What's wrong with the following headline from the front page of Monday's Washington Post?

Clinton Tests Out Populist Approach

Answer: A true populist doesn't have to test out a populist approach. But this is what so often happens in the Democratic Party. A candidate finds himself or herself in the rough and they reach for the populist nine iron. Let me see if I can get out trouble with this club. Al Gore got all populist in the closing days of the 2000 presidential contest, noting he would fight for us against them--the drug companies, health insurance companies, and the like. (You know, all the folks who bought superboxes at the Democratic convention that year in the Staples Center.) Michael Dukakis veered similarly toward the end of his campaign against George H.W. Bush in 1988. Neither ended up in the White House.

It's not that populism is bad politics; it's that phony (or halfhearted or last-minute) populism is no guarantee of success. For Hillary Clinton to don the mantle of heavy-breathing populism a this stage is not all that convincing. She and her husband never were full-fledged members of that Democratic wing of the Democratic Party. In 1992, Bill, a leader of the conservative-leaning, pro-business Democratic Leadership Council, did run with a quasi-populist agenda of "Putting People First"--which he jettisoned after entering the White House in favor of a Fed-friendly close-the-deficit governing policy. With Hillary by his side, he pushed for Nafta--which was passionately opposed by populists within the party. (These days, Hillary Clinton tries disingenuously to distance herself from the treaty, maintaining it was negotiated by President George H.W. Bush--and not acknowledging that her husband led a major drive to get it passed in Congress over objections from labor unions and Democrats.) And when Hillary Clinton put together her health care reform package, she tried at first to co-opt or appease the health care industry, while other Dems advocated a more confrontational strategy. Her record as a populist is a slight bit thin.

The Post reports:

Eager to recapture the white, working-class voters who favored her in some of the early primaries but who have since shifted to Sen. Barack Obama, Clinton traded her usual wonky style this weekend for a fiery, populist tone in speeches in Ohio, Texas and Rhode Island.

Instead of giving precise policy details, she repeatedly pointed her finger skyward, declared that Americans "got shafted under President Bush" and cast herself as a fighter, as Edwards often described himself, promising to help most Americans, not just the "wealthy and the connected."

So a voter can fairly ask, where was all this anger before? Why now? Is there any way not to see this as a cynical ploy motivated by recent primary results and present polls?

The paper goes on:

In an appearance here Sunday afternoon, she mocked Obama's hopeful rhetoric, declaring that it is not the answer to fighting entrenched interests.

"I could stand up here and say, 'Let's just get everybody together, let's get unified, the sky will open, the light will come down, celestial choirs will be singing, and everyone will know we should do the right thing and the world will be perfect,' " she said, as people cheered and laughed. "You are not going to wave a magic wand and have the special interests disappear."

She wants to bash those special interests. Yet her campaign strategy has been crafted by Mark Penn, whose day job is to assist corporationsso they can game the system in Washington and elsewhere. Much more so than Barack Obama, Clinton has made use of lobbyists as fundraisers and staffers. Her aversion to corporate special interests was not that strong when she was organizing her campaign and looking forward to a front-runner's trot to victory in the Democratic contest.

Hillary Clinton clearly wants to regain the support of blue-collar Dems. In recent weeks, exit polls have showed that Obama has made dramatic inroads into this bloc, which did seem to be on Clinton's side earlier in the race. And, no doubt, she is still hoping to get a thumb's up from John Edwards, who has not endorsed either Clinton or Obama. (As I previously noted, Edwards will have a tough time awarding his seal of approval to Clinton over Obama after referring to her as a "corporate Democrat" and a force for the status quo.)

If Clinton wants to prove she's a populist, she could ask Penn and the corporate lobbyists who work for her to vacate the premises. But it's difficult to take her late conversion to populism seriously when the guy behind it is making millions of dollars working for the special interests she decries.

Busy, busy voting today....Does Hillary Clinton have a chance at winning Virginia? That's one question, as the Potomac Primary occurs. And if you want to ponder the Maryland primary, where Barack Obama is expected to win, consider this: Clinton has the governor and his machine (such as it is) behind her. It might still not be enough for her. As for the District of Columbia primary, the big news before the voting started was that Eleanor Holmes Norton, the district's nonvoting House member, endorsed Obama. But she did so the night before Election Day, thus minimizing the impact of her endorsement. How to read this? She wanted to be with the predicted winner but did not want to aggravate the Clinton crew. In the meantime, the other political news is the so-called John Edwards primary. For MotherJones.com, I've examined whether Edwards really has a choice. The bottom line: no. Here's that article:

THE JOHN EDWARDS ENDORSEMENT: A LAST CHANCE TO PROVE HE'S NO PHONY
by David Corn
MotherJones.com

A few weeks ago, I was talking to an influential Hillary Clinton fundraiser. When the subject of John Edwards (still in the race at that time) came up, she started sputtering about his hypocrisy. His expensive hair cut, his big house--the guy's a phony, she exclaimed derisively, and his populist, anti-Washington, help-the-poor rhetoric was all just for show. He won't last.

She was right on that final point. As for his authenticity, that was a question that chased Edwards. During his six years in the U.S. Senate (1999 to 2005), Edwards was no working-class hero. He did not develop a reputation as a firebrand willing to take on the powerbrokers of the nation's capital. At that time, Senator Paul Wellstone was the populist champion in the Senate (until his tragic death in October 2002). Wellstone waged one fight after another against corporate interests, lobbying influence, and the sway of big-money. I don't recall Edwards standing shoulder-to-shoulder with him during all these uphill battles.

Yet on the campaign trail, Edwards became Joe Hill in a suit.

Wellstone once told me that you always have allow for redemption within politics. And perhaps Edwards' conversion was genuine. Why not give him the benefit of the doubt? His message was powerful and well-delivered--even if not embraced by a plurality of Democratic voters. But if Edwards wants to prove he was truly speaking his heart and mind, he has no choice when it comes to endorsing one of the remaining Democratic contenders. He cannot support Hillary Clinton.

During the campaign, as he called for ending poverty, Edwards pointed to Clinton as part of the problem. Let's roll the tape on a speech he gave in New Hampshire last summer:

The system in Washington is rigged and our government is broken. It's rigged by greedy corporate powers to protect corporate profits. It's rigged by the very wealthy to ensure they become even wealthier. At the end of the day, it's rigged by all those who benefit from the established order of things....

Politicians who care more about their careers than their constituents go along to get elected. They make easy promises to voters instead of challenging them to take responsibility for our country. And then they compromise even those promises to keep the lobbyists happy and the contributions coming...

It's a game that never ends, but every American knows -- it's time to end the game. And it's time for the Democratic Party -- the party of the people -- to end it. The choice for our party could not be more clear. We cannot replace a group of corporate Republicans with a group of corporate Democrats, just swapping the Washington insiders of one party for the Washington insiders of the other. The American people deserve to know that their presidency is not for sale, the Lincoln Bedroom is not for rent, and lobbyist money can no longer influence policy in the House or the Senate.

There is no way to read that passage as not a direct assault on Clinton. Edwards was calling her out as a "corporate Democrat" willing to benefit from the crooked politics of Washington. The reference to the renting of the Lincoln Bedroom was a sharp punctuation mark. (During the Bill Clinton presidency, big donors to his campaign were rewarded with overnights in the White House.)

This was not a solo blast. Campaigning in Iowa in November, Edwards made it explicit:

The presidential candidate who has raised the most money from Washington lobbyists is not a Republican. It's a Democrat. The candidate who has raised the most money from the health industry--insurance companies and drug companies--is not a Republican. It is a Democrat…. And the candidate who has raised the most money from the defense industry, is not a Republican. It is a Democrat. And all those descriptions fit the same candidate. They're all Senator Clinton.

At the debate before the New Hampshire primary, Edwards slammed Clinton for being aligned with "the forces of status quo" dead-set on blocking change in Washington.

Those were some charges. Did Edwards mean what he was saying about Clinton? Did he mean it when he proclaimed that poverty eradication was the cause of his life?

In the past few days, Edwards has met with Clinton, and he's due to see Barack Obama, presumably to figure out if he should endorse either. If Clinton ends up the Democratic nominee, it will not be hypocritical for Edwards to campaign for her. He can reasonably argue she will be a better president than John McCain. But if the choice is Obama or Clinton, he is stuck. Were Edwards to pick her over him, he would be endorsing a "corporate Democratic" fronting for the status quo over the fellow whom he approvingly cited as an advocate for change. If Edwards pulled such a move, all those powerful words he left behind on the campaign trail would have no meaning....

You can read the rest here.

John McCain, the war ain't helping you. That is, all the war advocates who have recently been mouthing happy talk about the Iraq war are not doing McCain any favors. And he can include himself in that group.

Look at the Michigan primary. Mitt Romney finally won a gold medal last night and whooped McCain by 9 points. Half the voters in Michigan said that the economy was the No. 1 issue. Only one-fifth pointed to Iraq. Among those who cited the economy, Romney bested McCain 41 to 29 percent. Of course, Michigan is in a near-depression, and it comes as no surprise that GOP voters there are looking more for an economic savior than a military commander who can keep Iraqi insurgents from coming over here to attack our malls. And during the campaign Romney did his best to pander to Michiganders, promising to bring back the golden age of automobile manufacturing. McCain, though, told 'em to suck it up and get with Plan B (retraining and education for non-automaking jobs). Thus, the candidate of national security was trounced by the candidate of economic miracles.

McCain and his strategists can dismiss the Michigan loss as inevitably due to the specific circumstances of the Michigan economy. But that might be whistling past the shutdown factory. The meta-narrative these days is this: the war is going well, the U.S. economy is rushing toward a recession. It doesn't matter whether this is an accurate depiction of reality. After all, the war in Iraq has hardly turned the corner, and even the recent passage of a de-Baathification law in the Iraqi parliament was not much of a true success. (Almost a half of the body didn't turn up for the vote, and its passage pissed off Sunnis and Shias alike, with many of the former remaining unconvinced this legislation will change much for them.) But if GOP voters believe--or hear repeatedly--that the surge is working, they have less reason to fret about the war, and less reason to feel a need for McCain.

What other issue is McCain known for these days? Maybe pork-busting. But he's never had much of a profile on grand economic matters. Conservatives still hold a grudge against him for not being a passionate tax-cutter. So if the pending--or already-arrived--recession is now the worry of the moment for GOP voters, McCain doesn't meet the demand. Enter Romney, Mr. CEO. The guy who gave us Staples and cheap paper clips. In Michigan, his economy-first message triumphed. Could he do the same elsewhere?

For months, McCain has been proclaiming that the surge is succeeding. And with such pronouncements filling the media, Iraq has become a less salient issue for voters in both parties. McCain might end up a victim of his own success.

DEMS DO NEVADA. It was a rather low-key debate in Las Vegas on Tuesday night for the Democratic presidential contenders. They all played nice. They all looked exhausted. Here's my report from MotherJones.com:

What did the umpteenth Democratic presidential debate, held in Nevada on Tuesday night, demonstrate? That Barack Obama, John Edwards, and Hillary Clinton each need a nap. The trio looked worn out. Perhaps that was why few punches were thrown. The Iraq war, the politics of race, tears (or near tears)--the Democratic contest had become rather heated in recent days. Clinton, using misleading information, had accused Obama of being a disingenuous hypocrite regarding the war. Obama's camp had seized on a comment Clinton had made to Fox News and assailed her for supposedly dissing Martin Luther King Jr. And Edwards had snidely insinuated Clinton might not be strong enough to be president (after she became emotional at a campaign stop in New Hampshire). It was getting nasty.

But in Las Vegas, there was relative calm. And no one hit the jackpot. Sure, there were a few pokes. Clinton declined to state that Obama and Edwards are prepared to be president. Edwards noted that Clinton and Obama had pocketed campaign contributions from corporate executives. Obama suggested that Clinton was using the specter of a future terrorist attack to scare people into voting for her. Overall, though, the three stuck to their positive scripts. Obama: I can inspire, mobilize, and bring together a divided nation. Clinton: I have the experience to be ready on Day One to solve problems for you and your children. Edwards: I will fight to my last breath for middle-class and low-income Americans. (Clinton did have a Clintonian moment when she acknowledged that she had voted for the anti-consumer bankruptcy bill of 2001 but "was happy that it never became law." In other words, I voted for it but didn't inhale.)

The major clash of the night came over...energy policy....

You can read the rest here.

Yesterday I asked how far Hillary Clinton will go in attacking Barack Obama or John Edwards to win in Iowa or elsewhere. Today, let's flip the pic. How harsh will Edwards or Obama get to deny the national front-runner her coronation?

The answer (as of now) appears to be, as far as they have already. Two days ago, Edwards said candidates ought to be talking about the voters and their needs, not engaging in self-centered sniping at rivals. At the same time, though, the Edwards campaign was releasing an ad in which he says,

We can say as long as we get Democrats in, everything's gonna be okay. It's a lie. It is not the truth. Do you really believe if we replace a crowd of corporate Republicans with a crowd of corporate Democrats that anything meaningful's going to change? This has to stop. It's that simple.

No secret, he was busting on Clinton. And it's a criticism that has merit. Her campaign is fueled by cash and guided by strategy from corporate lobbyists and consultants who are Democrats. There's no denying her policies would differ from those of a Republican president. But she sure isn't for toppling the system in Washington.

So Edwards has a good point (even if he was no tear-down-the-wall populist when he served in the Senate). But can he persuade enough Iowa voters by playing it cute? Eschewing attack politics but assailing Clinton, even if not in name? If he's really fighting for the little guys and gals out there--and not just his campaign--then he might have to be more direct and confrontational in his crusade against Clinton and the corporate Democrats. Name names, that is. Who's the Democratic crowd he wants to keep out of power? Who's its leaders? Talk the talk.

Meanwhile, Obama's latest ad has its own dig at Clinton. It features a clip from his impressive Jefferson Jackson Day speech in Iowa, in which he declares,

We are in a defining moment in our history. Our nation is at war. The planet is in peril. The dream that so many generations fought for feels as if it's slowly slipping away. And that is why the same old Washington textbook campaigns just won't do. That's why telling the American people what we think they want to hear, instead of telling the American people what they need to hear, just won't do. America, our moment is now. I don't wanna spend the next year or the next four years refighting the same fights that we had in the 1990s. I don't wanna pit Red America against Blue America. I wanna be the President of the UNITED States of America.

Message: Clinton is too divisive or too distracting. But Obama does not sharpen his critique of Clinton with this ad. And that's interesting. He seems to be doing just fine--if you believe the polls--with his medium-strength, intermittent jabs at Hillary Clinton. This may say more about Clinton than about Obama. Glass of jaw? Feet of clay? She seems to have hit a tough patch without receiving all that much incoming. She had one major slip-up in a debate (when she could not talk straight about the proposal to issue driver's licenses to illegal immigrants in New York State) and--boom!--she's fighting for her life in Iowa, even though Obama botched a question on that same topic in the following debate. For most of this year, Obama-ites were saying that Clinton's support was fragile and that pundits shouldn't be too influenced by the polls showing her with large leads over their man. Maybe they were right.

IN MY MIND..... Speaking of polls, a new poll in South Carolina shows HRC with just a 2-point edge over Obama in that key state: Clinton, 36 percent; Obama, 34 percent; and Edwards, 13 percent. A month ago, Clinton had a 10-point lead. Yesterday, I speculated that South Carolina might be the spot where the Clintonites will have to stop Obama and noted that might be difficult, given Obama's not-too-secret weapon: Oprah. So here's a question to consider: if Obama manages to rack up wins in the three main early contests, could Clinton beat him back on February 5, Super Duper Tuesday, when 20 or so states, including California, will hold contests and about half of the delegates will be selected?

INTELLIGENCE COINCIDENCE? Anyone else notice that on the same day the news broke that the CIA destroyed at least two videotapes documenting the waterboarding of al Qaeda operatives during interrogation sessions, the Senate intelligence committee produced a bipartisan measure that would ban waterboarding? The bill would do so by applying the Army Field Manual's interrogation standards (which forbids waterboarding) to all interrogations conducted by U.S. intelligence personnel.

In a statement released Thursday, CIA chief Michael Hayden, who took over the job in 2006, said,

The press has learned that back in 2002, during the initial stage of our terrorist detention program, CIA videotaped interrogations, and destroyed the tapes in 2005. I understand that the Agency did so only after it was determined they were no longer of intelligence value and not relevant to any internal, legislative, or judicial inquiries--including the trial of Zacarias Moussaoui.

The decision to destroy the tapes was made within CIA itself. The leaders of our oversight committees in Congress were informed of the videos years ago and of the Agency's intention to dispose of the material. Our oversight committees also have been told that the videos were, in fact, destroyed.

No longer of value? Isn't that what's usually said when someone destroys evidence? And the oversight committees, once informed of the pending destruction, did nothing to preserve these tapes? This sure smells funny. Doesn't the CIA have a vault with a really, really good lock on it where the videos could have been kept?

For the moment, it seems that the question of the Democratic horserace is this: how negative will Hillary Clinton go?

A prominent Clinton campaign adviser tells me that the Hillaryites are worried about the calendar--and worried enough that her attacks on Barack Obama may well get sharper. If--just if--Obama wins in Iowa, this Dem says, the five days between the caucus and the New Hampshire primary might not be enough time for Clinton to derail Obama. Then a nightmare (for Hillary) scenario is possible. Independents and Republicans (who want to hurt Hillary Clinton) turn out to vote for Obama in the New Hampshire open primary. Then the next place truly to stop Obama will be South Carolina on January 26 (a week after the Nevada caucuses). But one word about South Carolina: Oprah. In the Palmetto State, the fight will be for African-American voters. Clinton has done well there so far, according to the polls, and she has racked up critical endorsements from African American leaders in the state. But if the Diva of All Entertainment tours with Obama in South Carolina, she could win the black vote for him. Imagine the impact it might have if she appears at rallies with Obama and simply remarks, "Finally." She wouldn't have to say much more. And if South Carolina falls....

This sort of what-iffing is a sport for the politerati. But it's what campaign planners have to do. "We once thought he had to win Iowa to stay alive," this Clintonite says. "We now think that we might have to win to stay alive." Will the fight get even more nasty as Iowa approaches? "There's still plenty of time for that," this person says. "And that's how things go in politics. There may be no choice."

No doubt, the Obama campaign is gaming out the possibilities and calculating how far to go in slamming Clinton, as is the Edwards camp. Yesterday Edwards, who weeks ago was slashing away at Clinton, disparaged candidate-on-candidate sniping, complaining that such political discourse ignores the problems of real folks. Perhaps he has concluded his best shot is to try to sprint past the carnage created by a Clinton-Obama battle. Given the short space between Iowa and New Hampshire--last time there was eight days in between--there will be no time for any campaign to try a series of different tactics. They will have to be ready to roll on January 4 with whatever strategy they have cooked up for what will likely be the five most intense days in modern political campaigning.

So will Hillary, should she come up short in Iowa, continue to blast away at Obama (or denounce Edwards if he manages a surprise win in Iowa)? A former top Clinton White House official, unaffiliated with any current campaign, points out that one thing that Hillary Clinton does not do well is attack: "She's much better when she's being attacked." This person's advice for Clinton if she happen to lose in Iowa: "She should flirt. She can charm. I've seen her do it. Not like Bill. But she should not get her back up. She should be gracious. She doesn't do sarcasm well. She looked bad when she mocked Obama for saying he had gotten foreign policy experience by being a kid in Indonesia. That's something a surrogate should do, not her. She should resist the urge." Can she? "Well," this former Clintonista says, "that may depend on whether it's a 2-point loss in Iowa or a 5-point loss."

That new National Intelligence Estimate on Iran--the one that says Iran halted work on a nuclear weapons program since 2003--will really put a damper on Iran war fever. Just ask neocon legend Norman Podhoretz, who has been the lead advocate for bombing Tehran right away. He writes that the NIE:

has just dealt a serious blow to the argument some of us have been making that Iran is intent on building nuclear weapons and that neither diplomacy nor sanctions can prevent it from succeeding.

Yep, it sure is gonna be hard for the hawks to whip up support at home and abroad for blasting Iran after the U.S. intelligence community has concluded the reason for such a blasting does not exist.

But what about the really important question: what does this mean for Hillary Clinton? My hunch: it helps. Until now, the only pressing foreign policy matter on which the leading Democratic presidential candidates disagreed was the recent legislation that declared the Iranian Revolutionary Guard a terrorist outfit. Clinton voted for it; Barack Obama, who missed the vote, and John Edwards, who no longer gets to vote in the Senate, have slammed her for that, claiming that a vote the measure was the equivalent of giving the Bush administration a greenlight for attacking in Iran. That is a somewhat dramatic reading of the legislation. But the measure did call the Iranian Revolutionary Guard a "proliferator" of weapons of mass destruction--which certainly could be a cause for military action against Iran.

At a debate on Tuesday held by NPR in Iowa, Steve Inskeep asked Clinton about that part of the measure:

Senator Clinton, as some of your opponents have noted, in September you voted on a resolution involving the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, which, among other things, called them proliferators of mass destruction. In view of this latest intelligence estimate, which says Iran's nuclear program was stopped in 2003, do you believe that's still true?

She ducked the question. Inskeep asked again. She ducked once more. She looked (or sounded, that is) dodgy.

But while the NIE pulls the (Persian?) rug out from under anyone who voted for that bill and those who have been walking on the hawkish side, it also does something else. As Pod the Elder noted, it takes the steam out of the Iran controversy. And that helps Clinton. With a military attack on Iran less likely now, Obama's and Edwards' criticism of HRC's vote will have less sting. They can argue her vote was wrong and that it shows she's not willing to stand up to Bush and the hawks. At the debate, Senator Joe Biden made a strong argument that Clinton's vote for this measure was damn foolish. Yet after the release of this NIE, it now seems that stopping a war with Iran is not going to be on the top of the to-do list of the next Democratic nominee. So a vulnerability that Clinton had, due to a true policy difference, will likely fade. Her campaign ought to send a thank-you card to the administration for releasing a declassified version of the report.

A NEW NEOCON CONSPIRACY. The neocons tend to be great fans of conspiracies. Before the Iraq war, some embraced the nutty idea that Saddam Hussein was the hidden hand behind al Qaeda. And some have claimed that the intelligence community actively sought to bring down the Bush administration. Picking up on that theme, Podhoretz suspects that the NIE was a dirty trick mounted by the spooks against the White House. He writes:

I entertain an even darker suspicion. It is that the intelligence community, which has for some years now been leaking material calculated to undermine George W. Bush, is doing it again. This time the purpose is to head off the possibility that the President may order air strikes on the Iranian nuclear installations. As the intelligence community must know, if he were to do so, it would be as a last resort, only after it had become undeniable that neither negotiations nor sanctions could prevent Iran from getting the bomb, and only after being convinced that it was very close to succeeding. How better, then, to stop Bush in his tracks than by telling him and the world that such pressures have already been effective and that keeping them up could well bring about "a halt to Iran's entire nuclear weapons program"--especially if the negotiations and sanctions were combined with a goodly dose of appeasement or, in the NIE's own euphemistic formulation, "with opportunities for Iran to achieve its security, prestige, and goals for regional influence in other ways."

Want to know how crazy this is? Pop quiz: how many intelligence agencies are there in the intelligence community? Sixteen. The NIE was produced by the National Intelligence Council, which includes analysts from these agencies. Rigging a high-profile, long-in-the-making NIE would entail the cooperation of many different bureaucracies. Only someone unfamiliar with the workings of government in general (and the intelligence establishment, in particular) could believe such a conspiracy is possible. Perhaps the NIC got it wrong. It's certainly capable of that. But it's hardly capable of pulling off a disinformation operation of this magnitude. Podhoretz's paranoid imagination far surpasses the abilities of intellcrats.

ON BOB GATES' NIGHT TABLE. Defense Secretary Bob Gates has been telling friends and colleagues to read Partners in Command: George Marshall and Dwight Eisenhower in War and Peace by my pal Mark Perry, a longtime author and military historian. Why is this interesting? Perry's book, which shows how Marshall and Ike worked together to win the war and then win the peace, notes that the pair lived by three rules:

1. Never go to war unless it is absolutely necessary.

2. Never go to war alone.

3. Never go to war for too long.

Seems that Gates has learned the lessons of Iraq. It's a positive sign that Perry's book is flying off the shelves of the Pentagon book shop.

Two days ago, I wrote:

The GOP race is turning into a circular firing squad. There are several in-the-hunt contenders, and the dynamics of the race keep shifting. Remember when a guy named John McCain was the favorite? For a while, the main action seemed to be the mudwrestle between the Giuliani and Romney camps. Now Huckabee is fielding the most hits. Last week, the politerati (myself included) wondered how nasty Barack Obama and John Edwards would get in taking on Hillary Clinton. The answer provided by last Thursday's debate: not as nasty as anticipated. Expect the Republicans to get more down and dirty (and desperate) in the days--and debates--ahead.

Well, the Dems, it seems, are trying to keep up. On Tuesday, ABC News and The Washington Post released a poll showing that Barack Obama was ahead of Hillary Clinton in Iowa by 4 points, with John Edwards trailing Clinton by four points. This was the first time the junior senator from Illinois beat Clinton in an Iowa survey--or, as far as I can recall, any survey.

No wonder then at 3:18 p.m. on Tuesday, Clinton's campaign sent out an email to reporters highlighting one brief passage of a speech she had delivered that day:

I have traveled the world on behalf of our country -- first in the White House with my husband and now as a Senator. I've met with countless world leaders and know many of them personally. I went to Beijing in 1995 and stood up to the Chinese government on human rights and women's rights. I have fought for our men and women in uniform to make sure they have the equipment they need in battle and are treated with dignity when they return home.

Now voters will judge whether living in a foreign country at the age of 10 prepares one to face the big, complex international challenges the next President will face. I think we need a President with more experience than that. Someone the rest of the world knows, looks up to, and has confidence in. I don't think this is the time for on the job training on our economy or on foreign policy.

Ouch. The previous day, Obama, at an Iowa campaign stop, had cited his experience growing up in Asia and his family's Kenyan background as factors that bolstered his foreign policy judgment. Clinton was mocking him.

Fifty-two minutes after the Clinton campaign zapped out its email, John Edwards came rushing to Obama's rescue, with his communications director, Chris Kofinis, issuing a statement defining "mudslinging"--which Hillary Clinton in the last debate had accused John Edwards of engaging in--as when a candidate uses "insults and accusations, esp. unjust ones, with the aim of damaging the reputation of an opponent." Example A: Clinton's ridiculing of Obama. "Now we know what Senator Clinton meant when she talked about 'throwing mud' in the last debate," Kofinis said. "Like so many other things, when it comes to mud, Hillary Clinton says one thing and throws another."

Edwards was both circulating Clinton's slur and excoriating her for it. A twofer? Is he hoping Clinton and Obama will clobber each other, ignore him for a while, and he can slip by? Do his internal polls show that Clinton is still his major obstacle in Iowa? Or does he want to help drive her numbers lower before targeting Obama. This triangle at the top of the Democratic field will lead to interesting and perhaps ever-shifting dynamics in the weeks ahead.

Meanwhile, Obama fired back at Clinton. Referring to her boasting of hobnobbing with global leaders, he quipped, "I was wondering which world leader told her that we needed to invade Iraq." Credit him with half-a-zinger. Problem is, most Democrats have decided not to hold the Iraq vote against prominent Democrats. After all, Democratic voters supported John Kerry in 2004, and he, just like Hillary Clinton, voted to give George W. Bush the authority to invade Iraq whenever Bush wanted. But whatever Obama is doing seems to be working, according to that latest poll. With the freshman senator taking the lead, one can assume the Clinton machine will do more than fight back with sarcasm. This will get rough. Hillary Clinton has made no promises to advance hope or change the bloody, mean-spirited nature of modern-day politics (as Obama has). She has only vowed to fight for you. And before she can do that, she will fight for herself.

Have a good Thanksgiving. I'll see you next week, when the food fight on each side will be approaching Animal House proportions.

Yesterday, I noted that John Edwards' recent swings at Hillary Clinton had a whiff of silliness and/or desperation to them. He has equated her position on the Iraq war (create a plan for troops withdrawal once elected) with support for continuing the war, and Edwards blasted her for laughing at the economic dislocation caused by Nafta when she had merely chuckled at a reference to a quasi-infamous debate on Nafta between billionaire Ross Perot and then-Vice President Al Gore. But this is not to say that there is no argument for Edwards to make. Yesterday, he summed up his case against HRC:

I saw that Senator Clinton gave a speech that talked about change versus status quo, and I agree that that's what this election will be about. But I believe if you defend the system in Washington as Senator Clinton does, you're for the status quo. If you want to continue the occupation in Iraq, you're for the status quo. If you're not willing to stand up to Bush and Cheney on Iran, then you're for the status quo.

We need change very badly. When I'm president, I will shake things up and end the corruption in Washington and say no to donations from federal lobbyists. I will end the U.S. occupation of Iraq. We need a leader with the strength to stand up and refuse to go along with the Bush Administration's aggressions against Iran. And as much as Senator Clinton attempts to blur the lines with this talk of change, I believe at the end of the day the American people understand the fundamental differences between the system she has chosen to defend and the change I will bring to America.

Aside from the reference to Clinton's alleged support for occupation in Iraq, this ain't a bad argument. And I take Edwards at his word when he says he's for overhauling Washington--and, as he has declared elsewhere, for addressing poverty in America.

But Edwards does have a problem. During his relatively short stint in public life--the six years he spent as a senator--he did not legislate or agitate as a full-throated, populist-minded agent of change. He was no Paul Wellstone. And when he was on the ticket in 2004 as John Kerry's veep choice, he did not rage against the Washington machine in such a manner. As a trial attorney, he indeed confronted powerful corporations in courtrooms. Yet his Washington career was not that of a rabble-rouser.

So he's caught on the wrong side of a fundamental political rule: it's better to show than tell. He now has to tell potential voters what sort of leader he will be if elected, when he did not as a senator show voters this.

The fellow who would have a better shot at presenting this sort of case would be Senator Barack Obama. Though he's been in the Senate only a short while, he has pushed for reform that would diminish the influence of lobbyists. And his past experience as a community organizer, civil rights attorney, and reformist state legislator is more in sync with a throw-the-rascals-out cry.

Like Edwards, Obama has made lobbyist-bashing a part of his Clinton critique. But given that he rose to prominence as a preacher of the politics of hope, he can only go so far in slamming any political target--whether it be Hillary Clinton or the moneychangers of Washington. In fact, he keeps talking about how he will bring folks together if elected president. So while Obama's personal history is more in tune with a populist change theme, his personality and preferred political positioning prevents him from being the firebrand Edwards is campaigning as.

And there's another factor. One question in this election is, can a black man become president? Another related query is, could an angry black man become president? Obama has succeeded (so far) by not coming across as a mad-as-hell black political leader. Whether a matter of political strategy or personal temperament, he depicts himself as "fired up," but not angry.

Obama with Edwards' message? Edwards with Obama's past? Hollywood would solve this problem by having the two men wake up one day inside the skin of the other. But even though the two men do have overlapping messages of reform, their respective cases are self-hindered. And who benefits from that? The gentle-lady from New York.

The political news of the moment, of course, is Thursday night's Democratic debate. The morning-after front-page headline in The Washington Post blared, "Democratic Contenders Step Up Attacks in Debate." But they really didn't--not much. Edwards and Obama mostly stuck to the same critique they had been making of the former First Lady. Each only took a few stabs at the front-runner and then moved on to other matters as it became clear that (a) she was going to give as good as she got, and (b) the audience, which booed several of the attacks, was in no mood to watch Dem-on-Dem violence. It was Clinton who truly intensified her assaults on her key rivals, hurling specific charges at them on policy issues (particularly health care). Previously, she ignored those in her shadow. But with the most recent Iowa poll depicting the race in Iowa as practically a three-way tie, Clinton indeed had to "turn up the heat"---not, as she usually says, on Republicans but on Obama and Edwards.

I scored the Las Vegas debate a draw--no KO's (though fellow CQer Craig Crawford awards Clinton a TKO). And this is good news for Clinton because she certainly needed to stop her slide in the polls. I explain it all here.

But while we're talking about Clinton, a few words about the Other Clinton. It now seems rather amusing that earlier in the year, the politerati were wondering whether Bill would be an asset or liability for Hillary. Would he outshine or upstage her? Would the Clinton campaign have to keep the old wolf at bay? Maybe send him to central Africa for six months. Well, such thinking, in retrospect, was plenty silly.

BC remains quite popular, particularly among Democratic voters who think of the pre-W days as a glorious era of peace, prosperity, wine, roses, milk, and honey--and a time when Democrats (Bill and Hill) bravely stood their ground against evil Republicans (when they weren't busy triangulating). So he's a great and, better yet, popular pitchman for his wife. And since she has generally performed strongly as a candidate, she has not looked small compared to the Big Man.

He appears to be willing to do what it takes to get her elected. (It's a helluva way to get out of the doghouse.) Look at the ad the Clinton campaign released yesterday. It opens with Bill in sweats on a treadmill watching a television set showing a commercial for a succulent, juicy hamburger. The screen freezes and the words appear: "Exercising is hard." The spot goes on to feature former Iowa Governor Tom Vilsack trying to dance in a disco ("Dancing is hard") and Hillary mugging "The Star-Spangled Banner" at a ball game ("Singing is hard") before proclaiming that attending the Iowa caucus (to vote for Hillary) will be easy. At the end of the ad, there's a shot of an empty treadmill. Cut to Clinton eating that burger, with a look of extreme satisfaction on his face.

Is there a not-too-hidden message in the ad when moments later it shows a white-haired couple, with the woman saying, "Being married is hard, caucusing is easy"? I don't know. But the ad is the latest evidence that Bill is quite the willing asset for Hillary. He recently defended her after she ran into trouble at a debate. He has campaigned solo for her in Iowa, and he presumably will do more stumping for her as the all-important caucuses approaches. I imagine her strategists see him as the big gun to deploy if she slips any further in the polls.

Yesterday, Post columnist David Broder claimed that there were two "paramount issues" in the Democratic race: immigration and "the prospect of a dual [Clinton] presidency." He's wrong on both counts. At last night's debate, the candidates did split on the question of issuing driver's licenses to illegal immigrants, but they mostly agreed on the big picture: the need to increase border security and to create a pathway for citizenship for the 11 million illegal immigrants already here. There was--perhaps surprisingly--little demagoguery on this front.

As for Broder's worry that the public cannot stomach the Clinton's "two-headed campaign," what's the evidence? He writes that the possibility of the Clinton couple back in the White House

will test the tolerance of the American people far more severely than the possibility of the first female president -- or, for that matter, the first black president.

Oy, he screams (or sort of screams), this has never happened before. And he quotes a "friend from the Clinton administration" who says, "There is nothing in American constitutional or political theory to account for the role of a former president, still energetic and active and full of ideas, occupying the White House with the current president." A constitutional crisis in the making? Quick, let's get an opinion from Harriet Miers.

It may be presumptuous to challenge Broder's "friend"--and I do so as no partisan for Hillary--but I assume that Clinton's well-financed campaign has focus-grouped and test-polled Bill's impact on the race and has discovered that Democratic primary voters do not share Broder's fear. It may even be that after the past seven years of incompetence and, at times, idiocy in the White House, general election voters might not be all that anxious about having two smart people residing in the White House, whatever Bill's role might be. And put it this way: if the general election ends up pitting Hillary Clinton against Rudy Giuliani, would voters rather see Bill Clinton advising the next president or Judith Giuliani? End of issue. Mr. Broder, you are free to fret about other matters.

NIXON ON REAGAN. What did Tricky Dick and Henry Kissinger think of Ronald Reagan in 1971? According to a new transcript of one of the Nixon tapes, it wasn't very flattering. I have the exclusive here.

I'm starting to feel a bit sorry for John Edwards. For years, he has been trying to position himself as this century's Robert Kennedy (the Good Bobby of the 1968 campaign, not the Nasty and Complicated Bobby of the earlier years). And he's made many of the right moves. He has seriously taken on the issue of poverty in America. He has worked with low-income advocacy groups in New Orleans and elsewhere. He has joined the causes of different unions across the nation. He has strove to be bold in his policy prescriptions, calling for a comprehensive national health care program and an immediate and significant withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq. He has sharply decried the institutional corruption of Washington. Sure, there were a few overhyped missteps (receiving an expensive haircut, building an expensive house). But the man has tried. Yet....

Edwards may surprise in Iowa, an obvious must-win state for him. (It's also must-win for Obama, unless Edwards triumphs and Obama places second.) Of the top three candidates, Edwards had the best performance in Wednesday night's debate. He attacked Hillary Clinton with more force and panache than Obama, whose jabs at the front-runner too often seemed tentative and halfhearted. But watching Edwards' new ad--his first national television ad--I cannot help thinking, the guy is trying too hard.

As images of working-class Americans flash across the screen and a Coldplay-like piano riff cascades, Edwards says,

If you're looking for heroes, don't look to me, don't look to Elizabeth. We have support, we have health care. We have the American people behind us. Look to them. They are the ones that we speak for, they are the ones that we stand up for.....We're not going to quietly go away. Instead, we're going to go out and fight for what it is we believe in. It is time for our party--the Democratic Party--to show a little backbone, to have a little guts, to stand up for working men and women. If we are not their voice, they will never have a voice.

An audience applauds and cheers loudly.

So, if I follow this, Edwards is saying he's not a hero, he's a voice. But if you want a hero, go find a working American--though, presumably, that hero will have no voice. Which is why Edwards has to be president. It's all somewhat vague. I appreciate workers as much as the next guy, I believe in populist politics, and I want politicians to champion the interests of working Americans. But are all workers heroes? (I can think of one auto mechanic who is definitely not a hero.) After all, if everyone--except, say, a hedge-fund manager--is a hero, then nobody is. The rhetoric of this spot, which is being aired in Iowa, is too hyperbolic to have serious meaning.

Edwards and his team of strategists and media advisers failed to nail it. I hope he has saved money for another try and another ad buy.

ABIZAID FOR PRESIDENT? Yesterday, my fellow CQ blogger Richard Whalen suggested that "Republican Party operatives" should talk up retired General John Abizaid as a potential presidential candidate:

The younger, energetic Abizaid could possibly measure up to Eisenhower's unique stature. He resigned before the current tactical "surge" in U.S. troop strength in Iraq because he knew it would not win any lasting, decisive political results. The recent optimistic-sounding reporting in the Washington Post and elsewhere is mainly based on the shift of Sunni tribal leaders in Anbar Province after being well-bribed, according to plans laid by Abizaid's subordinates two years ago....

John Abizaid is one of America's best and brightest retired soldier-scholars. He would make an excellent presidential candidate for the leaderless Republicans and could lead our country honorably and safely out of the quagmire of Iraq. Abizaid may offer the Republicans their only chance of holding on to the White House.

Intriguing idea, but it can't happen here. It's too late for anyone to enter the presidential contest. (Ask Al Gore.) And Abizaid has hardly acted like a fellow looking to be a presidential candidate or a Republican nominee.

A few weeks ago, he said that the world could live with a nuclear-armed Iran. "Iran is not a suicide nation," he explained. "I mean, they may have some people in charge that don't appear to be rational, but I doubt that the Iranians intend to attack us with a nuclear weapon." That sort of talk--as reasonable as it is--doesn't play well in GOP circles. Saying that on the campaign trail would get him creamed.

Then this past Wednesday, Abizaid noted that U.S. troops might have to stay in the Middle East for half a century. "Over time," he said, "we will have to shift the burden of the military fight from our forces directly to regional forces, and we will have to play an indirect role, but we shouldn't assume for even a minute that in the next 25 to 50 years the American military might be able to come home, relax and take it easy, because the strategic situation in the region doesn't seem to show that as being possible." And this kind of talk wouldn't play well with the general election voters, many of whom want the United States out of Iraq sooner than later. (Regarding these latest Abizaid comments, Charles Smith, a professor of Middle East history at the University of Arizona at Tucson, tells me, "The question is: what branch of military and/or civilian thinking does [Abizaid] represent? This sounds like we are back with the [neoconservative] Project for the New American Century and its ideas on an ongoing US military domination via a strong presence in selected areas of the world. If so, we would seem to be moving backward on this issue, not forward.")

I suppose pining for another Eisenhower is the Republican equivalent of Democrats pining for the next RFK. But Abizaid is not in sync with the GOP and ill-prepared to do serious political battle. The Republicans will have to get on without him.

THE DEMOCRATS' MUKASEY MOMENT. Should the Senate Democrats mount a serious fight to stop Michael Mukasey from becoming George W. Bush's next attorney general? I explain here why that could be good policy and good politics.