memeorandum: Weak Field — I know some netroots types are frustrated … (Matthew Yglesias)

6:00 PM ET, December 14, 2007

Top Items:

Election 2008: Florida Republican Primary — Florida: Huckabee 27% Romney 23% Giuliani 19% — Mitt Romney's strategy for winning the Republican nomination was to win the early states and build momentum. Rudy Giuliani's plan was to accept defeats in the early states and come back strong …

Discussion: Hot Air, Associated Press, Weekly Standard, American Spectator, Riehl World View, HorseRaceBlog, Talking Points Memo, Donklephant, RealClearPolitics, TPM Election Central, The Corner, Below The Beltway, eyeon08.com, The Caucus Cooler, Pollster.com, PoliGazette and Taegan Goddard's …

Ed Tibbetts / Quad City Times:

Obama, Huckabee lead new Iowa poll — Presidential candidates Barack Obama and Mike Huckabee hold 9-point leads in Iowa with less than three weeks to go before the Jan. 3 caucuses, according to a new poll conducted for the Quad-City Times and other Lee Enterprises newspapers.

Discussion: The Swamp, Eunomia, Riehl World View, Pollster.com and TPM Election Central

Gordon Trowbridge / Detroit News:

New polls in the Michigan primary campaign — Two new independent polls of Michigan primary voters out today add to the evidence for a surge for Mike Huckabee in Michigan, a decline for Rudy Giuliani and the possibility of a John McCain surge if the GOP contest draws lots of independents and Democrats.

Discussion: The Corner, The Campaign Spot, eyeon08.com, race42008.com and RIGHTWINGSPARKLE

Ross Douthat:

Huckenfreude (n): Pleasure derived from the outrage of prominent conservative pundits over the rising poll numbers of Mike Huckabee. Particularly sharp when the pundits in question are partisans of Rudy Giuliani, but extends to supporters of Mitt Romney as well.

Discussion: Townhall.com, Washington Post and Eunomia

Sarah Liebowitz / Concord Monitor:

Obama edges Clinton in poll — Romney well ahead in 'Monitor' survey — December 14. — Barack Obama has come from behind to turn the Democratic presidential race in New Hampshire into a toss-up, according to a new Monitor opinion poll. The results - which show Obama with a one-point edge …

Discussion: Captain's Quarters, Wall Street Journal, MyDD, USA Today, CNN Political Ticker, Obama HQ, TIME: Swampland, Washington Post, MSNBC, TIME, TPM Election Central, Pollster.com, Raising Kaine, Blue Hampshire and Taegan Goddard's …

CNN Political Ticker:
S.C. poll: Huckabee bolts to top of GOP; Obama cuts into Clinton lead

Discussion: Balloon Juice, Outside The Beltway, Comments from Left Field, Open Left, The Carpetbagger Report, TPM Election Central, The Swamp, Captain's Quarters, Reason Magazine, Below The Beltway, Ben Smith's Blogs, Riehl World View, PoliBlog (TM) and Marc Ambinder

Krooney / The Page: Two Sets of Iowa Numbers With Different Dem Snapshots

Primary Monitor / yourconcord.com:
Monitor poll: Romney +13

Discussion: Jonathan Martin's Blogs and The Daily Dish

Liz Sidoti / Associated Press:
Rivals try class warfare against Romney

Discussion: The New Republic

Dan Eggen / Washington Post:

Mukasey Rejects Call for CIA Tape Details — Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey today sharply rebuffed congressional demands for details about the Justice Department's inquiry into the destruction of CIA interrogation tapes, saying that providing such information would make it appear that the department was …

Discussion: TPMmuckraker and Greatscat!

CNN:

FISA Bill With Telco Immunity To Be Debated Monday — WASHINGTON -(Dow Jones)- Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said Friday that debate on the legislation underpinning the government's warrantless wiretapping program will begin Monday. — Speaking in the Senate, Reid said he would bring forward …

Discussion: TPM Election Central, Firedoglake, Salon, Corrente and TalkLeft

Paul Kane / Washington Post:
Rove, Bolten Found in Contempt of Congress

Discussion: Norwegianity, Daily Kos, Comments from Left Field, Buck Naked Politics, The Newshoggers, The Democratic Daily, Crooks and Liars and Shakespeare's Sister

New York Times:
Notes From the Global War on Terror

Discussion: Weekly Standard, My Left Nutmeg and Daily Kos

Al Kamen / Washington Post:
Instead of Plum Appointments, Maybe a Lump of Coal

Discussion: AMERICAblog, New York Times and The Democratic Daily

Rich Lowry / Townhall.com:

Huckacide — The ghost of Howard Dean haunts the pundit class. As soon as a candidate of either party spikes up in the polls, he is compared with Dean, who had a spectacular boomlet in the second half of 2003 only to deflate as soon as people began to vote in early 2004.

Discussion: Associated Press, Houston Chronicle, The Anonymous Liberal, Blogometer, TIME, CBS News, Balloon Juice, Eunomia, Riehl World View, Real Clear Politics and RIGHTWINGSPARKLE

Redstate:
F-you Country Boy. Jesus Freaks Need Not Apply.

Discussion: Eunomia and The Corner

BBC:

Iraqi oil exceeds pre-war output — Iraqi oil production is above the levels seen before the US-led invasion of the country in 2003, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA). — The IEA said Iraqi crude production is now running at 2.3 million barrels per day, compared with 1.9 million barrels at the start of this year.

Discussion: Gateway Pundit, Hot Air, Dean's World, QandO and macsmind.com/wordpress

CNN Political Ticker:

Veteran GOP strategist signs on with Huckabee — WASHINGTON (CNN) — A veteran Republican strategist considered by many the architect of Ronald Reagan's 1984 landslide election victory is set to take the helm of Mike Huckabee's surging presidential bid, CNN has learned.

Discussion: Think Progress, The Opinionator, The New Republic and Donklephant

Jay Carney / TIME: Swampland:
The Pastor and the Brawler — So Mike Huckabee has brought …

Discussion: Boston Globe, The New Republic, Jonathan Martin's Blogs and race42008.com

Blue Texan / Firedoglake:

Peggy Noonan: Ronald Reagan Wouldn't Make It In Today's Fundie GOP — This again. … I'm not sure either. It's funny, though, Nooner. Were you worried about this in 1998, when you wrote, … Amen! Why wouldn't God love putting SRBMs in West Germany, invading Grenada …

Peggy Noonan / Opinion Journal:
The Pulpit and the Potemkin Village

Discussion: The Anchoress, PoliGazette, No More Mister Nice Blog, Liberal Values, Political Machine, The Moderate Voice, The American Scene, Stop The ACLU, Publius Endures, QandO, Eunomia, Washington Post and Below The Beltway

Michael Crowley / The New Republic:

Hillary's New Pitch: "No Surprises" — Johnston, Iowa— Hillary just held an extraordinary press conference here after taping an interview with Iowa public television in which she introduced a provocative new theme to her candidacy: "[T]here are no surprises."

Discussion: TPM Election Central, Ben Smith's Blogs, Althouse, The Swamp, Matthew Yglesias, The Debatable Land, Spin Cycle, The Carpetbagger Report, Hot Air and The RBC

Deacon / Power Line:

HE'S NOT A DOCTOR OF THEOLOGY, HE JUST PLAYS ONE ON TV — In a post-debate interview with CBN News last month, Mike Huckabee claimed that he is uniquely qualified to lead the war on terror because he has a theology degree. Huckabee said: … The notion that a theology degree constitutes …

Discussion: The Carpetbagger Report, The Corner, MSNBC, First State Politics and Political Machine

Gateway Pundit:

MULLAHS PUNKED— So Much For That Modesty Campaign — Sadly, someone played a video switcheroo on the Iranian hardliners. — This probably didn't sit too well with the mullahs and their battle against immodesty and women. — The billboard video display was certainly not cleric approved …

Discussion: The Jawa Report and Say Anything

Kenneth P. Vogel / The Politico:

Huck's gift-givers ended up in state posts — Mike Huckabee accepted more than 90 gifts from 21 Arkansans he appointed to state posts during his decade as governor, a Politico analysis of state public records found. — Since setting his sights on the White House, those supporters …

Discussion: Guardian and Hot Air

Dan Froomkin / Washington Post:

Bush Demands Freedom to Torture — President Bush's repeated insistence that "we don't torture" appeared even more transparently bogus yesterday as the White House threatened to veto a House bill that would explicitly ban a variety of abhorrent practices. — The bill would require U.S …

Discussion: The Daily Dish, West Virginia Blue, Washington Wire, Political Machine and normblog

Andrew Sullivan / The Daily Dish:

How Awful Is Mark Penn? — This awful: — Ezra: … What arguments? The only sliver of policy difference is health care mandates. The rest is "experience", "dynasty," "inevitability", "competence." No wonder their only current argument is: cocaine.