So, a few observations about the Democratic debate.

First, a few months ago, I said that I didn't get what Barack Obama thought he was doing in one of the debates, that he was doing a very good job debating as the frontrunner, when in fact he was falling further and further behind Hillary Clinton. It showed tonight. There are a lot of differences between now and then. And I thought he had a good night. But tonight was an example where his style worked much better when he's on top. He parried Clinton pretty well. And I don't think she really laid a glove on him.

As I wrote earlier, I think the debate started in a pretty shambling fashion. Then it began to engage and built to a pivotal, even defining exchange on the subject of change around 9:30 PM. Obama made his case. Significantly, Edwards largely agreed with Obama to the effect of trying to close the door on Hillary's candidacy. Hillary was clearly pissed and responded with what you probably consider (depending on your perspective) either an impassioned or enraged response (perhaps both) that I think very articulately and effectively described her argument for her candidacy. I think that Hillary moment will become a Rorschach for voters around the country.

You can see it here ...

John Edwards also had, I thought, a very strong debate, particularly in the latter half of the debate. He talks a lot about feeling this fight in his blood and being a fighter. And it's important when you say things like that that it really resonates in what you say, how you act, who you seem to be. And I think it did on every count. Unfortunately for Hillary, most of the eloquence and fire was directed at her tonight.

The exchange I noted earlier from around 9:30 PM was the emotional, dramatic crux of the evening. After that a lot of the energy seemed to be released from the discussion. Not in a bad way necessarily. I thought each of them had very good moments in the second half. But that was the crux of the debate, where the key points were enunciated, and each candidate defined.

In general, I think Obama's the winner tonight. I think Hillary made her case well. I think Edwards had the best debate. But the debate can only be understood in the context of the moment. Right now, Obama's on fire. The first post-Iowa polls show him picking up a big post-caucus bump. He needed to come off well. Not make any mistakes. And not let Hillary open up any strong line of attack against him. And I think he did each one of those things. Which means he gave some reassurance to those who might be hesitating to get on the bandwagon and didn't do or allow anything to happen which significantly changes the trend of the moment, which is moving heavily in his favor.

Dem Debate reactions up momentarily.

They started out sort of shambling. They're each clearly and very understandably worn out. (Not as much Richardson. But then, hey, he's not really in the race.) Then they engaged. And I found myself being proud of them as a group, because the caliber of the discussion was so much higher than that of the Republicans. But the real engagement happened at about 9:30 on the topic of change. I noted what was said in the post below. But since then, it seems like that was the emotional crux of the debate. Like the key points were aired and the emotional tension was broken. After that the energy sort of drained out of the discussion.

When Obama started off, I thought he was a little iffy and uninspired in his response. But then the rest of the three were each worst than the last. So now I don't know what to think.

9:26 PM ... In fairness to all the candidates in both debates, the fatigue from all of them is palpable.

9:38 PM ... Okay, now we're getting somewhere. Starting at about 9:30, that was a very powerful exchange. I'm not certain who got the better of it in as much as I think each of the three hit their key points effectively. Obama's very solid. Edwards really tried to slam the door on Hillary permanently. She was ... I'm not certain what the right word is, enraged? But it was a good response. Impassioned in ways that I think will play very well with some and probably not well with others. But really captured her argument as well as, I think you have to say, her anger at being in this position.

One more post-Iowa poll in New Hampshire. This one is from Research 2000, and it shows things basically unchanged between Obama and Hillary. Each picked up a couple of points since the last poll, and Obama still leads by a point.

But big movement on the GOP side, where, according to these numbers, John McCain is soaring.

At this point it seems clear that the big take away from the Republican debate is that these are six pretty tired old guys who can barely get enthusiastic enough to answer the questions. Talk about dialing it in.

Have to say I'm disappointed in the Mittster. I had pretty high hopes. But he was being slapped around up there like the dorky kid in the High School locker room. It was sad. And Mitt's inner humorlessness did not serve him well.

8:50 PM ... Stephanopoulos agrees: Mitt blew it. Defensive, inarticulate, and just generally sad sac.

TPM Reader CS ... "Is it me, or do Thompson and McCain seem like those old guys who sit in the balcony on the Muppets? Cranky, cranky. Also, they could be compared to the old guy neighbor who exclaimed "Kid, get that ball outta my yard." There was definitely some of that. There was actually one moment where Thompson perfectly channeled Mr. Burns from the Simpsons. I'm going to have go back and grab that picture.

Really feeling like my investment of time and heart in the Mittster is not being rewarded here. I was expecting him to effectively demagogue the immigration issue versus McCain. But he can't even speak comprehensibly. I can't even tell what he's talking about. Each of them are like a matadors sticking those long sticks into the Mitt bull.

I mean, I can't take this. Romney's making Rudy look good.

8:18 PM ... I'm wondering if Rudy is realizing that his dreams of presidential glory are over and so he figures he might as well re-embrace some of the reasonable things he did as Mayor.

8:22 PM ... Huckabee's argument makes so much sense. Illegals will agree to deport themselves because if they don't and we catch them we'll deport them. Makes sense.

8:25 PM ... Finally my guy Mitt is getting his shoulder into it.

8:26 PM ... Whatever happens in this election, whoever wins, we'll all be able to agree that the complete humiliation of Fred Thompson made it all worthwhile.

8:28 PM ... This is killing me. I don't think Romney's embrace of Barack Obama as the new centerpiece of his presidential agenda just isn't going to cut it.

8:37 PM ... I think this debate format is good in as much as that it has clearly made each of the candidates forget they're involved in an election. Especially Thompson.

8:39 PM ... Rudy: Ike committed the US to putting a man on the moon; Nixon got it done.

I've been hearing McCain saying he'd 'learned his lesson' on immigration last year. And it had a real George Wallace sound to it. But listening to his statement now, it doesn't sound like he's changed that much. Good for him: but I think that's going to remain a real albatross around his neck in the coming weeks.

I was a little distracted during some of the first hour of the debate. Because of some site technical stuff. But my general impression was that it was basically a wash. McCain was decent. Romney was okay. Huckabee was decent rattling off his Huck jargon. Seemed basically like a wash to me and thus not really that clear who achieved what in terms of the vote on Tuesday.

7:20 PM ... Mittmentum!

7:25 ... I was hoping we'd get to each of the candidates scholarship on Muslim radicalism.

7:29 PM ... Good words there from Rudy about the Muslim religion and Muslims, but completely belied by his recent scary Muslims ad.

7:37 PM ... Sigh. That must have been fun for Mitt. Charlie Gibson had to be honest that Mitt's flipflopping goes without saying.

That's what we need -- more Americans buying health care outside of big risk pools.

A TPM Reader makes an interesting point: "Didn't Giuliani open a dangerous door when he said that he returned that million dollar cheque to that Saudi prince, when his security consultancy firm did business with Qatar which was overseen by Qatar's Minister of the Interior, Abdullah bin Khalifah Al Thani who apparently has ties to various terrorist groups?"

7:51 PM ... This really is the heart of Republican thinking on health care these days: ordinary folks aren't being thrifty enough and taking the cost into account enough when they decide whether to get that MRI the doctor ordered.

Romney's actually the only guy up there who has any policy on health care, any experience dealing with the actual issue. But he's not making that case very well. Especially against a stuffed shirt like Thompson.

8:00 PM ... Mitt: "Doing the work of the Free Market." For Mitt, that's like "Doing the Lord's Work."

Hillary drops a new New Hampshire mailer on Obama's abortion record.

Late Update: Reed Hundt says he doesn't think it's going to work.

Here at TPM we're getting ready for live-blogging tonight's debates. But I wanted to let you know how much your updates help us at a time like this. I just heard from one reader whose son is up in New Hampshire volunteering for one of the Democratic candidates. She gave some great detail about what the volunteers are hearing as they call former New Hampshire supporters of now-dropped-out candidates (Biden and Dodd). Others have sent in pictures and video from rallies. So many people -- either on the ground in New Hampshire or in contact with those who are, or connected in some other way -- have some hand in this battle that is unfolding. And your tips and reports and photographs and video help us pull it all together for the big picture. So please, keep it coming. We read it all. And we could not do without it. So let us know what you're hearing and seeing.

A lot is going to happen over the next three days. But perhaps one really good thing can come out of it: driving Mark Penn out of Democratic politics once and for all. I really don't know how he keeps his hooks in his clients, particularly Hillary. And he's taking a lot of richly, richly deserved grief for his late in the day trash-talking about that very accurate Des Moines Register poll.

So deserved. And for so much.

New CNN poll: Obama and Hillary all tied up in New Hampshire--33% apiece.

The recriminations begin within the Clinton campaign:

Specifically, those inside the campaign and outside advisers fault Penn for failing to see the Iowa defeat coming. They say he was assuring Clinton and her allies right up until the caucuses that they would win it. Says one: "He did not predict in any way, shape or form the tidal wave we saw." In particular, he had assured them that Clinton's support among women would carry her through. Yet she managed to win only 30% of the women's vote, while 35% of them went for Obama.

A modest rise in Iowa turnout from traditional levels — say by about 20,000 or 30,000 — might have been easy to write off as merely the result of superior tactics on the part of the well-funded Obama operation. But the fact that voters flooded the caucuses, and that Obama swept just about every demographic group, speaks to something larger that is going on in the electorate, Clinton strategists now acknowledge.

Guess there's not much argument that O'Reilly shoved Obama staffer Marvin Nicholson:

Speaking later on Fox News, O'Reilly said he tried to "gently remove" the Obama staffer so his camera could get a shot of the Illinois senator.

"We're sorry we had to have that little confrontation," O'Reilly added, "but no one on this earth is going to block a shot on The O'Reilly Factor. It is not going to happen."

M.J. Rosenberg: Because of his race, Obama offers the possibility of believing again.

Ken Baer tries to figure out: What can Hillary Clinton do to stop Barack Obama?

We're starting to get a feel now for how the Democratic race is playing out in New Hampshire after Obama's big win Thursday night in Iowa.

A second New Hampshire poll taken after the Iowa caucus is just out. The American Research Group poll, taken yesterday and today, shows Obama up by 12 over Hillary. The other purely post-Iowa poll, from Rasmussen, shows Obama up 10.

We also have two new three-day tracking polls out today, both of which just have one day of post-Iowa numbers, but already show a move toward Obama. The Zogby tracking poll still has Hillary ahead of Obama, but he cut her lead in half on the strength of Friday's numbers. The Suffolk University tracking shows Hillary's lead over Obama cut from 12 points to 7 points with the addition of the Friday numbers.

Taken together, things are looking very good for Obama. Will Hillary hit the panic button and go negative? So far, she hasn't.

Elizabeth Edwards deplores lack of media coverage of John's second place finish in Iowa.

Pics of the O'Reilly scuffle with the Obama staffer.

You can't tell much, except he looks just as obnoxious away from the studio lights.

TPM Reader JV checks in from Nashua

The Obama rally at Nashua North High School at 10AM this morning is right down the street, so I went to see him. I didn't get there until just before 10, and the place was jammed. I had to park in a church lot a half mile away. This is a new High School, with what must be the largest gym in the state. It was full to overflowing. The picture attached was the line waiting to get in a little after 10. The line extends as far back in the other direction too. Shortly after I took this photo, the line stopped for several minutes. When it started moving again, it was to let us into the "secondary gym" (which is about as large as most high school primary gyms) and they filled that one too. So we didn't get to see Obama, but we did get to hear him. When he finished, he briefly popped into our room to thank us for coming out. (video below) I've lived in NH for 27 years now. I've never seen a candidate pull crowds anything like this. Shortly after Obama started, he asked how many undecideds were in the room, and (from what I was told later by people that we in the main gym) there was a fairly good number that raised their hands. He talked for 30-35 minutes, and he was good. He talked about hope. He took on all the points that Hillary is hitting him on (lack of experience etc). (One of his best lines was something like "they want me to stew for a while until all the hope has boiled off".) I suspect he convinced a lot of those people that were on the fence.

this is how much we actually saw of him in the room we were in:

Bill O'Reilly reportedly shoves Obama staffer at New Hampshire rally, and Secret Service steps in.

Here's the latest from Rasmussen:

Obama 37%
Clinton 27%

McCain 31%
Romney 26%

Despite considerable speculation yesterday in the hours after her third-place Iowa finish that Hillary would have no choice but to go negative to salvage a victory in New Hampshire, her campaign has apparently decided not to go that route.

Zogby's first New Hampshire tracking poll with post-Iowa numbers is out. With yesterday's numbers added to the three-day rolling poll, Obama gained two pecentage points and Hillary stayed steady, suggesting perhaps that Hillary is holding her own but that Obama is picking up supporters from the second tier and now out of it candidates. She still holds a four point lead, with Edwards pretty far back in third. On the GOP side, McCain loses two percentage points, and clings to a two point lead over Romney. Huckabee gains two but remains a distant third.

Some good New Hampshire analysis of what's at stake and what's happening in the primary from Tom Edsall at Huffpo.

Okay, I could come up with a few good snarky lines on this one. But I'll settle for someone just explaining to me what the hell Mike Huckabee's talking about.

TPMer Eric Kleefeld and I were chatting this evening about whether everyone's underestimating Huckabee's chances in this race. And I think Eric may be on to something. But then I go over to Huck's site and I see his pitch to supporters, which you can see in this screen capture.

Can anyone explain what the hell that means? Vertical? I guess if you're main opponent was Fred Thompson you might push the fact that you spend most of your time standing up. But seriously, is there something I'm missing here? Or is this the weirdest campaign I've ever heard?

I mean, at a minimum it's setting the bar for his presidency pretty low, right?

Late Update: Well, ask and ye shall receive, they say. Apparently this is a big buzzword for Huckabee. He wants to end the horizontal politics and get back to vertical politics.

Here's a video of him talking about it ...

Later Update: A few other readers suggest there's some crypto-evangelical code wording going on with it too. And it seems like they're definitely on to something here. Here's one example, another and another.

The more I look at this I don't think there's any question this is a clever dog whistle call out to Christian fundamentalists and evangelicals that his politics are God's politics.

I hinted at this last night. And now Dan Balz makes the same point. If you look at the kinds of people and political constituencies where Obama got his biggest support, New Hampshire has even more of those people than Iowa.

Trent Lott lands on his feet, founds new lobbying firm with former Sen. Breaux.

Ken Baer reports from a rally in New Hampshire: Kerry in 2004 played the right notes, Obama is playing music.

Jared Bernstein: It's looking like our recent economic troubles have reached the labor market.

Jose Padilla sues John Yoo for authorizing torture.

I feareth that my man Mitt, in whose candidacy I've invested so much time and energy, is destined to get smoked on Tuesday.

Just got this letter from Mitt ...

Dear Friend, As you’ve likely seen by now, we finished a strong second place in Iowa and the mainstream press has been quick to call this devastating. Well, I’m here to tell you that just like in the Olympics, winning the silver in the first event does not mean you’re not going to come back and win the gold in the final event. And we’re going to win the presidential nomination, by pulling together. I’m humbled by what you have done so far. Now, the action you take today could determine the course of history!

1. Please Invite 5 friends to join Team Mitt. It’s going to take every mouthpiece and volunteer possible for victory. Someone from my staff will follow-up with all new Team Mitt members immediately.

2. Call a friend, forward them this email, stop by their home or office and ask for just one more contribution to help us win New Hampshire and continue this campaign to the ultimate finish – the White House at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

3. Finally, help 5 friends learn more about me with a personalized phone message. Just use our new phone messaging tool. I’ll even record a customized voicemail greeting for your cell phone if you’d like. Imagine the surprise your friends will get when they call.

Remember – Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush also finished second in Iowa and went on to win the Republican nomination, and I will too. I’m the only candidate who is competitive in all of the early primary or caucus states – South Carolina, Michigan, Nevada, Florida…and of course New Hampshire.

You know as well as I do that Iowa represents the beginning of the process, and we’re on our way to New Hampshire to win – with your help.

My sincere thanks,
Mitt

I'm shocked that they can get a machine to perfectly imitate Mitt's voice well enough to give me my personalized Mitt voicemail. I'm loving it!!!

Williams Hartung considers what a Mike Huckabee foreign policy would look like.

Just for the record, I find it fascinating just how openly the Republican establishment just hates Mike Huckabee. Don't get me wrong. I can see why they're bent out of shape. They think he'd be a rotten national candidate. And more importantly they're pissed at him for not understanding the proper role of Christian conservatives in the Republican party, which is to supply votes, phone-bankers and general grunt work.

My pal Mike Lind in one of his books had this great line about the GOP Triangular Trade in which Southern evangelicals provide the votes for a party financed by and run on behalf of Wall Street and with policies devised by a gang of New York intellectuals and scribblers. He put it more eloquently. But he had it about right.

Basically, Richard Scaife provides the money to help keep his taxes low. Bill Kristol comes up with the ideas. And Mike Huckabee provides the votes.

Anyway, I get why they're down on him. But I'm surprised at just how transparent they are about it. With Ron Paul at least the guy dissents from what are now cardinal points of the Republican agenda. But where does Mike Huckabee really dissent on much of anything?

Will the FEC shutdown cut off public funding to the Edwards campaign?

You'll notice in today's video Mitt has regained some of his composure. And unlike last night's appearance he's ditched most of the gritted, teeth and facial twitches that suggested a loss of his preferred animatronic presentation.

My favorite moment in this new Mitt moment comes at about 16 seconds in. Scarborough makes a gentle joke at Romney's expense, to which the expected reply in a move-along 'good one' or something. But Mitt just can't help himself. Watch what he says but even more his expression.

Obama jabs Hillary:

Referring to his new status as the Democratic front-runner, he said: "This feels good. It's just like I imagined it when I was talking to my Kindergarten teacher."

Okay, it seems like Rudy isn't going to give up his long, twilight struggle to truly embody his own parody. He's now passing off the difficulties of his 6th place Iowa finish and flagging campaign by saying it's nothing compared to the dangers he faced on 9/11.

Seems the final participation number on the Dem side in Iowa rests at 239,000. It is difficult to express just how much that number exceeds almost all expectations. Here's what Edwards advisor and former Dean 2004 guru Joe Trippi said just a couple days ago ...

Anybody who tells you this thing gets up to 220,000, that's some number of people who've never participated in this thing. It'd be an incredible thing to see if it happened, and more power to the candidate who pulled that off.

But I'm also having this reverse deja-vu where I remember spending a good chunk of this period 4 years ago telling every reporter that would talk to me about exactly how 220,000 people were going to turn out and vote, and if they did Howard Dean would be the next president of the United States. This time I feel a little awkward sitting here arguing that 200,000 will never show up, but I honestly don't think it's going to happen.

TPM Reader TF reports from on the ground ...

You are absolutely correct ("Kicked Ass, Will Travel") about Iowa (Republicans) being tailor-made for Huckabee. As an observer of R politics in this state, it has been years since the fundamentalist right seized control of the party. This has some downsides for their party—we had several prominent former Republicans caucusing with us (including a former legislator).

Not so correct about Iowa Democrats. Jessie Jackson did very well here in 1988. On the whole, Iowa Democrats tend to be more progressive than the average Democrat and extremely open-minded (and sometimes naïve about our opponents). My own observation (as an Edwards supporter) is that the Obama campaign was extremely-well organized and figured out how to turn out new caucus attendees. (The former Republicans at our caucus generally supported Obama.) Our precinct went from a prior high of just over 300 attendees to 523. From a quick view at the paper this morning, our caucus was not alone.

But central to this is that Obama would never have run into problems with Iowa Democrats because of his race, any more than Clinton would run into problems because of her sex. I failed to pull over a number of Democrats who agreed with everything Edwards said, liked him a lot, but did not want to pick the white male candidate in this field. Whether Obama can pull in Republicans is a different question (given the people who are left in that party, it is unlikely), but relying on a large number of independents, he certainly showed a major draw and tapped into resources that no one has tapped into in Iowa in my political experience (which goes back to about 1978, even though I could not vote that year.) This will be good for our party; one of our new County Central Committee members was the Obama precinct chair and has never been involved in party politics at this level before (I’m not sure she ever caucused before.)

I’ll add a more general observation. I know a lot of Democrats who have nothing against Hillary Clinton, but they can visualize the Republican attack because they remember the attacks on Bill Clinton. I don’t think those same Democrats visualize the attack on Obama, if he is the nominee. With the Republican “scare” issue moving from gay marriage to immigration (and with it, the GWOTTM), and the base of the Republican Party what it is, the race against Obama (if he gets the nomination) could be one of the most miserable experiences in modern politics. I picture a racist, xenophobic campaign that will bring out all the worst America can be. The upside is that Senator Obama is up to the challenge and if he is nominated and wins, the mere act of winning could transform our country and the Democratic Party. I support Edwards because of his policy positions, because I think his economic diagnosis and solutions are the best. I believe he already improved the race by forcing our other candidates to seriously address health care, the environment and poverty. I am also not convinced that Obama’s coming together message will work or that he can lead the country from that position without getting run over by the Republicans. But if Senator Obama can do nationally what he did here, watch out for him—he will be a potent political force.

One of the surest axioms of politics-watching is that folks who say they're going to win not by getting a bigger slice of the pie but by expanding it are full of it. That sounds a little cynical. But you would put together a very good record of prognostication by assuming it's always true. And that's one thing that stands out to me about last night on the Democratic side. As Eric Kleefeld points out here, among returning caucus-goers, Edwards won last night with 30%. But 57% of caucus-goers were first-timers. And Obama won those newcomers decisively -- 41% to Hillary's 29% and Edwards at 18%.

I don't think it's fair to credit all the expansion of the Democratic electorate to Obama. There are a number of factors, several of which are pluses for the Democrats in general. But he won them resoundingly.

And clearly there was no way to peg this outcome if you figured by looking at the makeup of previous caucuses.

Another point that needs saying. There was a lot of talk going into last night that Obama was going to overwhelm the caucuses by bringing in tons of independents. That didn't happen. As a percentage of caucus-goers independents made up almost exactly the same percentage as they did in 2004.

(ed.note: A lot of readers have written in about this last paragraph. So perhaps it's unclear. Whoever brought them, there were clearly about twice the number of independents caucusing with the Democrats last night as compared to four years ago. My point, however, was whether they would 'overwhelm' the caucuses in the sense of change their partisan complexion. And that clearly didn't happen since the breakdown of Dems and Independents remained the same.)

Paul Kiel catches us up on the EPA's decision not to allow California to regulate greenhouse gas vehicle emissions and the unfolding legal and political battles between Congress/environmentalists and the White House over the universally panned decision.

Nathan Newman notes that Obama's win last night could translate into "realignment of a whole range of voters into the progressive column, not just in November but over time."

The message coming out of tonight is that outsiders, non-establishment figures, shook up both parties. And that is no doubt true. But another point occurs to me about this result -- comparing the two races.

This state was tailor-made for Mike Huckabee. It's not the evangelical South. But Iowa's Republican caucus constituency has a very evangelical tinge. It's no accident that Pat Robertson came in second here back in 1988.

You can't say the same thing about Obama. Iowa's a very white state. And if I'm not mistaken it is, demographically, a relatively old state. Unlike Huckabee, there's no reason (nothing about the state itself) to think that Obama shouldn't do as well or better in New Hampshire than he did in Iowa. And if he comes off another win in New Hampshire I think it's a good bet that African-Americans in South Carolina (who make up something like half the Democratic primary constituency) will break overwhelmingly in his favor.

None of this is to presuppose the outcome of the Democratic race. Hillary's not going anywhere. She could have knocked Obama out of the race with two strong victories. But it will take a lot longer and a lot more wins for Obama to put this one away. What I'm talking about is the disparity between the night's big winners -- Huckabee and Obama. Huckabee was in many ways on his very best terrain. Perhaps the peculiarities of caucusing helped Obama. But his victory strikes me as much more portable outside the state than Huckabee's.

After all that, the candidate who won big on second-choicers was John Edwards.

BREAKING: Gravel says he's not really dropping out, demands retraction from Olbermann.

And you thought the comedy writers were on strike ...

It's always hard to explain in advance, particularly to people who aren't political junkies, just how it is that a victory in a small and not very representative state like Iowa can powerfully shape the race going forward. Why does someone in Florida or New Hampshire or New Mexico care one way or another what people in Iowa do? But you're already beginning to see it.

Some of it is simply crowd instinct. We're social creatures. Victory is attractive, especially if you don't have clear commitments -- ideological or partisan -- going in. But there's something more than that too.

Barack Obama's speech sounds very different now that he's talking from a position of political strength, rather than where things were a few months ago, when he seemed like he was getting lapped by Hillary. And let's face it, it was quite a speech. It made me think again of 2004.

The difference is even more striking and perhaps more realistic with Romney. Purely for my own reasons, I would have liked Romney to do better tonight, because I think he'd be a very weak national candidate. Rudy's already toast. Trailing Ron Paul tonight was just a confirmation of that. He's not even relevant. With Romney though, he spent tons, tons of money, absolutely put his all in to Iowa and he got smoked by Huckabee who barely spent anything by comparison.

On various levels, Romney put his all into Iowa. And he got thumped.

McCain had a pretty poor night tonight, coming in fourth behind the comatose Fred Thompson. But let's not kid ourselves. Romney took a big blow tonight. And if he can't come back strong in New Hampshire his collapse will be McCain's gain -- not because McCain's on fire or has any money or really is in any kind of strong position by most objective measures. The truth, though, is that there's simply no one left. It ain't Thompson; ain't Rudy. You can't say Huckabee's out of it but put me down with those that just don't think he can overcome the twin hurdles of a) running amongst more moderate and cosmopolitan Republican electorates and b) running against almost the entire GOP establishment. And that leaves you with McCain.

The truth is that the Republican party tonight is in complete disarray. The best financed candidate just fell on his face. Their big winner of the evening is opposed by almost the entire establishment of his party. The frontrunner of recent months is lost down in Florida shakily repeating '9/11' under his breath like a hobo who needs a stiff drink.

McCain's just the only guy left. And that ain't nothing. Because one of them does have to win. And I'd rather see the Dems face Romney than McCain.

CNN: Biden's Out.

In Iraq for 50 years? "Make it a 100," says McCain.

Greg Sargent just confirmed it: Dodd's pulling out later this evening.

Beyond who won on each side, there's a very big partisan message out of tonight. Just under 220,000 Democrats caucused tonight. About 115,000 Republicans did. That is a very big vote in itself.

218,000 Dems caucus.

Hillary comes on the stage ...

Chris Matthews gets wet and messy about Barack, son of Africa, the Third World, revolutionary hero, guy named Hussein, etc. etc. etc. ...

A reader just told us McCain claimed 'victory' with his 4th place showing? Did you see it?

Hillary to speak shortly.

Like I said, I wasn't sure Mitt Romney's animatronic speaking style could be thrown by anything. But telling Fox News listeners earlier this evening how rockin' it was coming in second challenged even the Mittster ...

Seems Ron Paul has pretty much smoked Rudy in Iowa. With about 2/3 reporting, Paul's got about 10% and Rudy's bringing up the rear with a healthy 4%.

Will Fox let him debate?

NBC Calls It for Obama

Just out from David Corn ...

The United States military could stay in Iraq for "maybe a hundred years" and that "would be fine with me," John McCain told two hundred or so people at a town hall meeting in Derry, New Hampshire, on Thursday evening. Toward the end of this session, which was being held shortly before the Iowa caucuses were to start, McCain was confronted by Dave Tiffany, who calls himself a "full-time antiwar activist." In a heated exchange, Tiffany told McCain that he had looked at McCain's campaign website and had found no indication of how long McCain was willing to keep U.S. troops in Iraq. Arguing that George W. Bush's escalation of troops has led to a decline in U.S. casualties, McCain noted that the United States still maintains troops in South Korea and Japan. He said he had no objection to U.S. soldiers staying in Iraq for decades, "as long as Americans are not being injured, harmed or killed."

I usually think of Gov. Romney being able to manage a phony, plastic smile and toss off a few lame jokes through even the most trying moment. But the interview he just did on Fox saying how cool it was that he was coming in second really challenged the Mittster's greatness.

Fox and CNN calling it for Huckabee.

I guess people may have various reasons why they don't want Barack Obama to win the nomination. But there's one reason that wins out. If he wins it'll be years before Chris Matthews shuts up about Obama being a man of Third World.

Late Update: Gitlin similarly wonders what Matthews is smokin'.

The Obama folks say they're expecting a turnout of 207k, which would be at the highest end of expectations.

I think 2004 was around 120k and that was considered a high turnout caucus.

Russert gets googly-eyed for Iowa ...

The McCain camp responds on the Mormon/Romney push poll brouhaha ...

U.S. Senator John McCain's New Hampshire Vice Chair, former Congressman Chuck Douglas (R-NH), today issued the following statement on his comments regarding the New Hampshire Attorney General's push-polling investigation:

"In the course of calling on all campaigns to fully disclose any relationship they have or do not have with Moore Information, I suggested that the Romney campaign had possibly used the poll in question to message test. It was a mistake to suggest that this opinion was anyone's other than my own. I was speaking only for myself and not the McCain campaign and I regret any confusion my remarks caused."

A timely post, to be sure: Ken Baer, who will be periodically reporting on the New Hampshire primary for TPMCafe, ponders elections predictions.

If Hillary only gets a third of the vote in Iowa it's a "resounding rejection." If McCain gets 18% he's a hero ...

We who are about to fluff, salute you!

Late Update: Hat tip to Atrios and Media Matters.

Here's something that's so strange and red flagish we weren't even quite sure what to say about it or how to package it as news. This afternoon the New Hampshire AG held a press conference asking for the public's help getting to the bottom of those anti-Mormon push poll allegations and revealing another polling firm tied to the polls. Now, the Romney campaign has responded with this statement ...

"The Romney campaign had nothing to do with these alleged push polling calls. It is reckless, irresponsible and egregious for the McCain campaign to even mention the Romney campaign in relation to these calls. If they have any proof, let's see it. If not, Senator McCain should immediately apologize for the actions of his own campaign."

As far as I know, the McCain folks haven't said anything about this today. So what is Romney even responding to?

Like I said, we're not quite sure to make of this other than it's a lot of bluster without much substance.

Late Update: Actually, it turns out that a McCain surrogate did attack Romney on this today.

Tom Edsall reports:

With his "late state strategy" slowly imploding, Rudy Giuliani now plans to campaign full-time from this Friday through next Tuesday's primary in a last ditch drive for a face-saving showing in New Hampshire, where his chances of winning have inexorably eroded over the past four months. . . .

"There is one very good word to describe Rudy's 'late state' strategy," Republican pollster Tony Fabrizio, who is not affiliated with any presidential campaign, told the Huffington Post: "Implausible." Another unaffiliated GOP pollster, Neil Newhouse, gave HuffPost his own view of Giuliani's current status: "Almost an afterthought."

John Weaver, the Texan who was chief strategist for John McCain, but who is now is not working for any candidate, compared Giuliani's strategy to that of Union Civil War General George McClellan: "McClellan, a lot of song and dance, beautiful parades and bold strategies. But at the end of the day. it never amounted to anything."

Matthews kicks off the McCain fluffing. Video soon.

So we've got a little more to chew on on that old favorite, the mystery anti-Mormon push polls and who did them. The new info is that the next firm up the food chain is called Moore-Information, based out of Portland, Oregon. They're fighting the New Hampshire AG's subpoenas. And they turn out to have at least some ties back to Romney. Back in 2006, when Romney was head of the Republican Governors Association, the great majority of FEC-reported disbursements to Moore came from contracts from the RGA.

Remember, other company already in the news, the one Moore-Information hired, Western Wats also had ties to Romney.

It's very tenuous and could easily be coincidence. But a really unlucky one, I guess, if you're Mitt.

TPM Election Central confirms that the New Hampshire attorney general will release preliminary results of probe of those Romney Mormon calls this afternoon.

My take on what to look for as tonight's results come in ...

Watch this episode on Blip.

CIA declassifies the letter Rep. Jane Harman sent to the Agency objecting to the destruction of the CIA torture tapes before they were destroyed.

The guys at Election Central have put together an Idiot's Guide to the Iowa Democratic Caucus, in case tonight's proceedings leave you confused.

A contrary view, with some important insights, from TPM Reader JG ...

It's easy, in the jangle that your nerves becomes as the primary starts, to get caught up in the dip and rise of the roller coaster and forget that it almost always ends up at the same station. As such, I think it's useful to take a deep breath right about now and remember some fundamentals, insofar as McCain.

McCain is loved by the media, and loved by the New Hampshire independents, but that's it. He's not the establishment candidate, its fairly clear Romney is in that role this year. And with the Republican party, you almost never bet against the establishment and expect to win. You can lose both Iowa *and* New Hampshire, as has been proven, and win. McCain is still hated by the core of the republican party, and by the moneyed interests that tend to decide things in the end. The South Carolina firewall will do him in just like it did last time.

More to the point, McCain has no money, and therefore no ground presence. He's nothing in Iowa, where ground presence is necessary, and Iowa always shapes New Hampshire. Furthermore, what's going to happen when the rest of the primaries occur?

I could see Mike H. finally raising the successful theocon rebellion to the nomination, Iowa and the south helps, there's a core of support from a main constituency of the *Republican* voters. But McCain? McCain's constituency is independents. They won't even get to vote in alot of the primaries.

McCain might with NH, but he's not winning anything else. It's Romney. Romney has the least enemies, and the most (sort of) friends. And he has the constituency that has ultimately decided every modern republican contest: Money.

Fox News eschews traditional "suicide" modifier:

Incidentally, that is not the AP's headline or lede.

Late Update: As a few readers have pointed out, looks like I was late to the ballgame on this one.

Compared to the Republican race, I think the dominant (though little spoken because it's in none of the candidates interests) issue in Democratic race is the relative absence of issue difference between the candidates. Yes, they certainly exist. But compared to what one often finds in periods of bitter and highly partisan politics, the differences definitely tend to be on the margins of the major issues.

That said, issue differences are by no means the only and perhaps not even the most important factors in choosing a candidate.

So who are you supporting and why? Who do you want to win tonight?

Some thoughts, alternatively depressing and hilarious (often both) from Chris Hayes on the undecided voter.

Will Dick Wolf let Fred have his job back at Law & Order even though Jack McCoy has already been promoted to DA?

Will Rudy lose badly enough to keep him permanently off the dating market?

Can heretofore untested animatronic caucus attendees pull out a victory for Romney?

I flagged this in today's TPMtv episode and posted a reader email on it yesterday, but if I had my choice, John McCain would not be the candidate I'd want the Democratic candidate to face in November. He's got lots of liabilities, on a whole number of fronts. Not least of which is the fact that most if not all the big constituencies in the Republican party (with the exception of the largely scribal and numerically small neocon constituency) has big problems with him. But the DC press corps loves the guy. You cannot overestimate that.

And that has an effect. Yesterday, Kos posted some Rasmussen numbers of favorable and unfavorable numbers of major presidential contenders. Kos's point was that whichever candidate you choose you'll basically start with one who about half the country likes and about half the country doesn't.

But there's one number that's substantially outside that pattern: McCain's. Rasmussen has him down at 53% favorable, the highest but by an insignificant margin and 37% unfavorable. The next closest unfavorables are Edwards and Thompson, both at 42%. All but one of the others is 50% or over.

That is a real advantage going in to a national race. Not necessarily one that makes a big dent in the generally unfavorable terrain for Republicans -- but it's still a big deal.

Fred Thompson about as enthusiastic about saying he's staying in the race as he has been about running his campaign ...

Are you in Iowa with a video camera? Send us your videos and we'll be including it in our coverage.

Is John Durham the "second coming of Patrick Fitzgerald"?

All indications are that Durham, a registered Republican, is a competent, independent, tough-minded prosecutor, precisely the type of lawyer you would want leading such a high-profile, complex, politically charged investigation.

But the investigation may be circumscribed from the beginning, not because Durham himself is somehow compromised personally, but because his brief is limited to investigating the destruction of the CIA torture tapes--not what's actually contained on the tapes themselves, which reportedly depict the use of the most extreme "enhanced interrogation techniques" ordered by the White House.

Attorney General Michael Mukasey's announcement yesterday of Durham's appointment as acting U.S. attorney specifically referred only to the destruction of the tapes:

Following a preliminary inquiry into the destruction by CIA personnel of videotapes of detainee interrogations, the Department’s National Security Division has recommended, and I have concluded, that there is a basis for initiating a criminal investigation of this matter, and I have taken steps to begin that investigation as outlined below.

The New York Times report today similarly suggests that the destruction of the tapes is the focus of the investigation:

Justice Department officials declined to specify what crimes might be under investigation, but government lawyers have said the inquiry will probably focus on whether the destruction of the tapes involved criminal obstruction of justice and related false-statement offenses.

It's simply not clear whether Mukasey has charged Durham with investigating only the tapes' destruction, although that's how House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers (D-MI) reads it:

Equally disappointing is the limited scope of this investigation, which appears limited to the destruction of two tapes. The government needs to scrutinize what other evidence may have been destroyed beyond the two tapes, as well as the underlying allegations of misconduct associated with the interrogations.

Whether the CIA failed to preserve the tapes pursuant to one or more federal court orders or to turn them over to the 9/11 Commission are serious and legitimate questions. But the larger issue here is torture. At the end of the day, that's what this is all about. And a federal criminal investigation that ignores or overlooks the conduct allegedly depicted on the tapes would do as much damage to the rule of law as the state-ordered torture did in the first place.

I'm just pulling together the different threads here, but it's really starting to seem like the second choice factor could end up being the big story tonight in the Democratic side of the ledger. It's starting to seem like almost all the candidates are either choosing to expressly direct their supporters to caucus for Obama as their second choice, are implicitly doing so or are simply expecting that that's what they'll do. Probably almost 20% of the caucus electorate remains either undecided or supporting a candidate not likely to reach the viability threshold. So that's a lot of support that could potentially swing in Obama's direction.

This morning Eric Kleefeld called up Zogby and asked what his tracking numbers looked like when the second-choices were factored in and reallocated amongst the candidates the numbers went from ...

Obama 31%, Edwards 27%, Clinton 24%

to

Obama 37.5%, Edwards 33.7%, Clinton 28.8%

The eight-year con law seminar that is the Bush Administration continues!

Today's lesson: the pocket veto.

We've got a predictions thread set up over at TPMCafe for the Iowa Caucus. Join in.

Ahhh, the election markets -- very volatile tonight. As of right now, at Intrade, John McCain has just moved ahead of Romney and Rudy as the most likely GOP nominee.

If I were a betting man, which I'm not, I'd probably be putting my money on McCain too, though I would not be counting out Romney just yet. Not by a longshot. The Stepford Candidate is still very much in this. If Romney can hold on in Iowa, even a very embarrassing defeat (to McCain) in New Hampshire is survivable.

Rudy, not surprisingly, is dropping like a stone at both major prediction market sites.

And, as long we're chatting. We just put the finishing touches on the TPM Iowa Caucus Scoreboard. So we hope you'll join us tomorrow evening for live, up-to-the-minute and generally TPMified coverage of all the action until the last results are known.

The Politico says Fred's likely to pull the plug on his campaign after Iowa and before New Hampshire and throw his more or less non-existent support to McCain.

TPM Reader KB on the coming flufftacular ...

As a Dem, I see Romney as the safest option tomorrow. Why? Because the media mancrush for McCain, should it have real reason to get going again full throttle, will be very powerful. Just check out the item Halperin has up about McCain's event tonight. Romney, on the other hand, is sort of already damaged goods with the Russert-axis, but rank and file GOP voters may not have figured it out yet.

We who are about to fluff, salute you!

Ex-Speaker Denny Hastert (R-IL) initially failed to tell the FEC about the $147,000 he spent on lawyers in the Foley scandal. Hastert had to close down his campaign to avoid big time fines.

We told you earlier about the new Rudy Giuliani ad which seems to bring the Rudy reality fully in line with Rudy parody. The ad is basically 'vote for me or it's a big Islamofascist whuppin' comin' your way! In other words, campaign Rudy has now devolved into a primal 9/11, 9/11, 9/11 scream.

But when you actually read the script, there's something even weirder. The announcer reads (italics added) ...

An enemy without borders. Hate without boundaries. A people perverted. A religion betrayed. A nuclear power in chaos. Madmen bent on creating it. Leaders assassinated. Democracy attacked ...

The whole people is perverted? Depending on how you interpret the ad, Rudy's either saying that Muslims as a people have been 'perverted' or the people of Pakistan are perverted.

Either way, that seems more than a little problematic.

I'm not sure 'perverted' is a word that Rudy really wants to be pumping into the campaign either at the moment. But there does seem to be a more serious issue here. The premise of all our anti-terrorism efforts -- from the sanest variants to total-spectrum Islamofascism malarkey -- is that we're not at war with Muslims in general but with a particular breed of Islamic extremism. But this ad isn't saying some people. It's saying 'a people', i.e., all of 'em. And that seems to mean pretty clearly that the whole community is 'perverted'.

That's the pickle Giuliani's New Hampshire surrogate John Deady got into last week when he said that Rudy's mission was to send all the Muslims "back to their caves."

You can see the ad here and the script here ...

A new poll just out from Franklin Pierce Univ./WBZ has McCain 37% and Romney 31% in NH.

Rudy hits the air waves with the first Benazir Bhutto assassination political commercial.

I will say this: I am heartened by the fact that Rudy's campaign not only seems to be definitively swirling around the bowl but that he also seems committed to shuffling off this electoral coil with no dignity intact. I think we may be tumbling toward the aesthetic or comedic version of a parallax view in which the reality and parody versions of Rudy's campaign are meeting their long-anticipated convergence.

Greg Sargent: Could there be a connection between Hillary's hostility towards the press and its own treatment of her for the last 15 years?

Does the White House have any confidence that the Musharraf government can conduct a full and fair investigation of Benazir Bhutto's death? That and more on Pakistan in today's White House press briefing:

There are a couple stories up today about how the Obama campaign is supposedly advertising on Drudge and speculation about how this might enrage Democratic partisans. Now, I don't know anything specifically about this case. We're planning to put in some calls. But at the moment our reporters are tied up working on another story.

However, in the course of building TPM over the last few years I have, quite in spite of myself, become something of an expert on the ins and outs and mechanics of online advertising.

The simple fact is that just because you see candidate X's ad on site Y does not mean that candidate X 'advertised' on that site, in the sense of deciding to do so or necessarily knowing anything about it. These days the vast majority of internet advertising -- especially in the non-MSM world where sites don't have their own in-house ad sales forces -- is done through intermediaries often called 'remnant' ad bureaus.

The advertiser can just say I want my ad to be viewed this many times, or I want it to play in this geographical area or on sites with a certain demographic, etc.

So, just to be clear, maybe the Obama camp has decided to do some advertising on Drudge. I have no idea. But simply seeing an Obama ad show up on Drudge's site does not tell you anything. They might well be as surprised as anyone.

Justice Department launches criminal probe of destruction of CIA torture tapes.

Late Update: AP reports that Attorney General Michael Mukasey has named an outside prosecutor to handle the criminal investigation.

Later Update: Who is John Durham? Paul Kiel takes a look at the deputy U.S. attorney in Connecticut whom Mukasey named to oversee the investigation.

Later Yet: We've posted the text of Mukasey's statement announcing the investigation.

Even Later: There's some question about whether it is proper to call Durham an "outside counsel." He will not have the independence of Patrick Fitzgerald, for example, in the Plame investigation; rather, as acting U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, he will report to the deputy attorney general just like any other U.S. attorney. The U.S. Attorneys Office for the Eastern District of Virginia has recused itself, presumably because most of the most important terrorism cases have been handled by that office.

Is Rudy's campaign in free-fall? Join us as we look at the numbers ...

Watch this episode on Blip.

From Vanity Fair's press release on their new Scaife article ...

In his first interview in eight years, Richard Mellon Scaife, an heir to the Pittsburgh banking fortune who sunk nearly two million dollars into exposing Bill Clinton’s misdeeds and infidelities and is now facing the end of his second marriage because of an affair, tells Vanity Fair writer Michael Joseph Gross that philandering “is something that Bill Clinton and I have in common.” Scaife talks about a “very pleasant” lunch he and Clinton had last summer and says he “never met such a charismatic man in [his] whole life.” Asked whether his behavior is hypocritical given his political commitments, Scaife does not refer to moral principles but to his own history. His “first marriage ended with an affair,” he says, and he doesn’t believe monogamy is an essential part of a good marriage. “I don’t want people throwing rocks at me in the street. But I believe in open marriage.”

Rep. Lantos (D-CA) to retire at the end of this term due to esophageal cancer diagnosis.

The best news I've seen out of Iowa so far is that Rudy Giuliani appears set to finish behind Ron Paul.

Rudy's the purple line there that just crossed below Paul's red line near the very bottom. But now Bob Novak says a Ron Paul third place finish is a real possibility.

Frankly, I can see it. This is basically a two man race between Romney and Huckabee. The race for third is among candidates almost twenty points behind those leaders. Prof. Franklin's average of the last five polls has it McCain (12.4%), Thompson (10.8%) and Paul (7.2%). One thing you have to say for Paul's supporters is that they're committed, on many levels.

You know things aren't good when you see a headline about Pakistani refugees fleeing to Afghanistan.

The Today show this morning ran an interview with Hillary where she defended herself from questions about her actual foreign policy experience by touting herself as the first "high-profile American to go into Bosnia" after the Dayton peace accords.

In response, Meredith Vieira noted that Hillary had gone to Bosnia with . . . Sinbad:

Hillary also made the somewhat curious claim that caucusing in Iowa is especially daunting for women voters.

We're hearing this morning that as his campaign tanks, Rudy's today falling back for the last Hail Mary pass, announcing a new plan to basically go to war with everyone, in order to salvage his flailing campaign. And that means it's important to game out the full implications of Rudy's now probable, eventual ignominious withdrawal from the race.

You'd think that a post-campaign Rudy could just go back to cutting more sweetheart business deals with various tycoons, crooks and bad actors as well as chasing more skirts. But failure doesn't score pricey consulting contracts or babes.

So there's a decent chance a post-presidential campaign flop Rudy would have to settle for actual monogamy from here on out. Secondly, what about the fate of Giuliani Partners?

Whatever else you can say about Rudy, had he not tried to exploit 9/11 to build a third career as a presidential candidate, I have little doubt that the halo of 9/11 would have hovered over his head for the rest of his life and provided him a lifetime of fat residuals in the form of consulting work for Giuliani Partners. But what about now? What does Rudy now have to offer Gulf sheiks or Chinese princelings that they can't get from a real consultancy? And if you're a pharmaceutical company in trouble for pushing narcotics, is Rudy your guy?

The new Pew poll just released this morning has the national numbers at McCain (22%), Giuliani (20%), Huckabee (17%).

As you know, I stuck my neck out by concluding that among the entire field of weak Republican candidates and flailing campaigns, Mitt Romney stood the best chance of taking it all. Even with all the new information on the table, I'm not sure I'd change that prediction. After all, it wasn't Mitt's strength that I based that prediction on, only the universal weakness of the other candidates.

And yet, there's at least a decent chance right now that Romney's campaign could be effectively over by this day next week. The Huckabee surge seems at least to have plateaued in Iowa. And the most recent polls show McCain tied with Romney in New Hampshire.

If Romney loses Iowa after having spent $1.8 billion there and then loses in his backyard in New Hampshire he'll be in bad, bad shape. The horrid press over the following few weeks would likely kill him.

(ed.note: I had meant the reference to Mitt's $1.8 billion in spending in Iowa to be an obvious bit of sarcasm at Romney's expense. But it seems Romney's efforts to buy the Republican nomination have become so notorious and proverbial that many readers are asking if it's really true. So, no, I believe his spending is well below $1.8 billion. But he wants it really bad and there's still a day left. So who knows.)

It's tough keeping the "official" story of Benazir Bhutto's death straight. Over the holiday, the Pakistani government first took back its claim that she died when she hit her head on the sunroof lever--then later reasserted the claim. And did we mention the crime scene was washed down afterwards with fire hoses?

I suspect that TPM Readers are as divided in their support of the candidates as much of the public seems to be. But as we get ready to kick off the 2008 election season I think it's an appropriate moment to give thanks for something we can all be thankful for, even across our political divisions and support for contending candidates -- that's right, the collapsing campaign of Rudy Giuliani.

In Iowa, where admittedly Rudy hasn't made much of a run at it, he now appears on track to come in last place among the major candidates. And, to be clear, I'm here defining 'major' rather generously as including Ron Paul. In other words, sixth place.

In New Hampshire, Rudy is similarly dropping like a stone. He may still come in third ahead of Mike Huckabee, though they now seem to be roughly tied there.

Nationally, Rudy appears either tied with Huckabee or in a three or four way tie with Huckabee, Romney and McCain, depending on which of the very most recent polls you look at. And expect that number (to borrow the Army aphorism) not to survive first contact with his drubbing in Iowa and New Hampshire.

Mark Steyn, normally known as America's designated BritCanadian-expat War on Terror chieftain, points to the key trend for Rudy in a post at NRO. In whatever state or jurisdiction, Rudy's number plummet more or less in line with the imminence of the election. Which is another way of saying that the more voters focus on the election, the worse it gets for Rudy.

Even in his 'firewall' states like Florida, Rudy's lead is rapidly diminishing.

The truth is that more than anyone in the race -- even more than Romney -- Rudy needs the primaries to happen as quickly as possible. Everyday that goes by he gets less popular.

Late Update: To give thanks properly, and see what the country has avoided, you should probably take a moment to watch this short video on Rudy's pro-apocalypse foreign policy advisors ...

From the Times of India ...

In a dramatic U-turn, Pakistan government has "apologised" for claiming that former premier Benazir Bhutto died of a skull fracture after hitting the sunroof of her car during a suicide attack.

Caretaker Interior Minister Hamid Nawaz Khan has asked the media and people to "forgive and ignore" comments made by his ministry's spokesman Javed Iqbal Cheema which were slammed by her Pakistan People's Party as "lies" and led to an uproar at home and abroad.

The Interior Minister made the apology during a briefing for Pakistani newspaper editors on Monday.

...

The government's apparent damage control exercise on Cheema's comments made at a news conference a day after Bhutto was assassinated at Liaquat Bagh in Rawalpindi on December 27, came after TV channels aired privately shot photos and video footage which showed a gunman shooting at Bhutto.

The Pakistan People's Party leader is seen in the footage falling through the sun-roof before the suicide bomber detonated his explosives.

(Originally posted -- 12.31.07 -- 5:23PM)

Okay, the wait is over. You sent in your nominations. The judges pored over each candidate's dossier. And now the winners are ready to be announced. The winner for Best Scandal -- General Interest -- the Dukes' version of Best Picture genuinely surprised me. And one winner and one winner alone was the unanimous choice of all five judges, that was the winner for Outstanding Achievement in Corruption-based Chutzpah.

We are pleased to bring you this year's Golden Duke Awards winners ...

Watch this episode on Blip.

Can't keep your comments to yourself? Discuss the Dukes awards announcement in this special thread at TPMCafe.

The assassination of Pakistan's Benazir Bhutto presented the 2008 presidential candidates with one last opportunity to distinguish themselves before January 3rd's Iowa caucuses. See how they worked it in today's (belated) Sunday Show Roundup episode of TPMtv ...

Watch this episode on Blip.

Hmmm. From McClatchy ...

The day she was assassinated last Thursday, Benazir Bhutto had planned to reveal new evidence alleging the involvement of Pakistan's intelligence agencies in rigging the country's upcoming elections, an aide said Monday.

Bhutto had been due to meet U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., and Rep. Patrick Kennedy, D-R.I., to hand over a report charging that the military Inter-Services Intelligence agency was planning to fix the polls in the favor of President Pervez Musharraf.

Safraz Khan Lashari, a member of the Pakistan People's Party election monitoring unit, said the report was "very sensitive" and that the party wanted to initially share it with trusted American politicians rather than the Bush administration, which is seen here as strongly backing Musharraf.

Well, a Happy New Year to all. I take it that I am enjoying what is the traditional New Year's Eve celebration of new fathers who are soon to be fathers a second time -- which is to say, sitting at home at my desk, with a solitary lamp, as the rest of my family is fast asleep. And only a half hour into the new year.

So as long as I'm here and you're here. Let's quickly discuss the latest political tidbit.

The Iowa polls have been all over the place over the last week. But the two visible trends have been Hillary's solidifying lead and late surge for John Edwards.

So it comes as some surprise that the final pre-Caucus Des Moines Register poll shows Barack Obama opening a real lead over Edwards and Hillary -- Obama (32%), Clinton (25%) and Edwards (24%). This is just one poll. And with about 20% of the caucus electorate either undecided or supporting candidates that won't make the 'viability threshold', even if these numbers above were precisely accurate -- in terms of the individual support of the folks who are going to show for caucus night -- any of the three could still come out the winner.

But as Kos explains here, the DMR poll has a pretty good track record. And as Pollster.com's Mark Blumenthal shows us here, the DMR poll is the most respected Iowa poll among professional pollsters.

The best, I think, you can say about this is to pick your cliche, to the effect that it's anyone's game out there. But at a minimum this should be enough to give Obama's folks confidence going into caucus night that they're as in this as they've ever been.

As we get deeper into the campaign, I do not have a problem with excluding candidates who are not generating any substantial public support. Gravel, I think, was an example of that in the Democratic debates. But I think the Paulbots have a pretty good case for outrage with Ron Paul's exclusion from the upcoming Republican debate in New Hampshire.

Paul's supporters lay most of their claim to a place in the debate on his mammoth fundraising numbers. To me, the bigger issue is that Paul is consistently outpolling Fred Thompson, who is being allowed into the debate.

As you can see by this trendline chart which brings together all the public polls in New Hampshire, Paul's support (red line -- 6.2%) and Thompson's (blue line -- 3.1%) are both pretty anemic. But Paul isn't that far off from Mike Huckabee (green line -- 11.5%). And the key fact is that the excluded Paul is outpolling the included Thompson. So there is simply no objective criteria by which you include Thompson and exclude Paul, who by the way has vastly outraised Thompson.

It was unclear to me until just now whether the real factor here was the NH GOP or Fox News, the sponsor of the debate. But the state party is now calling on Fox not to exclude viable candidates. So, it's not them. Or if it was, it isn't now.

So, it's all about Fox News. Paul's out because he's not a Fox News Bush-clone. Say whatever you want about the guy, Fox News shouldn't be able to silence him because they don't like his views.

Don't miss TPM's Great List of Scandalized Administration Officials, newly updated for the 2008 model year.

Mike Huckabee announces he will not run an attack ad against Mitt Romney, but proceeds to show the ad to the assembled media. Election Central has some video from the scene.

John Edwards rakes in online campaign cash today following morning show appearances.

The recording industry now says it's a crime for you to copy songs from your own CDs onto your own personal computer.

As the usual suspects prepare to gather in Oklahoma for another round of holding hands and singing the praises of bipartisan unity, Greg Sargent suggests one way to break the so-called partisan gridlock: simply weaken the GOP further.

Our old pal Daniel Pipes, America's premier Muslim-hater (though regrettably there's stiff competition) rolls out Obama-Islam smear 2.0.

Perhaps goes without saying that it's published at David Horowitz's rag.

Late Update: Remember, of course, Pipes is on Rudy Giuliani's foreign policy advisory team.

Slate's Dahlia Lithwick, one of our Golden Dukes judges, takes a shot at the Bush administration's dumbest legal arguments of 2007.

The first annual Golden Duke Awards are announced tomorrow. But as we gear up for the big event, I thought I'd share with you what some of the judges wrote about why they voted as they did in the individual categories ...

Rick Hertzberg

Best Testimonial Trainwreck

First choice: Sara Taylor
Second choice: Lurita Doan

I found myself torn between Sara Taylor and Lurita Doan—the Betty and Veronica of the Rovian project to turn civil servants into Republican wardheelers.

Ms. Doan’s testimony was dominated by eye-rolling contempt for her questioners. But this cut both ways for me. On the one hand, it highlighted her amorality. On the other, though, it showed a certain kind of strength—not strength of character, exactly, but the strength that comes from mindless attachment to one’s tribe. It doesn't have that much to do with politics per se. Doan is a Republican the way some people are Shiites or Sunnis or Serbs or Albanians. Or Mafiosi. She obviously believes that she did nothing wrong; indeed, she exudes contempt for the very idea of right and wrong in the context of partisan warfare. From her point of view, she was playing the game, her questioners are playing the game, and they’re a bunch of pious hypocrites for pretending otherwise.

Nevertheless, I prefer Taylor’s sullenness to Doan’s smirky condescension. I like the way she hides behind her blonde curtain, pouting like a teenager whose parents have found a joint in her underwear drawer. (It’s the exact opposite of Peggy Noonan’s airily confident hair flip.) I also like the way she throws around sophomore-year phrases like “broader political intelligentsia” in her attempts at bamboozlement.

But what singles her out as deserving the Dukie is her belief that she had taken “an oath to the President.” This sums up much of what is wrong with the Bush Administration, from its cult-of-personality code of allegiance to the Leader to its ignorant disregard of the Constitution. One is reminded of some of the indelible pratfalls of Watergate days, such as press secretary Ron Ziegler’s description of his previous denials of White House involvement as “inoperative” and Nixon’s own pithy “I am not a crook.”

Outstanding Achievement in Improbable Forgetfulness

First choice: Bradley Schlozman
Second choice: Alberto Gonzales

In this category, I have to say, I fell in love with Bradley Schlozman. He has a David Horowitz-like whininess that I found irresistable, especially combined with the faux-Trotsky, junior-college-professor beard. Throw in the overly fastidious manner, the Mel Blanc voice, and the all-around cravenness, and you’ve got a winner, in my view.

I also liked Sara Taylor again. It’s a wonder the White House didn't send her to Baghdad to oversee five or six Iraqi ministries.

Susie Bright

Best Scandal -- Local Venue

My pick: Bob Allen

Allen is is my personal Favorite Mess of the Year. He brings a whole new meaning to the GOP's Southern Strategy- where you not only destroy other candidates through race and queer-baiting, but you actually rationalize your own hard-on with the same hateful bile.

Here's a guy, who, if I may use the plain language of personal ads, "will pay to suck your gorgeous black cock," pretends that HE's a victim of racism, and the last true crusader against homosexuals everywhere. This man's whole career is based on prudery legislation!

Allen's downfall was such a Beauty and the Beast moment: the cop Allen propositioned is so good-looking he could be the new heart-throb on The Wire- while Allen is so homely, you'd feel sorry for him... if he wasn't such a self-loathing disgrace.

Runner up: Rachel Palouse

Gee, I didn't even know about Fumo, so he gave me pause. But I'm giving him some slack for not being a raving holy-roller hypocrite... just your garden-variety Catholic on the take. I mean, that's frickin' tasteful, at this point.

Instead, I'll give my runner-up vote to Rachel Palouse, because she is offensive to everything the populist spirit of Minnesota represents, and my Twin-Cities-bred mother is surely rolling in her grave.

Best Scandal -- Sex and Generalized Carnality

My pick: Richard Curtis

If I choose sheer trashy lunacy, something that would make Britney Spears look like a novitiate, then I have to pull my lever for Richard Curtis.

This married, fundie Christian Republican legislator and world-class hater, the joke of Western Washington, shows up one night in his negligee and stethoscope to have some hard-to-picture bareback sex with a down-on-his-luck porn star, named Cody Castegna. Curtis had picked up this kid at a local casino. Dude bargains the boy down to $1000 to have unprotected anal sex- that's the part that makes me cry- then has the nerve to stiff Cody, and call the police to complain a whore ripped him off!

WTF!
It strains credibility that Curtis could have done any of this sober, and I am still waiting for the drug investigation- this has "meth fiend" written all over it. Really, the only thing missing was an inflatable sheep, and that might've just been left off the report.

(I almost gave my nod to Bob Allen, but I already knighted him in the Best Local category. See how nice I am?)

Runner Up and Possible Reversal: David Vitter

I have a giant caveat in this category, in case you obtain a smoking gun before the 31st.

If there is hard evidence that Senator Vitter is not only a prostitute-lover, but also a diaper fetishist- beyond the call girl hearsay we've read so far- then that revelation, along with his hilarious "Pampers Daddy" re-election video, would cinch the whole shit-faced glory of this award's intent.

Vitter is my "if only" winner. You can make him my runner up. Give the straight man his due.

Dahlia Lithwick

Best Scandal -- Local venue: I have to give this to Rachel Paulose. Ok so its not a sex scandal. But the whole Barbie Coronation thing? And the racial slurs? Plus the mass staff revolts? The religious zealotry? All of it topped off by her breathless claim, when it all hit the fan that this was all a result of "The McCarthyite hysteria that permits the anonymous smearing of any public servant who is now, or ever may have been, a member of the Federalist Society; a person of faith; and/or a conservative (especially a young, conservative woman of color." As Eric Black observed that day: "Paulose, in a single 48-word sentence, played the race card, the gender card, the religion card, the age card, the ideology card, the Federalist Society card, and the Joe McCarthy card. That's a large percentage of the cards available in the victimology deck." Brava.

Runner Up: Richard Roberts

Best Scandal -- Sex and Generalized Carnality: Has to go to Bob Allen. Here we have the trifecta: rabidly moralistic legislator, plus cut-rate anonymous bathroom sex, plus the most moronic (and racist) excuse ever proffered. The Daily Show made a Herculean effort but even they couldn't gild this comidic lily.

Runner Up: Larry Craig

John Dean

Best Scandal – General Interest

President George W. Bush – While the nomination is for his “general politicization” of the federal government, one must read the subtext of that term. Bush’s politics have done for good government what war does for peace, what famine does for hunger, what Alzheimer’s does for memory, what Lee Harvey Oswald did for Dallas – you get the idea. This president has done more to damage our system of government, and weaken us around the world, than any of his predecessors. Bush is America’s worst president ever, only equaled by the abetting of his partner, Dick Cheney.

Sam sees his first California Sea Lions at the Central Park Zoo ...

To Sam, the animals were no match for the giant metal acorns.

Okay, results are in for the Golden Dukes. Six winners. Pretty stiff competition in Best Scandal -- Local Venue, and Best Scandal -- Sex and Generalized Carnality. But not in Outstanding Achievement in Corruption-based Chutzpah. The winner in this category was unanimous.

Here's a late report from Britain's Channel 4 news on the Bhutto assassination, with newly acquired video that appears to further contradict Pakistani government reports of what happened ...

Sitting here in the US it is difficult, I think, to fully grasp the significance of one theory being true over the other, though certainly only one can actually be the case. It is as though the dispute is a proxy for the larger battle between the different parties. This remains the best explanation I've seen for why the government is to be sticking to a story that appears at least contradicted by most of the available evidence.

Okay, the judges have all returned their verdicts for the first annual Golden Duke Awards. We'll be announcing them in tomorrow's episode of TPMtv. But today we'll be bringing you some previews of how particular judges voted in particular categories and their explanations for doing so.

Also, sort of a surprise in Best Scandal, General Interest.

There is a flurry of late Iowa polls. And the big headline is that it's basically a photo finish. That is even more so when you consider that the "viability threshold" rule in the Democratic caucuses creates what is in effect a much larger margin of error, if what we are interested in is not individual voter support across the state but who will actually get the biggest number on caucus night.

With that said, however, it is clear that there is another late breaking trend -- toward John Edwards.

The latest poll out from McClatchy/MSNBC (conducted by Mason-Dixon) has it Edwards (24%), Clinton (23%) and Obama (22%).

As you can see, the trend is also clear enough to be visible in Pollster.com/Charles Franklin trendline graph -- Hillary consolidating what had been a softening lead and Edwards finishing strong and quite possibly in line to take second place if not first.

Here's one email we got in a couple days ago from a long-time TPM Reader ...

I'm volunteering for obama in new hampshire. Out of non-Obama supporters, Edwards people are rock solid. They often aren't even interested in talking. HRC supporters are much more wavering and persuadable. They are also much more likely to say that they are considering Obama.

The other question to ask is, is Edwards close enough in New Hampshire to vault into contention if he's the big story coming out of caucus night?