Top Items:
John Harwood / Wall Street Journal:
Giuliani Loses Lead In Republican Race — Ex-Mayor Is Tied With Romney In National Poll of Republicans — WASHINGTON — Rudy Giuliani has lost his national lead in the Republican presidential race, creating the party's most competitive nomination fight in decades just two weeks before voting starts.
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Washington Post:
Poll: Iowa's GOP Race is Battle Between Huckabee, Romney — The race for Iowa's Republican caucuses has narrowed to a two-person battle between former governors Mike Huckabee (Ark.) and Mitt Romney (Mass.), with Huckabee now perched atop the field, propelled by a big jump in support among religious women.
IMAO.US:
The Official IMAO Republican Primary Endorsement — IMAO has long been a revered conservative institution, and we thought it would be neglectfully of us not to weigh in on who the Republicans should nominate for president. Surveys show that most Republicans are not certain of their current choice …
Deacon / Power Line:
MORE MUSH FROM THE HUCK — This was Mike Huckabee's comment …
MORE MUSH FROM THE HUCK — This was Mike Huckabee's comment …
Discussion:
The Corner
David Freddoso / The Corner:
That Rasmussen Poll... ...in Iowa suggests that John McCain …
That Rasmussen Poll... ...in Iowa suggests that John McCain …
Discussion:
Rasmussen Reports, TPM Election Central, Weekly Standard, Riehl World View, MyDD, Captain's Quarters and PoliGazette
Tom Tancredo / You Decide 08!:
TOM TANCREDO TO DROP OUT OF PRESIDENTIAL RACE — Republican presidential candidate Tom Tancredo plans to drop out of the race during an announcement Thursday afternoon in Des Moines, Iowa, GOP sources close to the campaign have told FOX News. — Tancredo, who has aggressively pushed …
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George Merritt / Associated Press:
Tancredo to abandon presidential bid — DENVER - Republican Rep. Tom Tancredo, whose forceful opposition to illegal immigration vaulted him to national prominence, plans to announce he is abandoning his long-shot bid for the presidency, a person close to Tancredo said Wednesday.
Jonathan Martin / The Politico:
Tancredo to get out? — Tom Tancredo has scheduled a press conference in Des Moines tomorrow afternoon to make a “major announcement regarding the campaign,” according to a media advisory his campaign sent out today. — Asked whether Tancredo intended to drop out of the race …
Greg Sargent / Horses Mouth:
Krugman Dogged By Rumor That His Son Works For Hillary — Regular readers of this site will recognize that this headline is a tongue-in-cheek one, I hope. But as it happens, Krugman is being dogged by such a rumor, though it happens to be false. — Over at Election Central …
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National Enquirer:
UPDATE: NATIONAL ENQUIRER WORLD EXCLUSIVE: JOHN EDWARDS LOVE CHILD SCANDAL! — Presidential candidate John Edwards is caught up in a love child scandal, a blockbuster ENQUIRER investigation has discovered. — The ENQUIRER has learned exclusively that Rielle Hunter, a woman linked to Edwards …
Discussion:
Marc Ambinder, Politics1, DBKP, Wonkette, Riehl World View, Tim Worstall Tabloid Edition, THE REACTION, Clayton Cramer's BLOG, MoJoBlog, The Corner, Doug Ross, Right Wing News, Vox Popoli, QandO, Althouse, Outside The Beltway, Comments from Left Field, PoliGazette, Fausta's blog and Classical Values
Michael Calderone / The Politico:
NY Times changes CIA headline for WH — The New York Times has changed the subheadline in Wednesday's front-page story on the CIA's destruction of secret interrogation tapes, following a formal request by the White House. — The correction has already been made online …
Discussion:
White House, HorsesAss.Org, Wonkette, Firedoglake, Democrats.com, The Carpetbagger Report, The Raw Story and TIME: Swampland
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David M. Herszenhorn / New York Times:
Reid's Relationship With Bush Enters Deep Freeze — WASHINGTON — Harry Reid, the Senate majority leader, has called President Bush a loser and a liar and has referred to him derisively as King George. Mr. Reid has also apologized — but only, he likes to point out, for the “loser” line.
Discussion:
The Crypt's Blogs, Los Angeles Times, Macsmind, Right Voices, Don Surber, The Hill, MSNBC and BrothersJudd Blog
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Brian Faughnan / Weekly Standard:
Does Harry Reid Need a Psychiatrist?
Does Harry Reid Need a Psychiatrist?
Discussion:
The Crypt's Blogs
Roger Simon / The Politico:
Fred Thompson: Lazy as charged — WAVERLY, Iowa — When is retail politics not retail politics? When candidates refuse to get off their big buses and go do it. — Fred Thompson rolled into this small town on the Cedar River in north-central Iowa on a giant brown bus Tuesday.
Adi Ignatius / Time:
Person of the Year: Vladimir Putin — A Tsar Is Born — No one is born with a stare like Vladimir Putin's. The Russian President's pale blue eyes are so cool, so devoid of emotion that the stare must have begun as an affect, the gesture of someone who understood that power might be achieved …
Discussion:
Weekly Standard, Associated Press, Boston Herald, Fausta's blog, The Nation, PERRspectives Blog, AMERICAN DIGEST, The Sundries Shack, The Campaign Spot, Gates of Vienna, Doug Ross, Truthdig, BLACKFIVE, Captain's Quarters, The Moderate Voice, Macsmind, Wonkette, The Sideshow, Sweetness & Light, On Deadline, The Glittering Eye, RealClearPolitics, Romenesko and Think Progress
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John Podhoretz / Commentary:
“Mitt Romney...Helped Save My Daughter” — At first blush, this seems like a genuinely great campaign ad — the story of how Mitt Romney basically closed down his business, Bain Capital, in 1996 when the daughter of one of his partners went missing in New York City and Romney sent dozens …
Mark Finkelstein / NewsBusters.org:
Huckabee Iowa Manager: ‘War on Terror a Theological War’ — Mike Huckabee might want to “revise and extend” the remarks of his Iowa campaign manager. Appearing on this evening's Tucker on MSNBC, Bob Vander Plaats stated that “we're fighting a radical religion in Islam” and that “the war on terror is a theological war.”
Brent Budowsky / The Hill:
Torture Tapes are the Watergate of Our Times — As I write these words on the morning of Wednesday, Dec. 19, high- and low-level officials of the Bush administration involved in torture, and the destruction of the torture tapes, are consulting their criminal lawyers as The New York Times reports …
Logan Murphy / Crooks and Liars:
Tucker Attacks John Edwards For Remembering Homeless Vets In Holiday Ad — On Wednesday's Tucker, the hopefully soon to be unemployed host gets riled up because Democratic presidential candidate, John Edwards, had the nerve to mention homeless veterans and those less fortunate in his holiday ad.
U.S. House Judiciary Committee:
Statement of Congressman Ted Poe (TX-02) before the Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security of the House Committee on the Judiciary — Good morning, Mr. Chairman, Members of the subcommittee. Thank you for quickly organizing and holding this important hearing.