memeorandum: At the San Diego Zoo, it's showtime for a ‘show- stopper’ (Tony Perry/Los Angeles Times)

8:25 PM ET, December 22, 2007

Top Items:

For or Against Presidential Candidates — Clinton and Romney Have Highest Level of Core Opposition Among Leading Candidates — Among the leading Presidential candidates, New York Senator Hillary Clinton and former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney have the highest level of core opposition among voters.

Discussion: Chuck Adkins, eyeon08.com, Riehl World View and Hot Air

Rsinderbrand / CNN Political Ticker:

Romney and McCain campaigns tangle over taxes — NORTH CONWAY, New Hampshire (CNN) - Mitt Romney told a crowd in notoriously tax-averse New Hampshire Saturday that rival John McCain had “failed Reagan 101″ by not supporting President Bush's tax cuts, the latest in a series of new attacks …

Discussion: The Swamp and FullosseousFlap's Dental Blog

Christopher Cooper / Wall Street Journal:

Obama, Edwards Go Long — Edging in Iowa, Campaigns Look Beyond — Having drawn Hillary Clinton into a trench war in Iowa, her Democratic rivals are stepping up the pressure in New Hampshire and beyond. — Both Barack Obama and John Edwards devoted some last-minute campaign time here this past week …

Discussion: The New Republic

Associated Press:
Romney accuses McCain of ‘failing’ Reagan's legacy by opposing Bush's tax cuts

Discussion: The Politico and Marc Ambinder

Washington Post:

Hillary Clinton Embraces Her Husband's Legacy — After months of discussion within her campaign over how heavily she should draw on her husband's legacy, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton is closing out her Iowa and New Hampshire campaigns in a tight embrace of Bill Clinton's record …

Joe Gandelman / The Moderate Voice:

Bill Clinton: Hillary's Political Boon Or Political Albatross? — To many, the 2000 Presidential election was really about “the Bush restoration” — bringing back the Bushes after the unseemly interruption of Democrat Bill Clinton's Presidency. And now there are growing signs that the 2008 primary …

Discussion: CBS News and A Chequer-Board of Nights …

Ed Morrissey / Captain's Quarters:
What Choice Was There? — The Washington Post reports …

Discussion: Doug Ross

John Sasso / Boston Globe:
Why Clinton will prevail — SOME RAINDROPS have started to fall …

Discussion: TalkLeft, DownWithTyranny! and Washington Blade

Tim Weiner / New York Times:

Hoover Planned Mass Jailing in 1950 — A newly declassified document shows that J. Edgar Hoover, the longtime director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, had a plan to suspend habeas corpus and imprison some 12,000 Americans he suspected of disloyalty.

Discussion: Power Line and Cliff Schecter

Ben Smith / The Politico:

Obama hits Edwards on 527 group — In Oskaloosa this morning, in response to a questioner who said he saw Hillary fading and the choice as being between Obama and Edwards, the Illinois senator suggested that outside spending on Edwards' behalf is part of a broader pattern with his rival.

Discussion: TalkLeft

John McCormick / The Swamp:
Obama calls on Edwards to stop 527 ad

Discussion: The Politico, Ben Smith's Blogs and TPM Election Central

Jonathan Martin / Jonathan Martin's Blogs:

Huck offers olive branch to Rush, asks for him to get in touch — SIOUX CITY, Iowa — The best-talking Republican politician in America has a message for the best-talking conservative voice in the country: Let's talk to one another. — Mike Huckabee, taking questions from reporters …

Discussion: The Carpetbagger Report, NewsBusters.org and Outside The Beltway

David Barstow / New York Times:

A Request for Clemency Leads to a Political Issue for Huckabee — LITTLE ROCK, Ark. — It took a jury less than 15 minutes to convict Eugene Fields of driving while intoxicated, his fourth such conviction in less than five years. Mr. Fields, whose pickup crashed after he drank 12 beers …

Discussion: Power Line

Logan Murphy / Crooks and Liars:

Republican Video: I've Got A Crush On Fred Thompson's Politics — We already know Republicans have a hard time being funny, and even being catchy is a stretch for them, but when I found this hilarious video at Daily Kos I thought C&L readers would like to share in the unintended laughs.

Mike Allen / The Politico:

Huck vows to review controversial shooting — Mike Huckabee vowed in Iowa Saturday that one of his first actions as president would be to review what he called the “absurd” convictions of Border Patrol agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean - and suggested he might pardon them immediately.

Discussion: Hot Air

Stephen F. Hayes / Weekly Standard:

Thompson's Waterloo (Iowa) — Is he Napoleon or Wellington? — Waterloo, Iowa — Forty-five minutes before Fred Thompson spoke here last Tuesday night, young volunteers greeted reporters and potential Iowa voters just inside the front door of the Waterloo Center for the Arts.

Press Association:

Blair converts to Catholicism — Tony Blair has converted to Roman Catholicism, sources close to the former prime minister said today. — He was welcomed into the church in a service last night. — The move comes after years of speculation that Mr Blair, whose wife Cherie and four children …

Discussion: The Daily Dish

Chuck Todd / MSNBC:

Huckabee dogged by immigration issue — From NBC/NJ's Adam Aigner-Treworgy — ON THE ROAD, IA - So what happened to Tom Tancredo's Iowa supporters after his ‘big announcement’ earlier this week? — We know that the former-candidate threw his support behind Mitt Romney …

Tony Perry / Los Angeles Times:

At the San Diego Zoo, it's showtime for a ‘show- stopper’ — SAN DIEGO — Zhen Zhen, the newest charismatic mega-vertebrate at the San Diego Zoo, was climbing a downed tree branch in her grotto Friday when she went wobbly and plopped to the ground, 3 feet below.

Discussion: WhirledView and Hullabaloo