly takes his argument to a whole new level.

You can watch Obama's full interview with the RGJ here.

Late Update: Here are some comments Obama made about Reagan's presidency on Meet the Press in October 2006. In them, he made it far clearer that he disagreed with Reagan's ideas:

But I think, when I think about great presidents, I think about those who transform how we think about ourselves as a country in fundamental ways...And, you know, there are circumstances in which, I would argue, Ronald Reagan was a very successful president, even though I did not agree with him on many issues, partly because at the end of his presidency, people, I think, said, “You know what? We can regain our greatness. Individual responsibility and personal responsibility are important.” And they transformed the culture and not simply promoted one or two particular issues.

Late Late Update: The Huffington Post's Sam Stein adds the important point that Obama also compared himself to JFK later in the discussion. But Stein also adds this about Obama's remarks:

In fact, Obama offered praise for the Gipper, lauding him for tapping into the country's concern with the growth and "excesses" of the federal government, and its desire to "return to that sense of dynamism and entrepreneurship" -- hardly a welcomed interpretation within progressive circles.

In a move that suggests the Hillary camp thinks Obama committed a misstep that gives them an opening, Hillary went out of her way in an interview today to criticize Obama's recent claim that voters aren't looking for a "chief operating officer" in a president.

Hillary's criticism of Obama -- which furthers the running argument between the two candidates over the relative values of inspirational rhetoric and hands-on legislative work -- came in an interview she just conducted moments ago with Bloomberg News.

Her comments were a response to Obama's claim yesterday that he's "not an operating officer," and that the job of president isn't to "run some bureaucracy," but rather to "set a vision." Here's what Hillary said today (video supplied by her campaign):

Key Hillary quotes:

I was somewhat taken aback about what he said, that was reported yesterday. I think it’s important that we have a president who understands that you have to run the government.

We all need to be inspirational and set goals, and I’ve been doing that throughout this campaign. We need to set big goals for our standing in the world, for our economy, to deal with energy and health care and so much else that is really on the minds of the people...

They want a president who they believe gets up every single day and works for them, that requires a president who is hands-on. Who after you set the goals and give the speeches, you go back to the White House and you start holding people accountable and you want to know what they’ve done today to help the American people.

You’ve got to take on this government, you’ve got to to run this government, you can’t leave it to others.

It remains to be seen whether this effort to paint Obama as merely a would-be Inspirer in Chief will prove a winning argument, but either way, expect to hear more of this.

After he won the New Hampshire primary last week, John McCain had a seemingly clear road to the nomination as the new Republican frontrunner. However, as we noted at the time, McCain's victory was in many ways a soft win in a state tailor-made for him, and exit polls revealed a lot of hidden vulnerabilities that could pose serious problems for him in the days ahead.

The exit polls from yesterday's GOP contest in Michigan paint an even more dire picture for McCain's chances.

First off, McCain's 2000 primary victory in Michigan was heavily dependent on the support of independents and Democrats, who made up an astounding 52% of the GOP primary electorate in 2000, according to CNN's exit polls. This time, though, core Republicans made up a much higher 68%, and McCain's performance didn't significantly change with them — he may have even declined, from 29% in the 2000 exit poll to 27% this time. Simply put, McCain's base in the 2000 victory no longer existed for him.

This tells us that in upcoming contests, where independents are less likely to vote in the Republican primaries, he's in for a world of hurt.

More after the jump.

Read more »

Obama is up on the air in Nevada with this ad, which presses the point that five years ago, he did what the others didn't: Oppose the Iraq invasion...

Meanwhile, this new Nevada ad pushes unabashedly hard on the trans-partisan, uniter-not-divider theme:

Yesterday the Obama campaign was rejoicing because they'd learned that they had received the coveted endorsement of the Las Vegas Review Journal. Today the endorsement is out, and it needs to be said that it isn't exactly the most enthusiastic praise a candidate has ever received:

Is Barack Obama, then, the ideal Democratic candidate for president? Hardly. His policy recommendations -- when he can be convinced to get any more specific than "I represent change" -- are the opposite of "change." They're old-line, welfare-state solutions that haven't spent enough time in the microwave to appear even superficially appetizing.

Sen. Obama is a relatively young man with relatively little of the kind of real-world experience that prepares a candidate to stand firm against urgent advice to, say, bomb some remote population of defenseless civilians to "send a message," or plunge the economy into a dark night of unforeseen consequences by crippling the free market in the name of "fighting greed."

But Barack Obama is, at least, likeable.

The gist of the endorsement is that Nevadans who don't really want to watch reruns of The Bill and Hillary show for the next four or eight years are better off picking Obama. As Ben Smith notes, it remains to be seen how long this one stays on the Obama homepage.

Separately, check out a truly fascinating description of Hillary hatred right here.

Rudy Giuliani has a new ad in Florida, which has become the only January state where he's truly competing. The ad promotes Rudy as the man to fix the country's current difficulties on taxes, housing, and insurance rates — steering clear from his usual 9/11 theme:

Although he'd temporarily pulled his ads in South Carolina and put all his effort into Michigan, Mitt Romney is back in the game after last night. His campaign will now spend time in both South Carolina and Nevada this week, with both states hosting competitive Republican contests this Saturday.

Romney spokesman Kevin Madden told Election Central that the candidate will spend today and tomorrow morning in South Carolina, followed by Nevada campaigning tomorrow night and Friday. No decision has been revealed yet about where Romney will be on Saturday — and that decision by itself will give a good hint about which state they think they have a better shot at winning.

This is ugly even by South Carolina standards: John McCain is being targeted by a nasty flyer that lampoons McCain's POW captivity in Vietnam. The flyer, which was sent to local newspaper editors, depicts a manacled McCain in a cell with the phrase "POW for President," and "elect me" scrawled on the walls, suggesting that McCain is trying to ride his POW status into the White House.

The mailer also accuses McCain of collaborating with his captors and betraying his fellow POWs.

Click on the image below to enlarge:

Late yesterday, the McCain campaign publicly denounced the flyer, which appears to be the work of a group of unknown size and origin called " Vietnam Veterans Against John McCain."

The fact that the McCain camp has moved so aggressively to publicize and push back against the flyer suggests that the McCain campaign is taking a new approach in a state where such dirty tricks stopped his campaign in 2000. McCain advisers don't appear to believe that a rival campaign is behind the flyer. But nonetheless, this time around McCain is reacting much more quickly to such smears in hopes of knocking them down before they gain traction.

The online smear campaign against Barack Obama has now attracted attention from some prominent Jewish leaders. The heads of the American Jewish Committee, the Anti-Defamation League, the Simon Wiesenthal Center and other prominent Jewish organizations have circulated an open letter absolutely condemning the smears, before they might influence too many Jewish voters

"These tactics attempt to drive a wedge between our community and a presidential candidate based on despicable and false attacks and innuendo based on religion," the letter says. "We reject these efforts to manipulate members of our community into supporting or opposing candidates."

The full text of the letter is available after the jump.

Read more »

The latest Zogby poll gives John McCain the lead in South Carolina. McCain has 29%, Mike Huckabee 23%, and Mitt Romney 13%, with all others trailing further behind.

The poll was taken before McCain's nine-point loss to Romney in Michigan, so the impact of that primary has yet to be measured. John Zogby predicted that McCain's loss will probably cut into his current lead in South Carolina.

The new Zogby poll shows the Democratic race to be a statistical dead heat nationally. Hillary Clinton comes in first with 39%, not significantly different from Barack Obama's 38%. John Edwards is way behind at 9%.

On the Republican side, John McCain has a narrow lead of 28% to Mike Huckabee's 23%. In third place was Fred Thompson at 14%, with MItt Romney at 13%. Rudy Giuliani, the former national frontrunner, has only 9%.

The poll was conducted before the Michigan primary, so we cannot know yet what the impact will be of Romney's nine-point victory over McCain.

A key moment at the debate: Hillary and Obama squared off over terrorism, and the role that fear should play in our political life and in setting foreign policy.

First, Hillary was asked, in essence, whether she was playing the "fear card" against Obama when she raised the possibility of a terror attack testing the new president. Her answer:

The fact is that we face a very dangerous adversary and to forget that, to brush it aside, I think is a mistake. So I do feel that the next president has to be prepared. Because we are up against a relentless enemy. They will take advantage of us. They will certainly, as they have over the last several years, continue their attacks against our friends and allies around the world.

Obama, asked to respond, comes as close as possible to linking Hillary's rhetoric with Rovian fear-mongering:

I have to say that when Senator Clinton uses the specter of a terrorist attack with a new PM during a campaign, I think that is part and parcel with what we've seen with the use of the fear of terrorism in scoring political points. Which I think is a mistake. Now I don't want to perpetuate that. I think that's part of why we ended up going into Iraq. And made a big strategic error that has made us less safe.

You probably couldn't ask for a moment that contrasts the candidates as well as this one did.

Obama, asked at the debate if Latino voters have a reluctance to support black candidates, shows a flash of latent (and perhaps deserved) cockiness:

"Not in Illinois -- they all voted for me."

This debate has an innovative format: The candidates were just instructed that they had to ask each other questions.

Edwards asked Obama why it is that he thinks drug company execs give Dems political donations. Obama responded that mid-level drug company execs might be giving him money because they're responding to his message -- and not necessarily because they want presidential action on behalf of their interests.

Hillary asked Obama whether he would support her legislation compelling Bush to go to Congress for support for anything he wants to do in Iraq. Obama answered: "We can work on this, Hillary."

Obama's question, meanwhile, basically got eclipsed in an ongoing back and forth between the candidates over Iraq.

The main takeaway here, I think, is that all the candidates' reactions in this improvised back-and-forth reveal that they are all keenly aware of just how acrimonious things have gotten in the primary, and that they all grasp the extent to which rank and file Dems are thirsting for a bit of (short lived) harmony between the candidates.

This debate gimmick did have the effect of loosening things up a bit, and got everyone laughing, though it's not clear if it did anything to tell us anything more about the candidates that we don't know. But it was probably worth a try.

The three Dems are asked at the debate to detail their greatest strength -- and their greatest weakness. Their answers...

Obama's strength: "My greatest strength is the ability to bring people together, to get them to recognize what they have in common and to move people in different directions."

Obama's weakness: "I ask my staff never to hand me paper until 2 seconds before I need it, because I will lose it. My desk doesn't look good...that's not trivial." (For the record, we identify with this strongly.)

Edwards' strength: "My greatest strength is for 54 years I've been fighting with every fiber of my being." (From babyhood?) "I've got what it takes inside to fight."

Edwards' weakness: "I sometimes have very powerful emotional responses to pain that I see around me...I feel that in personal way and in a very emotional way."

Hillary's strength: "I think I understand how to make it possible for more people to live up to their god given potential."

Hillary's weakness: "I get impatient. I get really frustrated when people don't seem to understand that we can do so much more to help each other. And sometimes I come across that way. I get very concerned about pushing further and faster than perhaps people are ready to go."

I'm going to venture something. This primary has gotten really ugly at times, obviously. But whoever you are for, the bottom line is that Hillary and Obama, and Edwards perhaps to a slightly lesser extent, are impressive and formidable figures who have the potential to be important historical figures, and Dems are lucky to have this array of choices before them.

At the Dem debate in Nevada, which is just underway, Tim Russert hit Obama with a question about the memo from Obama's South Carolina press secretary that pushed the storyline that the Clintons are playing the race card.

Obama, asked if he regretted this, took the high road, saying that he regretted it "not only in hindsight, but going forward." He added: "What I am absolutely convinced of is that everybody here is committed to racial equality."

Hillary, too, started out by hitting a conciliatory tone, praising Obama and Edwards for their "extraordinary" personal stories.

"We're all family in the Democratic Party," Hillary says.

MSNBC, CNN and Fox call it for the Mitt.

Mittmentum!

The Web site of the Review Journal, the largest paper in Nevada, is reporting that it'll be endorsing Obama tomorrow, claiming he's the "most viable of the remaining candidates for the party."

We'll be blogging the Nevada Dem debate, which starts in minutes, right here at Election Central.

Rudy Giuliani has a new Spanish-language radio ad running in Florida, courting the Cuban vote. Rudy watchers will be glad to know that he's no longer exploiting the pain of September 11.

Instead, he's now exploiting "el dolor de aquel 11 de septiembre."

The Obama camp has just released a new campaign memo telling folks that tonight's Michigan primary results have no meaning because Hillary's the only leading Dem on the ballot.

What jumps out, however, is that the memo also lodges an out-of-nowhere allegation: It charges that Hillary is secretly planning to campaign in Florida, despite the fact that the Dem candidates have pledged not to stump in the state to punish the state for moving the date up in defiance of the DNC:

Senator Obama is firm in his commitment to neither participate nor campaign in the Florida Primary and its outcome has no bearing on the nomination contest. We raise Florida today because Senator Clinton has scheduled a fundraiser in Florida on Jan. 27th, and there are signs -- despite Senator Clinton’s public pledge to the contrary -- that she may be planning to campaign in the state -- inquiring about large venues and increased organizing activity -- ahead of the Florida primary.

The memo offers no evidence to back up the charges.

Separately, we'll be blogging the Nevada Dem debate, which starts at 9 P.M. eastern, right here at Election Central.

A McCain source tells us that the campaign's people on the ground in Michigan are reporting that turnout is not just very low, as press reports have been saying, but very low across the board, among Republicans, independents, Dems, etc.

The source says the worry in the McCain camp is that since McCain needs independents in disproportionate numbers, the depressed across-the-board turnout could end up hurting him. On the other hand, turnout also appears to be low among base GOP voters. McCain advisers are hoping this will end up hurting Romney and offsetting the low turnout among indys.

All of which is to say, no one knows anything yet.

Barack Obama has two Spanish-language spots on the air in Nevada, courting the Latino vote in the highly-contested caucus.

Here's the 60-second ad:

"Do you remember the hope that brought you or your parents to this country?" the announcer says, followed by video of Obama at a rally, talking about his own background. The narrator continues, "This is now your country. Don't let anything or anybody take away your hope."

The 30-second ad is available after the jump.

Read more »

Here's an interesting bit of color from John McCain's campaign plane today in which a top McCain adviser is already lowering expectations for McCain's performance in today's contest in Michigan:

Senior Adviser Steve Schmidt strolled back into the press section of their charter plane en route from Traverse City to Yspilanti to start framing potential results.

"Regardless of what happens here, we feel very good about South Carolina," Schmidt said.

Michigan, Schmidt said repeatedly, amounts to a home game for Romney.

"I think he ran a favorite state candidacy -- we'll see if it works."

Predictably, Schmidt said the stakes were enormous for Romney here.

Regarding his own candidate, Schmidt said it wouldn't have a lot of impact either way.

"I think that if we win in Michigan, we get a little bit of a bump and I think that if we lose, we take, maybe, a quarter step back, but i don't think it's a big deal any way," Schmidt argued.

Of course the stakes are vastly higher in Michigan for Romney than for McCain. If Romney loses here, it'll be his third big loss -- and it will have come in a state where he has deep roots and spent $2 million on TV in the last month alone. A loss here will effectively seal the deal, indicating that all the money and all the technology invested in creating this impeccable robot of a GOP presidential candidate has been for naught.

Meanwhile, McCain has already racked up a victory in New Hampshire, and the momentum of good "comeback kid" press he's riding can carry him through a loss in Michigan, particularly since Romney once called it home.

Turnout in Michigan appears to be very light in today's primary, probably owing in part to the lack of any contested Democratic primary, and also on account of the snowy weather.

The Detroit Free Press reports that there is "little to no waiting" at the polls in the Detroit metro area. Over at the other end of the state, the Grand Rapids Press reports that area clerks are revising their own turnout estimates downward, from what were already low projections of around 20%.

I asked the Obama campaign if they were going to respond to today's highly questionable column by WaPo's Richard Cohen raising questions about the fact that his church and its minister launched Trumpet Newsmagazine, which hailed Lous Farrakhan as a great man.

Here's Obama's response, sent over by the campaign:

I decry racism and anti-Semitism in every form and strongly condemn the anti-Semitic statements made by Minister Farrakhan. I assume that Trumpet Magazine made its own decision to honor Farrakhan based on his efforts to rehabilitate ex-offenders, but it is not a decision with which I agree.

One point about Cohen's column. When he writes...

It's important to state right off that nothing in Obama's record suggests he harbors anti-Semitic views or agrees with Wright when it comes to Farrakhan.

...Cohen is of course raising questions in people's minds as to whether Obama does believes this stuff, which is exactly what the original smears are supposed to do. It's surprising that Cohen dragged his paper down to this level, particularly in light of the big controversy over WaPo's piece front-paging the Obama Muslim smears without declaring them false.

On second thought, maybe it isn't surprising at all.

Late Update: I've got more on Cohen's column right here at The Horse's Mouth.

At a Michigan campaign event last night, Mike Huckabee gave an interesting reason for why he wants to amend the Constitution to ban both abortion and gay marriage: Otherwise, the Constitution would be in conflict with God.

Huckabee first observed that some of his opponents don't want to amend the Constitution on both of these topics. "But I believe it's a lot easier to change the Constitution than it would be to change the word of the living God," Huckabee said. "And that's what we need to do, is to amend the Constitution so it's in God's standards rather than try to change God's standards."

A statistic to mull over, whoever the winner is of tonight's pivotal Michigan primary: Mitt Romney has spent more on TV advertising there than John McCain and Mike Huckabee combined.

According to the non-partisan Michigan Campaign Finance Network, Romney spent $2 million in an ad campaign lasting for about the past month, compared to McCain's $744,000 over the last ten days, and Huckabee's $484,000 in the past week.

The Nevada state teachers union's lawsuit against the special caucus sites for Las Vegas Strip workers has had a (predictable) effect: It's really riled up the Culinary Workers Union, and has become another weapon they can use to get their members to go out and caucus for Barack Obama.

The Las Vegas Sun reports that the Culinary has been distributing fliers to members, quoting news reports that the lawsuit is "a hardball effort by Clinton allies to block votes" by the union's members, and in contrast quotes Obama's denunciation of the suit.

Notably, the fliers also take Hillary to task for not taking a public position on the matter. "Our Right to Vote?" one flier asks rhetorically. "'I Just Don’t Know,' says Hillary Clinton."

In a new ad in South Carolina, John McCain casts his lot with the state's military servicemen and women, and asks the people for their votes so that he too can pursue the cause of America:

"I've served our country all my adult life," McCain says the camera. "I've never lived a day, in good times or bad, I wasn't grateful for the privilege. Now, I ask to serve as your President."

John Edwards has a new ad campaign in South Carolina, making his point in ten-second spots. The four very short ads all hit Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, who currently hold the top two spots in the South Carolina polls, and then present John Edwards as the alternative:

The other three ads are available after the jump.

Read more »

John McCain, who likes to decry negative campaigning, has dropped a less-than-positive mailer in South Carolina attacking Mitt Romney on a number of fronts. The mailer is pretty impressive -- not only does it fault Romney for "taxpaper funded abortions" and for raising taxes by "$700 million," it also manages to hit Hillary Clinton for allegedly wanting to build Woodstock Museum "on the site of the 1969 music festival," which McCain opposed.

Last I checked, Woodstock, N.Y., is roughly 600 miles from South Carolina, and Hillary isn't a candidate in the South Carolina GOP primary. But each GOP candidate is scouring his record for anything that can be presented as proof that he stood up to Hillary about something at some point, and hence that he's the only one who can beat her in a general election.

Curiously, the mailer also hits Romney for his insufficient enthusiasm for Bush's tax cuts -- which McCain himself voted against. Click on the images to enlarge:

The McCain campaign, however, is denying that this is an attack mailer, claiming instead that the piece represents a defensive move in response to this Romney mailer that hit McCain on taxes:

Two more new polls in Michigan show some serious pick-up for Mitt Romney in the home stretch.

Here are last night's numbers from Michigan-based pollster Mitchell Interactive, compared to the poll released the previous day:

Romney 35% (+6)
McCain 29% (+2)
Huckabee 12% (+0)

And from American Research Group, compared to their poll released on Saturday:

McCain 31% (-3)
Romney 30% (+3)
Huckabee 19% (+4)

Yet another House Republican is apparently heading for the exit. Eleven-term Congressman Richard Baker (R-LA) will reportedly announce soon that he is resigning from Congress to head up the Managed Funds Association, the top lobbying group for the hedge fund industry. "It's expected to be official and announced this week," a source told Roll Call.

The district is strongly Republican, giving 59% of its vote to President Bush in 2004, but Democrats think they may have a shot at it with the right candidate. The Dems have already united behind state Rep. Don Cazayoux.

The internals from yesterday's Research 2000 poll in Nevada have some bad news for Hillary Clinton. The horse-race results showed a tight race with Barack Obama at 32%, Hillary with 30%, and John Edwards at 27%, but the respondents' answers to various other questions showed little room for movement for Hillary.

Only 34% of respondents said Clinton has the best experience to lead, compared to 29% for Edwards and 28% for Obama. When it comes to which candidate is best about to bring about needed change, Hillary lags very badly: Obama 38%, Edwards 33%, Clinton 18%. And when asked which attributes they value most highly in a candidate, 26% said they wanted change, compared to only 22% who value experience.

Then again, the New Hampshire result taught us all to not take these polls too seriously. We'll see what happens on Saturday, when the caucuses are actually held.

This morning's Zogby tracking poll in Michigan puts today's primary at a dead heat. Here are the numbers, compared to the ones released yesterday:

McCain 27% (+0)
Romney 26% (+2)
Huckabee 15% (+0)
Paul 8% (+0)
Thompson 5% (+0)
Giuliani 3% (-3)

Some commentary from John Zogby: "Okay, so who needs interesting? Our final track, to be exact, in Michigan is McCain 27.1% to Romney’s 25.6% and Huckabee at 14.9%. Our call center made 553 calls just on Monday to get as close a read on this as late as we could. Monday alone stood at Romney 26.7% to McCain’s 26.3%. I looked at the calls that were made before 5:30 PM and two candidates were also tied – pretty much as they were after 5:30 PM. There just isn’t any momentum here."

NBC News was planning on cutting tonight's Democratic debate in Nevada down to the top three candidates — but a judge's ruling may just force them to expand it to four.

Last night, Clark County District Court Judge Charles Thompson ordered that NBC include Dennis Kucinich, who they had originally invited but then later excluded, or he would issue an injunction to stop the whole debate. NBC is appealing the order.

Barack Obama takes steps to defuse the racial and political tensions that have been uncorked by the battle between Hillary and himself over the meaning of recent remarks by the Clintons:

"I don't think it was in any way a racial comment," Obama told ABC News. "That's something that has played out in the press. That's not my view."

But, he said, the comment was revealing about her political character. "I do think it was indicative of the perspective that she brings, which is that what happens in Washington is more important than what happens outside of Washington," he said.

He said he believes the quote betrays a belief on her part, "that the intricacies of the legislative process were somehow more significant than when ordinary people rise up and march and go to jail and fight for justice."

He called that a "fundamental difference" between them.

Late Update: Since we could all use some comic relief from all this right about now, here's an amusingly misleading headline from CNN about all this.

Hillary Clinton has a new ad in Nevada, in which she speaks in a soft tone about the problems facing America, and the efforts she will make to improve things if she's elected:

The ad definitely seems like it's part of an image makeover for Hillary — less authoritative and more vulnerable/human — in the wake of her upset win in New Hampshire, which many have credited to The Tears.

Fred Thompson has a new ad in South Carolina, the site of his final stand. The spot features the candidate talking to the camera, laying out the case to voters that he is the steadfast conservative in the race, dedicated to the issues that they care about:

An Obama precinct captain in Nevada has circulated a flyer that urges Republicans (and independents) to become Democrats just for a day in order to stop Hillary.

The flyer is likely to be controversial, because it's playing on Republican dislike of Hillary to get GOP voters to affect the outcome of the Democratic caucuses.

"Republicans, Independents, Everyone," the flyer reads. "You can make the difference if you think a Democrat will win in November and you don't want Hillary...You can come to the Democratic caucus and vote for Obama."

Though precinct captains are volunteers, they are designated as such by the campaigns. And while this flyer isn't the official work of the Obama campaign, in this race campaigns have been held liable for the actions of such volunteers. When a Hillary county coordinator forwarded a copy of the Obama Muslim smear email, it became national news for days, leading to her resignation.

Here's the flyer in question (click on images to enlarge):

Obama spokesman Bill Burton confirmed that Buchanan is a precinct captain, and sent me this statement:

We'’ve learned that one individual who volunteers for the campaign was making the flyer and we’ve instructed him to stop creating and distributing it. But make no mistake, we want as many independents and Republicans to become Democrats and help to build a new governing majority in this country.

I just got off the phone with the precinct captain, Bob Buchanan. He said that he had stopped distributing this particular flyer and replaced it with what he called a more positive one.

Nonetheless, Buchanan acknowledged to me that this one attacking Hillary had been distributed.

The new version also appears to play on GOP hatred for Hillary, though in more cautious language. Buchanan confirmed that the new version says:

"Republicans, Independents, Everyone. You can make the difference if you think a Democrat will win in November and you have said anybody but Hillary."

Late Update: The Huffington Post, which had this posted first, adds some more context from Buchanan on the rationale behind the flyer.

Late Late Update: In response to some commenters below, the point of mentioning the Muslim smear email isn't that writing this flyer and distributing it is comparable to forwarding that email.

The point of drawing the comparison, rather, is that it illustrates that in this race the campaigns are being held accountable for the actions of low-level volunteers. The Obama campaign itself knows this, which is why they're disavowing the flyer.

New poll numbers just released by USA Today/Gallup find that John McCain has taken a sizable national lead over second-place Mike Huckabee -- a suggestion that his New Hampshire victory, combined with all the media talk about his comeback, have provided him with a big national lift:

Republicans:

McCain: 33%, up from 19% a week ago.

Mike Huckabee: 19%, down from 25%.

Rudy Giuliani: 13%; down from 20%.

Mitt Romney: 11%; up from 9%.

Fred Thompson: 9%; down from 12%.

Rep. Ron Paul: 3%; down from 4%.

Meanwhile, the poll also finds that Hillary has jumped 12 points to regain a national lead comparable to the one she enjoyed in some polls before her Iowa loss:

Democrats:

Clinton: 45%; up from 33%.

Obama: 33%, unchanged.

John Edwards: 13%; down from 20%.

Rep. Dennis Kucinich: 1%; down from 3%.

Primaries, caucuses, and more primaries -- now that we know that the Democratic and Republican races are in it for the long haul, what exactly lies ahead?

What primaries are the key races? Who's leading in which states? What are the main issues at play in each local contest? What local players are backing whom?

Our full road map to what's ahead is after the jump.

Read more »

A new Research 2000 poll shows the Nevada caucuses to be toss-ups for both sides, with Barack Obama and John McCain apparently having the edges in their respective parties for now:

Democrats:
Obama 32%
Clinton 30%
Edwards 27%

Republicans:
McCain 22%
Giuliani 18%
Huckabee 16%
Romney 15%
Thompson 11%
Paul 6%

Here it is, video of BET founder Bob Johnson's remarks yesterday at a Hillary Clinton rally, alluding to some unnamed activity Barack Obama was doing "in the neighborhood":

And here's Johnson's statement in which he said he was not referring to Barack Obama's youthful drug use, and people are being irresponsible by suggesting that he was:

My comments today were referring to Barack Obama’s time spent as a community organizer, and nothing else. Any other suggestion is simply irresponsible and incorrect.

When Hillary Clinton was in her twenties she worked to provide protections for abused and battered children and helped ensure that children with disabilities could attend public school.

That results oriented leadership — even as a young person — is the reason I am supporting Hillary Clinton.

This morning's new Zogby poll gives John McCain a narrow lead over Mitt Romney in Michigan:

McCain 27%
Romney 24%
Huckabee 15%
Paul 8%
Giuliani 6%
Thompson 5%

Romney beats McCain 30%-20% among Republicans, but McCain wins among Democrats and independents by margins of about 15 points each. Only about half of the voters in Zogby's sampling are actually self-identified Republicans, due to the lack of a contested Democratic primary here.

A new Quinnipiac poll in Florida shows a four-way dead heat on the Republican side, much like the Rasmussen poll also out this morning. Here are the numbers, compared to the last Quinnipiac poll from mid-December:

McCain 22% (+9)
Giuliani 20% (-8)
Huckabee 19% (-2)
Romney 19% (-1)
Thompson 7% (-1)
Paul 5% (+3)

The Democrats are not seriously contesting this rogue primary, which for now has been stripped of all delegates by the Democratic National Committee. But there the numbers stand at Clinton 52% (+9), Obama 31% (+10), and Edwards 9% (-10).

The new Rasmussen poll in Florida shows the Florida Republican primary to be totally up in the air — four candidates are stuck in a dead heat. Here are the numbers, compared to Rasmussen's last Florida poll from a month ago:

McCain 19% (+13)
Romney 18% (-5)
Giuliani 18% (-1)
Huckabee 17% (-10)
Thompson 11% (+2)
Paul 5% (+1)

John McCain has picked up the endorsement of former Michigan Governor William Milliken, a Republican moderate who served as governor of the state for 14 years — and before that, was lieutenant governor under none other than the late George Romney, father of Mitt Romney.

"I was a great admirer of his father," Milliken told the Detroit News. "But Mitt Romney has been a disappointment to me because he has changed his socially responsible positions he took as governor of Massachusetts. I don't have the respect for him that I had for his father."