memeorandum: CNN/WMUR Poll: Trump leads, Cruz climbs in New Hampshire (Eric Bradner/CNN)

9:10 AM ET, January 21, 2016

Top Items:

Maggie Haberman / New York Times:

Bob Dole Warns of ‘Cataclysmic’ Losses With Ted Cruz, and Says Donald Trump Would Do Better — Bob Dole, the former Kansas senator and 1996 Republican presidential nominee, has never been fond of Senator Ted Cruz of Texas. But in an interview Wednesday, Mr. Dole said that the party would suffer …

Harper Neidig / The Hill:

Trump: Cruz is ‘nervous’ — Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump says rival Ted Cruz is worried the election is slipping away from him. — “He's very concerned because his poll numbers are going down and he looks very, very nervous,” Trump told CNN's Don Lemon on Wednesday evening.

Discussion: Political Wire and Jammie Wearing Fools

Byron York / Washington Examiner:

What Palin does for Trump, and to Cruz — AMES, Iowa — In September, when Donald Trump appeared before a giant rally in Dallas, a person in the Trump circle described the coming months of the campaign. Sure, a big event like Dallas got headlines, but Trump knew he couldn't do the same rally …

Discussion: New York Times, Conservative Review, Hot Air, Mediaite, The Week and TODAY.com

Eric Bradner / CNN:

CNN/WMUR Poll: Trump leads, Cruz climbs in New Hampshire — Washington (CNN)Donald Trump holds a 20-point lead in the New Hampshire Republican primary, a new CNN/WMUR poll shows. — Behind him, there's still a scrum for second place — with support for No. 2, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, on the rise.

Discussion: NBC News, Raw Story, Facebook and The Last Refuge

Eli Stokols / Politico:

The Bush blame game begins — They think he wasted money on everything from an iPad-sized video mailer to direct mail for donors in states that don't yet matter. They think his attacks on Marco Rubio are doing more harm than good. And they worry that, at the end, all he will have accomplished …

Discussion: Political Wire and NBC News

Rich Lowry / Politico:

The Battle for the Soul of the Right — At the moment, the Republican establishment is relevant to the presidential nomination battle only as an epithet. — Two weeks from the Iowa caucuses, the fight for the Republican nomination isn't so much a vicious brawl between the grass roots …

Discussion: Daily Wire

ABC News:

Palin's Re-Emergence Underscores GOP Split — If the Republican Party is on the verge of an implosion, Sarah Palin may have been the one who lit the fuse. — Palin's complicated relationship with GOP leaders over the past eight years is a microcosm of the party's broader struggles with its most restive members.

Discussion: Politico and WCDC-TV

Burgess Everett / Politico:

GOP party elders aren't rallying for Rubio — Republican Party elders in Congress have nothing but nice things to say about Marco Rubio, but the Florida senator is encountering a nagging problem — they're not ready to coalesce around him as the man to stop Donald Trump or Ted Cruz from marching to the nomination.

Discussion: Political Wire

Lauren Fox / Talking Points Memo:
Glenn Beck To Hit Campaign Trail In Iowa With Ted Cruz

Discussion: Des Moines Register, Daily Kos and Washington Monthly

Adam C. Smith / Tampa Bay Times:
Florida poll: Trump 48%!!, Cruz 16%, Rubio 11%, Bush 10%

Discussion: Truth Revolt, Business Insider, The Daily Caller, Hot Air and No More Mister Nice Blog

Sahil Kapur / Bloomberg Business:
Cruz Works to Cut Rubio's Lifeline in New Hampshire

Discussion: Politico, ThinkProgress, Slantpoint and Washington Post

Jonathan Swan / The Hill:
Donors changing tune on Trump

Discussion: Politico, Political Wire, Washington Post, RedState, Daily Wire, Hot Air and Washington Times

CNN:
New Hampshire CNN/WMUR poll results: Republicans - CNNPolitics.com

Discussion: The Resurgent, Washington Post, Mediaite, Talking Points Memo, Political Wire and RedState

Florida Atlantic University:
Polls — Donald Trump has surged nearly 12 points …

Discussion: RedState, The Last Refuge and Naked Politics

Jessica Taylor / NPR:

‘Top Secret’ Email Revelation Changes ‘Nothing,’ Clinton Says — Hillary Clinton dismissed a report that emails she sent on her private email server contained a high level of classified material. — Speaking to NPR's Ari Shapiro in San Antonio, Texas, on Wednesday, the Democratic presidential …

Discussion: NBC News, Townhall.com, Mediaite, Washington Free Beacon, National Review, Fox News Insider, Politico, Daily Wire, Business Insider, RedState and Viking Pundit

New York Post:

Hillary Clinton blames the vast right-wing conspiracy for her e-mail woes — Now the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy has its anti-Clinton tentacles all the way into the Obama administration. At least, that's the new excuse from Team Hillary on why the e-mail mess keeps getting worse.

Anita Kumar / McClatchy Washington Bureau:
Clinton campaign accuses Obama appointee of trying to smear Clinton

Discussion: Power Line, Taylor Marsh, Washington Free Beacon, Allen B. West, RedState, American Spectator, Le·gal In·sur·rec· tion and Politico

Peter Beinart / The Atlantic:

Sarah Palin's Circle of Victimhood — In endorsing Donald Trump, Sarah Palin faced a challenge. How does a woman who has built her brand on hating cultural elites endorse a billionaire, Manhattan TV star? Her answer: by turning Trump into a victim. — She began by reasserting her own victimhood.

Discussion: The Daily Caller, Daily Kos, Salon, Shakesville and BuzzFeed

Julian Hattem / The Hill:

McCain: ‘I respect’ Palin's decision on Trump — Sen. John McCain declined on Wednesday to criticize Sarah Palin, his former running mate, for endorsing Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump. — “I respect her view,” McCain (R-Ariz.) told reporters in the Senate on Wednesday …

Discussion: Talking Points Memo, Hot Air, Patterico's Pontifications and The Week

Michael Barbaro / New York Times:
The Most Mystifying Lines of Sarah Palin's Endorsement Speech

Discussion: Guardian, Mediaite, Wall Street Journal, AMERICAblog NewsAMERICAblog …, Political Insider … and Washington Post

Moe Lane / RedState:

CNN announces sudden Democratic town hall debate on a Monday during prime time! — The debate will be 9 PM on Monday, January 25th - and on CNN, to boot. It's going to be a town hall type format, which as Vanity Fair notes is something that the DNC would not normally be involved in anyway.

Discussion: New York Times

Annie Karni / Politico:
Bill Clinton questions Hillary's Super Tuesday plan

Discussion: Bloomberg Business and Political Wire

Tina Nguyen / Vanity Fair:
Hillary Clinton Gets One More Shot to Take Down Sanders

Discussion: Hot Air, Algemeiner.com, Weasel Zippers, New York Times, Slantpoint, RedState, Truth Revolt, Washington Free Beacon, Daily Wire, Breitbart and Power Line

Nick Corasaniti / New York Times:

Bernie Sanders, and Simon and Garfunkel, Put Focus on Voters — With the help of the Simon and Garfunkel song “America,” Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont has released a powerful 60-second commercial in Iowa that seeks to remind his supporters how far he, and they, have come — and to inspire them anew to caucus for him on Feb. 1.

Discussion: The Week

Anthony Brooks / WBUR:
WBUR Poll: Large Share Of N.H.'s Undeclared Voters Yet To Settle On A Candidate Or A Party

Discussion: Cincinnati.com and Hot Air

Einer Elhauge / Salon:

Ted Cruz is not eligible to run for president: A Harvard Law professor close-reads the Constitution — The closer you study the Constitution, the weaker Ted Cruz's case squares with the actual meaning of “natural-born” — The argument that Ted Cruz is eligible to run for president initially looked strong …

Discussion: CANNONFIRE and ProfessorBainbridge.com

Doug Stanglin / USA Today:

Sarah Palin: Arrested son was ‘hardened’ by war — Former Alaska governor Sarah Palin appeared to suggest Wednesday that her son's arrest this week on domestic violence charges stemmed from the effects of his experiences as a soldier in Iraq. — Track Palin, a 26-year-old Iraq veteran …

Discussion: New York Daily News, Yahoo Politics, Raw Story, The Daily Caller, Little Green Footballs and Right Wing Watch

Nolan D. McCaskill / Politico:
Palin links son's domestic-violence arrest to Obama's neglect of veterans

Discussion: addictinginfo.org, Weasel Zippers and The Hill

Oregonian:

Oregon standoff: One of protesters has murder conviction — Neil Sigurd Wampler (center, green coat), 68, is among the protesters taking part in the armed occupation at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge outside Burns. Here is pictured here behind Ammon Bundy, who is speaking at a morning news conference.

Discussion: Talking Points Memo and Defend Your Base

Kimm Fesenmaier / The California Institute …:

Caltech Researchers Find Evidence of a Real Ninth Planet — Caltech researchers have found evidence of a giant planet tracing a bizarre, highly elongated orbit in the outer solar system. The object, which the researchers have nicknamed Planet Nine, has a mass about 10 times that of Earth …