While most presidential contenders stayed "on message" for their closing arguments in the final weekend before Iowa’s first-in-the-nation nominating contest, Mike Huckabee and Barack Obama were forced to play defense. 

Although from opposing parties, Huckabee and Obama found themselves in similar predicaments, devoting chunks of their endgame stump speeches to answering attacks by rivals – or risk losing ground in a state they must win on Thursday to keep their White House bids intact.

Pummeled by Republican Mitt Romney’s television advertisement attacking his record as Arkansas governor, Huckabee defended himself in speeches and interviews throughout the weekend in Iowa. During a town hall meeting on Saturday in Indianola (broadcast live on C-SPAN), Huckabee labeled the Romney ad "desperate and dishonest."

Obama's weekend speeches in the Hawkeye State featured several attempts to control damage inflicted by his Democratic foes. The Illionis senator tried to counter John Edwards' recent claim that he is not tough enough to take on corporate wrongdoers. Obama also had to offer various assurances to voters that he presents adequate experience for the White House, directly responding to former President Bill Clinton’s recent criticisms.

"It’ll be a 'roll of the dice' -- that’s what Bill Clinton said," Obama told supporters in Newton, Iowa. “I have to remind people that the real gamble in this election is having the same old folks do the same old things over and over again and somehow expecting a different result. That’s the real risk.”

Obama and Huckabee must be worried that the attacks against them are effective or they would not be dedicating so much time to crafting detailed counter-arguments in these crucial last days.

Both are in the crosshairs of a deadly political maxim: “If you’re explaining, you’re losing.”

Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick stumped across Iowa on Saturday for Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama. One of the few nationally prominent African-American elected officials, Patrick serves as a role model to ease concerns among some Democratic voters that the country might not be ready to elect a black president.

Still, Obama’s reliance on high profile African-Americans such as Patrick and entertainment mogul Oprah Winfrey bears some risk. By carefully not running soley as the black candidate, the Illinois senator has made history as the first African-American with a credible chance to win a major party nomination.

Obama’s broader view of his candidacy even sparked some in the African-American community to question whether he is “black enough.” Campaigning with Patrick in the closing days of the Iowa campaign runs the risk of provoking worries among voters that Obama’s race could become a liability in the general election campaign against the Republicans.

ORLANDO – When Mike Huckabee flubbed his response to former Pakistan Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto’s death on Thursday, the only good news for the Republican presidential contender was that he goofed in Florida instead of Iowa, where more voters are paying attention.

During a single appearance in Orlando on Thursday, Huckabee twice raised doubts about his ability to handle international affairs – so much so that his staff later had to issue clarifications.

For starters, Huckabee raised eyebrows by mistakenly apologizing for Bhutto’s killing instead of offering condolences. At an Orlando airport rally Huckabee expressed “sincere concern and apologies for what has happened in Pakistan.” A campaign aide later explained that the former Arkansas governor had meant to extend his “deepest sympathies.”

After the Orlando rally, Huckabee tripped again when taking questions from reporters. He talked about the impact of Bhutto’s assassination on “whether or not there’s going to be martial law continuing in Pakistan.” Actually, martial law was lifted earlier this month.

For most candidates such minor missteps would hardly be worth mentioning. But Huckabee has goofed before on foreign policy. In the remaining five days of Iowa campaigning, he would be well advised to confine his extemporaneous remarks to domestic matters.

Hillary Rodham Clinton’s campaign team is doing its best to downplay expectations for the New York senator’s performance in Iowa’s first-in-the-nation nominating contest on Jan. 3, but the polls are not helping that cause. Indeed, the Democratic contender’s aides do not even promote the latest survey results showing her on top.

Clinton's lowering-expectations game is well served by the news media’s interest in making the Iowa campaign seem as tight as possible. For instance, the Los Angeles Times and Bloomberg News downplayed good news for Clinton this morning in their jointly-published Iowa survey. They almost exclusively focus on the news that Clinton, Illinois Sen. Barack Obama and former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards are virtually tied for the lead among Democrats who say they intend to vote. 

But it is a different story among the most likely to participate in the Iowa caucuses. Deep inside the Times/Bloomberg coverage of their poll we learn that among Iowa's Democratic voters who are "very likely" to vote in the caucuses Clinton leads Edwards by six percentage points. And Obama places third, behind Clinton by nine percentage points.

To find those numbers, readers must work their way down to the 18th paragraph of the Los Angeles Times report. Bloomberg did not report those numbers at all, only noting that among likely voters "Clinton's small lead in Iowa widens a little."

The poll's tighter screen for likely voters is not only based upon what they say they intend to do, but also upon the intensity of their interest and on their past voting history (although new voters were not excluded). 

Narrowing the survey pool to the most likely voters is historically significant in Iowa, considering that only about one-in-seven registered Democrats usually show up for the state's presidential caucuses. And Clinton and Edwards fare better than Obama among the most likely caucus participants questioned in this survey.

Still, surveying Iowa is always dicey because pollsters have a tough time accurately identifying caucus participants in advance, no matter how vigorously they try to screen out non-voters.

But soon we can crawl out of the polling weeds. The only one that counts – the actual voting – is just six days away.

Craig on "Hardball with Chris Matthews"
Friday (12/28) MSNBC 5:40 / 7:40 PM EST
Listen Here (clip by Mad Mustard)

The assassination of former Pakistan Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto is a horrible tragedy entitling her family and supporters to the many heartfelt condolences being offered to them by the civilized world. But the hard truth is that the effects of this event on the presidential race must be weighed.

This dramatic moment became a unique opportunity to evaluate how the hopefuls initially handled what can be seen as an audition for commander-in-chief just days away from the campaign’s first voting tests.

Democrats Hillary Rodham Clinton and John Edwards effectively devoted their first on-air comments to describe personal relationships they had developed with Bhutto, demonstrating a degree of experience in foreign affairs that might now return as a major voting factor.

Republican John McCain also got a chance to display his international credentials, but undercut his well-earned strength in this arena by nervously wandering around the stage where he delivered his remarks on Thursday.

Republican Rudy Giuliani again took one step too far in trying to link a major news story to Sept. 11, 2001 – another obvious attempt to raise the memories of his work as New York mayor after the terrorist bombings. Republican Mitt Romney rambled through a statement that hardly made sense, blaming the assassination on "global, radical, violent jihadism" while also saying no one knows who did it.

Democrats Joe Biden and Bill Richardson jumped too quickly into calling for specific actions that came across as a bit hot-headed for a president’s first reaction to such things. Democrat Barack Obama haltingly read a prepared statement that sounded like boilerplate for a vice president attending the funeral of someone he barely knows.

There is nothing like an assassination in one of the world’s most dangerous hot spots to urge voters to take another hard look at presidential candidates with the most foreign policy experience.

Former Pakistan Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto's tragic demise is just the sort of international crisis to put the spotlight on Arizona Sen. John McCain in the Republican race. On the Democratic side, Delaware Sen. Joe Biden and Connecticut Sen. Chris Dodd also present top-tier foreign policy credentials.

In the second tier of candidates with such backgrounds we find New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, who joined the Armed Services Committee soon after her 2000 election. Another Democrat, New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, is a former United Nations ambassador.

With the first voting just a week away in Iowa, voters might well rethink their interest in candidates with minimal backgrounds in foreign affairs. Such a startling reminder that the world teeters on the brink of chaos might just elevate the experience factor as a voting issue.

ORLANDO -- Hey Rudy, I am in Florida for the holidays to see my family and get ankle surgery. What’s your excuse?

It turns out that Rudy Giuliani, the one-time frontrunner for the Republican presidential nomination, would rather spend time in the Sunshine State this week than join the rest of the candidates in Iowa. 

Besides the obvious weather advantage (it’ll be 81 degrees here today), the former New York mayor justifies his three-day Florida swing on the grounds that the state’s Jan. 29 primary could be his firewall to overcome expected losses in early-voting states.

"If you win Florida, it says something about your ability to win the general election," Giuliani said while stumping in Tampa on Wednesday.

Still, Giuliani plans a trip to Iowa this weekend. Given his dismal poll standings there, I’ll bet he would not mind trading places with me for a bit of ankle surgery in sunny Florida.

Not everyone in the news media shows bias against Hillary Rodham Clinton, but there is enough of it going on to make you wonder if the New York senator might actually benefit from it.

As Bill Clinton often did during his political career, Sen. Clinton could portray herself as a martyr against the media hordes – who are not a popular bunch with the public anyway.

Since early November, the unbalanced coverage of Clinton has been striking. When party rivals attack her, many commentators celebrated it as evidence of tough, street-smart campaigning. But when she dares to return fire, it is often decried as nasty and unfair.  

When those of us in the chattering class try to bring some balance to the coverage, we are accused of being soft on Hillary. I am not Clinton’s defender, but I do think she deserves to be treated fairly.

My guess is that Clinton’s rough treatment stems from private expectations that her nomination really is inevitable, justifying a higher standard of scrutiny. If so, perhaps she should welcome the bashing.

Eight days, 192 hours or 11,520 minutes. However you measure it, Iowa’s first-in-the-nation voting for the longest-ever presidential campaign is almost here.

With the brief Christmas Day break barely over, today begins the final sprint. And it appears that the race has taken another wild turn for each political party.

The latest survey data shows Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton and Republican Mitt Romney on the move in Iowa largely due to a sudden shift of male voters to their candidacies.

A new American Research Group poll found such a stunning rise for Clinton that you have to wonder if something is wrong with the survey. In only a week’s time between ARG polls, the New York senator moved from a 4-point lead to a double-digit lead over her closest competitors, Illinois Sen. Barack Obama and former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards.

Romney, the former Massachusetts governor, is pulling back into contention with former Arkansas Gov. Mike Hukabee among Iowa Republicans surveyed by ARG.

The next crop of polls will reveal if ARG’s latest survey is an anomaly, but based upon my 30 years of experience with the Iowa caucuses it would not surprise me to see this state's savvy voters return the lead to Clinton and Romney. If so, my pre-holiday Conventional Widsom Mea Culpa might already be obsolete.

Hawkeye State partisans are among the nation’s most strategically-minded voters. They think long and hard about picking the candidate deemed best equipped to beat the other side in a tough general election campaign -- even if they find someone else more likable or closer to their own views on the issues.

If Clinton and Romney win the electability argument in the next week of Iowa campaigning, they could win the caucuses on Jan. 3 and claim frontrunner status for their party nominations.

Conventional wisdom is never in doubt, but often in error. CW is but a snapshot of popular opinion at a given time, correct for the moment but subject to change. Looking back at the opening year in the nation’s longest presidential campaign a few goofs of my own (and others) come to mind:

1) Hillary Rodham Clinton’s Inevitability – Oops! Many commentators, including myself, mistook the New York senator’s runaway lead in national polls as proof she would roll over her Democratic rivals in early states.

2) John McCain’s Demise – The Arizona senator’s startling failure to raise the money to match his frontrunner status at the start of the Republican race caused many of us to assume that his campaign was finished. But these days CW is abuzz with talk of a comeback.

3) The Fred Thompson Juggernaut – Double Oops! We blame it on the former Tennessee senator’s late entry, but watching his Republican bid crash and burn you have to wonder what got us all so excited in the first place.

Conventional wisdom marches on, never EVER daunted by its stunning mistakes. Thankfully, the voters finally get their say in just 240 hours.

Craig on C-SPAN2
Discussing "The Politics of Life"
Wednesday (12/25) at 11:23 AM EST

After delaying a trip to a real doctor for 17 days since falling in the snow, today I finally caved and sought medical treatment. Left ankle is broken in a few places (pictured here). My big plans for going to Iowa next week are not looking so good. I might be covering this thing via the tube and internet like a civilian. Will be relying on our Trail Mix posse in the key early states for ground cover (although Zoey in Iowa also has a broken foot).

Despite this little setback, we're having a Happy Holiday -- and wishing the same for you and yours!

Who would have thought that Hillary Rodham Clinton would go out of her way to bring up the Iraq War in the closing days of the campaign for Iowa’s Democratic presidential nominating caucuses. But on Thursday the New York senator surrounded herself with military officials and diplomats for a war-focused event in Iowa, repeating her vow to bring the troops home.

Months ago it was assumed that Iraq would be Clinton’s worst liability in the nominating race, that her 2002 vote to authorize the invasion would be her undoing among liberal-leaning Iowa Democrats. But these days the war has receded from the headlines as violence against U.S. troops eases back a bit, encouraging more Americans to tell pollsters that Iraq is looking better to them.

At this rate, if Clinton becomes the nominee and the public’s view of Iraq improves further, she might even start boasting about that authorization vote.

I'm heading home to Florida today for Christmas and then on to Iowa for the big presidential campaign showdown on Jan. 3. Trail Mix will not be taking a holiday break this year, so keep on visiting our little corner of the internets.

Before I got away, CQ Politics Executive Editor Peggy Girshman and Video Producer Andrew Satter stopped by the house for a "fireside" chat about the Iowa campaign. 

Click screen below for our inaugural Video Trail Mix . . .  

'Tis the Silly Season

Craig on "Live with Dan Abrams" (MSNBC, 12/19)
Listen Here for audio only (clips by Mad Mustard)

Tonight: Craig on "Live with Dan Abrams"
Thursday (12/20) MSNBC 9:00 PM EST

With Christmas falling just nine days before Iowa’s first-in-the-nation voting, presidential hopefuls are engaged in a grand experiment to figure out how much campaigning they can get away with and avoid irritating voters.

Already, at least three presidential candidates are gaming the Hawkeye State’s earliest-ever caucuses on Jan. 3 with holiday-themed ads: Rudy Giuliani, Mike Huckabee and Barack Obama.

The challenge is how best to stay on the voters’ minds without getting in their face. Warm and fuzzy Christmas-themed advertisements seem to be doing the trick for the moment. Although Huckabee ruffled some feathers with a more direct relgious appeal, including the image of floating cross behind him.

But what to do about Christmas day itself? On both sides the Iowa contest is so close and so critical that none of the candidates can afford to take too much time off.

Some candidates are planning to spend the day off the campaign trail but in the state. When Obama's family heard they would be spending Christmas in a Des Moines hotel room, his 9-year-old daughter cried.

Billary On The Campaign Trail 

Craig on "Countdown" (MSNBC, 12/18)
Listen Here for audio only (a Mad Mustard clip)

Craig on "Live with Dan Abrams"
Wednesday (12/19) MSNBC 9:00 PM EST

Any guesses on who might be the Republican presidential candidate currently in the top three in the first three major contests, according to polls in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina?

The answer to today's Trail Mix Challenge is Mitt Romney. The former Massachusetts governor is the only GOP hopeful who consistently places in the top three in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina. (He also places in the top three in Michigan and Nevada, which vote between NH and SC.)

If John McCain really is on the comeback path in New Hampshire, those much-discussed independent voters might not help Barack Obama as much as expected. Independents comprise 40 percent of the electorate in New Hampshire, where voters can play in either party’s primary. In 2000 New Hampshire independents fueled McCain’s Republican primary victory, but have so far showed less interest in the Arizona senator’s current bid. Many were drawn to Obama’s Democratic candidacy, attracted to the Illinois senator’s message of change from “politics as usual.” But without a big Obama win in Iowa (just five days before New Hampshire votes), those Granite State independents might give McCain another look.

Craig on "Imus in the Morning" (RFD-TV, 12/18/07)
Listen Here for audio only (by Mad Mustard)

Craig on "Countdown with Keith Olbermann"
Tuesday (12/18) MSNBC 8:10 PM EST

Might Joe Lieberman be interested in another shot at the vice presidency? If so, the former Democrat turned independent Connecticut senator has two chances.

Endorsing John McCain’s bid for the Republican presidential nomination on Monday naturally provoked speculation about a replay of Lieberman’s 2000 bid for the number two slot under Al Gore -- but this time for the GOP ticket instead of the Democrats. 

But Lieberman pointed in another and more intriguing direction during television interviews about his endorsement of the Arizona senator. He went out of his way to note, if not promote, the idea that New York mayor Michael Bloomberg, a former Republican who recently turned independent, might make a third-party run. 

If Republicans go hard right with someone like former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee for a nominee, Bloomberg is expected to seriously consider jumping in. A Bloomberg-Lieberman ticket as a third way for voters could be a showstopper, a bipartisan mix with Lieberman adding the foreign policy expertise that Bloomberg lacks.

It is largely media driven and egged on by rival candidates, but every presidential contender sooner or later spends time in the campaign penalty box. It’s the place where they can do nothing right and just about everything they say or do gets slammed -- until the political world grows weary of the hazing and moves on to someone else.

If Hillary Rodham Clinton has any luck at all, last weekend’s Des Moines Register endorsement of her bid for the Democratic nomination might have come at just the right moment to let her out of penalty box where the New York senator has suffered for nearly two months.

Republican contender Rudy Giuliani got in the penalty box a week ago with a poorly handled session on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” Host Tim Russert spent most of the hour pounding the former New York mayor’s personal and professional misdeeds. The GOP’s emerging frontrunner, Mike Huckabee, is also in the box as the news media grinds through difficult moments during his days as the governor of Arkansas. Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney seems to be on probation for the moment, while former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson earned what appears to be a permanent sentence with a lackluster launch of his campaign right after Labor Day.

But Arizona Sen. John McCain is finally out of trouble. Written off last spring when he failed to raise as much money as expected, the Republican hopeful is now enjoying what often comes after time in the media stockade -- the comeback narrative.

On the Democratic side, former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards and Illinois Sen. Barack Obama did their time in the penalty box over the summer. Edwards got a drubbing for his $400 haircut and cozy deals with hedge funds. Obama was skewered for running a lackluster campaign.

But both Obama and Edwards have been back in vogue for the last couple of months -- which means that, if they are not careful, either one could be due for another round of media punishment before the voters begin weighing in next month.

 

Craig on "Imus in the Morning"
Tuesday (12/18) 6:29 AM EST
RFD-TV or WABC-AM

The Des Moines Register’s endorsement of Hillary Rodham Clinton could well be remembered as the moment when the New York senator began to lock down the Democratic presidential nomination. Expectations were running high that her main party rival, Barack Obama, would bag Iowa’s largest newspaper as the closing chapter for an emerging narrative that Clinton had lost her luster.

Instead, Obama-mania suffered a major blow. The Register’s pragmatic editorial backing Clinton minced no words about what the newspaper sees as the Illinois senator’s “relative inexperience.” Even if Obama wins the Iowa caucuses, this endorsement likely guarantees that Clnton will do well enough to maintain her lead in bigger states down the road.

But the Iowa newspaper's hard-hitting rationale for its endorsement might just persuade undecided voters to give Sen. Clinton the margin for victory in the state's Jan. 3 caucuses. The Register not only backed her candidacy. It's supporting editorial concisely ratified her campaign’s closing argument – that she is prepared for the presidency, and Obama is not.

What a lousy week it was for New Yorkers in the presidential campaign. Once the unquestioned frontrunners for their party nominations, Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton and Republican Rudy Giuliani took a beating from the polls, media commentaries and especially from their encouraged rivals.

Is this buyer’s remorse among primary voters or just a natural tightening of the numbers in the early states? Clinton’s situation seems more like what would be expected in the closing days for a frontrunner, while Giuliani’s candidacy seems to be truly losing favor among many GOP voters.

Even in Florida, where Giuliani plans a big comeback in the state’s Jan. 29 primary to offset probable losses in the first round of states, a new Rasmussen Reports survey shows the former New York mayor losing his lead and now behind Mike Huckabee and Mitt Romney.

Clinton has not yet seen this sort of slippage in later states. The Rasmussen poll in Florida shows her still 28 percentage points ahead of Barack Obama. And, unlike Giuliani, the New York senator is still in contention for first place in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina.

So it is no wonder that Giuliani, not Clinton, is the one heralding a re-launch of his campaign today -- in Florida. While both have lost the air of invincibility they once enjoyed, Giuliani is in the worst shape.

Craig talks about this topic with Keith Olbermann (MSNBC, 12/13)

For all the damage that raising Barack Obama’s teenage drug use might inflict upon Hillary Rodham Clinton’s camp, this is not a risk-free matter for him. The Illinois senator and presidential hopeful still ought to assure Democratic voters that he has told all there is to tell, that there is nothing else along these lines that might undermine him as a party nominee.

Throughout the 2000 presidential campaign, George W. Bush managed to dodge detailed questions about his partying past in the same way that Obama's team is now doing – by calling foul against anyone who brings it up. But in the final weekend before the 2000 election a drunk driving arrest surfaced that Bush had never revealed. It almost cost him the race.

Democrats might want to be sure that nothing similar could happen to Obama, but only he can say for certain. And that is the point that Clinton’s now-ousted adviser, Bill Shaheen, so clumsily tried to make in noting that Republicans might well ask loaded questions such as whether Obama had ever dealt drugs.

Shaheen's warning was not theoretical. GOP contender Mitt Romney has already slammed Obama for being a poor role model by openly talking about his drug use with high school students last month in New Hampshire. That might be tame compared to what would be hurled against Obama in a general election battle.

In his 1995 memoir, Dreams From My Father, Obama wrote about his difficult late teens in slang terms likely to rattle some voters. "Pot had helped, and booze; maybe a little blow when you could afford it," he wrote at age 34. "Not smack, though.. . . Junkie. Pothead. That's where I'd been headed."

Obama wrote that drugs were "something that could push questions of who I was out of my mind, something that could flatten out the landscape of my heart, blur the edges of my memory."

Although those passages are destined to get a lot of play if Obama becomes the Democratic presidential nominee, most voters will not hold it against him so long as that is all there is to it -- a confused high school kid doing dumb stuff. Obama adviser David Axelrod told reporters on Thursday that Obama only used drugs up until age 20, and that he had not sold drugs or shared them with friends.

But if there is more, best to come clean now. Or give Democrats a firm assurance that they can rest easy on this point.

Craig on "Hardball with Chris Matthews"
Friday (12/14) MSNBC 5:40 / 7:40 PM EST
Listen Here (clip by Mad Mustard)

.

A clearly frustrated Bill Richardson had to bring up the Iraq war during today's Democratic presidential debate in Iowa because the moderator had not asked about it.

The New Mexico governor is eager to point out that he differs from his party's major candidates by advocating an immediate withdrawal of troops -- a stand that once fueled rising support for him among Iowa Democrats. But in recent weeks the war has all but disappeared as a presidential campaign issue, seldom coming up in town hall meetings, debates or media interviews.

Although Richardson wants to talk about Iraq, leading candidates in both parties seem content with keeping their distance. That is largely because neither side is sure how voters will see the war in November.

Top Republicans are worried that the war might remain unpopular. Democrats fear that it could be seen as succeeding. So for now, most would rather not talk about it.

Craig on "Countdown with Keith Olbermann"
Thursday (12/13) MSNBC 8:00 PM EST 

It is difficult to imagine Democratic presidential contenders debating today in Iowa with as little friction as the Republicans displayed yesterday. But perhaps fear of a backlash among voters is strong enough to keep things polite.

Still, as Democrats gather today for the 2 p.m. EST debate, polls show that three major hopefuls are virtually tied for the lead in Iowa’s Jan. 3 caucuses. Hillary Rodham Clinton, John Edwards and Barack Obama have not been shy about slamming each other on the campaign trail. It would be a remarkable feat of self-discipline for them to keep that rancor from spilling over.

Bitterness on the Democratic side erupted on Wednesday over a Clinton campaign official's references to Obama's admitted drug use as a teenager. Bill Shaheen, a national Clinton co-chairman, warned in an interview that Republicans would make an issue of Obama's admission -- and then later apologized for raising the matter, stressing that the Clinton campaign had nothing to do with it.

Republican Mike Huckabee, the clear leader of the moment for his party’s caucus fight, got a pass in Wednesday’s debate as his rivals stepped back from taking him on. They seem to be having difficulty figuring out how to do so without angering the religious conservatives rallying to his side.

On CQ Politics: GOP Debate Mosts and Bests

Sponsored by Iowa Public Television and The Des Moines Register, today’s Democratic debate will be broadcast live at 2 p.m. EST on CNN, C-SPAN3, Fox News Channel, MSNBC, C-SPAN Radio and Fox News Radio.

Are Mike Huckabee’s Republican presidential rivals afraid of him? For two debates in a row they let him skate. Which is why the former Arkansas governor could win this thing.

The conundrum facing Huckabee’s foes is simple -- they need his voters. And hitting him too hard means risking the potential support of his base.

Despite those risks, Huckabee’s competitors missed an important opportunity in Wednesday’s debate. This was the moment for stopping his momentum. And they passed.

The scariest thing for presidential hopefuls about the next round of debates in Iowa -- starting this afternoon -- is that historically they can make a huge difference. And it can be a thrilling turnaround moment for those who need a boost. 

Some of the eventual winners of the state’s leadoff caucuses, such as Democrats John Kerry in 2004 and Al Gore in 2000, began dramatic comebacks in these final debates by going negative against their challengers.

Republicans gather today, while Democrats face off tomorrow afternoon. Sponsored by Iowa Public Television and The Des Moines Register, each debate will be broadcast live at 2 p.m. EST on CNN, C-SPAN3, Fox News Channel, MSNBC, C-SPAN Radio and Fox News Radio

Mike Huckabee, the Republican frontrunner in Iowa, could face a replay today of what happened in the 1996 version of this debate. In those days GOP contender and wealthy businessman Steve Forbes was rising in Iowa polls, but got such a drubbing from other debaters that his political fortunes quickly sank.

If Huckabee's opponents are in the mood to open a new line of attack against the former Arkansas governor, they could dwell on a topic similar to what bedeviled Forbes in that Iowa debate more than a decade ago. It was Forbes’ proposal for a flat income tax that drew intense fire from his Republican rivals and seeded doubts among Iowans who feared that his idea was too nutty.

Huckabee backs the so-called Fair Tax, which would abolish income taxes and impose a hefty national sales tax -- a radical notion that his party foes have so far not emphasized. This afternoon’s high-profile debate offers that chance.

What are Democrats to make of the possibility that John Edwards might be their only candidate who beats the entire Republican field? And it’s not just that a new poll clearly makes that case.

Edwards is the only white male in the top tier. Democrats face a difficult question: Is America ready for a woman president or a black president? If not in both cases, then Edwards is their only viable alternative.

Democrats must decide whether to gamble on making history. And Edwards is at the ready in case they decide to play it safe.

Republican presidential contender Mitt Romney might get more than he bargained for in a new television advertisement attacking former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee.

In what amounts to the first direct-hit attack ad by a 2008 candidate against a party rival, the former Massachusetts governor takes aim at Huckabee's one-time support for giving college tuition benefits to the children of illegal immigrants.

But it's the introduction in the ad that could haunt Romney. The narrator says Romney and Huckabee are "both pro-life, both support a Constitutional amendment protecting traditional marriage." That leaves Huckabee the opening to counter-attack that Romney is a recent convert to the conservative side of such social issues.

Click below to watch the new Romney ad

It has become fashionable in political buzzland to whisper about tensions between Bill Clinton and the campaign team running Hillary Rodham Clinton’s bid for the Democratic presidential nomination. No doubt some of it comes directly from insiders who are irritated by the former president's occasionally off-message remarks on the trail.

But if Bill is considered such a drag why is he still campaigning nearly every day for his wife? Whatever complaints the New York senator’s team might have, nothing has led them to shy away from booking him on the road. After a weekend in South Carolina counter pointing Oprah Winfrey’s swing for Democratic contender Barack Obama, Bill went straight to Iowa for events on Monday.

Some might forget that fierce infighting is a Clintonian hallmark, especially when things are not going smoothly. Bill and Hillary themselves have been known to trade verbals blows. Even on the day of his first inauguration in 1993 they were overheard yelling at each other in a Capitol Hill holding room while stunned lawmakers listened from the next room.

Friction inside a Clinton campaign should never be mistaken for a fatal meltdown. More often than not a nasty brawl behind the scenes is followed by new tactics or a change in staffing that pretty much fixes whatever caused the blow-up. And so long as Bill stays out there on the campaign trail, you can bet that he must still be in the mix.

Craig on "The Stephanie Miller Show"
Tuesday (12/11) 9:30 AM ET
Listen Here

. . . and on "Super Tuesday" MSNBC (12/11)
Listen Here (clips by Mad Mustard)

 

John Edwards deserves more attention. Surely it’s time for the national news media to take a break from the nearly exclusive obsession with his leading Democratic presidential rivals, Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama.

Iowa Democrats are not ignoring Edwards. The former North Carolina senator and 2004 Democratic vice presidential nominee is the most popular candidate among his party’s likely voters in the Hawkeye State. According to a new MSNBC/McClatchy survey, Edwards enjoys a 69 percent favorability rating among Iowa Democrats -- besting Obama’s 66 percent and Clinton’s 62 percent. (Bill Clinton’s favorability is at 72 percent.)

Despite getting lost in the Clinton-Obama fray, Edwards remains competitive enough in Iowa to emerge victorious in the Jan. 3 caucuses. His organization for the all-important task of getting voters to the caucuses might even surpass Obama's or Clinton's.

Although the longest running candidate (if you count his 2004 bid), Edwards gets so little attention that he might seem like the fresh face in the field if an Iowa win produces a media boom.

Oprah Winfrey claimed to be nervous about her first public foray into presidential politics, but it didn’t show. Indeed, she delivers a better campaign speech than actual candidates -- so much so that you have to wonder whether she might run herself some day.

Drawing record crowds for a primary season, the television tycoon’s performances over the weekend in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina showed all the signs of a political pro. Winfrey smoothly shifted back and forth between conversational tones and soaring rhetoric, coming across as the authentic every-woman she is to millions of TV fans.

Even the beneficiary of Winfrey’s weekend campaigning, Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama, joked at each event that he was the “third best speaker” on the stage behind Oprah and his wife, Michelle. In Winfrey’s case, it was more than a joke.

Regardless of the immeasurable effect on Obama’s chances, Winfrey’s political debut was good for her. Already a cultural icon, she took a major step toward being taken seriously as a political figure.

You can tell that a politician has a lot of baggage when it takes nearly an hour to sort through it.

On NBC’s “Meet the Press” today, Rudy Giuliani faced a relentless grilling from host Tim Russert on the former New York mayor’s spotty record regarding everything from his shady business clients to official perks for his mistress.

The sheer volume of political scandals from Giuliani’s past might overwhelm anyone else, but the Republican presidential contender avoided catastrophe by greeting Russert’s tough questions with a disarming mixture of humor and humility. A few times he sheepishly admitted mistakes.

Although some of Giuliani’s answers stretched the limits of credulity, he at least avoided coming across as angry or overly defensive – which would have made him seem wounded.

Still, given the growing number of viable options in the Republican race (Mike Huckabee’s rise, a possible John McCain comeback, and the continuing threat from Mitt Romney), you have to think that Giuliani’s session with Russert will trouble primary voters who are looking for a bullet-proof nominee to run against the Democrats.

Going into the interview, Giuliani was already losing his once-solid claim as the GOP’s frontrunner in national polls. He might carry his baggage with a smile and heartfelt apologies, but it is still weighing him down.

In the television world no one has been able to successfully counterprogram Oprah Winfrey’s ratings dominance, but in the political world this weekend Democratic presidential contenders Hillary Rodham Clinton and John Edwards are doing their best to undercut Oprah’s campaign swing for their rival, Barack Obama.

Clinton chose this weekend for her daughter, Chelsea Clinton, to make her first campaign visit to Iowa. And Clinton’s mother, Dorothy Rodham, will join them for a series of stops. It was a smart move not to counterprogram Oprah with another entertainment celebrity who probably could not compete with her appeal. Instead, Clinton's daughter-mother-grandmother trio, while lacking Winfrey’s star power, could tug at the heartstrings of older women and homemakers who are in Obama’s crosshairs this weekend.

The Edwards camp got a bit rough in trying to counterprogram Winfrey, setting up a conference call on Friday for reporters to interview South Carolina supporters who had some harsh things to say about the TV diva. “If you can build a school in South Africa, build one in South Carolina,” said Linda Dogan, a Spartanburg City Council member.

Still, the Clinton and Edwards campaigns are braced for an Obama polling boost in the wake of his Oprah barnstorming. Their hope is that, while the voting starts in just three weeks with the Iowa caucuses, the intervening Christmas holiday will help make this weekend a distant memory.

Oprah Winfrey is stumping with her favorite presidential candidate this weekend but Democratic contender Barack Obama did not make the list of “Oprah’s Favorite Things,” the television diva’s recommended holiday gifts featured on her website. Still, Oprah’s product endorsements might offer clues about how she will promote the Illinois senator as they barnstorm Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina.

The $800 Samsung camera that Oprah hawks for Christmas is “so easy, even I can do it,” she says on her web page. If anyone in the crowd can actually see Oprah in the massive venues where she will appear with Obama, test her sincerity by looking at whether she is actually carrying the Samsung camcorder.

For those who get really close, check out whether Oprah is wearing the Toywatch timepiece she endorsed. 'I loved mine so much, I wore it just about every day.” And if you cannot make it through the throngs of fans to see the queen of all media, you can always stay home and listen to her recommended holiday album by singer Josh Groban. “It's the one Christmas CD every family should have,” Oprah says.

Retailers report that sales skyrocket when their products get Oprah’s endorsement. And this weekend she adds Obama to her holiday wish list.

With one notable exception, Mitt Romney’s rivals for the Republican presidential nomination steered clear of controversy in response to the former Massachusetts governor’s speech on Thursday defending his Mormon faith. But Fred Thompson’s camp took a chance at stirring anti-Mormon sentiment in a state known for serving as a religious cauldron in GOP politics.

Thompson's South Carolina co-chair, Cyndi Mosteller, did not mince words about Mormonism in an interview published by a local blog shortly before Romney’s speech. “I think it’s inconsistent with so many basic Christian doctrines and it’s very unusual to the point that it’s almost unbelievable,” Mosteller told the Palmetto Scoop.

Mosteller went on to assert that most evangelicals would not consider Mormons “part of the Christian faith.” Thompson made no effort to distance himself from those comments while campaigning in South Carolina. "I don’t know," the former Tennessee senator said when asked if he agreed with his state co-chair's views on Mormonism.

South Carolina has been so critical in past GOP nomination races that the jockeying often gets quite rough. Just ask Arizona Sen. John McCain, who lost the state's primary in 2000 to George W. Bush after conservative religious groups mounted a fierce whispering campaign attacking his morals. And now it appears that Thompson's team is prepared to give Romney's religious faith a hard time in the Palmetto State.

Mitt Romney left a few things out of his religion speech today – and for good reason. But the particulars about his Mormon faith that Romney skipped are what's bothering evangelical Christians.

Romney’s plea for tolerance might help him with other voters, but if he was targeting religious conservatives in today’s speech it is more likely that he only piqued their interest in learning more than he would like them to know about Mormonism. (And it is likely they will hear plenty of it in evangelical churches on Sunday.)

Romney learned over the summer in a contentious radio interview just how curious the religious right is about some of the unusual tenets of his faith and whether he stands by them. When the conservative host, Jan Mickelson of WHO Radio in Des Moines, Iowa, pressed him on various details, at one point Romney had to defend the Mormon belief that Jesus Christ will one day rule from Missouri.

“The Church says that Christ appears and splits the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem,” Romney said in the August 2 interview. "That’s what the Church says. And then over a 1,000 years of the millennium, that the world is reigned in two places, Jerusalem and Missouri."

It was probably in Romney's interest to leave that out of today’s speech, but he has now opened the door to more scrutiny of his religion among Christian conservatives.

The “inevitability” of Rudy Giuliani winning the Republican presidential nomination is now more in doubt than Hillary Rodham Clinton’s claim for the Democratic nod. While Clinton’s supposed inevitability got a month-long drubbing, it turns out that the GOP’s national pecking order is the one in major turmoil.

Mike Huckabee is now a top-tier contender in the Republican race -- and it is taking a toll on Giuliani. A new wave of national polls shows that the former Arkansas governor’s appeal is not limited to his Iowa boom. In one survey (The Rasmussen Report) Huckabee actually beats the former New York mayor among the party's likely primary voters nationwide.

The belief that Huckabee was a one-state wonder was about all that was keeping him from major contention. And his rise comes without the massive fundraising that Giuliani and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney put together (a gap that Huckabee might be able to close somewhat now that his “nominatability” is no longer such a long shot).

Giuliani’s strategy of waiting for big state primaries to confirm his inevitability is not looking so good. At one point, it seemed that Huckabee was doing him a favor by making trouble for Romney in Iowa -- but now there's trouble for Giuliani far beyond the corn fields.

Hillary Rodham Clinton is going negative against her Democratic presidential rival Barack Obama in Iowa with so much zeal that you have to wonder if she is actually trying to boost the fortunes of another foe, John Edwards.

Iowans traditionally recoil from the sort of feuding that Clinton and Obama are up to. In 2004, Dick Gephardt and Howard Dean turned so negative against each other in the final days of their Iowa campaigning that they both lost support, paving the way for John Kerry and Edwards to win the top two slots.

There is a chance that Clinton is calculating that if she can undercut Obama before the Iowa cacucuses on Jan. 3, even at the risk of dragging herself down, Edwards would win. And the Clinton camp believes that Edwards will be easier than Obama to overcome down th