memeorandum: Hillary's New Pitch: "No Surprises" (Michael Crowley/The New Republic)

5:30 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: Weekly Standard, American Spectator, Riehl World View, HorseRaceBlog, The Corner, Talking Points Memo, Hot Air, Associated Press, RealClearPolitics, TPM Election Central, eyeon08.com, Below The Beltway, 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

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

CNN Political Ticker:

S.C. poll: Huckabee bolts to top of GOP; Obama cuts into Clinton lead — WASHINGTON (CNN) - Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee surged to the top among Republican presidential candidates in South Carolina, while Sen. Hillary Clinton's lead over Sen. Barack Obama among Democrats narrowed since July in that state, according to a new poll.

Discussion: Outside The Beltway, Balloon Juice, 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

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

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, race42008.com, eyeon08.com and RIGHTWINGSPARKLE

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

Discussion: The Daily Dish and Jonathan Martin's Blogs

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

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

Blue Texan / Firedoglake: Peggy Noonan: Ronald Reagan Wouldn't Make It In Today's Fundie GOP

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

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 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

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

Discussion: New York Times, AMERICAblog and The Democratic Daily

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

Michael Hirsh / Newsweek:

Why Isn't Gore Running? — The White House is the place to battle global warming. — There he was again on the world stage—in Oslo this time—celebrating his Nobel Peace Prize with singer Melissa Etheridge and actress Uma Thurman, the Hollywood hottie who called him "adorable" …

Matthew Yglesias:
The Case for Gore — Michael Hirsch says Al Gore should run for president.

Discussion: Washington Monthly

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

Rich Lowry / National Review:

Huckacide — Editor's note: This column is available exclusively through King Features Syndicate. For permission to reprint or excerpt this copyrighted material, please contact: kfsreprint@hearstsc.com, or phone 800-708-7311, ext 246). — The ghost of Howard Dean haunts the pundit class.

Discussion: The Daily Dish, The Anonymous Liberal, Blogometer, Swords Crossed, Balloon Juice, Eunomia, Riehl World View, Cold Fury, Hugh Hewitt's TownHall Blog, The New Republic and Sadly, No!

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

Katharine Q. Seelye / New York Times:

Apologies From the Heart (of Darkness?) — It must be the season of apologies in presidential politics. — Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton apologized personally to Senator Barack Obama on Thursday for a top adviser's public suggestion that Republicans would go after Mr. Obama for his youthful drug use.

Discussion: New Hampshire Union Leader, NY Daily News, Spin Cycle, Political Machine, MSNBC, Horses Mouth, CNN Political Ticker, Ben Smith's Blogs and The Swamp

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.