The Clintons and History  —  WASHINGTON — There's an old joke people here in the capital like to tell about Charles E. Schumer, the New York senator, and over the years I'm sure it's been used to describe other politicians, as well: The most dangerous place to stand in Washington …

USAT/Gallup Poll: McCain jumps to lead; Clinton regains advantage  —  Both winners in last week's New Hampshire primary now lead in the USA TODAY/Gallup national poll of the Republican and Democratic presidential nomination races.  —  Sen. John McCain has jumped ahead of the other Republican contenders.

New Poll: Democratic race in Nevada a dead heat  —  A new poll by the Reno Gazette-Journal shows a neck-and-neck three-way race among Democrats for Saturday's caucus.  On the Republican side, U.S. Sen. John McCain has taken his first lead in Nevada of the election season, and Mitt Romney …

Bothersome Intel on Iran  —  In public, President Bush has been careful to reassure Israel and other allies that he still sees Iran as a threat, while not disavowing his administration's recent National Intelligence Estimate.  That NIE, made public Dec. 3, embarrassed the administration …

Clinton holds solid lead in California  —  The poll of 384 likely Democratic primary voters, conducted by telephone Jan. 11-13, shows the New York senator at 47 percent, comfortably ahead of Illinois Sen. Barack Obama's 31 percent and former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards' 10 percent.

Responding to Recession  —  Suddenly, the economic consensus seems to be that the implosion of the housing market will indeed push the U.S. economy into a recession, and that it's quite possible that we're already in one.  As a result, over the next few weeks we'll be hearing a lot about plans for economic stimulus.

Financial advisers' No. 1 worry: A Democrat in the White House  —  Nothing worries financial advisers more than the prospect of a Democrat's being elected president in November, according to a quarterly poll by Brinker Capital Inc.  —  The fourth-quarter edition of the Brinker Barometer …

Father of Marine killed in Iraq to run against Patrick Murphy  —  Freshman Rep. Patrick Murphy (D-Pa.), the only Iraq war veteran in Congress, is facing the prospect of a re-election fight against a colonel in the Marine reserves whose son was killed in Iraq last year.

Obama's soundtrack  —  So I've now spent way too much of my morning trying to report out the New York Post's item that Obama had sexist entrance music: … It's a provocative scene.  But I can't find any evidence that it happened, though it does seem to have been the subject of chatter among staffers of both campaigns.