Don't be fooled by the headline, for only a fool would make real predictions about the coming caucuses and primaries. I'm heading out of town (and off-line) for a week on a trip that was booked long before Iowa decided to ruin the holiday season by scheduling its caucuses for January 3 (and New Hampshire compounded the inconvenience by setting its primary for January 8). But before I grab the tanning butter and skedaddle, I thought I'd offer one possible headline:

Obama Has Won Iowa

Note the verb tense. This is not a prediction but a statement of fact. What I mean is that Obama has already done in Iowa what he needed to do: show he's competitive with Hillary Clinton. Certainly, if on January 3 he can actually attract more votes there than Clinton or John Edwards, he will truly be in a strong position. But even if he loses in a close race to Clinton by a few points, he will be firmly in the hunt. By drawing close to her--and surpassing her in the polls--in Iowa, Obama has demonstrated he can get within reach of winning.

Earlier this year, Obama was stuck in poll after poll far behind Clinton. That led to talk that he better win in Iowa...or else. Now that "or else" is gone. If he is not blown away by her in the final results, he will be able to carry on. Both Obama and Clinton have plenty of money. And campaigns tend to peter out only when the well gets dry. So Clinton and Obama will continue on to New Hampshire, Nevada, South Carolina, and Super Duper Tuesday, a.k.a February 5, when 20-plus states will have primaries or caucuses.

The race could turn into a real slugfest. (Think of one of those Rocky movies.) Usually in politics, as in much of life, when chips fall, they fall in the same direction. There are prevailing winds, after all. But is it possible for the chips to split. If that comes to pass in this contest, the Democrats will have a delegate-counting race. And if it's close enough, the so-called super-delegates--party officials awarded delegateship--could end up playing a decisive role in the nomination.

Yes, all this horse-race what-iffing is a bit fanciful. John Edwards still has a shot in Iowa. And who knows what might happen to Joe Biden if he vaults into fourth place in the Hawkeye State? But let's congratulate Obama for having already succeeded in Iowa. He can take the rest of the week off.

Mike Huckabee is a threat. Not just to Mitt Romney, but to both the leaders of the Republican Party and the leaders of the Christian Right.

For years, the Republican Party has played the Christian card, pushing "family values" and decrying abortion and (more recently) gay marriage and, in return, collecting the votes of evangelicals across the country (including key presidential swing states). But if Huckabee wins Iowa and continues to do well in subsequent states, how will the GOP elite react to the possibility of this former Baptist minister nabbing the nomination? My hunch: with panic. While Huckabee can pull social conservatives, he's not what the party needs to attract independents and those suburban GOPers who are not social conservatives. Consequently, there may well develop a campaign--call it a crusade?--to stop Huckabee. And if such an effort emerges, how will the social conservative grassroots of the GOP will take it? Another hunch: not kindly. They've been there for the party, and if they see their party not standing by one of their own, there will be resentment, anger, and alienation--hell to pay?--which could last until November and beyond.

It's not hard to envision a stop-Huck campaign actually deepening his support, for it would play into the familiar narrative of a Christian being persecuted by the powerful. Imagine Huckabee turned into a martyr. Many Huckabee supporters might see how the GOP leaders respond to his success as a litmus test. And that's not a test Republican leaders are likely to pass.

The same goes for the leaders of the Religious Right. How can Pat Robertson face his flock and justify choosing Rudy Giuliani over one of their own? Why won't James Dobson bless Huckabee's bid? Why does the National Right To Life Committee side with a fellow who once advised an abortion rights group instead of supporting an antiabortion champion? Why do some evangelicals ride with a Mormon who has flip-flopped on abortion and gay rights? Have they, Huckabee will ask, succumbed to the corruptions of power? Yes, many of his supporters will say. And, of course, they're right.

There are two possible splits in the works: one separating social conservative votes from the GOP and the other dividing them from the top of the Religious Right infrastructure. So should the Democrats be cheering on the former Arkansas governor and proclaiming, Thank God for Huckabee? Perhaps. But they ought to be careful what they wish for, for maybe Huckabee does, as he believes, have God on his side.

"In a setback for the Democrats...." "In a setback for the Democrats...." "In a setback for the Democrats...." Seems every time you turn on the telly or pick up a paper--or even read on the Internet--these words dominate coverage of the goings-on in Washington. The Dems try to tax Big Oil to pay for alternative energy programs. They lose. The Dems try to tax gazillionaire hedge funds hotshots so upper middle-class taxpayers don't get nailed by the Alternative Minimum Tax. They lose. The Dems try to expand the children's health insurance program. They lose. And of course, the Dems try to attach timetables and limits to the new funding for the war in Iraq. They lose. Given that most of these positions are supported by most Americans, one might wonder why the Democrats keep failing. But George W. Bush keeps outmaneuvering Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid. It's looking like the Ds are the Putz Party.

Yeah, I know the Democratic argument: we face those obstructionist, filibuster-waving GOPers who march in lockstep with Mr. Obstinate in the White House and, still, we've raised the minimum wage, passed the 9/11 commission recommendations, boosted fuel efficiency standards for vehicles, and reprogrammed billions that Bush wanted toward our budget priorities. But there is the matter of the war.

Once again, the headline in this morning's papers: Senate Approves Iraq War Funds. On the No. 1 issue of this Congress, the Democrats have utterly failed. They triumphantly came into office pledging to end the war, and they have not even managed to slow it down. The Democratic base is right to be peeved. And the Dems cannot blame the media for noting this continuing failure. On this point--the key point--they look hapless and impotent. Sure, there are structural impediments, such as that Senate filibuster and the presidential veto. But the Democrats have not figured out how to lose successfully. If you don't have the votes, you don't have the votes. Math is math. But there are ways to frame debates so that you win (somewhat) by losing. And on Iraq--and the other matters listed above--the Ds haven't done that.

Perhaps it's easier said than done. The Monday morning quarterback always has 20-20 vision. But the Democrats missed a chance early on to have a simple up-and-down vote on war funding that would have established that Bush and the Republicans (with a few Democrats) were keeping the war alive despite the Democrats' best efforts. Which would mean that the Democrats needed more Democrats in Congress. But the various pirouettes and legislative mechanisms the Democrats have tried have been confusing and, worse, ineffective. And their messaging has been inconsistent: we're standing firm....oh, no, we're not....now this time we really will....well, we don't have the votes...and so on.

Fair or not, the Democrats cannot hide their war failure behind press releases touting their successes on other fronts. A House Democratic chief of staff explains: "It's like you call in a contractor to fix your roof, he doesn't do it, but he tells you, 'now you're sink is working fine.' Okay, but you wanted to him to fix the roof and he promised to fix the roof and he didn't." The roof is the Iraq war.

Being in the majority can be rough. There are expectations and obligations. In 1994, after the Democrats lost Congress, Representative Barney Frank told me he was looking forward to being in the minority: "It's more fun." Would Pelosi and Reid agree now? In any event, after Congress clears out of town, these leaders and the rest of the Dems ought to start thinking how to have a better year in 2008. You think they know there are elections next November?

Skeletons--it's hard to keep them in the closet when you run for president, especially if you start to do well. That's what Mike Huckabee has been finding out at hyperspeed in recent weeks. His past statements on religion, AIDS, and the family have come under close watch. His decisions as Arkansas governor are being dissected; his ethical lapses are being studied. At Mother Jones, we discovered that that his presidential campaign and the churches where he served as a pastor for twelve years will not provide copies of the sermons he delivered. GIven that Huckabee campaigns as a self-proclaimed "Christian leader," his actions as "Christian leader" are certainly legitimate subjects of examination. Why is he sitting on them?

I did find one quasi-mega-sermon. Yesterday, I posted piece on a 1998 book Huckabee wrote that was filled with inflammatory fundamentalist rhetoric. In that book, Huckabee equated environmentalism with pornography and associated homosexuality with necrophilia. He dismissed those who advocate workplace equality for women. He denounced those Christians who accept a "misguided version of 'tolerance.'" He decried unnamed "modern government-sponsored social engineers" and claimed that "virtually every dollar poured into" government social programs is wasted. He also declared that people who do not believe in God tend to be "immoral" and tend to engage in "destructive behavior."

The book's content was not shocking, coming from a Bible-thumpinig fundamentalist. But Huckabee is trying to pitch himself as a friendly fellow who, as he claimed in the last debate, can unite a "very polarized country." Huckabee is free to believe whatever he wants, but it's hard to see how a social conservative advocating such extreme views could bring together a divided society.

There's still plenty of digging to be done in the fields of Huckabee. Who knows what will be unearthed? Yesterday, my former co-author Michael Isikoff and a Newsweek colleague of his broke the story that Huckabee, when he was governor in 1998, allegedly blocked a criminal investigation of his then seventeen-year-old son. David Huckabee had been accused of killing a stray dog at a Boy Scout camp, where he was a counselor. The head of the state police at the time told Newsweek that Huckabee's office leaned on him to stop any inquiry. And the FBI chief in Little Rock back then also said Huckabee attempted to stop an investigation of his son. No charges were ever filed. Huckabee denied the accounts of these two men.

The Newsweek story didn't detail the grisly details of the dog-killing incident. But a letter sent to the head of the Boy Scouts in 1998 by the Animal Legal Defense Fund did include the specifics:

It has come to my attention that David Huckabee and Clayton Friday, two scout counselors, have admitted to the brutal killing of a stray dog at Camp Pioneer on July 11, 1998, and have been protected by the Caddo Area Council as well as Camp Pioneer authorities. The two boys allegedly hung a dog by his/her neck, throwing the body over a railing to a twenty foot drop. After realizing that this did not kill the dog, they slit his/her throat, and stoned the dog to death.

Nice boys. No doubt, throughout this (alleged) event, they were thinking, What would Jesus do? ("Yeah, stone the dog!") Now, are the sins of the son the responsibility of the father? They sure are--if the father intervened in a criminal matter to protect the son. And by the way, the 1998 Huckabee book that I referenced above was called Kids Killing Kids. In that book, Huckabee claimed that moral decline in America was producing the kid-killers who conduct murder sprees in schools. The only way to address this problem, he argued, was to make religion and faith the cornerstone of American culture and to do so within the family. Hmmm, what went wrong in the Huckabee household?

Loads of Democrats would be delighted to see Huckabee trounce the other Republicans. For then, they will have months and months to keep on digging and to ask many, many questions about the minister-turned-politican.

So finally the Bush administration is concerned about Afghanistan enough to review its entire policy regarding that war-torn nation. This was the front-page news on Sunday. Talk about arriving late to a disaster. Afghanistan has been getting worse for years, and the Bush White House has failed to focus on this mess--and the same can be said about Congress and much of the media. Afghanistan has been the forgotten war. And it's rarely discussed on the presidential campaign trail. Democratic candidates do tend to say they want to end the war in Iraq and apply more resources to winning the fight in Afghanistan--without going into details about the latter. But when was the last time you heard any Republican candidate say anything significant about the current situation in Afghanistan? I'll pick on Mitt Romney for a moment. In the 5000-word article he (or his aides) wrote for Foreign Affairs outlining his foreign policy views, there was not one reference to what he would do as president regarding Afghanistan.

But back to where the real problem is: the Bush White House. For years, it has treated Afghanistan as a sideshow. Over a year ago, I wrote a piece for The Nation reporting that there was no single senior-level Bush administration official responsible only for policies and actions in Afghanistan. At the time, the Afghanistan portfolio was being managed by deputy national security adviser Meghan O'Sullivan, who has since bailed out of the administration. But O'Sullivan also had another knotty matter on her desk: Iraq. Yes, the person in charge of Iraq for the White House was also in charge of Afghanistan. You'd think either one might be enough for a full-time job. Moreover, O'Sullivan was hardly an expert on Afghanistan, as I noted:

Several months ago a leading American expert on Afghanistan was meeting with Meghan O'Sullivan, a deputy national security adviser in the Bush White House. The topic at hand was the attitude of Pervez Musharraf, the Pakistani leader, toward the revived Taliban insurgents operating out of Pakistani territory. Musharraf's government seemed (as it does now) to be willfully ignoring the Taliban, or perhaps even providing them with safe harbor and assistance. Why would Musharraf do either?

The expert explained that many factors shape the difficult Pakistani-Afghan relationship. He pointed to the decades-long conflict between Afghanistan and Pakistan and mentioned the Durand Line, the supposed border between Afghanistan and Pakistan. The 1,600-mile-long line, imposed on Afghanistan by the British in 1893, divides Pashtun and Baluch regions and separates Afghanistan from territory it has claimed as its own. Afghanistan has never officially recognized the Durand Line, which has been a great source of strife between the two countries.

By referring to the Durand Line, the expert was noting that US efforts in the region are complicated by pre-9/11 history. O'Sullivan, according to this expert (who wishes not to be named), didn't know what the Durand Line was. The expert was stunned. O'Sullivan is the most senior Bush Administration official handling Afghanistan policy. If she wasn't familiar with this basic point, US policy-making on Afghanistan was in trouble.

So it's no surprise that the administration is now sorely in need of a top-to-bottom review.

The administration's failings in Afghanistan have been somewhat obscured by its more obvious failings in Iraq. Had Bush not invaded Iraq he might have been held more accountable for the worsening situation in Afghanistan. But what a lucky guy he is. It turns out that when it comes to ducking responsibility two messes are better one.

Earlier this year, the conventional wisdom was that Iowa might not matter as much as it has in the past. Some candidates--most notably, Hillary Clinton and Rudy Giuliani--were not mounting major productions there. There were new early states for campaigns--and pundits--to worry about: South Carolina and Nevada. And several big states, looking for a piece of the action, were moving their primaries up to February 5 and creating an early Super-Duper Tuesday. So with all that front-loaded action, Iowa, it seemed, could become merely a throat-clearing exercise.

Then there was a shift. After months of campaigning, Barack Obama could not seem to close the gap between himself and Hillary Clinton in national and state polls. In some surveys, HRC was posting a 20-plus point lead. Obama had star power and dino-dollars, but Clinton maintained what at times looked like an unassailable advantage. Her strategists were running her campaign as if she was already in the general election. Her supporters talked of inevitability. Under these conditions, Iowa became crucial--for Obama. In order to stop the Clinton Express from shooting straight to the convention, he would have to slow her in Iowa and demonstrate that he could turn all that cash and charisma into caucus votes. It would be his first and probably only chance. Iowa was all.

Then there was another shift. As Obama surged ahead of Clinton in the Iowa polls, the state became the battleground where Clinton had to win to prove her electability. If she fell her, members of the politerati wondered, would she crash and burn?

Now I'm predicting another shift: Iowa's hype is exceeding its significance. Iowa is obviously critical, with the polls showing a neck-and-neck race there between Clinton, Obama, and John Edwards. But it's now possible to see either Clinton or Obama losing Iowa and still snagging the nomination. (Not so for Edwards.) One key reason: they both have plenty of cash, enough to keep their campaign machines humming along. I ran into a prominent Clinton fundraiser the other day and asked if s/he was worried about Iowa. "Not as much as you might think," the cash-chaser said. "This campaign is going to go on long past Iowa. Why? Because we and they can afford to. Campaigns end when you run out of money. And that's not going to happen to either one of us." And while Obama once had to prove his competitiveness, the fact that he has put Clinton on the ropes in Iowa demonstrates that he can be a contender.

So Iowa might not matter--as long as neither Clinton nor Obama end up on the wrong side of a blowout. "This is going all the way to February 5," the Clinton fundraiser said. "And maybe beyond." In other words, Iowa, you're just the warm-up.

Warning: sports metaphor ahead.

Imagine a year in which the NCAA college basketball tournament is made up of 64 teams that are each lousy. None deserve to be national champion. Yet no matter how bad these squads are, it is a mathematical certainty that one of the 64 will end up winning six games in a row and take the title.

That's worth keeping in mind when pondering what will happen in the Republican presidential contest. Yesterday's dull debate in Iowa was a reminder that none of these guys ought to win. I could list the obvious reasons--Rudy's a gay-loving abortion rights supporter; Mitt's a flipper; John's too crotchety; Mike's got little to say about national security; Fred's a box-office disappointment--but why bother? You know it. Many of the Republican voters in Iowa know it. Still, one of these rather imperfect candidates is going to win.

When asked who it will be--and each day someone demands that I make a prediction--I throw up my hands and say, "I haven't a clue." There are too many imperfections to factor into any calculations. Too many structural flaws to say whose construction will stand (that is, not collapse). But the debate yesterday reaffirmed two simplistic and basic points: Romney sure looks and acts like a president from Central Casting, and Huckabee comes across as a likable fellow. With a field of Grade B choices, such attributes are not to be dismissed.

By the way, David Yepsen of the Des Moines Register, which sponsored the debate, opined that Thompson fared best. He credited Thompson for refusing "to play the 'raise your hand' game in answering a question about global warming." But given that the question was whether Thompson agreed that global warming is caused by human activity and poses a threat, it could be that this moment comes to haunt Thompson, who has flirted with global warming denial--should Thompson reach a position where general election voters care about his mocking skepticism toward global warming.

There's unlikely to be a Thompson bubble--or any other bubble--as the result of this last debate before the Iowa caucuses. Republican voters in Iowa are just going to have to find an inadequate candidate to settle for. And these sort of political decisions do not show up in my crystal ball.

THE WORLD THEY MAKE. The Bush administration is not big on responsibility. I know that's no news flash. But two stories in yesterday's paper made this point. A Washington Post front-pager reported that Defense Secretary Bob Gates is peeved that NATO is not doing more in Afghanistan, where the war is not going well. The article also covered congressional testimony delivered by Adm. Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. An excerpt:

Pressed by lawmakers on whether the United States should not shift more of its military resources to Afghanistan, Gates and Mullen held firm, saying Iraq remains the overarching priority for stretched U.S. forces.

"In Afghanistan, we do what we can. In Iraq, we do what we must," Mullen said. "There is a limit to what we can apply to Afghanistan."

So Bush starts another war before finishing the war in Afghanistan and now the U.S. military cannot do an effective job in Afghanistan because of that and Gates is angry that NATO allies are not picking up the slack? Seems there's a lesson in here--and perhaps cause for some humility in asking other countries to do more in Afghanistan, which, of course, they should.

Then there was this headline in the Post:

Hard Choices on Climate Can Wait for Next President, Aides Indicate

That kind of says it all.

Will the GOP debate in Des Moines this afternoon and the Democratic face-off tomorrow in Iowa--the final candidate get-togethers before Iowans caucus--be free-for-alls? Each will be the last time the aspirants have the opportunity to directly challenge rivals before voters start to vote. One can make the case that Hillary Clinton, say, should go for the jugular and slam Barack Obama before he surges past her. Or...that she shouldn't. After all, she's a more sympathetic figure when she's being attacked. And will John Edwards and/or Obama take a powerful swing at her jaw and see if it is made of glass? Remember, though, Iowans tend not to like dustups, and they sometimes do punish candidates who go too negative.

As for the GOP debate, I previewed it here and wondered if it could turn into a theological smackdown, given the recent religious tussle between Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee. Democrats can only pray that the two get into a nasty fight over whether or not Mormons believe that Jesus was the brother of Satan?

Meanwhile, Rudy Giuliani will have to try to address his slipping poll numbers. He's still ahead nationally, but a Washington Post/ABC News poll released yesterday shows Giuliani losing almost one quarter of his support among likely Republican voters in the last month--with Huckabee more than doubling his following and moving into second place. (Romney ticked up a few points, and the two disappointing senators--Fred Thompson and John McCain--each lost about a quarter of their support.)

UPDATE: There were no explosions--theological or otherwise--at the GOP debate this afternoon. In fact, it was rather sedate. I explain here.

Just two days ago, I suggested that Giuliani's support had nowhere to go but down. That's what's happening. And there's still room for further deterioration. At least so says a former Giuliani business associate. This person, a Republican who's not supporting anyone in the race, tells me that he believes Giuliani's consulting firm may be the weakest of the several Achilles heels on the Body Giuliani:

The public still doesn't know all the stuff there is to know about Giuliani--especially his business. This is his general business model: pay me $10 million and you get to say you know me. That's what he does. And I think most Americans are going to think this is kind of shifty and not exactly right. And they're not going to go for his bare-knuckles approach to...just about everything.

And then there's his wife. This person says that Judith Nathan Giuliani sat in on every business meeting he attended with Giuliani. She didn't say anything. She just was there. It was "a little creepy," says this source.

As I noted, those nice Iowans usually don't fancy nasty political attacks. But desparate times lead to desparate measures--and every leading GOP candidate, save Huckabee, has plenty of reason to feel pretty desperate these days.

With the United States' image abroad suffering--especially in the Muslim world--what could America do to improve its standing? How about selecting as commander in chief a fellow who describes himself as a warrior for Christ?

That's what more and more Republican primary voters appear to be planning to do, for lovable, ol' Mike Huckabee, now the Iowa front-runner, has used some harsh rhetoric over the years to express his belief--to put it roughly--that everyone ought to be Christian. As has been widely noted in the past day, during a 1998 speech to Southern Baptist pastors, Huckabee, a former pastor who at the time was governor of Arkansas, declared that they had to "take this nation back for Christ." (Now where would that put American Jews, Muslims, Hindus, and atheists?) And in a 2003 Veterans Day speech at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, Huckabee, as the Fort Worth Star-Telegram put it, compared Christians to "soldiers on a spiritual battlefield." In that address, Huckabee explained, "When you're a pastor, you should be the captain of a warship that's fighting the forces of evil." (He also complained that too many "people in the pews" would prefer their pastor be "captain of a Love Boat," meaning a minister who arranges feel-good activities for his parishioners, such as outings for seniors and summer camps for the youth.) In the speech to the seminarians, Huckabee urged them to consider themselves as soldiers and added, "you must be willing to sever relationships that hinder the mission."

Sure, plenty of fundamentalist Christians feel this way. But such tough talk--let's be Christian soldiers and reclaim the country for Christ!--probably would not play so well abroad. For example, how might Arabs interpret a President Huckabee decision to send more troops to Iraq? Hmmmm, onward Christian soldiers? (On Monday, my colleague Jonathan Stein posted other examples of Huckabee's rhetoric of absolutism.)

Huckabee has called for compassionate social policy, and there's a touch of populism to his positions. In his 1998 speech to the Baptists, he decried Christians for not doing enough to help the poor:

I'm often asked why taxes are so high and government is so big. It's because the faith we have in local churches has become so small. If we'd been doing what we should have -- giving a dime from every dollar to help the widows, the orphans and the poor -- we now wouldn't be giving nearly 50 cents of every dollar to a government that's doing...what we should have been doing all along.

But at the same time, he denounced the ability of government to help those widows and orphans:

I didn't get into politics because I thought government had a better answer. I got into politics because I knew government didn't have the real answers, that the real answers lie in accepting Jesus Christ into our lives.

So it all comes back to Christ. Forget government, just get right with God's only son. That's not surprising for a Baptist pastor. But it may be a hard sell in the general election and overseas. Which is probably why, as Stein and I reported yesterday, the Huckabee campaign says it will not release any of sermons Huckabee delivered during the twelve years he was a pastor at two Arkansas churches. He's now a captain who wants to keep his battle plan secret.

Once upon a time Mike Huckabee was a Baptist preacher. Then Mike Huckabee became a lieutenant governor. Then Mike Huckabee became a governor. Then Mike Huckabee became an ex-governor running for president--and a front-runner in the all-important little state of Iowa. And that Mike Huckabee was not so keen on sharing with voters and the media all the glorious words that Mike Huckabee the minister preached.

Since becoming a hot commodity, Huckabee has zigzagged on statements regarding faith and politics. In one speech he said the power of prayer was responsible for his surge in Iowa polls; he then quickly backtracked. In one debate, he indicated he believed in creationism; more recently, he dodged the question. And days ago he hit a rough patch when harsh statements he made in 1992 about AIDS were publicized.

In the midst of all this, Mother Jones, my home base, went looking for copies of the sermons Huckabee delivered during the twelve years he was pastor at two churches in Arkansas. The bottom line: neither church is willing or able to produce a copy of any of Huckabee's sermons from that entire period. And Huckabee's campaign, responding to an inquiry from my colleague Jonathan Stein, says it will not take any steps to make Huckabee's sermons available to the media or the public.

Is the full gospel of Huckabee being hidden from the public? You can read the story Stein and I wrote about this here.

Let us now give thanks to Rudy Giuliani for causing the introduction of a vitally important issue into Campaign 2008: Secret Service protection for presidential mistresses. On Meet the Press on Sunday, uber-host Tim Russert asked the former NYC mayor if it would be "appropriate for a president to provide Secret Service protection for his mistress." Giuliani waffled, saying it "would not be appropriate" but then explained why it had been appropriate for New York's finest to protect his mistress when he was mayor, suggesting it could be justifiable for the Secret Service to safeguard a presidential gal-pal (or guy-pal).

I'm relatively certain this is not the sort of stuff Giuliani expected he'd be discussing when he entered the race. And it's indicative of a problem facing his campaign: he doesn't do well on what I call the Ten Second Test.

For many Republican primary voters, Giuliani probably does fare rather well in the first ten seconds they think about him: America's Mayor, Mr. Tough Guy, the fella who seemed courageous and in command on September 11 (when the national commander-in-chief was playing hopscotch on Air Force One). But most of the information a GOPer obtains about Giuliani after that first consideration is not (on a Republican scale) positive. On key social issues, he's closer to Hillary Clinton than George Bush. Regarding his actual record on 9/11, there are rescue workers, emergency management specialists, and fire fighters who decry his actions and undermine his main sales pitch. His business clients? Giuliani has worked with government officials in the Middle East connected to al Qaeda and with an international gambling venture that included a partner linked to the regime of Kim Jong Il and international organized crime. (Does Jack Bauer know about this?) There's also Giuliani's promotion of his once-close friend, the now-indicted Bernard Kerik, and, to top it off, a personal life that even O.J. Simpson wouldn't want. (Can you imagine a family in which a son opposes the possible presidency of his father? Oh yeah, the Reagans.)

So Giuliani, in terms of how he's seen by a GOP voter, starts out at a high level--perhaps close to the ceiling for his potential support. But he has far more room to fall than to rise.

New Yorkers know much of the it-ain't-pretty nitty-gritty about Giuliani--and so do all those NYC media-types who have been covering and chattering about him for years. But even this far into the campaign, there likely are plenty of Republican primary voters--and certainly plenty of those non-party-minded voters who only bother with general elections--who have not boned up on Giuliani. When they learn more, how will they regard the man who has to explain why his mistress needed security?

Now for the counterargument. Can Giuliani win? In this GOP contest, anything is possible. (Yes, even John McCain has reason to hope.) And if Giuliani should somehow bulldoze his way past the social conservatives and snatch the GOP nomination, he might go on to become America's Margaret Thatcher. She once seemed an improbable leader of England, scorned by foes as "Attila the Hen." But in the late 1970s, she became England's iron-handed nanny and held the post for 11 years. Many in England obviously yearned for a toughie--and that was long before 9/11. These days, perhaps American voters will overlook Giuliani's corruptions and peccadilloes and be swayed by his whatever-it-takes-to-protect-us swagger. There are many corrupt mayors and governors who have been elected to office because voters cared about something other than cleanliness. Voters could well go for Giuliani's bark and ignore his self-inflicted bites. If so, politicians who worry about the security of their mistresses will have reason to be grateful.

WHERE'S HILLARY? Is it a coincidence that in the wake of Hurricane Oprah sweeping through Iowa, South Carolina and New Hampshire, Hillary Clinton is not campaigning Monday or Tuesday in any of these states? In fact, shes in California with a very, very light public schedule (only one public event), according to an email sent out by her campaign. Waiting for the storm to blow over? My theory: she wants to avoid getting into any sort of fight with the Diva of All Entertainment. That would be good for ratings--but not for the Clinton campaign.

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.

Hillary on the attack.

That's the narrative of the Democratic contest this week, and it may be the dominant theme until the January 3 Democratic caucus in Iowa. (See here and here.) Sliding in the polls in Iowa--and falling behind Senator Barack Obama--Senator Clinton has begun to swing hard at the Illinoisan. Not just at his ideas, but at him, at his character. Clinton spokesperson Howard Wolfson said the other day, "Senator Obama is a fabulous orator, but we need more than words. We don't need someone who says one thing and does another, somebody who talks a good game but doesn't have the courage of their convictions. And on issue after issue, Senator Obama says one thing and does another." The Clinton campaign sent out an email on Monday calling Obama Karl Rove's preferred Democratic (ouch!) and blasting Obama for supposedly not understanding his own health care proposal, for lying when he has said he has not harbored presidential ambitions for years, and for allegedly running a slush fund (meaning a leadership political action committee, which he manages in the same manner Clinton runs her own leadership PAC). In other words, the fellow who has inspired thousands--if not millions--is a sleazy, hypocritical, incompetent sham.

On Monday, Clinton called Obama a "talker" not a "doer" and a purveyor of "false hopes." She mocked his candidacy: ""How did running for president become a qualification for being president?" On Tuesday, the Clinton campaign suggested that Obama's campaign was mounting dirty tricks against Clinton in Iowa and New Hampshire.

This is much tougher an attack than anything Obama has hurled at her--and he has been critical of Clinton. (The first negative ad against Clinton has gone up, and it's being pushed not by Obama but by a liberal advocacy group.) And it shows--take your pick--either the meanness or toughness of Clinton and her posse. I lean toward characterizing it as the former.

When talking to Clintonites in recent days, I've noticed that they've come to despise Obama. I suppose that may be natural in the final weeks of a competitive campaign when much is at stake. But these people don't need any prompting in private conversations to decry Obama as a dishonest poser. They're not spinning for strategic purposes. They truly believe it. And other Democrats in Washington report encountering the same when speaking with Clinton campaign people. "They really, really hate Obama," one Democratic operative unaffiliated with any campaign, tells me. "They can't stand him. They talk about him as if he's worse than Bush." What do they hate about him? After all, there aren't a lot of deep policy differences between the two, and he hasn't gone for the jugular during the campaign. "It's his presumptuousness," this operative says. "That he thinks he can deny her the nomination. Who is he to try to do that?" You mean, he's, uh, uppity? "Yes." A senior House Democratic aide notes, "The Clinton people are going nuts in how much they hate him. But the problem is their narrative has gone beyond the plausible."

That is, the Clintonites--and the campaign--may be overreacting. Will Democratic voters really buy the Clinton argument that Obama is an inauthentic and a dissembling scoundrel? Until the caucus-goers of Iowa speak, there is no way to know if Clinton's DEFCON-1 assault on Obama will succeed or backfire. But the Clinton attacks do say something about Hillary Clinton. She's adopting a whatever-it-takes strategy, mixing legitimate criticisms with truth-stretching blasts. And her campaign aides have adopted a we-must-destroy-him mindset that they justify by viewing Obama as a political lowlife.

Whatever-it-takes often works in political campaigns. But we all know that hatred can be blinding. Clinton is, as has been noted, running the risk of alienating those kindhearted souls of Iowa by slamming the lovable, likable and inspiring Barack Obama. She could end up looking a bit desperate. Candidates are always responsible for their campaigns, and they can be judged accordingly. If the Clinton campaign throws anything it can against Obama--with little regard for accuracy or decency--that will reflect her own character and values. It could, to turn her words against her, be a disqualification for the job.

Clinton is playing with fire. In explaining to reporters that she will be tougher on Obama, she said, "Now the fun part starts." That was tasteless. It's a remark that certainly can--and will be--used against her. And some Democratic voters might worry that the comment reveals too much desire for (political) blood.

In politics, there can be a thin line between tough and mean. (Ask Rudy Giuliani.) The future of Clinton's campaign--and perhaps the future of the United States--will be determined by how this woman navigates the difference.

ROVE'S LATEST UNTRUTHS. If you want to see how Karl Rove pulled a fast one on Charlie Rose regarding the CIA leak case, check out my story here. Or if you're interested in reading about how Rove has apparently been mis-citing an article I wrote in 2002 to justify his (false) contention that congressional Democrats, not the White House, rushed toward a vote on the Iraq war, click here.

After the CNN/YouTube Republican debate last week, fellow CQ blogger Richard Whalen observed:

The verdict: a very disappointing “debate.” After the worst-ever week for the greenback in the past half century, not one of the presidential candidates had anything to say about the economy, the dollar, the falling real estate market, the erratic stock market – zip.

These rich and powerful men are not concerned about how Americans are just getting by from pay day to pay day. Why aren't these candidates addressing the economic issues that are troubling most Americans and better yet, offering concrete solutions? Even a Thompson who flashes down-home folksiness had nothing to say about jobs, security and the future of the economy.

There were other matters not addressed during that debate. Iran, for instance--and global warming. (No YouTubers asked Thompson why a few months ago he delivered a radio commentary mocking people who worry about global warming.) But Whalen's posting prompted me to go back and look at the Democratic debate, held in Las Vegas on November 15. A search of the word "job" produced ten times the candidates used the J-word:

* Joseph Biden: "The American people don't give a darn about any of this stuff that's going on up here....They're worrying about whether they're going to keep their job."

* Christopher Dodd: "We Democrats have a job to do, and that is to unite this party, attract independents, Republicans who are seeking change....The American people want results, they want the job done, exactly what Joe Biden talked about here. But people get up in the morning and go to work, they sit around and they worry about their jobs, their retirement, their health care, this kids' education, and they wonder if anybody in Washington is paying any attention to them and whether or not the job is being done on their behalf.

* Bill Richardson: "Are we creating jobs and economic growth?

* Dodd: "I believe part of our job is to discourage those who want to come here [illegally]."

* Dennis Kucinich: "So I'm the candidate of workers in this -- this campaign because I've stood for jobs for all, full employment economy."

* Hillary Clinton: "you need to weed out the teachers who are not doing a good job."

* Richardson: "[Musharraf] is supposed to go after terrorists on his border. And he has done a very weak job of doing that."

* Barack Obama: "[American troops in Iraq] are doing a magnificent job."

* John Edwards: "NAFTA...has cost us millions of jobs.

* Richardson: "The federal government wasn't doing its job in stopping the flow of drugs and people....We should speak frankly to our friends [in Mexico], and it should be something like this: Mexico, give jobs to your people.

Note that none of these references were a pledge to improve the jobs situation in the United States or a proposal to do so. Sure, conventional unemployment numbers are low. But plenty of Americans are--to use a technical term--wigged out by the prospect of economic insecurity. In today's globalized economy, practically anyone can lose his or her job tomorrow and have a tough time finding a new one with good pay and benefits. Once upon a time, many Americans--even those with only a high school education--could look forward to sticking with the same decent-paying job for decades. No more. And add the accelerating costs of health care and education to the picture, plus the iffiness of many retirement plans, and you get a mood of unease and worry. (And I'm not including in this mix the fear of dirty bombs being detonated in malls during the Christmas rush.)

None of the leading candidates are speaking much about this declining (or lost) economic security. The Dems uttered the word "security" when discussing border matters and foreign policy (and, of course, Social Security). But they have not raised the wider issue of economic security as a main subject. (Edwards has come close in his populist attacks on corporate power in Washington, but just close.) And the Republicans are not even within a country mile of the issue. They're too preoccupied with providing tax "relief" to millionaires.

Jobs--this used to be bread and butter for Democratic candidates. Not that it always worked. Remember Michael "Good Jobs at Good Wages" Dukakis? But the last Democratic candidate to win the White House--Bill Clinton (a.k.a. Mr. Feel Your Pain)--did so by addressing the economic anxieties produced by the recession of the early 1990s.

The international economic tidal forces that are battering American workers are not easy to alter. Even though Democratic candidates do have position papers outlining how they would straighten the middle class and create some jobs, they are skimming the surface. None have yet connected with the deep-seated anxieties of today--and connecting with the voters is their No. 1 job.

LET THE GOOD TIMES...COME BACK. This weekend I attended a fundraiser held by the Future of Music Coalition, a nonprofit outfit focusing on music and technology issues, and Sweet Home New Orleans, a nonprofit organization that supports New Orleans musicians who lost homes during Hurricane Katrina. Part of the proceeds from the evening are going to help Al "Carnival Time" Johnson, a New Orleans musical icon for four decades. His home of 40 years was destroyed during the flood when a barge landed on it. He lost just about everything he owned. At the fundraiser, Johnson played some old-time New Orleans R&B, and Mike Mills of R.E.M. did a short set of his own. If you'd like to help musicians like Johnson, please check out Sweet Home New Orleans.