Saturday night fever

I'm basically off duty today, but I plan to write Sunday about the Nevada Democratic caucuses and the South Carolina Republican primary, both of which will render their verdicts on Saturday night. So, for now, just these thoughts about the feverish races in both venues:

Team Clinton's last-ditch attempt to suppress the vote in Nevada was swatted away by a federal judge yesterday, fittingly so. After hearing the complaints of the Clinton allies - about how it was supposedly unfair that members of the culinary workers union were being allowed to attend caucus meetings set up at the casinos, their place of employment - the judge made the obvious point that, in general, political parties should be allowed to devise their own rules of participation, without interference from the courts. That has been the federal judiciary's guiding principle for generations.

Indeed, the Nevada Democratic party - with the OK of the Democratic National Committee, and with the acquiesence of Hillary Clinton and all her rivals - had devised this set up, to encourage participation from the culinary workers who were working day shifts. But after the culinary workers endorsed Barack Obama last week, all of a sudden the Clinton camp (via its surrogate plaintiffs) decided to get litigious. And here's what the Clintons have earned for their trouble: a new radio ad from the culinary workers' parent union. Aimed at the largely Hispanic rank and file, it says in Spanish, "Hillary Clinton does not respect our people. Hillary Clinton supporters want to prevent people from voting in their workplace on Saturday. This is unforgivable. Hillary Clinton is shameless."

Hillary may well win the caucuses anyway; she has longstanding grassroots support. And it can be argued that Obama needs a victory more than she does; he needs to prove that he has some electoral clout with Hispanics (Nevada is the first voting state with a large Hispanic population), as he heads toward Feb 5, when a number of heavily-Hispanic states (notably California and New York) stage their Democratic primaries.

Meanwhile, on the Republican side, we'll all closely track those South Carolina results on Saturday night. Let me see if I've got this right:

Fred Thompson may be taken off life support, unless he isn't. John McCain may finish first (thanks to the defense-hawk voters and the military retirees), or maybe he doesn't, because Mike Huckabee is strong among the populous Christian conservatives, who presumably love his vow to bring the U.S. Constitution into line with "God's standards". Or maybe Huckabee stumbles (if he can't win in the evangelical heartland, where can he win?), and Mitt Rommey trumps him on economic populism with his vow to bring back the South Carolina textile industry (yeah, right), just like he vows to bring back the car industry in Detroit (yeah, right). Or maybe Romney tanks in South Carolina because he has diverted considerable resources to the largely uncontested Nevada Republican caucuses, where he's poised for an inconsequential win that he hopes to spin as Mitt-mentum on the road to Florida.

But somebody or other will come out of South Carolina in some kind of decent shape, presumably psyched up to head down south to Florida for a Jan. 29 showdown with Rudy Giuliani, who may finally have found a state where he draws more votes than Ron Paul.

Thus, a freeze frame of the stormy Republican race. But, as Mark Twain once said about New England weather, if you want to see it change, just wait a few minutes.

A few strolls down memory lane

Pop quiz for Jan. 17: What historic political event occurred on this date? First prize, a pat on the back. Second prize (to quote Alec Baldwin in Glengarry Glen Ross), a set of steak knives. The answer is at the bottom of today's post.

Speaking of history, let us briefly pause to ponder the South Carolina Republican primary. The '08 contest will be staged on Saturday, and it's worth noting that the unusual dynamic of the current GOP race will likely deprive South Carolina of the chance to play its traditional role of party kingmaker.

Ever since 1980, the state has brought great clarity to the Republican race - by shoring up a shaky frontrunner and smoothing his path to the nomination (Bob Dole in 1996, George W. Bush in 2000); by blessing a guy who'd been beaten in Iowa (Ronald Reagan in 1980, George H. W. Bush in 1988), or embarrassed in New Hampshire (George H. W. Bush in 1992).

Note that every one of those South Carolina winners went on to win the GOP nomination. In each case, the state Republican establishment (comprised of defense hawks, religious conservatives, and fiscal conservatives) anointed the person who seemed most in sync with the grassroots, the big donors, and the dominant party zeitgeist. As I can testify from my numerous trips to palmetto country, South Carolinian Republicans basically respect hierarchy, and bow to the wishes of their senior political leaders; this was particularly true when Gov. Carroll Campbell was alive and running the state GOP machine, and when native-born uber-strategist Lee Atwater was alive and gutting the guys who wound up losing.

In fact, it was Atwater (Karl Rove's mentor) who put the primary on the map in the first place, contriving to position South Carolina right after Iowa and New Hampshire, to ensure that southern conservatives would have a major say in the party's choice of candidate.

But South Carolina clarity might prove elusive this time around. None of the candidates has mustered the requisite support for a breakthrough (despite the fact that John McCain seems have scored the kind of party establishment backing that he lacked in the 2000 primary), and prospective voters seem either disenchanted or simply indecisive about the slate. Polls have shown that roughly half the folks who are inclined to show up for the balloting have yet to make up their minds.

Mitt Romney is not fully contesting the state, preferring to wait for the top two finishers (apparently McCain and Mike Huckabee, the latter buoyed by the large pool of religious conservatives) to arrive in Florida for a potential four-way battle on Feb. 26 with Rudy Giuliani (who has already ceded South Carolina, after having ceded Iowa, New Hampshire, and Michigan). Indeed, Florida's presence on the calendar is another reason why South Carolina's clout seems diminished this time; in the old days, South Carolina was the gateway to a slew of Dixie primaries, with Florida way down on the calendar. Not so this time. Florida moved up to get more clout, and it has far more delegates than South Carolina.

But there's a good chance that South Carolina on Saturday will bring clarity in at least one respect - by sending a definitive message to Fred Thompson that he should stick to playing politicians in the movies.

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The answer to the pop quiz: On this date 10 years ago, the Monica Lewinsky scandal went public. And the era of digital media dominance began.

Late in the evening of Saturday, Jan. 17, 1998, the Drudge Report posted this item: NEWSWEEK KILLS STORY ON WHITE HOUSE INTERN BLOCKBUSTER REPORT: 23-YEAR OLD, FORMER WHITE HOUSE INTERN, SEX RELATIONSHIP WITH PRESIDENT**World Exclusive**

The story wasn't totally correct - Newsweek had merely delayed publication, pending the need for more reporting - but the gist of the charge was right. Few Americans probably saw that item, but conservative commentator Bill Kristol mentioned it the next morning on an ABC News talkathon. Then the mainsteam newspapers geared up, and, by Wednesday morning, The Washington Post had its first big splash.

We all know how the scandal rocked Bill Clinton's world, and how the zeal of his Republican pursuers wound up turning off the public and costing the GOP seats in the House and Senate that fall. Less recognized is that the Jan. 17 Drudge item ultimately triggered a media revolution that continues today.

Ten years ago today, long before the advent of broadband, Internet news was not yet a mass phenomenon. Yet even by September of 1998, when special prosecutor Ken Starr released his report on Clinton's sins, the world had changed. Millions of Americans read the report online, without a filter from the established media. Newspapers were ultimately spurred to go heavily into the online business, to keep pace with the burgeoning demand for instantaneous information. Those pressures persist today, amid the ever-escalating tension between the desire to be first and the need to be accurate. And woe to any politician who transgresses as Clinton did, in this era of pitiless transparency.

I'll leave it to you to judge whether this is all to the good.

Yukking it up in the Yucca state

Ever watch the old Tonight Show, when everyone on stage was in mirth overload, yukking it up on Johnny's couch, and Johnny was in his chair with his shoulders shaking, and Doc's band was really swinging, and Don Rickles was cutting up, and Sammy Davis Jr. was bent forward in practiced hysterics, his medallions swaying from his neck?

It was all very Vegas. In fact, it was a lot like the presidential debate staged by the Democrats last night in Vegas. And when host Brian Williams mistakenly welcomed the viewers to "Los Angeles"...truly, for the three Democratic finalists, it was a Johnny's couch moment.

Perhaps a more contemporary analogy would suffice: This was the Ari Gold debate. With reference to the Hollywood agent on Entourage, the candidates were determined to hug it out.

Gone (at least for now) was the rhetorical bile of recent days. It was clearly time for a breather. It would not have served the Democrats well if their leading candidates had pitted race against gender in a nationally televised debate; that would have produced a Wednesday story line about growing fractures in the Democratic coalition. Voters are yearning for answers to the myriad problems that the Bush administration has allowed to fester; voters ultimately want the Democratic campaign to be about them, not about the candidates.

Better to lower the temperature, smile at your seatmates, laugh it up at the slightest provocation, find common ground. Suddenly, they were not "senators" anymore; they were "Hillary" and "Barack" and "John." Thus, Hillary: "What Barack said is what John and I also meant" and "I really commend Barack." And when Hillary (cleverly) asked her chief rival whether he'd co-sponsor her bill to stop President Bush from forging a long-term deal with Iraq, he had no choice but to perpetuate the good vibes: "Well, I think, you know, we - we can work on this, Hillary." (Translation: She looked like the leader, he looked like the follower.)

Indeed, despite the mood of bonhomie, Hillary scored on several key fronts. The big federal issue in Nevada (which votes in caucuses on Saturday) has long been the fight over a proposed nuclear waste dump on Yucca Mountain, just 90 miles from Vegas. Hillary pointed out that she voted against the proposed dump site way back in 2001, and assailed the idea in environmental hearings. She then nailed her two opponents, starting with Obama.

She accurately pointed out that one of his biggest donors is the Exelon Corporation, "which has spent millions of dollars trying to make Yucca Mountain the waste depository." Obama had no answer to that, because there isn't one. He simply said that he is against the Yucca siting, although, since he didn't arrive in the Senate until 2005, he has never voted on the issue.

Then it was John Edwards' turn. Said Hillary, referring to her rival's Senate record, "John was in favor of it twice when he voted to override President Clinton's veto, and then voted for it again." Edwards had an answer to that - "I want to go onto another subject" - whereupon Hillary said, "you didn't respond."

At another point, Obama gave her an opening, and she blasted through it. He was trying to explain what he had meant, several days earlier, when he told a Reno newspaper that "I'm not an operating officer." He said last night that as president he would basically be a big-picture guy with a vision; he doesn't see himself as a detail-oriented guy who would "make sure that systems run."

Whereupon, Hillary pounced. It's worth reprising most of her answer: "I do think that being president is the chief executive officer, and I respect what Barack said about setting the vision, setting the tone, bringing people together. But I think you have to be able to manage and run the bureaucracy. You've got to pick good people certainly but you have to hold them accountable every single day. We've seen the results of a president who frankly failed at that. You know, he went in to office saying he was going to have the kind of Harvard Business School CEO model, where he'd set the tone, he'd set the goals, and then everybody else would have to implement it. And we saw the failures. We saw the failures along the Gulf Coast with, you know, people who were totally incompetent and insensitive, failing to help our fellow Americans. We've seen the failures with holding the administration accountable with the no-bid contracts and the cronyism....You've got to set the tone, you've got to set the vision, you've got to set the goals, you've got to bring the country together. And then you do have to manage and operate and hold that bureaucracy accountable to get the results you're trying to achieve."

In other words, she trumped his remarks, and brought in Bush besides. In response, Obama was back on his heels - "Well, I -- there's no doubt that you've got to be a good manager, and that's not what I was arguing" - before he merely echoed her remarks about Bush.

Hillary didn't have a perfect night, of course - at one point, she confessed that she regretted having voted for a bankruptcy bill that was friendly to the credit card industry, then said she was "happy" that it never became law (so why did she vote for it in the first place?) - but she was the most effective of the three finalists in staking her ground and drawing contrasts despite the mirthful mood.

And she put the recent race/gender rhetorical battles into perspective. Referring to an intemperate remark uttered against Obama the other day by one of her surrogates, she simply observed that voters care most about the issues that affect them directly. In her words, "What (Nevada) people talk to me about is not what someone they never heard of said."

Of course, if her allies succeed in changing the rules of the Nevada caucuses at the eleventh hour - the lawsuit, outlined here on Monday, is still pending - then that could boost her victory prospects far more effectively than her debate performance.

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No wonder the Democrats went the lovefest route last night. Better that they allow the Republicans to corner the market on chaos.

Three major contests, three winners, and no apparent leader. Last night it was Mitt Romney's turn in Michigan, but all he demonstrated was that he can vastly outspend his rivals to win a primary in the state where "Romney" is a brand name (thanks to his late father, a three-term governor). According to the exit polls, 42 percent of all voters said that Romney's family ties were important; Romney won those folks by a margin of 58 to 17 percent.

Meanwhile, John McCain again demonstrated that he has little pull with the Republican base. When he won the Michigan primary in 2000, 52 percent of the voters were crossover independents and Democrats; he lost big last night because, this time, only 33 percent of the voters were non-Republicans.

To review: Mike Huckabee won Iowa because he had a home-field advantage of sorts (Christian conservatives typically turn out for the caucuses); McCain won New Hampshire because of his own home-field advantage (traditionally large pool of voting independents); and Romney had the home-field family brand in Michigan.

Each winner represents one leg of the three-legged Republican stool: Huckabee has the religious/social conservative leg; McCain, the national security/defense leg; and Romney, the economic conservative/establishment leg. But the Republicans need an electable candidate who can reassemble the stool.

Does anybody want this nomination, or what? Can anybody broaden his base? The one-time national frontrunner, Rudy Giuliani, was so invisible in Michigan - yet another state he decided to skip - that he narrowly beat out Uncommitted, three percent to two percent. (If voting performance is indeed the main criteria for exclusion from a debate, maybe Rudy should be expelled from the next GOP slugfest.)

The Republicans can really thank Bush for this state of affairs. (Bush quote of the week, via ABC News: "I view myself as a peacemaker.") Even a passably popular lame-duck president can generally anoint a successor, but Bush's multiple failures have created a vacuum that nobody seems poised to fill. No wonder the candidates strain not to utter his name.

McCain in Michigan and beyond

If John McCain wins the Michigan primary tonight, resist the temptation to confer upon him the title of prohibitive Republican frontrunner. Many grassroots conservatives and Republican establishment leaders remain downright hostile to the guy, and a strong showing in Michigan would do nothing to ease their concerns.

McCain has yet to demonstrate that he can garner major support from the Republican base. He won New Hampshire in 2000 and 2008, thanks largely to the votes he attracted from independents and crossover Democrats. He also won Michigan in 2000, again because, like New Hampshire, the Michigan rules allow independents and Democrats to participate. Therefore, a win tonight, or a close second to native son Mitt Romney, will be dismissed by his detractors as fresh evidence of his ongoing unattractiveness to the party base.

Indeed, his GOP critics, citing his frequent dissents from party orthodoxy, seem increasingly determined to block his path to the nomination (assuming that they can, since they'd need to settle on a palatable alternative). The other day, for instance, I heard a radio diatribe from Rick Santorum, the former number-three Senate Republican leader. Conversing with conservative talk-show host Mark Levin, the ex-Pennsylvania senator insisted that a President McCain would be "very, very dangerous for Republicans," because McCain's first instinct "would be to go to the (Democratic) side to solve a problem instead of trying to find like-minded Republicans to come up with solutions."

In Santorum's view, a classic example of McCain's tendency to "act like a Democrat" was his bid to pass the immigration reform bill that would have established a path to citizenship for illegals. A day before talking with radio-host Levin, Santorum told radio-host Hugh Hewitt: "John McCain was the guy who was working with Ted Kennedy to drive it down our throats, and lectured us repeatedly about how xenophobic we were, lectured us - us being the Republican (senators) - about how wrong we were on this, how we were on the wrong side of history."

And that's just for starters. The GOP establishment is still ticked that McCain voted against the Bush tax cuts of 2001 and 2003, and they don't like his current explanation for why he voted that way. Indeed, McCain's explanation is somewhat disingenuous. He says today that he opposed the tax cuts because there were no provisions to also reduce spending, but that's not what he was saying back in 2000, when he first opposed candidate Bush's proposed tax cuts. At that time, he stressed mainly that the cuts would benefit the rich at the expense of the middle class - an argument that radio host Levin remembers as "socialist, class-warfare rhetoric."

The list of anti-McCain grievances - compiled by Republican establishment groups, personalities and press organs ranging from the American Conservative Union and Rush Limbaugh to the National Review - includes: his opposition to drilling for oil in Alaska; his support for regulations that would combat global warming; his support for closing the Guantanamo Bay prison; his refusal to sign a no-tax-hike pledge; his Senate investigations of lobbyist-felon Jack Abramoff and his frequent partner in money-making, former Christian Coalition leader Ralph Reed; his refusal to support a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage; his opposition to the big pharmaceutical companies; and many more.

Says Kathryn Jean Lopez of National Review Online, "For a movement that has spent a year pining for Ronald Reagan, John McCain is a very odd choice to settle on early." Says David Keene, leader of the American Conservative Union, "It's not conceivable that (McCain) could come out of this nomination fight or the national convention with the kind of enthusiastic support he is going to need for the general election."

Keene may be getting ahead of himself. McCain still needs to win some big GOP primaries where grassroots conservative voters predominate - for instance, California, which votes this year on Feb. 5, and which drove a stake into the heart of McCain's candidacy eight years ago. Colorado is also a sizeable prize on Feb. 5, and the rules there prohibit crossover voters.

But the GOP establishment's big problem is that it can't agree on a stop-McCain candidate. Romney has yet to escape from the hole that he shoveled for himself, and convince voters that he's more than the sum of his marketing calibrations. Mike Huckabee has to show strength beyond his evangelical conservative base (although his anti-Wall Street rhetoric makes him less palatable to the establishment than even McCain). Fred Thompson has to stop flatlining. And Rudy Giuliani, who seems to alienate voters the more they see him, has to stop sliding like a bad tech stock in the 2000 crash.

Santorum, surveying the field last week on Fox News, said that "if you look at the candidates, all have serious problems. I think, it's my prediction, I think we're headed for a brokered convention. I don't think we're going to get a nominee." (Every four years, somebody always insists that a party is headed for a brokered convention. The only place you'll find a brokered convention is in novelist Richard North Patterson's new political thriller...although it's true that the protagonist is partly modeled on McCain.)

As a stopgap measure - indeed, considering the fluid nature of the GOP race, all current thinking is short-term - the establishment will be rooting in Michigan tonight for a decisive Romney victory. That would put the race back at square one, and provide some brief respite for McCain's foes, as they search anew for an alternative.

One would think they might want to check the latest national polls, which show that McCain's crossover appeal makes him the most electable Republican in a tough election year, but no. The game of politics is often highly personal, McCain has riled a lot of Republicans, and his critics dearly want to pay him back. This may not sound like a blueprint for party victory in November, but that election feels like light years away. Right now, the McCain forces, pro and con, are focused merely on the foxholes they're living in.

Hillary's "Florida Republican tactics"

One week from today, the Nevada Democratic caucuses will be receding in the rear-view mirror, and the story I'm about to describe may well be relegated to a footnote. But let us live for today. What we have here is a classic demonstration of the disconnect between what a politician says and what a politican does.

At the same time that Hillary Clinton is extolling herself (on Meet the Press yesterday) as a tireless champion of working women and people of color - "I've worked all my life on behalf of civil rights and women's rights and human rights" - her allies and surrogates in Nevada have filed a lawsuit that is designed to undercut the voting rights of working women and people of color.

This is how the game is played when the stakes are high: The Clinton surrogates - who have no direct links to the Hillary campaign, and are thus supposedly acting on their own - don't like the fact that the Nevada Democratic party is making it easy for unionized casino workers to participate in the Saturday caucuses. So they've sued to stop the process.

The state Democratic party has been busy setting up meeting sites at nine big casinos, so that members of the powerful Culinary Workers Union - as well as any non-union workers within a two-mile radius of the sites - can choose a candidate during their work break. That seems like a reasonable idea - so reasonable, in fact, that the Democratic National Committee overwhelmingly approved the plan last spring; and so reasonable that nary a whisper of dissent was voiced by any of the Democratic presidential candidates.

Indeed, when Hillary left Iowa last week, she lamented the fact that so many working people were unable to participate in those caucuses, due to their work schedules. As she told ABC News, "You have a limited period of time on one day to have your voices heard. That is troubling to me. You know, in a situation of a caucus, people who work during that time - they're disenfranchised."

But all of a sudden, Hillary's surrogates are now claiming that the Nevada Democratic plan violates the U.S. Constitution, and that therefore these "at large" caucus sites - which are actually intended to enfranchise more working people - should be eliminated.

I'm just wondering: Could this lawsuit, filed late Friday, have anything to do with the fact that the 60,000-member Culinary Workers Union gave its much-coveted endorsement, 48 hours earlier, to Barack Obama?

Kirsten Searer, the state party's deputy executive director, is quoted as saying that, ever since the caucus rules were OKed by the national Democrats last May, "the campaigns have been fully informed throughout the process." There hadn't been a shred of protest from the Hillary camp about the plans for casino caucus sites; nor had there been any protest from the pro-Hillary folks who have now filed the lawsuit. In fact, some of those pro-Hillary folks are members of the state party, and they participated in the March 31, 2007 meeting that OKed the plan...unanimously.

Officially, Hillary's campaign says it knows nothing about the laswuit and, as the candidate herself said this weekend, "I have no opinion on the lawsuit." So we are supposed to believe that she and her campaign have no connection whatsoever to the plaintiffs, who happen to include the Nevada State Education Association teacher's union, whose deputy executive director is a founding member of Hillary's Nevada Women's Leadership Council. And it's perhaps sheer coincidence that the law firm pushing the suit is Hillary-friendly; several senior partners have given her money, and one prominent lawyer in the firm, ex-congressman James Bilbray, has endorsed her and has been campaigning for her. (Here's Hillary, yesterday: "I don't think it's supporters of mine. There seems to be some misunderstanding about that.")

Hillary has complained for years that the 2000 post-election Florida crisis was an insult to democracy, an attempt by Republicans to disenfranchise minorities by suppressing their votes. It's hard to see how she is well served today by exposing herself to that same charge in Nevada - particularly when it is being leveled by a pro-Democratic union official whose members include large numbers of working-class Hispanics ("This is an attempt to wholesale disenfranchise people who are largely women, largely people of color, and people who do the kind of work that makes this town go").

On the one hand, we have Hillary repeatedly declaring that she has fought for minorities all her life; on the other hand, we have her surrogates suing to shut down caucus rules that have been designed to help minorities (again, state party official Searer: "The at-large precincts were included to increase participation in the highest concentration of shift workers - many of whom are minorities"). On the one hand, we have Hillary inveighing for years about Republican suppression tactics; on the other hand, we have D. Taylor, the Culinary union official, accusing Hillary's surrogates of "Florida Republican tactics."

Barack Obama should be pleased, because Hillary has handed him a hot one. She comes off looking like a typical pol who says one thing but does another, somebody who lawyers up to change the rules, even at the risk of alienating the minorities and working stiffs whom she claims to best represent.

Three-dimensional Republican chess

The Republican presidential race has morphed into a game of three-dimensional chess. As evidenced by the flow of dialogue in last night's debate - yes, there was another one - the current standoffs look roughly like this:

Mitt Romney versus John McCain (in the Michigan primary next Tuesday); Fred Thompson versus Mike Huckabee (in the South Carolina primary, a week from tomorrow); and Rudy Giuliani versus McCain (in the Florida primary, two weeks from tomorrow).

The subplots aren't quite as intricate as the story lines on The Wire, but, in this rare Republican race without a frontrunner, close attention must be paid. For instance, even though the debate was staged in South Carolina, the opening skirmish was all about Romney and McCain vying for voters in economically-troubled Michigan.

Romney, who may be toast if he can't win the state where his dad served three terms as a popular governor, upbraided McCain for saying recently that some of the jobs lost in Michigan won't be coming back. Romney vowed to "fight for every single job," although, naturally, he didn't say how he'd do it. (And this is the same guy who once led Bain Capital, a private equity firm that acquired businesses and advised its clients not to fight for every single job. Wite the opposite, in fact. As one fired union worker said of Romney in a 1994 political ad, "Basically, he cut our throats.")

Nor did McCain say how he'd revive the Michigan economy. No surprise there; economics has never been one of his major passions. Instead, he wandered into his standard rap about how Congress spends too much money, and about how he'd put a stop to it.

Then came the Thompson-Huckabee story line. Thompson, who may be toast unless he performs well in South Carolina, roused himself from his five-month slumber to repeatedly skewer his main competitor for the conservative base voters in that traditionally pivotal primary. He assailed Huckabee, the ex-Arkansas governor, as a betrayer of Ronald Reagan (within the GOP, there is no greater insult), as somebody who would "bring about liberal economic policy" and a "liberal foreign policy" that would practice the credo of "blame America first." Thompson said, "That's not the model of the Reagan coalition, that's the model of the Democratic Party."

Regarding the liberal economic label, Huckabee was forced to defend his record in Arkansas, where he did cut taxes 94 times (as he mentioned in the debate), but where, by the time he left office, his net tax hikes had outweighed his tax cuts by $500 million (a statistic he failed to mention). Nevertheless, he made this terrific point: If Ronald Reagan was running for president today, the same fiscal conservatives now attacking Huckabee would also be attacking Reagan - because, as governor of California, Reagan raised taxes by $1 billion during his first year. (Thompson had no answer to that one. Nor did anyone else. Reagan-worship does not leave much room for empiricism.)

But the Huck-Fred testosterone contest was the highlight of their story line. It happened in the wake of a discussion about an incident last weekend, when some Iranian speedboats swarmed around U.S. warships in the Persian Gulf and purportedly sent a transmission threatening violence. Huckabee declared that, in general, all enemies who engage the U.S. military will be blown to "the gates of hell."

The crowd went crazy over that one - which meant that Thompson had to top it. So he came up with this one: "One more step, and they (Iranians) would have been introduced to those virgins that they're looking forward to seeing." (Again, pandemonium. Top that one, Huck.)

(It was left to Ron Paul to point out - accurately - that the U.S. Navy is now admitting that the English-speaking voice on the tape, threatening violence, may not have come from the speedboats at all, but from an unspecified location somewhere else. No matter. Romney jumped in to say that Paul sounded like he was reading from Iranian press releases.)

Then came the McCain-Giuliani story line. This is a machismo contest over which tough guy has the best national security creds. The stakes are potentially high, because Giuliani is staking his candidacy on Florida, McCain hopes to make it to Florida (via Michigan and South Carolina), and it's possible only one of those guys will get to the final round - along with Huckabee, a foreign policy lightweight.

So Giuliani did his 9/11 number, and told McCain that he has always been just as enthusiastic as McCain about the U.S. troop surge in Iraq. Then McCain went for the jugular: "I have been involved in every major national security challenge for the last 20 years, and before that, I fought in some of them. The fact is that I've led the largest squadron in the U.S. Navy - not for profit, but for patriotism."

Those last six words, in translation: "Unlike some people, who have cashed in on 9/11 and made millions, I put my life on the line in wartime. Top that one, Rudy."

Did anyone "win" last night's debate? Beats me. But McCain probably got the most mileage out of it. He's already well-positioned in Michigan, because some of the folks who like him best, independents and crossover Democrats, are permitted to vote in that primary. (He seemed to be wooing them last night, when he said this: "Climate change in my view is very real, and climate change has to be addressed.") And Romney never pressed him on the jobs issue, because Romney was otherwise preoccupied with trying to defend his own record as governor of Massachusetts - which ranked 46th in job growth during most of his tenure.

Meanwhile, the more that Thompson (his offstage friend) goes after Huckabee in South Carolina, the more it potentially helps McCain. He fares best in a three-way competition. His prospects for winning the state are enhanced if Thompson and Huckabee carve up the social/religious conservative voters, and leave him with enough voters (in particular, the sizeable population of military vets) to eke out a plurality.

And what a difference eight years can make. When McCain last competed here, he was up against Karl Rove and George W. Bush and the mysterious rumors about how he was an unstable, gay-friendly philanderer who had fathered a black baby (among other unsourceable slurs). Last night, nobody laid a glove on the guy, and few bothered to try. He's still a long way from a nomination, but, after his near-death experience last summer, he's probably grateful to be taking his turn at three-dimensional chess.

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Speaking of Republicans, the author of this week's most hilarious attack was Karl Rove.

Writing yesterday in The Wall Street Journal, the man most responsible for elevating the truth-challenged George W. Bush to our highest office charged that Barack Obama has a thin resume, is "often lazy," and is "given to misstatements and exaggerations".

Insert joke here.

The crying game

From the next Democratic debate, scheduled for Tuesday in Las Vegas:

"It's truly wonderful to be back in this beautiful state," said Hillary Clinton, "and as I think about the natural splendor of Sunrise Mountain, just to the east of this marvelous city, and how every new morning announces itself above the mountain's highest peaks, well, it just (choke) always moves me deeply. I really just (choke)...I'm sorry, may I have a moment here?"

"Speaking of being moved," Barack Obama quicky interjected, dabbing his eyes with a hankie, "I keep thinking how the the pioneers who traveled across this valley more than a century ago were actually spreading the promise of America, the same promise (gulp) that compelled my Kansas mother and Kenyan father (intake of breath) to inspire their son to, to, to...(head bowed)..."

"I am so moved by my own personal story as well," said John Edwards, seizing the opening, "because my daddy was a mill worker - have I mentioned that? - and he worked so very hard...um...(biting lip)...to give me a better life (long sigh), but this is not about me, this election is about all of you out there, and I want you to know how much ah feel your pain (loud gulp)..."

"Just a moment there," said Clinton, "It upsets me (teary grimace) to hear you appropriate one of my husband's lines. And I wish the two of you would stop making fun of me, because speaking as a woman, (louder gulp) we are tired of hitting our heads on the glass ceiling, I mean, the injustice of it...(anguished swallow)..."

"Hillary," Obama admonished, "I would suggest to you that the travails of African-Americans (muted sob) have been the greater injustice, if for no other reason than that they were brought to America in chains...(sorrowful swallow)..."

"As women, our chains were invisible. Blacks got the vote after the Civil War, while we women (louder sob), regardless of race, were denied the vote until 1920 (protracted gulp and swallow)...Excuse me. Does anybody here have a Kleenex?"

"Not a chance," said Edwards. "Kleenex is a trademarked product of a big corporation, Kimberly-Clark, and I have been fighting and beating the big corporations mah whole life (shoulders heaving, dabbing his eyes with his tie)."

"I'd lend you my hankie, Hillary, if you were more likeable," said Obama, "but as a mixed-race American with an inspiring personal story, I, I...(trembling jaw)...Forgive me, I'd just hate to see us slide backwards on our racial progress (strangulated sob). I mean, we've come so far, you know?"

"That's enough, all of you," the moderator interrupted, "Can we please move on? And please ignore all that wailing you hear backstage. I told Mr. Kucinich and Mr. Gravel that they could not participate."

"Fine," said Clinton. "I'll re-schedule my wracking sob for the closing statement."

"Tell ya what, John," said Obama, turning to Edwards, "I'll lend you my hankie if you lend me your eyedrops."

"Done."

Is this a great country, or what?

Harry Truman is probably still safe in the rankings as America’s most renowned comeback kid – his brandishing of that Dewey Beats Truman headline is iconic – but Hillary Clinton has now surprised just about everybody. Not merely the pollsters and the media (and me, yesterday's parenthetical caveat notwithstanding), but also the tea-leaf readers in her own campaign who had foreseen disaster in their internal polling of the New Hampshire electorate. As one Hillary friend reportedly confided late last night, "I was with them all day. They did not see this coming. No one did."

Hillary this morning may well be thinking: Is this a great country, or what? In the land of opportunity, she just transformed herself from a downbeat blues singer ("Nobody Loves You When You're Down and Out") to Rocky. Here’s what apparently happened:

1. New Hampshire voters, contrarian by nature, essentially said: “Hold on, not so fast. This Democratic race should not be brought to an end already. We think it has barely begun.” Indeed, MSNBC conducted a pre-election focus group with professional Democratic women (a key demographic), and those voters said they were not happy with the notion of ratifying Barack Obama and thus terminating the Democratic race so quickly.

2. Today, there will be lots of commentary about how virtually all the polls were wrong. I think it’s possible that the weekend polls indicating a decisive Obama victory were actually right – as mere momentary snapshots – but that a fair number of voters pulled back at the eleventh hour, perhaps turned off by the saturation coverage, perhaps feeling that Granite Staters were being told how to vote, and perhaps (in the case of some independents) feeling that since Obama apparently had things well in hand, they should instead participate in the Republican primary and help their old favorite, John McCain. It's worth noting that 17 percent of the Democratic primary voters made up their minds on the final day, and that those people favored Hillary over Obama by three points.

3. Hillary managed to sow some doubt about her chief rival, persuading some voters that perhaps they did not know enough about Obama to warrant falling in love with him. She scored points at the Saturday night debate by pointing out a few arguably substantive flaws in Obama’s Senate voting record. She even played the 9/11 card, intimating at the eleventh hour that the terrorists might be most tempted to test an inexperienced American leader, just as they recently tested the new British prime minister, Gordon Brown (wait, isn't the 9/11 card supposed to be a Republican talking point?). And in the final days she repeatedly assailed Obama’s health care plan, pointing out that it does not require that all Americans be covered – an important issue for older Democratic women.

4. Speaking of women...she got them back, after losing them to Obama in Iowa. Fifty seven percent of the New Hampshire Democratic voters were women, according to the exit polls, and they broke for Hillary over Obama by 13 percentage points. This suggests that Hillary had a great ground game run by smart local operatives. And the smartest Democratic operative in New Hampshire is Jean Shaheen, the former governor and once and future Senate candidate. Shaheen, a major Hillary player, may have helped saved the day.

5. This point is entirely speculative and very sensitive: Did Obama's race cost him some votes? Unlike in Iowa, the voters in New Hampshire had the luxury of privacy behind a curtain. It's virtually impossible to know the answer, but it's worth nothing that, in the past, several black Democrats went down to defeat in high-profile elections even when strongly favored to win, most notably Tom Bradley in the 1982 California gubernatorial tilt.

6. I'm more confident about this one: Whereas the Iowa caucus participants may have felt that Hillary was behaving like an entitled royal on route to her coronation, and rejected her accordingly, the New Hampshire voters may have warmed to Hillary because they sensed she had been rendered human. Witness her deft handling, during the Saturday night debate, of the charge that she wasn’t likeable (with wry wit: “That hurts my feelings. But I’ll try to go on”); and her quavering voice and wet eyes during a campaign appearance on Monday. Stripped of her aura of entitlement and “inevitability,” she thus was deemed deserving of a second chance. (It's amazing to think that Hillary strategist Mark Penn was supposedly in danger of losing his job...only to be saved in the end by Hillary's tear ducts.)

Voters in both Democratic contests have offered second chances. When Iowans sensed a Hillary coronation, they said, “Not so fast.” When the folks in New Hampshire sensed a runaway Obama bandwagon, they said, “Not so fast.” Now it’s on to Nevada (where a key union, the culinary workers, has just endorsed Obama), South Carolina, and beyond.

A woman, a black, and a southern white guy, all dueling on the theme of change versus experience in a race that’s writing its own rules. Forty eight states owe Iowa and New Hampshire a debt of gratitude for keeping the party going.

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UPDATE...The directors of the Marist Poll just sent out their own ruminations on what happened. Its conclusions lend some credence to items 2 and 6 above. The Marist email says, "If the pollsters and media pundits erred, it was not in their weekend numbers but in not polling on Monday," when Hillary was picking up late support. During those final hours, there was "a media feeding frenzy over Clinton’s show of emotion when responding to a voter’s question on Monday morning. Video of her 'emotional' moment was everywhere. It was played over and over with unrelenting commentary. Hillary Clinton was again the victim." All told, "how New Hampshire voters were evaluating the race and the factors they were weighing in the last hours of the campaign were never measured."

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As for the Republicans:

Remember the scene in Godfather II, when various warring factions engaged in a gun battle on a New York City street corner, firing in all directions, and it was impossible to keep track of who was shooting at whom?

The race for the GOP presidential nomination is starting to look like that.

And no, I'm not trying to equate the Republicans with mobsters. Suffice it to say, we now have three different winners in three different states – John McCain in New Hampshire last night, Mitt Romney in Wyoming last weekend, and Mike Huckabee in Iowa last Thursday – and the plot hasn’t even begun to thicken. Up next is a showdown between McCain and Romney in Michigan next Tuesday, followed by a showdown between Huckabee and Fred Thompson in South Carolina a week from Saturday (joined perhaps by whoever wins Michigan), followed by a showdown in Florida one week thereafter between Rudy Giuliani and whoever else might still be stranding.

This is not the way that Republicans traditionally conduct their business. Normally they coalesce around either a senior figure who has earned his turn (say, Bob Dole in 1996), or the party establishment designates a frontrunner (say, George W. Bush in 2000) and gives him so much money that a lot of would-be rivals are scared away long before the voting begins. Not so this time. President Bush, given his broad unpopularity, was in no position to anoint a successor; most Americans would probably have run screaming in the other direction. And some top-tier Republicans (say, Florida Gov. Jeb Bush) took a pass, figuring that 2008 will be a rough Republican year.

Hence the current absence of clarity, and the alarms that are ringing within the GOP establishment. Romney is arguably the closest thing to a mainstream conservative candidate – well-heeled, business-friendly, willing to bend rightward on the party’s litmus test issues – but he spent around 200 days visiting New Hampshire, and he just got waxed by McCain, whose contrarian instincts have long been anathema to the party establishment. And Romney got waxed in Iowa by Huckabee, an up-from-the-bootstraps Baptist preacher who spends half his time railing against big business and Wall Street. (Memo to Mitt: You’ll always have Wyoming.)

Romney also employed a traditional Republican practice that really backfired in New Hampshire: he led the league in negative TV ads, mostly attacking McCain. In exit polls, Republican primary voters cited Romney as the architect of the most “unfair” campaign. As happened in Iowa, where he also spent lavishly to attack his rivals, Romney misread the mood of the electorate. Republican voters in general are fed up with business as usual (which is why they’ve chosen Huckabee and McCain), and want more civil campaign conduct.

It’s hard to see how this race sorts itself out. Romney was born in Michigan, and his dad was a popular three-term governor – but McCain won that state’s primary when he first ran in 2000, largely because registered independents are allowed to participate. They can do so again next Tuesday. McCain remains strong among independents (who were permitted to vote in New Hampshire), but, lest we overlook this important finding, he also defeated Romney last night among registered Republicans. According to the exit polls, they saw McCain as the candidate most qualified to be commander-in-chief in the war on terror.

But wait...isn’t that supposed to be Giuliani’s raison d’etre? Hence another complication. Giuliani last night finished way down in the pack, somewhere deep in Ron Paul territory, supposedly because he had decided to skip New Hampshire and wait for the pack to find him in Florida. It turns out, however, that Giuliani spent 126 days in New Hampshire, surpassing McCain and Huckabee, so apparently his alleged 9/11 luster didn’t mean squat.

Perhaps Giuliani will battle it out with McCain three weeks hence, for the right to be perceived as the toughest anti-terror leader – assuming that Giuliani’s Florida numbers don’t go south, simply because he’s off the radar screen for so long; and assuming that McCain survives Michigan and South Carolina, the latter of which is heavily populated by religious conservatives who might give Huckabee enough bounce to stay in the fray. All of which assumes that Romney won’t simply write himself a check – he’s personally worth around $200 million – to keep himself alive, and that Fred Thompson, who was marketed last summer as the party’s savior, somehow gets a pulse.

This race could go on for a good long while. And as I recall, Godfather II clocked in at three hours and 20 minutes.

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By the way, the enthusiasm gap persists. The New Hampshire GOP primary drew 238,909 voters (the latest figure, with 99 percent of the precincts reporting), which is virtually identical to the number of voters who cast ballots in the 2000 GOP primary. But whereas the 2000 Republican turnout exceeded the 2000 Democratic turnout by more than 83,000, this time the rankings are reversed. This time the GOP tally was dwarfed by the opposition's tally (at last count, 287,849, a New Hampshire primary record). That's nearly 53,000 more voters on the Democratic side of the ledger, and further proof that Democrats, as well as Democratic-leaning independents, are more stoked about the '08 race.

How to score the New Hampshire primary

Tonight, New Hampshire speaks. Here's what I plan to be tracking:

1. Barack Obama's margin of victory. If he wins narrowly on the Democratic side, the Hillary people can semi-accurately insist that their "girl" (Hillary's recent description of herself) is alive and well and looking forward to wresting the "change" label away from Obama in the big-state contests on Feb. 5. But if Obama wins a double-digit blowout tonight, the long knives will come out in the Hillary camp and some big-shot strategists may be forced to take the fall. Plus, the money donors will start treating her as a leper, impervious even to Bill's lip-biting entreaties. And then Hillary will have to decide whether it's worth sticking around to run and/or condone a negative "stop-Obama" campaign, one that could sow bad feeling among grassroots Democrats who have hitched their hopes and dreams to the new hero. (Of course, if Hillary defies all current expectations and actually wins tonight, please forget every word I have just written.)

2. John McCain's margin of victory, assuming he wins. It all may depend on whether New Hampshire's independents, who are free to vote in either primary, flood the GOP race in sufficient numbers to put McCain over the top. If the old warhorse gives Mitt Romney a thorough thrashing tonight, it's doubtful that Romney can resuscitate himself in next Tuesday in Michigan (a state where the Romney name is a brand, thanks to his late father's stint as governor - but also a state where McCain is popular, having won the 2000 GOP primary). McCain and Romney both badly need to win tonight. Mike Huckabee does not. His southern-fried populism/evangelism is not a good fit for New Hampshire, and he'll be fine with a respectable third-place finish - especially since he has now vaulted to first place among GOP voters nationwide in the latest Gallup poll (another sign of one-time frontrunner Rudy Giuliani's ongoing slide). And speaking of the independents...

3. The behavior of the state's independents. This should tell us plenty about the general mood of the electorate. Eight years ago, the last time both parties had contested primaries, 60 percent of the independents opted to vote in the Republican race (elevating McCain). This time, New Hampshire's non-partisan Secretary of State predicts that 60 percent of the independents will choose the Democratic race (thus elevating Obama). If that number holds true, it would be another sign that the Democrats are the hotter draw in 2008. Which brings us to...

4. The turnout figures, as indicators of an energy gap. Watch to see which party gets the biggest share of the overall action. Back in 2000, the Republican race attracted 238,206 voters, crushing the Democrats, who drew only 154,639. It has been evident for many months that the GOP has been under-energized - as evident, last Thursday, in the Iowa turnout. Let's see whether New Hampshire reverses its '00 numbers and confirms the national zeitgeist. The behavior of young voters could also be a big factor; ditto the voters who are newly arrived in New Hampshire, many from the liberal Boston region (nearly one-fourth of the state's potential electorate has arrived in the years since the 2000 primaries).

By the way...Seven months ago, who would have imagined that, on the eve of the New Hampshire primary, we would be talking about a potentially ascendent John McCain, and a potential Hillary Clinton flameout? Such is the velocity of contemporary politics.

The Clintons and the good old days

The Clintons have always had fond feelings about New Hampshire. Bill was down and out in January of 1992, seemingly destined to be roadkill, besieged at the time by stories about his draft avoidance and extra-curricular behavior. But then he shifted into sixth gear, charming the locals and out-working his opponents - and on the night of the primary, when he finished a respectable second, he dubbed himself "the Comeback Kid," and a star was born.

The saga of '92 is a living memory for many New Hampshire Democrats; I have met a number of people who still proudly display their Bill-and-me photos on their office shelves. More often than not Hillary is there as well, with her distinctive '92 hair band. And in this current campaign, Hillary has endeavored to contact virtually all the old comrades, seeking to tap the old magic.

But it doesn't appear to be working, at least according to a pair of stunning polls released yesterday, less than 48 hours before New Hampshire commences voting. The old magic seems to have been supplanted by the new.

A few days ago, Mark Penn, Hillary's chief strategist/pollster, circulated an email mocking Barack Obama for failing to get a bounce from his Iowa victory. Well, it looks like the bounce has arrived. Two new surveys suggest that Obama is on the verge of a surge that would seriously imperil her candidacy.

CNN/WMUR has Obama up by 10 points (39 percent to 29 percent) - after showing the race to be tied just one day earlier. And USA Today/Gallup has Obama in front by 13 points (41 to 28). Most noteworthy are the internal figures. According to the CNN/WMUR survey, not only is Obama outdueling Hillary among independent voters by a 2-1 margin (independents are permitted to vote in the primary), he's also winning among registered Democrats, 37 to 34 percent. He's just as strong among women voters, 35 to 34 percent. And he's winning thematically as well; by a margin of 67 to 24 percent, the likely primary voters said the promise of change trumps candidate experience as the most important criterion. Meanwhile, the USAT/Gallup poll shows Obama with a 3-1 lead among voters under the age of 35.

If both polls are essentially accurate - plus, a new Marist poll this morning has Obama up by eight, while a new Zogby poll puts the margin at 10 - then it's hard to see how Hillary can become the new Comeback Kid. For starters, second place is not an option as it was for Bill (unless she finishes in a virtual tie). She's also in a totally different position than her husband; she is perceived by many voters as the status quo figure in this race, someone who seeks restoration of the family dynasty - whereas, in '92, Bill was the "change" candidate, the upstart outsider in that year's "change" election.

And, just as importantly, Hillary is facing tougher competition than her husband did. For all of Bill's legendary political skills, it's important to remember that his '92 rivals in New Hampshire were underwhelming. He was up against the likes of Massachusetts Senator Paul Tsongas, Nebraska Senator Bob Kerrey (whose campaign was already imploding that winter), Iowa Senator Tom Harkin (who was soon to be gone), and ex-California Gov. Jerry Brown. The party's heavier hitters - particularly Mario Cuomo, Georgia Senator Sam Nunn, and a Tennessee senator by the name of Al Gore - had taken a pass on the '92 campaign.

None of Bill's competitors could match his energy or charisma, or his claim that he alone represented the changing of the guard. Hillary doesn't have the same luxuries this time; whereas Bill always billed himself as a generational leader who would draw young voters, Hillary is apparently failing on the front. It's worth noting that the current 21-year-old New Hampshire voter was only five when Bill first charmed New Hampshire - hardly the stuff of memories.

All told, Hillary is now perceived as an establishment player, and she's paired against an energized, charismatic opponent who seems poised to lead an historic movement. The odds of another Clinton comeback seem to be narrowing with each passing hour.

Blood on the stage in New Hampshire

The Oscar buzz these days is all about a new film called There Will Be Blood, but there was no need to buy a ticket last night, not with the presidential candidates laying claim to the same title by carving each other up in grisly fashion during a pair of debates on ABC News.

First came the Republicans. As I wrote in a print column this morning, the GOP is experiencing unusual tumult, stuck as they are with a slate of candidates deemed flawed by the party's grassroots, and with no annointed frontrunner to at least provide some clarity. This was evident in last night's New Hampshire takedown, when virtually everybody on stage ganged up on Mitt Romney.

Remember that line in The Godfather, about how whacking a rival was business, not personal? Fuggedaboutit. The Republican rumble was personal.

Granted, John McCain and Mike Huckabee and the others have their business reasons - they'd like to knock Romney out of the race on Tuesday night in New Hampshire, because, at a time when money is scarce for most GOP contenders, Romney alone has both the establishment connections and personal wealth to keep himself afloat for awhile - but those reasons are trumped by their personal animus. Romney has been slamming them with attack ads and distorting their records for so long, all the while flip-flopping about his own alleged convictions for so long, that they're basically fed up. And now that he's bleeding from his Iowa wounds, they're circling like sharks.

And no wonder. In high school terms, Romney is like the know-it-all kid from the rich side of town who connives to blackball those whom he views as unworthy of club membership. Last night, unfortunately for him, the other kids were pelting him with spitballs, lighting his shoes on fire, yanking his shirt hook, and he didn't know how to deal with it.

When Romney grumbled that his positions were being mischaracterized, Huckabee shot back, "Which ones?" (Romney's reaction: sputtering silence.) When McCain mocked Romney for his frequent flip-flops and dubbed him the true "candidate of change," Romney had no response. When McCain skewered Romney for his lavishly-financed negative ad campaign, and for falsely depicting McCain as a pro-amnesty wimp on illegal immigration ("you can spend your whole fortune on these attack ads, but it still won't be true"), Romney compounded his plight by...how shall I say this charitably...making stuff up.

Romney insisted: "I don't describe your plan as amnesty in my ad. I don't call it amnesty."

Oh, really? His new TV ad says that McCain "supported amnesty for illegal immigrants" and "wrote the amnesty bill." Moreover, I receive Romney campaign emails, and a new one refers to McCain's "amnesty plan." And a new Romney mailing to New Hampshire voters reportedly says, "John McCain: Supports Amnesty."

Granted, Romney isn't the first politician to play fast and loose with facts. And he probably figures he needs to hit that "amnesty" theme (regardless of what he falsely claimed during the debate) because he badly needs conservative Republican votes on Tuesday night in order to win New Hampshire and keep hope alive. The problem is, he can't win unless he successfully bloodies McCain (who now leads in the New Hampshire polls), unless he somehow makes McCain less attractive to the independent voters who yearn for reform and change, and who are permitted to vote in the primary.

So Romney's last-ditch strategy is to swipe the reform/change label and affix it to himself. Last night he said: "Not only can I talk change with you, I've lived it. In the private sector for 25 years, I brought change to company after company. In the Olympics -- it was in trouble -- I brought change. In Massachusetts I brought change. I have done it." And he contends that McCain is just another Washington insider and denizen of "the Senate cloakroom" who has failed to bring change.

The problem with that argument is, it doesn't quite square with what Romney said about McCain back in 2002: "He has always stood for reform and change. And he always fought the good battle, no matter what the odds."

McCain is hardly a saint, of course. He has lobbyist donors and advisors, just as Romney does. He has done his share of pandering in this campaign. He also finesses the truth at times, as well; last night, he boasted about how he was the earliest GOP candidate to publicly criticize Donald Rumsfeld, while failing to mention that he waited until December 2004, after President Bush was re-elected, before he let loose.

But McCain has long been seen by Granite State voters as an upstanding guy, and it will be tough for Romney to outduel him in the span of 48 hours. Especially since, on the authenticity front, Romney often makes a three-dollar bill look like a bar of gold.

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As for the Democrats...Number of times the candidates invoked the word change: 64

Hillary Clinton, scrambling to recover from her Iowa misadventure, was in near-desperate overdrive. To wit: "I want to make change, but I've already made change. I will continue to make change. I'm not just running on a promise of change, I'm running on 35 years of change....So, you know, I think it is clear that what we need is somebody who can deliver change. And we don't need to be raising the false hopes of our country about what can be delivered. The best way to know what change I will produce is to look at the changes I've already made." (Italics are mine. I'll return to that phrase in a little while.)

Hillary scored some substantive points along the way. She took on her perceived "likeability" deficit by pointing out that George W. Bush was deemed America's preferred beer buddy back in 2000, a judgement that looks disastrous in retrospect. She sought to dent Barack Obama's halo by pointing out that the antiwar senator voted Yes on every Iraq war funding bill until he announced for president; and she noted this, as well: "You know, the energy bill that passed in 2005 was larded with all kinds of special interest breaks, giveaways to the oil companies. Senator Obama voted for it. I did not." Obama had no response to that. She also pointed out that "Senator Obama's chair in New Hampshire is a lobbyist. He lobbies for the drug companies." In response Obama merely murmured, "That's not so."

But it is so. Jim Demers is registered as a lobbyist for Pfizer and PhRMA.

Hillary still has problems, however. The biggest is that she risks looking like a spoilsport who is trying to soil America's new political hero. Moreover, at a time when Obama seems poised to lead a burgeoning "hope" movement, would hopeful voters really respond to a candidate who characterizes those hopes as "false" (as she did last night)?

And she also has to contend not just with Obama, but with John Edwards. The latter jumped to Obama's defense last night: "Every time he speaks out for change, every time I fight for change, the forces of status quo are going to attack. Every single time...he believes deeply in change and I believe deeply in change. And any time you're fighting for that, I mean, I didn't hear these kinds of attacks from Senator Clinton when she was ahead. Now that she's not, we hear them."

No doubt she was displeased to be tagged as the leader of the "status quo," to find herself under seige from two rivals seemingly working in tandem. But she should hope that Edwards stays in the race, post-New Hampshire. He splits the "change" vote with Obama, and it's hard to envision most Edwards voters moving to Hillary in the wake of his departure...unless she somehow swipes the "change" label for herself.

But can she succeed in doing so? At one point last night, she felt compelled to harken back to the '90s, to defend her husband's tenure, and point out that he balanced the budget. Whereupon, moments later, Obama said: "But we never built the majority and coalesced the American people around being able to get the other stuff done." That remark addresses a longstanding pet peeve among many grassroots Democrats - that Clinton failed to grow the party, that under his tenure the Democrats lost both congressional chambers and never fully recovered. That is the crux of the intraparty grievance against the Clintons.

And with respect to Hillary's remarks, during the debate, about how Obama's rhetoric is no substitute for action, her chief rival said this:

"(T)he truth is actually words do inspire. Words do help people get involved. Words do help members of Congress get into power so that they can be part of a coalition to deliver health care reform, to deliver a bold energy policy. Don't discount that power."

Don't discount the power of words...Obama was essentially putting her on notice that she might be facing another tough election night.

An historic night of winners and losers

I’ll assess the stunning results of the Iowa caucuses through the prism of winners and losers – some of them obvious, others less so.

WINNERS:

Barack Obama. He made history last night, as the first African-American presidential candidate to demonstrate serious crossover appeal in the gatekeeper state. Jesse Jackson, during the ‘80s, never got more than 8.8 percent of the Iowa tally, whereas Obama took 38 percent – in a state that’s two percent black. His candidacy is now strengthened for the long haul; a lot of black Democrats in the early-voting, racially diverse states – such as Florida and South Carolina – may have been holding back from Obama, waiting to see whether white voters would actually step up and back a black guy who’s barely three years out of the Illinois legislature. It happened, and the Democratic race has been transformed overnight. He’s the “change” candidate unless and until somebody else swipes the label. That won’t be easy, because now he looks like the leader of a burgeoning movement, and that’s catnip for independents and non-establishment Democrats who have long yearned to shake things up.

Mike Huckabee. Although he was outspent 20-1 by his closest Republican rival, he demonstrated that passion is more important than money. The passion was supplied by Iowa’s conservative Christians, who comprised an astounding 60 percent of the GOP turnout (the usual figure is closer to 40 percent), and who judged Huckabee to be the most authentic candidate in a field of flip-floppers and panderers. These voters weren’t even concerned about electability; according to NBC’s survey last night, only eight percent listed “best chance to win” as their top candidate criterion. As a result, the Republicans have a Christian fundamentalist in the top tier for the first time ever. Huckabee probably can’t take New Hampshire, but his decisive Iowa win puts him in play in South Carolina later this month, not simply because the religious right is strong there, but because his populist anti-Wall Street pitch might attract blue-collar Republicans. A lot of big-business Republicans are horrified by Huckabee; the question is, can they agree on an alternative?

The Des Moines Register. On New Year’s Eve, the newspaper’s pollster predicted that Obama would win by eight points, buoyed by a record-high Democratic turnout. Well, Obama won by eight points, buoyed by a record-high Democratic turnout. As I mentioned the other day, it’s probably wise to respect the folks who have the home-field advantage.

John McCain. He’s a winner not because he finished in a virtual third-place tie despite his inattention to Iowa, but because he stands to benefit elsewhere from Huckabee’s resounding victory. Huckabee did him a big favor by bloodying Mitt Romney, who is McCain’s chief rival in New Hampshire. McCain needs to win that state next Tuesday in order to stay viable, and he needs to attract independent voters – a potentially challenging task, because independents (who can vote in either primary) might want to jump on the Obama bandwagon. Still, McCain has the luxury of dueling with a Republican rival who now looks like a loser. Which reminds me…

LOSERS

Mitt Romney. The guy was downright humiliated. GOP voters took a long look, they smelled a phony, and they made him pay. All those flip-flops, all the stuff he simply made up, all the negative ads he ran on TV…he came off like a typical politician, which is a deadly image at a time when the grassroots in both parties seem anxious for something completely different. One of his flacks tried to spin his nine-point loss last night by saying that evangelical voters unsurprisingly flocked to the evangelical candidate; the flaw in the spin is that Romney spent 2007 trying to woo those voters, and wound up driving them away. Now he’s heading for New Hampshire, where his incessant attack ads against McCain risk driving Granite State voters away. Stung by Iowa, he has to win New Hampshire or risk going into freefall as a fresh example of that Beatles adage about how money can’t buy you love.

John Edwards. It’s hard to see how he gets any traction from losing Iowa, where he had virtually camped himself for the past several years. He needed a win in order to draw the free media coverage that would in turn draw the Democratic donors who thus far have spurned him. It won’t happen. Now the race moves to New Hampshire, where he was weak in 2004, and is not significantly stronger now. He’ll stay in for awhile, particularly since he has a lot of labor union support in Nevada, which holds caucuses on Jan. 19. It’s hard to see how he can go the distance.

Rudy Giuliani. Sure, he opted not to campaign much in Iowa (because he sensed he was dead meat there), but still, it must be embarrassing for the self-marketed 9/11 leader to find himself in sixth place…behind Ron Paul. In fact, Ron Paul’s tally was nearly triple the Rudy tally. That same thing could well happen next week in New Hampshire, another state that Rudy has skipped. It remains to be seen whether he can play Rip Van Winkle, wake up in his chosen battleground (Florida, Jan. 29), and still have any claim to the top tier. Of course, with the GOP race in such flux, it’s hard to know who else will be in it, either.

And, saving the biggest loser for last, Hillary Clinton. What a disastrous night. She even lost to Obama among women. When the smoke cleared, her flack offered a pathetic piece of spin about the Iowa results: "Extrapolating from 230,000 people is a mistake." Naturally, if Hillary had finished first, the same flack would have raved about how extrapolating from 230,000 people was a triumph of the democratic process.

Hillary had intended to make Iowa a pit stop on the road to coronation, but she leaves Iowa affixed with the establishment candidate label. In her gracious concession speech, she said it was “a great night for Democrats” because the record-high turnout was stoked by the message of “change.” The problem is, Obama successfully laid claim to that word. The real message last night, particularly if Edwards’ tally is added to Obama’s, was that grassroots Democrats – and the independents who participated – are anxious to leave the Clinton years behind, not to resurrect them. The Iowans served notice that the Clintons can indeed be beaten.

Granted, Hillary has the money and moxie to battle Obama to the bitter end, and it should be noted that several past candidates (Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush) have lost Iowa but won the White House. The problem is, the Obama challenge is historically unique, and she risks being subsumed by forces beyond her control. If his Iowa momentum gains velocity in New Hampshire, even the Clintons could be hard pressed to stop it. Barring a comeback, she could well find herself quoting Ralph Waldo Emerson, the 19th-century essayist, who wrote: “Events are in the saddle, and ride mankind.”

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I am saving my (presumably) weighter thoughts - particularly about the most fluid GOP race since 1940 - for a Sunday print column.

My caveats about Iowa

In this calm before the storm, as we gird ourselves for the first measurements of actual citizen sentiment in the '08 campaign, let us pause briefly to contemplate the state that remains secure in its status as first in pork, first in corn, and first in the presidential sweepstakes.

There are basically two ways to assess the role of Iowa. One can point out that the caucus-goers take their responsibilities of winnowing the candidates very seriously, that they are earnest and well-informed, that their caucuses are democracy with a small d, and that therefore they have earned the right to be America's gatekeepers. But one can also point out that the caucus-goers, being overwhelmingly white and disproportionately rural, are profoundly unrepresentative of the American electorate; that the caucus-goers, comprising only a fraction of the Iowa electorate, are unrepresentative of even their own state; that the Democratic caucus rules in particular are profoundly undemocratic - and therefore it's absurd that Iowa has come to wield so much clout.

I subscribe to both schools of thought. I laud and admire the Iowans (who are, among other things, some of the nicest people you'd ever want to meet); nevertheless, their presence at the front of the line (a tradition that really began when Jimmy Carter put the caucuses on the map in 1976) is symptomatic of a nomination process that could've been designed by Rube Goldberg on acid.

And it's worth noting that, incumbents aside, exactly one victorious Iowa candidate - George W. Bush in 2000 - has ever gone on to win the presidency in the same year. Even though Carter got an historic boost in Iowa, on the way to his November election, he actually finished second in Iowa - behind "Uncommitted."

There is media talk of a "record turnout" in the caucuses tonight, which means that perhaps as many as 250,000 people could participate. What often goes unmentioned is the fact that 250,000 people translates into merely 12 percent of Iowa's registered voters. Some folks who would dearly love to participate can't do so, because the caucuses start promptly at 7 p.m., and they can't get off work, or they can't get sitters for the kids, or they're serving far away in the military. As for the local folks who are on the fence...well, let's just say it's hardly inspiring to think that the choice of the next leader of the world's most powerful nation could hinge on whether some soybean farmers decide that the televised Orange Bowl tilt between the Hokies and the Jayhawks is a more palatable option.

Then there are the caucus rules. The Republicans are actually paragons of small-d democracy; their participants choose among the candidates by secret ballot (writing the names on slips of paper), and the state GOP releases the figures, so that we spectators can see the popular vote statewide.

Not so the Democrats. Their rules are a Byzantine labyrinth that appears to have been concocted by Franz Kafka, Lewis Carroll, and Joseph Heller. And Democrats don't even release the popular vote of their participants. The final percentages that you will see on TV are something else entirely, although I wonder whether the TV anchors will point this out. The Democratic caucuses are all about choosing delegates to the March 15 county conventions - and the weighted delegate strength of the candidates will not mirror the popular vote. Which is not released to the public anyway. So the final Democratic tallies actually measure the allocation of "delegate equivalents."

Still with me? Here's roughly how the Democratic caucuses work: Participants have to physically stand with those who support the same candidate. But if that candidate draws less than 15 percent of the people in attendance, the group is dissolved, and those people have to make a second choice, and then go stand with that candidate's group. (A woman from Webster City, Janet Adams, told me not long ago that it's actually quite exciting: "The whole process is all about neighbors, you know. People say things like, 'why don't you come over to our side?'")

All of which means that the official Democratic winner tonight may well attain that status because he or she has second-choice strength...which is a far cry from the one-man-one-vote ethos of the secret ballot, as practiced by the Iowa GOP. And I won't even begin to explain how the Democrats tilt their delegate allocation so that rural enclaves are over-represented in the final tallies.

In other words, with respect to those Democratic results, I say caveat emptor. Not that it matters, however, because these nuances will be largely ignored tomorrow morning. Whoever "wins" on the Democratic side will reap the inevitable publicity bonanza, and whoever "loses" will have to deal with the downbeat consequences as the race moves to New Hampshire. As JFK used to say, "life is unfair," and that's doubly true in the political realm, where perception is reality.

On the other hand, if Barack Obama wins decisively tonight on the Democratic side (by a margin that obliterates the aforementioned nuances), it can't be dismissed as just a flaky Iowa outcome. It would mean that large numbers of white people were willing to stand in front of their white neighbors and declare themselves for an African-American candidate. That would be significant in itself, and all the caveats about the Iowa process would be forgotten.

John McCain, going for the bronze

While Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee slug it out for first place in the Iowa GOP caucuses tomorrow night, I'll be watching to see whether John McCain finishes third. The political health of the candidate who only recently was thought to be dead and buried is surely the best subplot in the '08 Republican saga.

The latest polls suggest that McCain - who has stumped in Iowa only sporadically, and who virtually ignored the state when he first ran in 2000 - might actually grab the third rung, and thus pick up a tailwind as he heads east, to the friendlier turf of New Hampshire, where he is now reportedly tied with Romney for the top slot in the Jan. 8 primary.

Winning the bronze medal in Iowa would be a big story, if only because it would demonstrate McCain's potential appeal to disillusioned GOP voters as the least objectionable candidate. And a third-place finish would further roil the unusually fluid Republican race.

This would be especially true if Huckabee beats Romney in Iowa tomorrow night, despite the latter's huge financial and organizational advantages. A wounded Romney would be ill-positioned to win New Hampshire, where McCain has surged after trailing Romney by 15 points a mere six weeks ago. And a triumphant McCain, buoyed by fresh funds raised via the Internet, would be emboldened to fight on in South Carolina and Florida later this month, and in the 21-state demolition derby on Feb. 5. (Indeed, a newly-released national poll, measuring GOP voter sentiment in those 21 states, reports that McCain is now tied for first, with a sliding Rudy Giuilani.)

Given McCain's indifference to Iowa, a third-place finish would be quite an accomplishment. As a candidate in 2000, he skipped the state altogether; he had long opposed giving federal money to Iowa's production of corn-based ethanol - a political no-no - and he figured that he was dead meat in Iowa as a result. This time around, he showed up on occasion, and ran some radio ads, but not much else. And he would appear to be unpalatable to the GOP electorate. A lot of conservative Iowans, like conservatives elsewhere, still think he's too liberal for their taste on issues like immigration, global warming, and stem cell research. Most religious conservatives still don't trust him, recalling how he once assailed a few of their leaders as "agents of intolerance." And some voters, although they are loathe to say it aloud, might be concerned about his age (he'll turn 72 this summer).

Yet he might be carving out a niche as the fallback candidate - the guy with more foreign policy experience than Huckabee (who has none) and Giuliani (who has never even visited Iraq, and who quit the Iraq study group); the guy who flip-flops a lot less than Romney, and seems more authentic anyway; the guy with the compelling personal story who quickens the pulse more than, say, the pulse-challenged Fred Thompson. And, on the affirmative side of the ledger, he could attract some fiscal conservatives who like his consistent opposition to earmarked pork, and he could attract hawkish Republicans who agree with his longstanding argument that the war has been incompetently executed.

It's noteworthy that McCain has managed stay alive after losing his high-priced hired helpers, all of whom quit his campaign six months ago. No longer the designated GOP establishment frontrunner, McCain seems a lot more comfortable living off the land, behaving more as an anti-establishment insurgent, operating on a wing and a prayer.

If, tomorrow night, Iowa caucus-goers give him the boost he needs to win New Hampshire, this would not automatically mean that he is destined to win the GOP nomination. Hardly. Even with a fresh infusion of funds, he would have to do battle with Romney's war chest and personal wealth. But if McCain can sustain his candidacy beyond New Hampshire and into the second round of states, he will sharpen the intramural GOP debate, forcing the party's grassroots voters to ponder this question:

Is it better to nominate a moneyed weathervane who markets himself as an orthodox establishment Republican (Romney), a 9/11 "hero" with a lot of baggage (Giuliani), an ordained pastor who attributes his polling rise to God's will and who as governor paroled murderers out of Christian compassion (Huckabee), an antiwar insurgent who's out of step with the party on the war issue (Ron Paul), a snooze who's better off sticking to TV (Thompson)...or McCain, who consistently polls as the most electable candidate, in part because he does not play as an orthodox establishment Republican?

For the Obama candidacy, size matters

If the newly-released Des Moines Register poll is correct - and this survey is widely respected for its readings of the Iowa mood on the eve of the Iowa caucuses - we could soon be witnessing an historic moment in presidential politics.

The poll, posted last night, reports that an African-American candidate will top the Democratic field in this overwhelmingly white state, buoyed by an unprecedented wave of first-time caucus voters - many of them independents (and even some Republicans) who appear determined to re-register on the spot as Democrats, just for the opportunity to support Barack Obama. Which is why the final Register poll projects an eight-point Obama victory over Hillary Clinton (35 percent to 27 percent) in the Democratic caucuses Thursday night.

Other new surveys dispute this point spread, but the Register poll, with its home-field advantage, arguably has a better feel for the dynamics of the likely Democratic turnout. The numbers, if true, are provocative: Forty percent of the folks planning to attend the Democratic caucuses describe themselves as independents, and five percent say they are Republicans. And Obama is the clear favorite of these potential newcomers.

Could this actually happen, that 45 percent of the Democratic caucus-goers might be outsiders lured to the event by Obama? It remains to be seen, of course, whether these people will actually follow through on their vows to participate, but, at minimum, their strong interest in Obama is further evidence that he has potential crossover appeal - the kind that is crucial to winning a November election. So keep an eye on the turnout figures Thursday night; the larger (and more politically diverse) the turnout, the better it is for Obama. Size matters.

In 2004, when John Kerry finished on top, roughly 80 percent of the Democratic caucus participants described themselves as party regulars. If the final Des Moines Register poll is correct, and Obama tops the candidate field thanks to an expanded turnout, of which only 55 percent are party regulars, he can make the case to the people of New Hampshire (who vote in their primary next Tuesday) that he's the most electable Democratic candidate...thereby keeping the heat on Hillary.

No wonder the Hillary spinners are trying so hard to dismiss the Des Moines poll. Right on schedule this morning, my email box contained a missive from Mark Penn, Hillary's pollster/strategist, who naturally takes issue with the poll's turnout projections. Penn points out that only 15 percent of the 2000 caucus-goers were independents, and that only 19 percent were independents in 2004. He complains that the Register pollsters "are depicting an unprecedented departure from historically established turnout patterns," and that if we look at the '08 Iowa horserace through the prism of the established patterns, then Hillary is in darn good shape.

Yet here's what he is essentially arguing: the smaller the turnout, and the more it is dominated by Democratic regulars, the better it is for Hillary. Penn is not disputing the poll data showing Obama's popularity among independents; he's only arguing that the independents won't show up en masse to participate. (Or so he hopes, since he's basically signaling that she's at risk if the turnout is large and politically diverse.)

In other words, he implicitly acknowledged Obama's crossover appeal, which is hardly a ringing advertisement for his own candidate's electability.

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Thursday night, it also will be worth comparing the Democratic and Republican turnout totals, just to see which camp is more enthused about its prospects in 2008. According to the latest Iowa State University poll, Democratic turnout could outpace GOP turnout by 60 percent; by contrast, in the 2000 Iowa caucuses (the last time both races were open), the GOP turnout outpaced the Democrats by 30 percent.

If the projections for Thursday are true, it would suggest that Republicans are far more dispirited than their counterparts. I can't imagine why.

The 2007 Aberrant Behavior Awards

Before we welcome the new year, let us first bid a fond farewell to the follies of 2007 by celebrating this stellar list of award winners.

The Sam Cooke “Don’t Know Much About History, Don’t Know Much About Geography” Award goes to Mike Huckabee. Following the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, the GOP’s hottest presidential candidate flashed his foreign policy credentials by contending that more Pakistanis have illegally entered the United States than any other foreigners - an allegation promptly refuted by the Department of Homeland Security. He also stated that Afghanistan shares an eastern border with Pakistan, whereas, in reality, they share a western border. He also suggested that Pakistan remains under martial law, whereas, in reality, martial law was lifted on Dec. 15. And earlier this month, he confessed that he knew nothing about the national intelligence report on Iran’s dormant nuclear program, even though the report had been out for nearly 36 hours. Would the Republican party, which traditionally prides itself on its national security bona fides, really nominate this guy?

The Character Reference of the Year Award goes to Jeanette Maier, a Louisiana woman who extolled U.S. Senator David Vitter as “one of the nicest men and most honorable men I’ve ever met.” The problem for Vitter, a “family values” Republican, was that Maier’s praise came with a caveat. She’s a whorehouse madam who regularly hosted Vitter at her place of business during the 1990s, at $300 a pop.

The Hogan’s Heroes “I Know Nothing!” Award goes to Alberto Gonzales. Before this longtime Bush crony walked away from the smoking wreckage formerly known as the Justice Department, he insisted that he was clueless about the White House campaign to make various U.S. attorneys behave as if they were water carriers for the Republican party. During congressional testimony, he said “I can’t recall” more than 50 times. Back on March 13, he also said that “we never had a discussion about where things stood,” regarding the plan to fire recalcitrant federal prosecutors – and then, lo and behold, it turned out, according to his own appointment calendar, that he had indeed attended a meeting just five months earlier, to discuss where things stood. The firings came shortly thereafter, in a triumph of partisanship over the rule of law.

Regarding The Worst Bedside Manner Award: You might expect a hospital doctor to win this one, the kind of doctor who raves about his ski trip before striding out the door. But no, the winner again is Gonzales. Let’s not forget the congressional testimony last spring, about how Gonzo – acting in 2004 as Bush’s White House counsel – raced to John Ashcroft’s hospital bed in order to inveigle the seriously ill attorney general to sign off on a domestic eavesdropping program that had already been deemed illegal by Ashcroft’s chief deputy. Ashcroft, sick as he was, backed up his deputy and shot Gonzo down. The deputy, and seven other senior figures, including the FBI director, had threatened to resign if Gonzo had parlayed his hospital visit into a victory.

The “He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Bundler” Award goes to Hillary Clinton, for her campaign’s strenuous efforts to deny or downplay the role of Norman Hsu – a Democratic donor who had raised $850,000 for Hillary in bundled small contributions, but who turned out to be a fugitive felon. At first the Hillaryites insisted that Hsu was “completely legit,” that he was a man of “integrity,” and that they’d turned up nothing to suggest otherwise. When those spin efforts failed, they said that Hillary would reject the money that Hsu had personally donated (around $25,000), but keep all the rest. When that spin failed, Hillary agreed to reject all the money. Then she insisted that she’s a big supporter of campaign finance reform. The only problem is, her Senate record demonstrates that she has never cared a whit about campaign finance reform.

The Jim Carrey “Liar Liar” Award goes to Fred Thompson. Lawyers have a reputation for being factually slippery, and lobbyists have the same image problem. Ole Fred, who was a Washington lawyer-lobbyist before he started courting GOP conservatives in the ’08 campaign, tried out some slippery moves of his own a few months ago, when reports surfaced that he had done some early-‘90s lobbying for an abortion rights group. At first he said that he had done no such lobbying. Then he softened a bit, and said he had no “recollection” of such lobbying. Then, when all the billing records and lunch meeting records surfaced, he suddenly remembered a lot more, and said that it’s common for lawyer-lobbyists to take all kinds of cases, even when they personally disagree with clients….which made Thompson look like just another DC operator, the antithesis of what conservative GOP voters are looking for. No wonder he has flatlined.

The Louis XIV “L’etat c’moi” Political Science Award is shared by three Bush administration officials, all of whom sought to rewrite the U.S. Constitution during 2007. Tony Snow, speaking as the press secretary, informed us back in March that “the executive branch is under no compulsion to testify to Congress, because Congress in fact doesn’t have oversight ability,” which would be news to our Founding Fathers. Meanwhile, in June, Dick Cheney informed us that the vice presidency is not “an entity within the executive branch,” which was a fascinating stance, given the fact that it refutes Article II of the Constitution, and given the fact that he had long refused to disclose his energy lobbyist pals, by citing his position in the executive branch. Meanwhile, in July, ex-Bush political director Sara Taylor told Congress that she couldn’t talk about the prosecutor purge scandal because, "I took an oath to the president, and I take that oath very seriously." She was gently informed that, as a federal employee, she had taken an oath only to the Constitution.

The “I Hear That Eating Foie Gras Will Make You Gay” Award goes to Mitt Romney. The Mittster was notorious in 2007 for simply making stuff up – claiming an NRA endorsement that he never received, claiming he saw his father march with Martin Luther King when in fact he saw no such thing, claiming that we invaded Iraq because Saddam had barred the arms inspectors when in fact Hussein had actually let them in – but let’s not forget his fictitious complaint about France, the nation that doubles as a traditional GOP punching bag. Back in May, Romney said: “In France, for instance, I’m told that marriage is now frequently contracted in seven-year terms where either party may move on when their term is up.” The problem is, France has no such law. There is such a law, however, in a science-fiction novel called “The Memory of Earth.” Author Orson Scott Card, who, like Romney, is a Mormon, uses this form of a marriage contract as a plot point - in a saga that takes place in outer space.

The Judy Garland “We’re Not in Kansas Anymore” Award goes to Barack Obama. A tornado-tossed house must have hit the candidate in the head when he came out with this line: “"In case you missed it, this week, there was a tragedy in Kansas. Ten thousand people died — an entire town destroyed." Really? More than triple the number of 9/11 casualties were not alive in Kansas anymore? It turned out that Obama was a tad off in his tally. He overstated the death toll by…9988.

The “Closeted Hypocrite” Award: The obvious landslide winner is Larry Craig, the GOP senator who regularly voted against gays but toe-tapped with a wide stance in an airport john, and who did the Senate proud by defending himself on TV with such high-road arguments as “I go to the bathroom to use the bathroom for bathroom's sake.” But let’s honor the runner-ups: Florida GOP legislator Bob Allen, who regularly voted against gays but propositioned a male cop in a rest stop john; and Washington state GOP legislator Richard Curtis, who regulary voted against gays but was caught wearing women’s clothing in a gay porn store.

The Bill Clinton “It All Depends on What the Meaning of the Word ‘Support’ Is” Award goes to Hillary, naturally. Proving that the connubial bond is alive and well, at least in the political realm, Hillary in October offered plenty of Clintonian nuance on the issue of whether New York’s illegal immigrants should receive drivers’ licenses: “The possibility of them having an accident that harms themselves or others is just a matter of the odds. It's probability. So what Governor Spitzer is trying to do is to fill the vacuum...I just want to add, I did not say that it should be done, but I certainly recognize why Governor Spitzer is trying to do it...It makes a lot of sense. What is the governor supposed to do?...Do I think this is the best thing for any governor to do? No."

The Mark Twain “A Lie Can Travel Half Way Around the World While the Truth is Putting on Its Shoes” Award goes to Freedom’s Watch, the White House front group that ran inflammatory TV ads early this autumn in support of the Iraq surge. Long after the myth of a 9/11-Hussein connection had been thoroughly refuted by multiple agencies and commissions, Freedom’s Watch went ahead and aired the myth all over again - showing the Twin Towers under attack while a vet talked about Iraq as the words “They Attacked Us” appeared on screen. Produced with classic sleight of hand, it was the dark art of propaganda at its finest.

The “He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Home Boy” Award goes to Rudy Giuliani, loyal enabler of his good buddy, the indomitable Bernie Kerik. Rudy is trying to sell himself as a man whose judgment we can trust in a crisis, yet, despite many warnings over the years, he somehow failed to notice that the guy he steadily promoted (from mayoral chauffer all the way to police commissioner) was mobbed up. Today, Kerik is under federal indictment for taking bribes and cheating on his taxes. But maybe Kerik’s best gig was his failed three-month stint as Bush’s emissary to the Iraqi police in 2003. He was supposed to train the Iraqi cops, but, by all accounts, did nothing. No matter. When he returned, Bush praised him in the Rose Garden and said, “Bernie, you’re a good man.” Naturally.

The “Dog Ate My Homework” Award goes to Tommy Thompson. You may remember Tommy; the ex-Wisconsin governor and ex-Cabinet official was a GOP presidential candidate for what seemed to be only 17 minutes. Tommy had some creatively lame excuses for his bad performances in debates and on the stump, including (a) his hearing aid wasn’t working, (b) he was anxious to go to the bathroom, and (c) he had a heavy cold. The latter excuse was offered after he attempted to praise a Jewish audience by noting that “earning money” was “sort of part of the Jewish tradition…You've been outstanding business people, and I compliment you for that." Presumably, if Tommy’s nasal passages had been clear, he would have recognized that the Christians who ran Wall Street and dominated the economy during America’s first 100 years were pretty darn good at “earning money” before most of the Jewish immigrants ever showed up.

The “Yeah, Right, And Guys Only Buy Playboy for the Articles” Award goes to John Edwards, for insisting that he spent a year working for a hedge fund (earning more than $500,000) only because he wanted to get a better understanding of poverty in America. When a reporter pointed out that he could have “learned” more about the relations between the markets and poverty simply by taking a university course, he replied, “That’s true.” On the other hand, if he had merely taken a college course, would he have been able to collect $160,000 in campaign money from the employes of that hedge fund?

The “Oh Swell, NOW They Tell Us” Award is shared by three prominent Republicans who waited until they were long gone before dishing essential dirt about the Bush team. First came Dick Armey, former House GOP leader, who confessed last February that he regretted voting for Bush’s war in 2002, because it meant “invading a country that had in no way declared any war on us…Had I been ore true to myself and the principles I believed in at the time, I would have openly opposed the whole adventure vocally and aggressively.” Next came ex-Bush pollster Matthew Dowd, who said in April that he was fed up with what he called Bush’s “my way or the highway” approach, and added, “I’m so disappointed in things. I think (Bush) has become more, in my view, secluded and bubbled in…(He's) not the person I thought.” And then came ex-Bush flak Scott McClellan, who previewed his upcoming book in November by informing us that the Bush team – either recklessly or deliberately, it wasn’t clear which - sent him out to spread “false information” to the public during the Valerie Plame affair.

Updating FDR, The “We Have Nothing to Spin But Fear Itself” Award goes to President Bush, for invoking the specter of “World War III” while discussing Iran’s nukes in October - even though he had been privately tipped off months earlier that an impending intelligence community report would reassess whether Iran had any nukes in the first place. Turns out, the intelligence community concluded that the nuke program was halted in 2003. But after this report surfaced earlier this month, Bush (true to form) insisted that his bellicose talk remains entirely appropriate, because, even though he acknowledges that the Iranians did halt the program, they might some day opt to restart the program…which apparently means that “World War III” rhetoric is justified regardless of the circumstances. Sort of like tax cuts for the wealthy.

And The "Ouch, that Hurts! Thank You, Sir, May I Have Another?" Award naturally goes to the Democrats of Capitol Hill, for their year-long inability to thwart an unpopular president’s unpopular war. Granted, they did show courage on a few major matters of statecraft – such as voting to condemn moveon.org for its nasty newspaper ad about General David Petraeus, and voting to condemn some mass atrocities committed by the Ottoman Turks 92 years ago. But it seems like a lifetime ago – it was actually only last January - when the Democrats warned that if Bush didn’t change course in Iraq, the new majority would be “showing him the way.” Dream on. I’ll stick with what Washington analyst Charlie Cook said to me back in 2002, when the Democrats were first fumbling for a response to Bush on Iraq: “They couldn’t find a unified message if it was tattooed on their butts.”

Feel free to add your own awards. Otherwise, Happy New Year and drive safely.