A month after decamping from John McCain's flagging presidential campaign, Republican media strategists Russ Schriefer and Stuart Stevens have joined Mitt Romney's merry band of image-makers. As reported today by The Washington Post, the two respected veterans of President Bush's 2000 and 2004 presidential campaigns will help Romney craft not just TV spots but online media, an increasingly integral part of the 2008 campaign. Stevens and Schriefer will work alongside Romney media guru Alex Castellanos as part of an image team Romney's campaign calls Midnight Ride Media.

"This is part of our effort to add even more bandwidth to a stellar media team," said Romney spokesman Kevin Madden. "Stu and Russ are incredibly creative, talented and well-respected professionals, so everyone is thrilled they will be part of Team Romney."

Last year, Stevens and Schriefer worked for Kerry Healey's unsuccessful gubernatorial bid in Massachusetts, producing some aggressive, controversial spots targeting Deval Patrick. Some political analysts argued that the ads backfired because they were too negative.

Hillary Clinton can talk for hours about the intricacies of health care policy and can disavow her vote authorizing the Iraq war without apologizing for it.

But can she be funny?

TV viewers can judge for themselves, after the leader for the Democratic presidential nomination tried to get a few yucks this week.

Thursday night on "The Late Show with David Letterman," a rite of passage for presidential candidates, she listed her "Top Ten Campaign Promises."

Among them: Number 9: Each year on my birthday, every American gets a cupcake. Number 6: My vice president will never shoot anybody in the face.

Today, she taped a segment on "The Ellen Degeneres Show," scheduled to air Tuesday. Clinton presented the comedienne with a campaign survival kit, including a hair styling kit, Sharpies for signing autographs, and a copy of "Running for President for Dummies," according to an account in The Caucus, the political blog of The New York Times.

By Brian C. Mooney, Globe Staff

Former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani is the middle of a week-long break from his presidential campaign before cranking up after Labor Day. That's when a four- or five-month sprint to the early nomination contests begins.

The Republican's most recent public appearances were Monday and he doesn't have another event until Tuesday, when he is scheduled to be in Mississippi, which is among the later contests, with a March 11 primary.

On Wednesday, Giuliani plans to be in New Hampshire for the GOP debate at the University of New Hampshire.

"He's taking a bit of breather" in New York, an aide said.

Most other candidates, Democrats and Republicans, are taking a day or more off in the run-up to Labor Day, the traditional kickoff to the fall campaign season, when the pace will quicken. But Giuliani is taking the closest thing to a vacation.

Going forward, Giuliani's itinerary has at least one very distinctive side trip, Sept. 19 to London to deliver the inaugural Margaret Thatcher Atlantic Bridge lecture. The Atlantic Bridge is a conservative think tank that promotes British-US links. Giuliani is also planning to raise some campaign coin (the maximum individual donation would be about 1,140 pounds sterling) among US expats.

By Susan Milligan, Globe Staff

Larry E. Craig should step down as Idaho's senior US senator to spare the GOP and his state from further embarrassment, Republican presidential contender Mike Huckabee said today.

Craig's troubles -- which began with the revelation earlier this week that the married senator pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct after an undercover police officer arrested him for "lewd'' behavior in a men's restroom -- won't create problems for the party as a whole unless the GOP applies a double standard to itself, Huckabee told reporters in a conference call.

"If, as individual Republicans, we sort of shrug our shoulders and say, 'No big deal,' ... we've got a problem," the former Arkansas governor said. Republicans don't accept it if Democrats do something that's against the law, so the GOP cannot dismiss it "when people in our party are engaging in such kinds of behavior.''

While Republican officials say Craig could resign as soon as today, Arizona Senator John McCain is the only other presidential candidate to have called on Craig to do so. Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney has condemned Craig, who resigned as Romney's presidential campaign co-chairman in the US Senate and in Idaho.

Huckabee, the former governor of Arkansas, has strong credentials with the conservative wing of his party, but has been dwarfed in the polls by Romney, former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani and McCain.

But recently, Huckabee has seen some encouraging signs for his candidacy, and said yesterday he is expanding his staff and organization to run a more aggressive national campaign. Huckabee said his online fundraising has quadrupled since the Iowa straw poll, in which Huckabee finished a surprising second after Romney.

Huckabee also picked up the endorsement this week of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers. It was the first time in the union's 119-year history that it handed out endorsements to both a Democrat and a Republican.

"It shows there's at least one Republican who can really speak to and capture the votes the Republicans have missed,'' Huckabee said.

John McCain is returning to the roots of his heroic life story to try to revive his flagging presidential bid.

In a new video, "John McCain: Courageous Service," he describes his decorated career as a Navy pilot and the six years he spent as a POW after being shot down over North Vietnam.

"The transcendent issue of the 21st century is the struggle against radical Islamic extremism and I, with considerable ego, say that I'm the best prepared and qualified to meet this challenge," the Arizona senator says in the video.

The 12-minute video was screened Thursday night for supporters at his New Hampshire headquarters in Manchester and is available on his website.

"This video displays the courage and faith John McCain has shown throughout his entire lifetime of service and sacrifice," Peter Spaulding, New Hampshire chairman for McCain, said in a statement issued by the campaign today. "It tells the important story of a man whose courage in the face of adversity and abilities as a leader make him the most prepared candidate to be our next commander-in-chief."

The statement also included this testimonial, from Paul Chevalier, co-chairman of New Hampshire Veterans for McCain: "This film reminds people of John McCain's courage and devotion to his country. Those watching, including myself, were visibly moved by the testimony of family, friends, and the band of brothers who served with him."

Once the front-runner for the Republican nomination, McCain is now third or even fourth in most polls, behind Rudy Giuliani, Fred Thompson, and Mitt Romney. McCain cut his campaign staff after spending most of his campaign war chest and not raising as much as expected.

His campaign announced today that he will return to New Hampshire on Tuesday for events including a student forum at Concord High School and a town hall meeting in Bow.

Mitt Romney, already leading the Republican pack in Iowa, is trying to make hay from the gay marriage issue bubbling up in the first caucus state.

After a judge on Thursday struck down Iowa's law banning same-sex marriage, Romney quickly condemned the ruling and renewed his call for a federal constitutional amendment defining marriage as the union of one man and one woman.

Already today, his campaign has issued statements with reports that he was the first candidate to react to the decision and that the National Review Online is calling gay marriage a "new front-burner issue" in Iowa.

In the wake of the ruling, the Associated Press reports, the first gay couple wed this morning in a ceremony officiated by a Des Moines minister.

Romney has quite a bit of history on this issue, having failed while governor to ban same-sex marriages in Massachusetts, the first state to allow them. Some have also questioned his consistency on the issue.

Mitt Romney, who inveighed against gay marriage while governor in Massachusetts, wasted no time today excoriating a court decision in the first-caucus state of Iowa that struck down its law banning same-sex marriage.

"The ruling in Iowa today is another example of an activist court and unelected judges trying to redefine marriage and disregard the will of the people as expressed through Iowa's Defense of Marriage Act," Romney said in a statement issued by his campaign. "This once again highlights the need for a Federal Marriage Amendment to protect the traditional definition of marriage as between one man and one woman."

Six gay couples in Iowa, where Romney is leading Republican presidential contenders in the polls, had sued after being denied marriage licenses in Polk County. County officials are expected to appeal today's ruling to the Iowa Supreme Court, the Associated Press reported.

In 2004, Massachusetts became the first state to allow same-sex couples to marry after a decision by the state's highest court. Romney and other gay marriage foes failed in their bid to overturn the ruling. In June, state lawmakers voted to block a proposed constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage from going to the voters in 2008.

New polls offer more good news for John Edwards and Mitt Romney, at least in Iowa, host of the first presidential caucus.

In a poll of likely Republican caucus voters, Romney led with 35 percent, well ahead of Rudy Giuliani with 12 percent, Fred Thompson and Mike Huckabee with 11 percent each, Tom Tancredo with 9 percent, and John McCain with 7 percent.

The survey was conducted by McLaughlin & Associates for ONE Vote '08, which is trying to get candidates to address global poverty. It was conducted Aug. 20 and 21 of 500 voters and has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.5 percentage points.

Meanwhile, a poll done for Time magazine shows Edwards in first place among likely Democratic caucus-goers with 29 percent. Hillary Clinton had 24 percent, Barack Obama had 22 percent, and Bill Richardson had 11 percent.

The survey was conducted by SRBI among 519 registered voters between Aug. 22 and 26 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 5 percentage points.

By Michael Kranish, Globe Staff and James W. Pindell, Globe correspondent

Fred Thompson, the actor and former Tennessee senator whose flirtation with a presidential bid has frustrated some supporters, will file papers to officially enter the race next Thursday, his campaign manager told key backers this afternoon.

"Fred is definitely is going to make the race," campaign manager Bill Lacy told members of the Thompson campaign's national finance team in a conference call. "We are in this race to win."
Lacy said Thompson will also announce his campaign on a webcast next Thursday. After that he is expected to visit Iowa Sept. 7, New Hampshire on Sept. 8 and 9, and South Carolina after that. There will also be events Sept. 13-15 in Florida and Tennessee, Lacy said.

Thompson's national finance chairman Phil Martin said the campaign has raised over $6 million already, but that "September needs to be a big month" in raising campaign funds.

Thompson's entry in the race has been a foregone conclusion for weeks, but his refusal to definitively declare his candidacy had begun to irritate some backers who were concerned he had lost precious momentum. Nonetheless, in most national polls he is in second place among Republican hopefuls, trailing Rudy Giuliani and leading Mitt Romney.
.
Political analysts cautioned, however, that Thompson's strong national numbers may stem in part from his high name recognition due to his standing as a star of movies and television. His poll numbers are lower in some early primary and caucus states.

For those political junkies keeping track, the big labor endorsement scorecard now stands at two for Hillary Clinton, one for John Edwards, and one for Chris Dodd.

Edwards this afternoon announced he is being backed by the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America, with more than 520,000 members. The formal endorsement will be made at a rally of union members on Sept. 8 in New Hampshire.

"Our endorsement is based on the Senator's outspoken support for all of organized labor and his focus on America's working families," Carpenters President Douglas J. McCarron said in a statement provided by the Edwards campaign. "In addition to his support for labor, our leadership was particularly impressed with the Senator's strong stand on trade."

"We also believe that Senator Edwards will have a great appeal in a general election," McCarron continued.

Earlier today, the Clinton campaign announced the support of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers. The machinists union is among the nation’s largest industrial trade unions, representing more than 700,000 active and retired members in airline, aerospace, manufacturing, railroad, woodworking, and shipbuilding industries, the campaign said.

Earlier this week, she announced the support of the 125,000-member United Transportation Union, the first endorsement by a national union in the 2008 campaign.

Dodd, the senator from Connecticut, picked up the endorsement of the International Association of Fire Fighters. The 280,000-strong group supported Massachusetts Senator John F. Kerry in 2004.

Unions, which are a major source of volunteers and money for Democrats, are announcing their choices leading up to Labor Day. The individual unions are making their choices after the AFL-CIO executive council decided Aug. 8 to defer an endorsement -- freeing its 55 affiliates to make their own decisions -- the day after 17,000 union members crowded Soldier Field in Chicago to hear the Democratic hopefuls make their pitches. The executive committee put off an endorsement because at least two-thirds of its members could not settle on a candidate.

By Marcella Bombardieri, Globe Staff

Hillary hearts New Hampshire.

Not surprising, exactly, since it's the first primary state, but Senator Clinton stressed her affection for the Granite State in a brief phone interview about her plans for this weekend's campaign swing.

To kick off the fall campaign, she and husband Bill will hold rallies in Concord and Portsmouth on Sunday before traveling to Iowa on Labor Day.

In 1992, it was New Hampshire where Bill Clinton, then an underdog candidate, became the "Comeback Kid."

Today, Hillary Clinton is leading in the polls in the state, but she said it's the stories she has heard on her 13 campaign visits that keep her "fired up" about why she's running.

She talked about a woman whose daughter had to stay in college while she was dying of cancer, in order to keep her health insurance. She talked about a family being evicted from their home amidst the mortgage crisis. And about sick children she met at Dartmouth's medical center who might benefit from stem cell research.

"I have seen the need for change in a very real and personal way," she said. "Their stories will be front and center in my White House."

As the campaign intensifies this fall, Clinton said she would focus more on what her priorities would be as president, and how she would accomplish them.

Barack Obama may be taking a few days off from campaigning, but don't think he's trying to keep out of the news.

For the second time in two days, Obama has penned an op-ed in a major publication outlining his views on a pressing issue. Today, it's a piece in The New York Daily News urging Congress to pass a bill that would increase pressure on the Iranian government. Obama again returns to the argument that the United States must be willing to negotiate with countries such as Iran, a source of debate between him and Hillary Clinton in recent weeks. "It's time to turn the page on a failed foreign policy," he writes. "It's time for strong diplomacy backed by common-sense measures that pressure the Iranian regime." Read the full piece here.

Yesterday, Obama had an op-ed in The Financial Times on the mortgage lending crisis, calling for sanctions on unscrupulous lenders. "If we are serious about stopping this crisis and preventing much larger turmoil in US housing markets, Washington needs to stop acting like an industry advocate and start acting like a public advocate," he wrote. Read the full piece here.

Other Democrats campaigning for the presidency have also seized on the lending crisis.

By Marcella Bombardieri, Globe Staff

Hillary Clinton said today that her presidential campaign will be more careful about vetting donors after discovering that a major fund-raiser is wanted by California authorities in connection with a fraud case.

In some of her first public comments about the controversy swirling around fund-raiser Norman Hsu, Clinton also said the campaign would return any of the contributions that Hsu raised from other donors if they turned out to be tainted.

"We have a vetting process," Clinton said in a telephone interview with the Globe. "It didn't work on this one instance apparently for any of us. There were many, many people receiving his contributions, but nobody knew there was an issue."

"Obviously, we will increase our vigilance," she added.

Clinton's campaign said Wednesday that it would give to charity $23,000 it received from Hsu and look at other money he donated. The $23,000 included contributions to Clinton's presidential campaign, her US Senate re-election, and her political action committee, the campaign said. He had been scheduled to host a major fund-raiser next month.

Clinton acted after the Los Angeles Times reported Wednesday that Hsu faced an arrest warrant in connection with a 1991 fraud case, and after the Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday reported that a San Francisco family's contribution patterns closely tracked Hsu's, suggesting that he directed their donations.
Other Democrats, including US Senators Edward M. Kennedy and John F. Kerry of Massachusetts, are also donating to charity money from Hsu or returning the donations. Federal Election Commission records show that Hsu has donated $260,000 to Democratic Party groups and federal candidates since 2004.

Hsu said Wednesday that he was unaware of the arrest warrant, but said he would stop raising money for candidates until his legal case is resolved.

Democrats faced a fund-raising scandal involving illegal contributions from Asian businesspeople when then-President Bill Clinton and Vice President Al Gore were running for reelection in 1996.

Asked if Hsu could revive those controversies, Hillary Clinton said no.

"The fact that this surprised everyone and has gone back a number of years suggests we all have to be vigilant," she said.

Hillary Clinton pocketed another big-name Massachusetts endorsement this morning, announcing that House Speaker Salvatore F. DiMasi is supporting her presidential bid.

"It's time to restore strong, competent leadership to the White House and Hillary Clinton is ready to do the job from her first day in office," DiMasi said in a statement provided by the Clinton campaign. "Senator Clinton has the experience and vision to lead America at home and abroad in these trying times."

As speaker, DiMasi helped push through the Bay State's landmark health care reform law. He has been critical of former Governor Mitt Romney, whom he accuses of taking too much credit and glossing over provisions that might not be popular with conservative as he uses the law as a feather in his cap in his bid for the Republican presidential nomination.

"We need more leaders like Speaker DiMasi, who brings everyone to the table to hammer out solutions to our toughest problems," Clinton said in a statement. "I'm honored to have his support as we take our message of change across Massachusetts and the nation."

Earlier this week, Clinton won the endorsement of DiMasi's counterpart in the Massachusetts Senate, Therese Murray.

Clinton and Barack Obama, in particular, have been jockeying for the backing of prominent Massachusetts Democrats, hoping that they can help raise money and that they can boost their campaigns in neighboring New Hampshire, which is to hold the first primary of the nominating season in January.

Mitt Romney takes running for president rather literally in his latest TV ad.

The 30-second spot, which begins airing Thursday in Iowa and New Hampshire, shows him jogging along a leafy path near his summer home on Lake Winnipesaukee, N.H.

Amid tight shots of Romney's sneakers pounding the pavement, the narrator hits the high points of his public career: Turning around the 20002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, reversing the failing fortunes of businesses at Bain Capital, and solving a budget deficit as Massachusetts governor without raising taxes (though he raised numerous fees).

"Mitt Romney -- the energy and experience to turn around Washington," the narrator says, followed by three words on the screen: "Strong. New. Leadership."

For the viewer, the ad also appears designed to demonstrate that at age 60, Romney is more than vigorous enough to bring change to the White House.

"I'm Mitt Romney and I approved this message," a visibly sweating Romney says at the end of the spot.

While Republican rival John McCain and at least two other Republicans in Congress called this afternoon for embattled US Senator Larry E. Craig to resign, Mitt Romney is demurring so far from giving the same advice to the man who until two days ago was his presidential camapign's co-chairman in the Senate.

"Governor Romney has made his views known on this subject and we have nothing to add at this point," Romney campaign spokesman Eric Fehrnstrom said in an email.

Romney's pointed words already about Craig could help insulate his presidential bid from the controversy. But in some eyes, it could end up alienating Craig's supporters in his home state of Idaho, where the senator was Romney's co-chairman.

On Monday night, Romney quickly and unceremoniously dumped Craig following news of his guilty plea and arrest by an undercover officer investigating reports of lewd behavior in a Minneapolis airport bathroom.

Tuesday, Romney harshly criticized such behavior, calling it "disgusting" and comparing it to past Washington sex scandals involving former Florida congressman Mark Foley and former President Bill Clinton.

"Some of [Romney's] people might be wondering, 'Does this create some problems when you have the senior elected official in Idaho being set upon this way," The Washington Post quotes Randy Stapilus, who has written several books on Idaho politics, as saying.

The Post points out on its political blog today that Romney has raised about $416,000 in Idaho, far more than any other presidential candidate. Idaho has the highest proportion of fellow Mormons, behind only Utah.

It's not even Labor Day yet, and the presidential race is already generating more noise every day than any sane human being can bear. Which is why a new website from the St. Petersburg Times and Congressional Quarterly looks like a true gem.

The two news organizations have teamed up to produce PolitFact, which analyzes the candidates' statements, ads, and attacks and judges their proximity to the truth. Chris Dodd's claim that Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton have followed his lead on Iraq? Half-true. Mitt Romney's claims that Democrats under President Clinton undermined defense in the 1990s? Half-true. John McCain's claim that Hillary Clinton changed her position on the troop surge in Baghdad? Barely true.

Seen something from a candidate yourself that looks dubious? Send the folks at PolitFact an email and they'll get working.

Hillary Clinton announced this morning that she and her husband, who happens to be a former president, will double-team the traditional fall campaign kickoff this weekend.

The Clinton campaign said it will be the Hillary and Bill show as they spend Sunday in New Hampshire, which will hold the nation's first primary, though it's not clear yet exactly when that will be.

They will spend Labor Day in Iowa, which will hold the first caucus. That date is also uncertain because of other states trying to move up in the nominating calendar.

The New York senator is the clear front-runner among Democratic presidential contenders, leading in national, New Hampshire, and Iowa polls.

John Edwards, on the other hand, plans to focus his efforts on Iowa. His campaign today announced a three-day series of events there, culminating in the South Central Iowa Federation of Labor's Labor Day Fest on Monday in Des Moines.

"Labor has been the most important anti-poverty movement in American history and the best tool for strengthening our middle class and helping build One America," Edwards said in a statement. "I am looking forward to spending the weekend visiting with workers and caucus goers to discuss my plans to build One America where working families have a chance to get ahead, guarantee quality, affordable health care to every American and end the war in Iraq."

To the consternation of some of his backers in New Hampshire, the former North Carolina senator is putting the vast majority of his chips in Iowa.

Barack Obama plans to take Saturday and Sunday off, then campaign in New Hampshire on Monday and Tuesday.

Even as President Bush visited New Orleans today on the second anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, Democratic and Republican presidential hopefuls alike bashed the Bush administration's response.

"If George Bush's government were as good and decent and focused as the people of New Orleans, whole parts of the city would not still look like the storm just hit," said John Edwards, the former North Carolina senator who used New Orleans as the backdrop to launch his second bid for the Democratic nomination. "This is a national disgrace."

His statement continued, "While President Bush continues to fail New Orleans, the American people and the residents of the city have not. Almost all of the progress that's been made has been the work of the proud residents of the city and generous Americans, working without and often in spite of the federal government. Our government needs to support their efforts and help get New Orleans back on its feet. And we need to do everything possible to make sure this never happens again."

Senator John McCain, the Arizona Republican, issued a statement: "The failure of government's response to Katrina is one example of why Americans have lost faith in our government. In the wake of a disaster, the federal government must move expeditiously to aid residents in need. We must use the lessons learned to ensure the federal government and Department of Homeland Security performs better in the tests of future disasters to come."

Hillary Clinton vowed that, if elected, she would immediately start on a 10-point plan to rebuild the Gulf Coast.

"Two years after the national tragedy of Katrina, we still don’t have a reliable hurricane protection system," she said in a statement. "We still haven't rebuilt many schools, hospitals, firehouses, or parks. And there are more than 60,000 families living in trailers. We need action by our federal government that leads to real, measurable improvements. We don’t need more of the Bush administration incompetence that turned a natural disaster into a national disgrace and an international embarrassment."

Mitt Romney wants you -- to come up with the new official TV ad for his presidential bid.

And his website will provide 372 photos, 44 video clips, and 36 audio files to help the creative process. But you better get cracking: The deadline for submissions is Sept. 17, and an online vote will help determine the winner.

His campaign announced the contest today, calling it unprecedented and saying that the winner will be the first amateur to have his or her work used as an official ad for a presidential campaign. The winning ad will air the week of Sept. 20 as part of the "Rally for Romney" grassroots event.

"Your ad can feature Mitt's biography, his family, his record as Governor, or his agenda for a stronger America," says the pitch on his website. "In fact, your ad can have practically any theme you choose as long as you support the campaign creatively and respectively."

The winner doesn't get any money, only the fame of creating a national political ad. "That is the prize," said Stephen Smith, the director of online communications for the Romney campaign.

He said the campaign expects many good submissions, but does not have a goal on the number of entries. "It's really hard to gauge because no one has ever done this before," he said.

The ad is supposed to be either 27 seconds or 57 seconds, leaving time for the required disclaimer in the 30-second or 60-second commercial slots. The site helpfully provides an example of a TV ad the campaign created itself.

There are some rules. You have to be at least 18 and a US citizen, but professionals not involved with the campaign can take part.

It's the latest wrinkle in the evolving world of politics and the Web, when thousands of bloggers comment on every development and when millions have access to the tools to create their own multimedia presentations. The Romney campaign is collaborating with Yahoo-owned Jumpcut.com, a multimedia editing platform.

"It is truly groundbreaking for amateur, grassroots supporters to so directly assist in introducing their candidate to the American people," Alex Castellanos, senior adviser and media strategist to Romney, said in a statement. "This contest demonstrates Romney for President's commitment to using unique and democratizing online tools to engage voters and harness the extraordinary enthusiasm of its growing team of supporters."

Democrat Chris Dodd picked up a key endorsement today, from the same union that helped propel John F. Kerry to the Democratic nomination in 2004.

The International Association of Firefighters said it will back the senator from Connecticut, who is striving to break out of the second tier of candidates and compete with Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and John Edwards.

The 280,000-strong firefighters union can funnel volunteers and money to Dodd, particularly in the early voting states. The Associated Press reported that union president Harold Schaitberger was expected to announce the endorsement at a news conference in Washington Wednesday morning. Dodd and Schaitberger were then scheduled to travel together to Iowa for a full day of appearances Thursday, followed by joint campaign events in New Hampshire on Friday and Nevada on Saturday.

Earlier today, Hillary Clinton announced that she has the support of the United Transportation Union, the first endorsement by a national union so far in the 2008 campaign.

The union represents 125,000 active and retired railroad, bus, and public transit workers. "The UTU has a long history of picking winners early. Hillary will be a president that America’s working families can count on. Time and again, as a United States senator, she has stood with us," union President Paul Thompson said in a statement released by Clinton's campaign.

While the national AFL-CIO voted this month to wait on endorsing any of the presidential contenders, its member unions are starting to pick their favorites. Obama and Edwards are also expected to win endorsements as the unions announce their choices leading up to Labor Day. Organized labor is a crucial source of money and volunteers for Democrats, both to win the nomination and in the general election campaign.

The AFL-CIO executive council decided Aug. 8 to defer an endorsement -- freeing its 55 affiliates to make their own decisions -- the day after 17,000 union members crowded Soldier Field in Chicago to hear the Democratic hopefuls make their pitches. The executive committee put off an endorsement because at least two-thirds of its members could not settle on a candidate.

In his first public comments on the Senator Larry Craig case, Mitt Romney says it is "very disappointing" that one of his supporters has "fallen short" of the standards for elected officials.

But in an appearance on CNBC's "Kudlow & Company," which is to air at 5 p.m. today,Romney stopped short of calling for Craig to resign from the US Senate. Craig did resign Monday as Senate co-chairman for Romney's campaign after confirming that he had pleaded guilty to misdemeanor disorderly conduct after his arrest by an undercover officer in a Minneapolis airport bathroom.

"Once again, we've found people in Washington have not lived up to the level of respect and dignity that we would expect for somebody that gets elected to a position of high influence," Romney said in a transcript provided by CNBC. "Very disappointing. He's no longer associated with my campaign, as you can imagine. He resigned just today. And you know, he was one of those who was helping my effort, and I'm sorry to see that he has fallen short.

Asked about calls for Craig to step down, Romney replied, "You know, I haven't made a call on that at this stage. You know, I haven't seen the allegations yet, I just heard that there was a guilty plea and he submitted a resignation as my liaison in the Senate. And you know, I'm very disappointed that he has -- he's disappointed the American people."

Romney also likened the case to sex scandals involving former Florida Congressman Mark Foley and former President Bill Clinton.

"I think it reminds us of the fact that people who are elected to public office continue to disappoint, and they somehow think that if they vote the right way on issues of significance or they can speak a good game, that we'll just forgive and forget," Romney said, according to the transcript. "And the truth of the matter is, the most important thing we expect from elected--an elected official is a level of dignity and character that we can point to for our kids and our grandkids, and say, 'Hey, someday I hope you grow up and you're someone like that person.' And we've seen disappointment in the White House, we've seen it in the Senate, we've seen it in Congress. And frankly, it's disgusting."

Mitt Romney's presidential campaign is learning a lesson today about the online world: Once something is out there, it's nigh impossible to take it back.

After news broke Monday of Senator Larry Craig's guilty plea to disorderly conduct charges following an arrest in an airport bathroom, Romney's camp announced that Craig had stepped down as his US Senate co-chairman.

It also blocked public access to a video featuring Craig on the campaign's YouTube channel.

"Once information about his stepping down from the campaign was imminent, we removed his prior testimonial from our site," Matt Rhoades, the campaign's communications director, said in an email to the Globe.

But today, liberal bloggers and others resurrected the testimonial from online limbo, and it is easily accessible to the public again on YouTube.

The video is a brief on-the-street interview with Craig in which he praises Romney's leadership in turning around the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City. Craig also says he supports Romney "first and foremost" because he has "very strong family values."

"That's something I grew up with and believe in," Craig says, also praising Romney's conservative values when it comes to the role of government.

The confluence of Hollywood and politics continues for Mitt Romney's presidential bid, revolving around his Mormon faith.

On Sunday night, "Big Love," the HBO drama about a Mormon family, included a reference to Romney. In the scene, the family's patriarch is watching TV when a woman's voice comes over the air: "He saved the Olympics. Who cares if he lets his dog ride on the roof of his car. People are just out to get him for any little thing."

Romney has generally won plaudits for leading the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, but has been criticized after a Globe profile this year told the story of how the family dog Seamus once rode in a pet carrier atop their station wagon on a trip.

Now comes word that a documentary is being filmed, called "A Mormon President," which explores anti-Mormon sentiment and features Joseph Smith, the Mormon prophet killed in 1844 soon after he announced his presidential bid.
"Very few people realize that Romney is not the first Mormon to run for the White House," producer/director Adam Christing, a member of the Mormon History Association, said in a press release. "The first Mormon to run for the Presidency was actually the first Mormon, the prophet, Joseph Smith. Those who want to understand Romney's challenge today, must first understand Joseph Smith."

Christing's publicists say the movie, due out this fall, will be a counterpoint to "September Dawn," which opened in theaters last week. The movie, criticized by many Mormons, is billed as a dramatic recreation of the Mountain Meadows massacre, the killing of 120 unarmed Arkansas pioneers by Mormon settlers in Utah in 1857. The extent of the Mormon church's involvement has long been debated.

Romney has said he has no plans to see "September Dawn."

US Senator Larry Craig resigned tonight as Senate co-chairman for Mitt Romney's presidential campaign, within hours after news broke of Craig's guilty plea to disorderly conduct after an incident in a men's bathroom.

"Senator Craig has stepped down from his role with the campaign. He did not want to be a distraction and we accept his decision," Romney's campaign said in a statement.

The Capitol Hill newspaper Roll Call reported today that Craig pleaded guilty earlier this month to a charge of disorderly conduct after he was arrested in June at Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport by a plainclothes police officer investigating lewd conduct complaints in a men's public bathroom.

Craig denied any "inappropriate conduct" and said his actions had been misconstrued.

In February, Romney announced that Craig of Idaho and Robert Bennett of Utah would serve as co-Senate liaisons.

"Both men have a unique perspective of the new generation of challenges confronting our nation," Romney said in the statement announcing their roles. "I look forward to working with them to find the solutions needed to ensure that our country remains a strong world leader."

In May, Romney's campaign announced that Craig would be co-chairman of the Romney for President Idaho Leadership Team.

"Our government is in need of a proven leader like Governor Romney, who will put in place benchmarks and streamline our government using proven conservative principles," Craig said in the Romney campaign's statement. "His message is resonating with voters and I'm looking forward to helping him on his way to winning the Republican nomination."

After reports of Craig's arrest, the Romney campaign made private a YouTube video in which Craig also praised Romney. That move was first reported by The Politico website.

Both Hillary Clinton and John Edwards today used a forum sponsored by one of the nation's most famous cancer survivors to unveil their plans to fight one of the biggest killers of Americans.

At cyclist Lance Armstrong's LIVESTRONG event in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, both of the Democratic presidential contenders offered blueprints to boost research, improve care, and support families.

Clinton vowed to double the National Cancer Institute's budget in 10 years, require insurers to cover services to prevent cancer, and to fund demonstration programs for comprehensive care.

Edwards, whose wife Elizabeth is battling breast cancer, also called for increasing federal research funding and requiring low-cost preventive screenings. He also said his plan for universal health insurance coverage would protect families from being bankrupted by the costs of treating cancer.

In separate appearances, Edwards and Clinton still managed to continue their tussle over accepting campaign contributions from powerful health care groups.

According to the Associated Press, Clinton defended her decision to accept the donations, saying she has a long track record of fighting for national health care that demonstrates she's not influenced by special interest giving. "My record shows I've been very effective in that," the New York senator said. "I believe in working with everybody and being influenced by nobody."

The AP said Edwards warned that powerful interest groups killed efforts to create universal health care when Clinton, as First Lady, spearheaded the effort of her husband's administration.

"I think the lesson from that, my lesson, is not the same as hers," Edwards said. "Her lesson is give them a seat the table. I think if you give the drug companies, insurance companies and their lobbyists a seat at the table, they'll eat all the food."

The Democratic presidential hopefuls, who had joined the chorus calling for the head of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, are wasting no time marking his resignation today.

Soon after the news bulletins started moving this morning, John Edwards issued a reminder that he called for Gonzales to step down in March, with a four-word statement: "Better late than never."

But the Democrats could live to regret that the highly unpopular Gonzales exited so early in the presidential race.

He made a convenient target, symbolizing what critics call the politicization of the Justice Department and the erosion of the rule of law. Democrats lined up to bash Gonzales at a candidates forum last month hosted by a national group of trial lawyers.

Gonzales has given conflicting answers about the firings of several federal prosecutors before the November 2006 election, and his department's memos have been blamed for leading to torture and abuse of prisoners in Iraq.

But without Gonzales in office, it could make it more difficult for voters to remember all that in the heat of the presidential campaign next year.

So today, the candidates are making sure to get in some parting shots at Gonzales and serving notice on the White House that they will closely scrutinize whoever President Bush nominates.

"I have long believed that Alberto Gonzales subverted justice to promote a political agenda, and so I am pleased that he has finally resigned today," Barack Obama said in a statement posted on his campaign website. "The President needs to nominate an Attorney General who will be the people's lawyer, not the President's lawyer, and in an Obama administration that person will first and foremost defend and promote the rights and liberties enshrined in our Constitution."

Bill Richardson drew fire from liberal bloggers for waiting until April to demand that Gonzales resign and saying he was reluctant because of their shared Hispanic heritage.

He issued a statement that said, "The resignation of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales is long overdue. The President must nominate an Attorney General who is a lawyer for the American people, not a political arm of the White House."

Edwards this afternoon elaborated on his earlier remarks, issuing a statement that said, "Americans across the country have been calling for months for Alberto Gonzales to resign, and now, the man who oversaw a political purge of US Attorneys at the Justice Department, approved torture techniques at Guantanamo Bay, and approved illegal spying on Americans has stepped down -- this is a victory for all of us.

"Now is the time for a new direction. Instead of replacing him with another political insider, we need to make sure that President Bush replaces him with someone who is essentially nonpolitical, highly qualified, competent, independent, and who will protect our civil liberties and the Constitution. That's what the Justice Department needs, particularly in the aftermath of Gonzales."

Dennis Kucinich issued a statement, saying it's too early to declare victory.

"The Attorney General may be gone, but the Bush administration's policies of warrantless wiretapping, electronic eavesdropping, and domestic spying -- all in violation of the US Constitution -- will remain in place and are certain to be expanded unless the US Congress exhibits some backbone and repeals the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA)," the statement said. "While some may applaud the resignation as some sort of victory, the underlying abuses of Americans' constitutional rights and civil liberties authorized by the Congress through the so-called Patriot Act and the recently approved amendments to FISA will continue unabated. Until we address those abuses and challenge those laws, it doesn't really matter who the Attorney General is."

The Republican presidential hopefuls took longer to react to the resignation.

Mitt Romney this afternoon issued a statement recognizing Gonzales for his "many years of public service," but said he had "made the right decision to step aside."

"The resignation is an opportunity for President Bush to renew the nation's commitment to the law enforcement officers and personnel who are dedicated to enforcing the rule of law and protecting the American people from the threat of terrorism around the globe," Romney said.

Hillary Clinton's campaign today officially announced the endorsement by the first woman to lead the Massachusetts state Senate of her bid to become the nation's first female president.

"At this point in our nation's history, we need a leader in the White House, and no one is more qualified for that challenge than Hillary Clinton," Senate President Therese Murray said in a statement. "Hillary Clinton understands the needs and struggles of all Americans and will work to restore our commitment to domestic issues while mending our international relationships."

Clinton has been battling with rival Barack Obama for the support of Democratic leaders in Massachusetts. She has also claimed the endorsements of Congressmen Jim McGovern and Richard Neal, Boston Mayor Thomas M. Menino, Suffolk County Sheriff Andrea Cabral, Boston City Council President Maureen Feeney, and 30 state legislators.

"I'm honored to have President Murray's support," Clinton said in a statement. "She has broken new ground in Massachusetts and has been instrumental in helping pass health care coverage for all Bay Staters."

Mitt Romney could take some solace from a new national poll.

While he's running third in most national polling, the former Massachusetts governor is far less of a known quantity to Republican voters than front-runner Rudy Giuliani, according to the Gallup poll, released Thursday.

According to the poll, only 64 percent of Republicans know enough about Romney to have a positive or negative view of him, compared to 91 percent for the former New York mayor.

So the glass half-full view would be that Romney has a better opportunity than Giuliani to persuade lots of voters out there that he's their guy.

But Fred Thompson, the actor and former Tennessee senator expected to jump in the race around Labor Day, has more room to grow his support -- 56 percent of Republicans said they are familiar enough with him to rate him -- and he's ahead of Romney in second in most horse-race surveys. He also leads among Republicans who are familiar with all top four GOP contenders.

On the other hand, the survey suggests that John McCain, whose candidacy is going through a rough time, could have a tough slog turning the momentum around. The Arizona senator is well-known by 87 percent of Republicans.

Of course, the opportunity to sway voters who don't know much about candidates can swing the other way -- the more they know, the less they like.

Among Democrats, the poll offers encouragement for Hillary Clinton. She is the clear front-runner and her two closet competitors, John Edwards and Barack Obama, are almost as well-known by Democratic voters as she is, giving them less room to maneuver and change minds.

According to the poll, 94 percent of Democrats are familiar enough with Clinton to rate her, compared to 85 percent for Edwards, and 84 percent for Obama. And among Democrats who know all three, she holds her lead.

The random telephone survey was conducted Aug. 13-16. Among the 1,274 Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents surveyed, the margin of error of results is plus or minus 3 percentage points. The margin of error is the same for results derived from the 1,441 Republicans and GOP-leaning independents surveyed.

Barack Obama's campaign calls this a three-point swish, but it looks a little close to us, and, for the record, the ball caught a little rim on the way down. Would a ref really give him a three? Either way, give Obama credit for sinking the shot at this time-worn gym in South Carolina, where he was making a campaign stop. The senator may not quite be Bill Bradley, but the word on the street is that Obama, who plays regularly on the road as he campaigns, is a pretty good player.

Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney walks off the stage after speaking to the Florida Medical Association about his health care plan.
(Lynne Sladky/Associated Press)

Even as Mitt Romney is laying out his health care plan at this hour to Florida doctors, Democrat John Edwards wasted no time bashing it.

"Mitt Romney's cure is worse than the disease," Edwards said in a statement. "Not surprisingly, he's unwilling to take on the big insurance and drug companies. As a result, it will make a dysfunctional health care system even worse."

Romney's plan includes some elements of the much-publicized Massachusetts health care reform, which took effect in July and which is designed to lower costs and offer coverage to all residents.

But, as the Globe and other newspapers reported today, it is also significantly different, with more of a state-by-state approach. For instance, Romney's proposal would not penalize anyone for failing to buy insurance, nor would it sanction businesses that do not provide it for their employees. Individual states could set such rules, but the federal government would not mandate them.

Edwards, who claims to have the only health care plan that would cover all the estimated 47 million uninsured Americans, slapped Romney for not proposing all the major features of the Massachusetts plan for national health care reform.

"If universal health care was good enough for Massachusetts, why isn't it good enough for the rest of the country?"

In advance of Romney's speech to the Florida Medical Association, his campaign released an op-ed piece from his former health and human services secretary that praised the Massachusetts plan. "Massachusetts is leading the way in the effort to provide all citizens the opportunity to purchase affordable health insurance. This landmark achievement is due in no small part to Governor Mitt Romney and his strong leadership, working in cooperation with the legislature," Tim Murphy says in the piece, posted on the website townhall.com.

By Marcella Bombardieri, Globe Staff

CONCORD, N.H. -- On the campaign trail, Hillary Clinton is trying to turn her legendary unpopularity with Republicans into an advantage in the presidential race.

Essentially, she said at a house party here Thursday, the right-wing has already thrown everything they have at her, so there's nothing left to dig up. That point appears to be aimed especially at her chief rival, Barack Obama, who has spent far less time in the national spotlight and thus hasn't yet had his entire life subjected to exhaustive "opposition research."

"The tactics... will be to drive up the negatives of whoever our nominee is, and it will all be fresh information," said Clinton, speaking to about 100 people gathered in the backyard of a Victorian home. "It will all be, 'Oh you didn't know? Let us tell you. Let us paint a caricature...' Whereas I have the somewhat mixed, but I think rather fortunate blessing, of already starting with those negatives."

She also raised the specter of another terrorist attack between now and next November, which would put additional pressure on Democrats because they are traditionally seen as weaker on national security.

"It's a horrible prospect to ask yourself, "What if? What if? But if certain things happen between now and the election, particularly with respect to terrorism, that will automatically give the Republicans an advantage again, no matter how badly they have mishandled it, no matter how much more dangerous they have made the world. I think I'm the best of the Democrats to deal with that as well."

That latter comment is raising eyebrows among some commentators, who said it conflicted with her past criticism of Republicans using the "terror card" to win elections.

By Lisa Wangsness, Globe Staff

Mitt Romney, rolling out his healthcare plan in Florida today, will call for a combination of federal tax breaks and incentives to states to help the uninsured afford coverage, while offering strategies to rein in health costs, such as capping punitive damages in malpractice cases.

Drawing on some aspects of the Massachusetts health reform law he helped enact as governor, Romney will urge states to redirect federal money that is now spent on expensive emergency room care for people without insurance, putting it instead towards helping low-income people pay for health insurance.

Sally Canfield, policy director for the campaign, said the plan would not require any new money. It relies entirely on reallocating existing federal spending on healthcare and creating a more vigorous market to drive down premium prices, she said.

"What we're trying to do is build on the Massachusetts example, and what worked here, and provide a way for states to have access to the same types of choices we have in Massachusetts," she said.

Romney's proposal would also make insurance premiums more affordable for individuals by making health costs tax-deductible once they enroll in a plan. The Massachusetts law created the Commonwealth Health Insurance Connector partly to give individuals access to the same tax deductions available to businesses and other groups.

But unlike the Massachusetts law, Romney's proposal would not penalize anyone for failing to buy insurance, nor would it sanction businesses that do not provide it for their employees. Individual states could set such rules, but the federal government would stay out of such requirements.

In hopes of lowering healthcare costs, Romney would also provide federal incentives for states to deregulate their insurance markets -- encouraging them, for example, to get rid of laws that require insurers to pay for certain medical services, like in vitro fertilization.

He would also give states more flexibility in how they could use federal Medicaid dollars, making it easier for states to develop innovative programs -- such as one in Utah that helps people manage chronic illnesses, which keeps them healthier and reduces costs, the Romney campaign said.

The plan also includes a litany of proposals to help drive down health costs, including medical liability reform. And the plan would provide more information to consumers so they could shop for the best quality and prices.

Romney's speech today to the Florida Medical Association is designed to go beyond his standard stump speech on his healthcare policy in which he lauds the Massachusetts plan as a way to lower premiums and extend coverage to more people without too much government involvement. Some critics have said he has given short shrift or mischaracterized less appealing details of the Massachusetts law.

Reading between the lines of a new nationwide survey offers a mixed bag for the candidates leading the pack for their respective presidential nominations.

Hillary Clinton is by far the most popular candidate among Democrats -- 88 percent of whom held a favorable opinion of her and 38 percent a very favorable opinion, according to the survey released today by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press.

But among all voters, only 55 percent had a favorable opinion of the New York senator and former First Lady, the poll found.

In other words, she appears to have a good shot at winning the nomination, but could have a much tougher time in the general election.

Rudy Giuliani faces the opposite situation, the poll suggests: a good chance at winning the general election, but a more difficult slog getting there by winning the GOP nomination. While 65 percent of voters overall have a favorable view of the former New York mayor, only 21 percent of Republicans have a very favorable opinion -- substantially lower, for instance, than the 31 percent who have the same view of Fred Thompson, the former Tennessee senator who is expected to jump into the race around Labor Day.

Among the other leading Democrats, both John Edwards and Barack Obama are viewed more favorably by voters in general, but engender less intense support from the party faithful.

The poll could dismay supporters of Arizona Senator John McCain and former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney. Compared to Giuliani and Thompson, both have lower favorability ratings among voters overall and among Republicans.

The telephone survey of 3,002 adults was conducted Aug. 1-18 and has an overall margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points and a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points among just Democrats or just Republicans.

Democratic presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton, center, shakes hands in the lobby of the Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center in Lebanon, N.H.
(Jim Cole/Associated Press)

Hillary Clinton today called for continuing education for doctors, training more nurses, and giving more information to patients about physicians and hospitals as ways to improve the quality of health care.

The seven-point plan also includes spending $125 million to create a public-private group that would oversee health care quality; finding ways to reduce racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic disparities in care; providing higher payments to health care providers that offer coordinated care; and extending to the federal employee health care plan the Bush administration's recent decision to refuse Medicare payments for preventable injuries and infections during hospital stays.

Clinton's speech in Lebanon, N.H., was the second in a planned series of three to lay out her health care proposals. In May, she introduced another seven-point plan that she said would lower national health care spending by at least $120 million a year. Next month, she plans to unveil proposals to ensure universal health care coverage. As First Lady, she spearheaded the failed attempt in 1993 to overhaul the nation's health care system.

Besides the war in Iraq, health care has emerged as a major issue in the presidential race, as candidates offer their own prescriptions for extending coverage to the estimated 45 million Americans without it.

By Marcella Bombardieri, Globe Staff

Before they head to Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard for a star-studded round of fundraising this weekend, Hillary and Bill Clinton are stopping off tomorrow on Cape Cod for a sold-out lunch at the Osterville home of longtime friends Elaine and Gerald Schuster. About a hundred people are coming, each having pledged $1,000 to $4,600.

The wealthy Schusters have long been prodigious fundraisers for the Clintons and other Democrats, hosting glitzy events in Boston and Palm Beach. They've been generous to a range of local institutions including Brandeis and Brigham and Women's Hospital.

But they have also brought some unwanted attention to the Democratic party in past years because of a bitter union dispute at a nursing home owned by Gerald Schuster. Elaine Schuster even withdrew from one fundraiser in 2001 so labor wouldn't picket the event.

Presidential hopeful John Edwards shakes hands as he starts his four-day bus tour through New Hampshire during a stop in Hanover.
(Jim Cole/Associated Press)

By James W. Pindell, Globe correspondent

John Edwards introduced a new stump speech -- and with it a renewed focus on rivals Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama -- today in Hanover as he kicked off a four-day bus tour through New Hampshire.

Edwards more pointed argument that he is the Democrat who can really bring change to Washington comes at a time when the central debate of the nomination race has been Obama's own discussion of change against Clinton's talk of experience.

The Edwards camp suggests that Obama, in his first term in the US Senate, is too inexperienced, and Clinton, the New York senator and former First Lady, is too tied to special interests to deliver change.

"We as a nation must choose whether to do what America has always done in times like these -- change direction and move boldly into the future for the sake of our children, if not for ourselves, or wander in the same stale direction we have traveled in our recent past," Edwards said in what his campaign billed as a major speech. "The choice we must make is as important as it is clear. It is a choice between looking back and looking forward. It is caution versus courage. Old versus new. Calculation versus principle. It is a choice between the failed compromises of the past and the bright possibilities of our future."

But some political observers don't see a whole lot new.

"This line of change doesn't appear all that different from what he has been saying," said Wayne Lesperance, a political science professor at New England College in Henniker, N.H. "But he is trying to get in the mix with Obama and Clinton who really have been talking over him."

Recent polls have shown Clinton, Obama, and Edwards locked in first, second, and third place respectively in New Hampshire, as well as nationally.

Edwards, returning to the Granite State for the first time in several weeks, also plans to campaign today in Keene, Peterborough, and Hooksett.

The personal can also be political, or vice versa.

Which is one way to look at a couple of events announced today by the campaigns of Hillary Clinton and John Edwards.

Clinton, the New York senator and former First Lady who has long been about promoting women in politics, said she is launching an online effort to empower and educate young women -- and presumably win quite a few of their votes.

With the slogan, "You've Got the Vote. Use It," it is timed for Women's Equality Day on Sunday, the anniversary of the 1920 passage of the 19th Amendment granting women the right to vote. There are activities in the early nominating states of Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina.

The initiative "will educate voters about the history of the struggle for women's suffrage, provide them with the resources to make their vote count, and inform them about Hillary's career of leadership and record as an advocate for change," the Clinton campaign said in a statement.

Meanwhile, Edwards, her Democratic rival and former North Carolina senator, said he will join seven-time Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong for a presidential cancer forum on Monday in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. (Clinton also plans to attend the forum.)

Armstrong survived testicular cancer before returning to the highest level of bicycle racing. And Edwards and his wife, Elizabeth, announced in March that she was being treated for breast cancer. She was first diagnosed in Boston just after Election Day in 2004.

"Elizabeth and I share Lance's commitment to unite people to fight cancer, invest in research, and ensure access to screening and care for every American," Edwards said in a statement provided by his campaign. "To me, this is not a political issue or a political event. It is a chance to call attention to the important cause of cancer survivorship and the obligation we all have to help people living with cancer, patients, survivors, and the families of those touched by cancer."

The statement then goes on to claim that Edwards is "the only candidate with a plan for true, universal health care."

The presidential campaign continues apace in the online world of the young.

MySpace and MTV announced today that they will team up on a series of dialogues on college campuses with candidates that will be broadcast on television and on the web.

Students on site and viewers will be able to submit questions, and live online polling will gauge reaction, the companies said.

The first hour-long dialogue will feature Democrat John Edwards and is to take place in New Hampshire on Sept. 27. In the Democratic field, Hillary Clinton, Chris Dodd, Barack Obama and Bill Richardson have agreed to take part. Among Republicans, Sam Brownback, Rudy Giuliani, Duncan Hunter, John McCain, Ron Paul, and Mitt Romney have committed.

The presidential race is popular fodder for postings on MySpace, the social networking site. And MTV, the original music video network, has had a presence in politics for years.

Who can forget the "boxers or briefs" question lobbed at President Bill Clinton in 1994 at a MTV "Rock the Vote" event?

After an awkward pause, the leader of the free world answered, "Usually briefs."

Hillary Clinton leads among Democrats and Fred Thompson among Republicans in the early primary state of South Carolina, according to a new poll out today.

Clinton, the New York senator who is leading in national polls, was the choice of 38 percent of likely Democratic primary voters. Illinois Senator Barack Obama drew 30 percent, and former North Carolina Senator John Edwards 13 percent. The Democratic primary is scheduled for Jan. 29.

On the GOP side, Thompson, the former Tennessee senator who is expected to officially jump into the race around Labor Day, was supported by 23 percent. Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani drew 21 percent, Arizona Senator John McCain had 14 percent, and former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney had 10 percent. S.C. Republicans moved up their primary to Jan. 19.

The poll was conducted on Aug. 20 by Rasmussen Reports. The survey of 516 Democrats has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.4 percentage points, while the survey of 841 Republicans has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.4 percentage points.

You can count on one person not waiting in line when the movie "September Dawn" opens on Friday.

Mitt Romney says he will not go see the movie, billed as a dramatic recreation of the Mountain Meadows massacre, the killing of 120 unarmed Arkansas pioneers by Mormon settlers in Utah in 1857. The extent of the Mormon church's involvement has long been debated.

"That was a terrible, awful act carried out by members of my faith," Romney said during an interview today with the Associated Press while his presidential campaign was in Reno, Nev. "There are bad people in any church and it's true of members of my church, too."

Romney's ancestors include Parley Pratt, a prominent Mormon murdered in Arkansas several months before the massacre.

"I hope on average we're better than we would have been as a faith group by virtue of our religious teachings," Romney told the AP. "But there certainly can be some extremes, some very bad people."

The independent feature film (the trailer is linked above) stars Academy Award-winning actor Jon Voight, along with Terence Stamp and Lolita Davidovich. Some critics have complained that the movie is unfairly negative in its depiction of 19th-century Mormons.

Republicans concede that they have lagged far behind the Democrats in online fund-raising, but the GOP is now trying to close that gap with a new internet tool. GOP activists have just unveiled Rightroots, an online clearinghouse where Republicans anywhere will be able to contribute to the party's candidates for office around the country.

"We're hoping Rightroots takes off and becomes a major player in the online fund-raising market," said Jason Torchinsky, a Republican lawyer and activist helping lead the effort.

Rightroots is an offspring of ABCPAC, a political action committee Republicans used last fall to raise $300,000 for their candidates in the mid-term elections.

But thus far, the Republicans' efforts have paled in comparison to what the Democrats have done with ActBlue, a fund-raising powerhouse that the party has used to raise $26 million and counting for its candidates. Unlike ActBlue, which allows Democrats to contribute to statewide and state legislative races, Rightroots is focusing for now only on the races for Congress and the presidency.

So all you Republicans out there looking to help your party in next year's election, pull out your credit cards and give it a whirl.

Mitt Romney finally has higher poll numbers than Hillary Clinton.

Unfortunately for the former Massachusetts governor's presidential hopes, the numbers are the percentage of voters who say they would definitely vote against him.

In a national poll released today, 44 percent of likely voters surveyed said they would definitely not support Romney if he were on the 2008 ballot, compared to the 43 percent who said they would definitely vote against Clinton.

And only 16 percent of those surveyed said they would definitely vote for Republican Romney, giving him a 28 percentage point gap between firm opposition and support. Democrat Clinton, the New York senator and former First Lady, only had a gap of 10 percentage points because 33 percent said they would definitely vote for her if she were on the 2008 ballot.

In fact, all seven presidential candidates had more voters saying they would definitely oppose them than said they would definitely support them.

The poll of 800 likely voters was conducted Aug. 6-9 by Rasmussen Reports. Its findings have a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.

Of course, 2008 is a long way off. Romney is leading in the GOP nomination polls in the key states of Iowa, which is to hold the first caucus, and New Hampshire, which is to hold the first primary.

You've heard, perhaps, of the "Russert Primary," where candidates for office are subjected to a thorough grilling by tenacious NBC newsman Tim Russert on his show, "Meet the Press." Well, Jon Stewart, he of "The Daily Show" on Comedy Central, has developed something of his own gauntlet, and Barack Obama is the latest candidate to walk it. Look for Obama tonight on Stewart's show, which airs at 11 p.m. EST. Several other presidential aspirants have appeared on Stewart's show as part of his "Indecision 2008" segment. John McCain recently made his 10th "Daily Show" appearance, according to Comedy Central.

By Matthew Spolar, Globe correspondent

President Bush's comparison in his speech this morning between the Iraq war and Vietnam -- contending that the United States pulled out of Indochina too soon -- came three and a half years late for one listener: Massachusetts Senator Edward M. Kennedy.

Back in April 2004 Kennedy raised eyebrows by calling the Iraq war "George Bush's Vietnam." Kennedy, who at the time was doing his best to light a fire under fellow Senator John Kerry's presidential campaign, added: "As a result, this president has now created the largest credibility gap since Richard Nixon."

In response to Kennedy's comments, Bush spokesman Terry Holt shot back, "It is obvious that Senator Kerry has appointed Senator Kennedy to be his chief political hatchetman."

Hatchetman or psychic? Three years ago, very few could have foreseen Bush invoking Vietnam to shed a positive light on Iraq.

By Matthew Spolar, Globe correspondent

Some people believe that giving in is giving up. For them, attachment to a presidential candidate -- especially one that came as close to being elected as Massachusetts Senator John Kerry -- can be hard to shake.

Despite Kerry's announcement in late January that he will not be running for president in 2008 -- and the consensus among many Democrats that it was the right decision -- Kerry still has some diehard supporters in the blogosphere holding out hope that he will make another White House bid.

The website draftjohnkerry08.com urges those still in the Kerry camp to write the senator via a message box, attempts to rally support in a letter that expresses dissatisfaction with the current Democratic field, and implores America to realize that Kerry is, in fact, the "perfect presidential candidate."

While there, those so inclined may want to pick up a "Re-elect President Kerry" coffee mug or teddy bear at the gift shop.

In an e-mail, the site administrator said the "DraftJohnKerry08 team" presented two months worth of message submissions to the senator in April, and will be meeting again with him soon to show him the submissions from the following three months.

The site, which was created following Kerry's announcement that he would not run again, is maintained by an unnamed reformed Republican who expresses his desire for a candidate "who we can TRUST to tell the truth, and not be beholden to extremists of any stripe."

The e-mail stated that in the five months since the site's inception, draftjohnkerry has "heard from people in every single state, and military personnel serving overseas as well, who are eloquent and passionate in their appeals to the Senator to re-consider his decision."

However, the site isn't exactly humming with activity: The most recent entry on the site's corresponding blog is from July 25.

The draftjohnkerry creator might have a like-minded web buddy in kerryforpresident2008.blogspot.com, a blog by Wisconsin native Robert Freedman, a "physician who also cares deeply about the health of our political system." The blog declared two days before Kerry's decision that, while the senator may not have the charisma of Obama, "his understanding of the war in Iraq is unmatched by any candidate."

In March, Freedman started a petition to draft Kerry as a candidate, but so far it has only garnered 20 signatures. The blog, which was last updated in May, has been visited about 7,600 times since Kerry dropped out.

Well, here's a new way to measure the popularity of presidential candidates: Which candidate would you most like as a next-door neighbor?

ERA Real Estate asked that question as part of its fourth annual survey of people 50 and older across the country.

Among the 1,002 people questioned in March and August, Senator Hillary Clinton was the pick of 21 percent, former Tennessee Senator Fred Thompson (who has not officially declared) was chosen by 13 percent, and former North Carolina Senator John Edwards and Illinois Senator Barack Obama were selected by 12 percent each.

 YOUR VIEW: Which candidate would you want as a neighbor?

In the who-would-you-like-to-live-next-to test, former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani received the support of 10 percent, Arizona Senator John McCain of 8 percent, and former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney of 6 percent.

Mitt Romney today unveiled a roster of advisers who will help him craft his healthcare policies.

The co-chairmen are Tom Price, a congressman from Georgia who is also a surgeon, and Tim Murphy, now president of Beacon Health Strategies after serving as Romney's secretary of health and human services.

The six-member group also includes Glenn Hubbard, dean of the business school at Columbia University, and Cindy Gillespie, who helped Romney push through the landmark health reform law in Massachusetts last year.

Romney plans a major healthcare speech to the Florida Medical Association on Friday, when he will talk about the lessons from Massachusetts and how they might translate to the nation. As the Globe reported today, he will go into more detail than in his stump speeches, which tend to gloss over some of the less appealing details.

The latest poll out of Iowa show that Mitt Romney is holding his lead in the first caucus state.

The former Massachusetts governor led with 33 percent of likely Republican caucus-goers, well ahead of former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani with 14 percent, former Tennessee Senator Fred Thompson (not officially in the race yet) with 12 percent, former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee with 8 percent, and Arizona Senator John McCain with 6 percent.

The Newsmax/Zogby survey, released today, was conducted on Aug. 17 and 18 among 487 Republican voters and has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.5 percentage points.

Romney trails Giuliani and McCain in national polls, but has spent much more time and money in Iowa than his competitors. Earlier this month, Romney won the Iowa straw poll, which Giuliani and McCain skipped.

Former governor Mike Dukakis is worried. Despite President Bush's low poll numbers, the Republicans, he says, will out-spend and out-organize the Democrats once again in next year's presidential race if his party doesn't get working fast.

Dukakis tells The New York Observer that Democrats have to get smarter about organizing at the local level, and said he's working informally with the Democratic National Committee to do just that.

"We have to organize every damn precinct in the United States of America—all 185,000," Dukakis told the Observer. "I’m serious. I'm deadly serious. I didn't do it after the primary [in 1988]. Don't ask me why, because that’s the way I got myself elected from the time I was running for town meeting in Brookline to the time I ran for governor."

Dukakis continued, "And I mean starting a year in advance. I'm not talking about parachuting in with two weeks to go. That's baloney. And these people are people who've got to be from the precinct, of the precinct, look like the precinct and talk like the precinct."

Dukakis tells the Observer that none of the party's candidates seem to be embracing his idea of organzing. But Barack Obama's campaign, which has begun training volunteers around the country in what it calls Camp Obama, would vigorously disagree.

(Hat tip to Taegan Goddard.)

By Marcella Bombardieri, Globe Staff

The two Democratic frontrunners have had some almost positive things to say this week about a surprising topic: the war in Iraq.

First, appearing before the Veterans of Foreign Wars in Kansas City yesterday, Senator Hillary Clinton said, "We've begun to change tactics in Iraq, and in some areas, particularly in Al Anbar province, it's working." She added, however, that it was too late to truly turn things around.

Asked about Clinton's comments on a conference call with reporters today, Senator Barack Obama said, "if we put an additional 30,000 of our troops ... into Baghdad, that's going to quell some of the violence short-term. I don't think there's ever been any doubt about that." Yet there is still no military solution to the problems in Iraq, he added.

Those aren't exactly rosy assessments. But they do strike a bit of a different tone. So we wonder, is it just because this week both candidates had the VFW's membership on their minds?

Or maybe the candidates are looking ahead to a key milestone next month, when General David Petraeus will update Congress on the progress of the war. If his assessment turns out to be at all positive, the Democratic presidential contenders will have to walk a rhetorical minefield, accepting the wisdom of a highly-respected military leader while still insisting that the country needs to get out of Iraq. Perhaps they've already started practicing.

A Zogby survey released today shows Senator Hillary Clinton ahead in Iowa.

Of 503 likely voters surveyed between Friday and Sunday, the New York senator had 30 percent.

Former North Carolina senator John Edwards, who is staking much of his political life on the Hawkeye State, was in second with 23 percent, Senator Barack Obama of Illinois stood third with 16 percent, and New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson fourth with 10 percent.

Freshman US Representative Patrick Murphy of Pennsylvania, the only member of Congress to serve in the Iraq war, has endorsed Barack Obama for president. Murphy told reporters in a conference call this morning that his experience serving with the Army's 82nd Airborne Division in Baghdad showed him that America needed a new war strategy and foreign policy.

"He's absolutely our best chance to change the direction of our country," Murphy said.

Obama is scheduled to speak today at the VFW convention in Kansas City. Hillary Clinton and John McCain spoke there yesterday.

Two Obama pieces worth reading: This Associated Press story, in which Obama argues that he would encourage enough black voters to vote next year that he would put states like Mississippi, Georgia, and South Carolina in play for Democrats; and Obama's op-ed in The Miami Herald today calling for the removal of restrictions on Cuban-Americans who want to visit or send money to family in Cuba. (Find the Herald's coverage of Obama's position here.)

Mitt Romney's new radio ad presses his case that he will aggressively enforce immigration laws. The spot, which began airing today in New Hampshire and Iowa, also continues Romney's assault on GOP national front-runner Rudy Giuliani for his immigration policies while New York's mayor. Along the way, it also praises Romney as an "exceptional" governor.

"As governor, Mitt Romney didn't wait on Washington. He acted to make our immigration laws work," the announcer says in the ad. "Mitt Romney is the exceptional Governor who took a stand so State Police could enforce federal immigration laws."

The ad, however, leaves many details unsaid.

It doesn't acknowledge that Romney didn't sign the agreement to allow specially trained State Police troopers to arrest suspected illegal immigrants until last December, during his last weeks in office. He first announced in June 2006 he was seeking the agreement, which took several months to negotiate with federal officials.

The ad also doesn't say that Deval Patrick rescinded the agreement just days after succeeding Romney as governor in January. Patrick replaced the pact with a state initiative under which prison officials review the immigration status of inmates and consider them for deportation.

The ad doesn't name Giuliani, but it does name New York, as well as Newark, N.J., and San Francisco, as cities that didn't enforce immigration laws. "Sanctuary cities become magnets that encourage illegal immigration and undermine secure borders," the announcer says.

But the spot doesn't mention that a city just across the Charles River from Romney's old Beacon Hill corner office, Cambridge, was one of the earliest to designate itself a sanctuary city, in 1985. Cambridge renewed its status in July 2006, calling for a moratorium on immigration raids until comprehensive reform.

Illegal immigration is a red-meat issue for many conservatives in the Republican Party, who helped stop President Bush's reform plan by saying it provided amnesty for lawbreakers.

By James W. Pindell, Globe Correspondent

NASHUA -- Former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee wrapped up a four-day visit to New Hampshire today, in the midst of what might be his last, best shot to become a real contender for the Republican presidential nomination.

For the past year Huckabee has been charming audiences in Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina with his jokes, down-home personality and resume. Unfortunately for him, all he got for his efforts were poor fund-raising and poll results placing him firmly in the bottom tier of candidates. His fortunes changed on Aug. 11 when he beat expectations and pulled off a second-place finish in the Iowa straw poll. But now the question is whether he can capitalize on the buzz and become the conservative alternative to former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney and former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani.

"The next 45 days are going to be pretty important to see if Huckabee will become one of the top-tier candidates or just not a credible choice," said Manchester Mayor Frank Guinta, a Republican. "But it is pretty apparent that people are willing to give him a second look."

If crowd sizes are any indication, many took the opportunity over the weekend to give him a second look with nearly 100 to 150 people coming out to see him at several stops, which is about twice to three times what he normally sees.

Huckabee told reporters today that his success in Ames "changed the whole process for us."

"Up until now the national media has sort of dubbed three people or so to say these people are in the top tier. Now what made them in the top tier? Money. It wasn't their message because when Republicans were polled they said they really aren't satisfied with any of the candidates," Huckabee said. "A recent poll showed that these voters actually preferred 'none of the above' to any of their choices. And now they are finding out that the 'none of the above' is Mike Huckabee."

But he still must do better in the polls and in fund-raising to keep the momentum going, said Charlie Arlinghaus, a former New Hampshire Republican strategist and currently the head of a conservative think tank in Concord.

"In Huckabee's case it think there is a great deal of being in the right place at the right time," Arlinghaus said. "There is a big segment of the party that wants a candidate who can articulately -- and in a nice way -- share the conservative vision. He can do this in ways no major candidate is right now, he had a good showing in Iowa, but if he can't sustain this over the next few weeks someone else could fill that void."

She's won a lot of fans on YouTube, but "Obama girl" isn't so popular in the Obama household. Barack Obama tells the Associated Press today that the scantily clad woman now famous for her video crush on the presidential candidate has prompted questions from his six-year-old daughter, Sasha.

"Sasha asked Mommy about it," Obama told the AP. "She said, 'Daddy already has a wife' or something like that."

Obama continued, "I guess it's too much to ask, but you do wish people would think about what impact their actions have on kids and families."

In the AP interview, Obama also says he can run a tough, effective campaign without violating his commitment to a new kind of politics. (Hillary Clinton might disagree.)

"I feel pretty comfortable about the tone that we've taken during the course of this campaign," Obama said. "I think I've been respectful of all the candidates. I would challenge anyone to find a statement that I've made that has been personal as opposed to a substantive difference with a candidate."

Read the full AP story here.

Hillary Clinton may be trying to run as the candidate of experience, but she apparently forgot to tell Senator Joseph Biden of Delaware, who uses his first TV ads of the campaign to highlight his vision for Iraq and his decades spent in the trenches of American foreign policy. The ads are scheduled to run through Labor Day weekend and will cost $250,000, according to Biden's campaign.

In the first ad, "Cathedral," Biden talks about returning home from his fourth trip to Iraq alongside a coffin on a C-130 transport plane. He says he can't imagine what the parents of the dead soldier are going through. "We must end this war in a way that doesn't require us to send their grandchild back," he says. Watch it below.

Biden's second ad, called "Security," celebrates his many years as a foreign affairs specialist in the Senate. "Joe Biden has dealt with the world's most dangerous problems," the narrator says. Watch it below.

Meanwhile, Biden's new book, "Promises to Keep," has landed on The New York Times bestseller list.

(Getty photo)

TAMA, Iowa -- Barack Obama today took his Iowa roadshow to this rural community east of Des Moines, where he met with farmers and local residents as part of a summit his campaign hosted on rural issues. Obama listened as locals told him what they wanted to see from Washington, including fairer farm subsidies and progress on health care. Obama vowed not to forget rural communities, saying rural values are America's values.

"We don't want to give up those values that are time-tested and built this country," he said in closing the summit, which about 250 people attended at South Tama County High School, the campaign said.

Obama's campaign says he will take the recommendations he heard today and incorporate them into a specific rural policy he will lay out in the coming weeks. He acknowledged that politicians always come to Iowa, make these kinds of promises, and then don't deliver. But he insisted he would be different.

Obama makes a few more Iowa stops before wrapping up his trip Sunday morning in Des Moines, where the Democratic candidates will gather for a debate on ABC. He's slated to visit New Hampshire Sunday, Monday, and part of Tuesday.

Presidential candidate Mike Huckabee speaks to the Globe editorial board.
(Mark Wilson/Globe Staff)

Mike Huckabee says a marathoner's approach will make lightning strike a third time -- an unknown governor from a small Southern state breaking out of the pack all the way to the White House.

And the former Arkansas governor told the Globe's editorial board this afternoon that he took a first big step by finishing second in the Iowa straw poll last weekend. His challenge now, he said, is to make a good first impression on voters.

"Not many people know me," he said. "I'm the cereal in the plain white box."

Huckabee, a marathon runner, said he will pace himself and try to follow Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter's path to the presidency. He said he will pick up support as voters realize that he's the true conservative with the personal history that can bring Republicans victory in 2008. He said the GOP will not win as the party of Wall Street and privilege, which he -- growing up in a small town, the first man in his family to graduate from high school -- decidedly is not.

"I'm a different kind of Republican than people are used to," he said.

In the backyard of GOP rival Mitt Romney, Huckabee couldn't resist a couple of veiled -- or not-so-veiled references -- to the former Massachusetts governor. He said he didn't grow up where "summer" is a verb, he said he didn't spend tens of thousands to get his votes in the straw poll, and he said he hasn't changed his policy positions. Or as he put it, in his folksy way, he has "not fished my way through the waters to figure out what would bite."

Huckabee also discussed his championing of a version of a flat consumption tax to replace income taxes and of music and arts education.

He also addressed a subject that has been rebounding around the blogosphere in recent days: The Rev. Wiley S. Drake of the First Southern Baptist Church of Buena Park, Calif., who used his church stationery and an Internet radio program to endorse Huckabee, asked his followers to pray for the "serious punishment" of leaders of Americans United for Separation of Church and State who filed a complaint against him with the IRS.

Huckabee said while he's "not in a position to disavow anyone's support," he does disavow Drake's approach. Huckabee, a Southern Baptist minister, said he's far more interested in "the saving of souls, rather than the damning of souls."

Presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich speaks to the Globe editorial board. At left is his wife Elizabeth Harper Kucinich.
(Mark Wilson/Globe Staff)

Dennis Kucinich likened himself to both FDR and Seabiscuit -- Franklin D. Roosevelt in proposing a 21st century New Deal and the legendary race horse in claiming that he'll come from way behind and win the Democratic nomination.

In an appearance this morning before the Globe editorial board, the Ohio congressman said as president he would create a new version of the 1930s Works Progress Administration to put Americans to work to fix the nation's crumbling infrastructure and to build a more environmentally friendly energy system.

Kucinich also predicted that once voters realize that they agree with him on most issues, his candidacy -- languishing well behind Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and John Edwards -- will jump to the front of the pack by the final turn.

"My support's beginning to grow," he said. "This election is not over. There's time for people to understand they have a real choice....When people discover I'm their candidate, look out."

He also riffed on the staples of his campaign platform: that he is the only Democrat with a proposal for true universal health care, the only one who opposed the Iraq war from the beginning, and the only one with the independence to bring sweeping change to domestic and foreign policy.

Kucinich called the war in Iraq "a monstrous crime" committed by the Bush administration, citing what he said were hundreds of thousands of civilian casualties and arguing that the decision to invade was based on lies. He called for an immediate end to the US "occupation" and for a multinational peacekeeping force to help stabilize the country.

But there was one subject Kucinich declined to address: A challenge for his congressional seat from Rosemary Palmer, an antiwar activist who lost a son in Iraq. A former Kucinich supporter, she criticizes him for running for president a second time instead of using his seat to end the war.

"Let me be clear," he said tersely. "I'm here to talk about my candidacy for president."

(Reuters photo)

DES MOINES -- It's a muggy but pleasant evening here in the land of deep-fried Twinkies, giant turkey legs, and pork-on-a-stick, and Barack Obama just left the Iowa State Fairgrounds after sampling the attractions with his wife, Michelle, and two daughters. Obama, like the other major presidential candidates looking ahead to the January caucuses, wouldn't miss the Iowa State Fair for anything.

With a heavy media contingent in tow, Obama walked arm-in-arm with his family around the fairgrounds, stopping first to buy some caramel corn. From there, they hit the 'Toon Theatre. Obama waited while his daughters, Malia, 9, and Sasha, 6, disappeared inside. They looked unimpressed when they came out.

The Obamas then sauntered over to the Spyr-O-Mania booth, where contestants win prizes by being the first to lift a Garfield doll to the ceiling with a water gun. Obama manned a gun with Sasha, but they lost the first round to a young girl next to them. "Yeah, yeah, you got beat by a girl," the attendant said to him. When they played a second time, Michelle and Malia won. The attendant ribbed him again. "That's twice!" she said, telling Michelle to choose a prize. "Pick it out, honey." On the third try, Obama won. "Finally!" the attendant said.

They moved on to the bumper car track, where Obama and Sasha, riding together, put a nice hit on Malia before ramming Michelle head-on. They then opted for the Big Ben ride, which raises riders high in the air before suddenly dropping them all the way down, like they're in free fall. "Oh my God," Michelle said as Obama and Malia dangled high above the ground. Was it stuck? Obama's staff looked mildly concerned, too, before the ride let go and Obama and his daughter dropped like rocks. "Did you here me screaming like a girl?" Obama called out on his way down. "What I do for my nine-year-old," he said once safely on the ground.

When it was time to go, Obama split from his wife and children, who wanted to stay at the fair a while longer -- but without the crush of media. "Please, go with him," Michelle told the press, before walking back into the fair with her daughters to decide what they would do next.

It's even less significant than his Iowa win Saturday, but Mitt Romney can still brag that he's two-for-two.

The Illinois Republican Party held a straw poll today at the State Fair in Springfield, and Romney led the pack with 40 percent. Fred Thompson, the former Tennessee senator who is not yet officially in the race, collected 20 percent, US Representative Ron Paul of Texas had 19 percent, and former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani received 12 percent.

"Congratulations to Mitt Romney, whose strong showing today indicates he has begun to put together a strong statewide organization," state GOP Chairman Andy McKenna said in a statement released by the Romney campaign. "There's no question that Illinois' demographics closely match those of the United States and this could be an indication as to whom Illinois voters are leaning toward this coming February."

Fairgoers on Republican Day were allowed to pick one of nine candidates. It was the first straw poll held by Illinois Republicans, whose primary isn't until "Super Duper Tuesday" on Feb. 5, when big states such as California, New Jersey, and New York are also scheduled to vote.

Romney also won the traditional Iowa straw poll on Saturday with 31.5 percent of the vote, though his victory was lessened because Giuliani and Arizona Senator John McCain didn't campaign and because Romney vastly outspent his competition. The Iowa vote, however, did help end the campaign of former Wisconsin Governor Tommy Thompson, who said he needed to finish in the top two, but ended up in sixth place.

Democrat John Edwards is banking on Iowa to boost his nomination hopes -- as it did four years ago -- and a new poll out today gives him more hope that he might just be on the right track.

The former US senator from North Carolina led among likely Iowa caucus-goers surveyed with 30 percent, compared to 22 percent for Senator Hillary Clinton of New York, 18 percent for Senator Barack Obama of Illinois, and 13 percent for New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson.

Edwards parlayed a second-place finish in Iowa in 2004 to national prominence, and a place on the ticket as John Kerry's running mate. This year, he is spending far more time and money in Iowa, the first caucus state, than in New Hampshire, the first primary state.

The poll released today was conducted on Aug. 2 and 3 of 509 past Democratic caucus attendees or those who say they are likely to attend the caucus. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.3 percentage points.

Peter D. Hart Research Associates, a respected Democratic polling firm, conducted the survey for the ONE Campaign, a nonpartisan group that is pushing presidential candidates to address global poverty.

Among other poll findings, 98 percent said America's standing in the world has suffered in recent years, and 91 percent said they were dissatisfied with the role the United States plays in the world.

By Brian C. Mooney, Globe Staff

DERRY, N.H. -- On Tuesday, Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani declared in South Carolina, "I promise you, we can end illegal immigration." But 11 years ago, in a speech at Harvard, Giuliani said: "We're never ever going to be able to totally control immigration to a country that is as large as ours."

A video clip of the Harvard speech appeared Wednesday on the YouTube website. Today, at campaign stops in New Hampshire, the former New York City mayor said his beliefs have been consistent all those years, but technology has advanced to the point that the borders can now be controlled.

When he made his 1996 remarks at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government, Giuliani explained to reporters, "Back in the 1980s and early and mid-1990s, we did not do the things we can do today. We didn't have the technology .. didn't have the high-tech equipment we have now. I've made that point very often; totally consistent with the things I've been saying for years ... We now have that technology."

The campaigns of Giuliani and his GOP rival, former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, have been trading shots this week on their respective records on illegal immigration, a key issue for many party activists.

In his stump speech and in answers to voters during a four-community swing today through southern New Hampshire, Giuliani continued to lay out his plans for tougher border security. At a stop for lunch at Susan's European Cafe in Hudson, Giuliani even sketched on some notebook paper a rough map of the US-Mexico border with ink dots to mark his proposed substations for border guards.

In addition to an authorized 700-mile physical wall, Giuliani advocates a "technological fence" along the remaining 1,300 or so miles of the border, using heat, motion, and other detection sensors that could be used to monitor the approach of persons trying to cross the border. He offered no cost estimate for the "technological fence" or up to 30 new border substations.

By James W. Pindell, Globe correspondent

DERRY, N.H. -- Rudy Giuliani told a woman at a town hall meeting today "to leave my family alone" after she asked him "how he can expect the country to be loyal to you if your own family isn't".

The Republican presidential hopeful kicked off two days of campaigning in New Hampshire, talking mostly about health care and the war against terrorism.

But the mood changed when Katherine Prudhomme-O'Brien, 36, of Derry asked him about well-publicized reports that some family members might not be supporting his campaign. His daughter, for example, posted in an Internet profile that she was supporting Barack Obama, though she later deleted the reference.

"I love my family very, very much and will do anything for them. There are complexities in every family in America," Giuliani replied. "The best thing I can say is kind of leave my family alone, just like I'll leave your family alone."

Giuliani then went on to explain that he should be judged by the job he has done as mayor and not on his family life.

Prudhomme-O'Brien, a conservative activist who is not supporting any presidential candidate, aggressively questioned Al Gore at another town meeting in 1999 and Hillary Clinton last month, and appeared on a Fox news show last month. She said she did not want to be offensive in her question to Giuliani, but found his answer "troubling."

Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani continued their battle over immigration yesterday, this time, through supporters.

The dueling editorials are at Townhall.com, where Congressman Lamar Smith of Texas, a Romney supporter, implicitly criticizes Giuliani's record in New York while extolling Romney's in Massachusetts, and at the Washington Times, where Congressman Peter King of New York, a Giuliani supporter, does the opposite.

By Michael Kranish, Globe Staff

Senator Joseph Biden's presidential campaign has struggled to gain altitude in polls and fundraising. But the Delaware Democrat this week received the kind of news that would cheer any author, let alone a presidential candidate.

His autobiography, "Promises To Keep," has attained literary lift: it will debut at No. 15 on this Sunday's hardcover nonfiction bestseller list in The New York Times.

While it's not exactly Harry Potter territory, Biden's new status as bestselling author has garnered him a new round of attention, from appearances on "The Daily Show" to one at the Border's book store in Downtown Crossing in Boston on Tuesday.

The book was released on July 31. Publisher Random House bills it as "a book about resilience" after personal and political setbacks.

Biden, who has long been known for his long-winded answers, gives himself 365 pages to tell his story as he wants. He frames the story as being "On Life and Politics," from childhood onward. The book's title comes from the famous poem, "Stopping By Woods on a Snow Evening," by Robert Frost, who happened to live in first-primary state of New Hampshire.

But if you are looking for a shortcut for that special nugget -- or perhaps, to see if your name is mentioned -- you may have to plow through it all. There is no index.

By Michael Kranish, Globe Staff

For a non-candidate for president, Fred Thompson is continuing to talk and travel like the real thing.

He plans to appear Friday in the first-caucus state of Iowa, where his non-campaign says via email that he will be "available to meet and greet GOP supporters." Like numerous declared candidates, Thompson will speak at the Iowa State Fair and, in an unusual step for him, will make himself available to the media. He also travels to St. Louis on Tuesday to deliver a speech to a convention of the Veterans of Foreign Wars.

At the same time, Thompson, who has given few interviews, sat down for two hours with Washington Post columnist David Broder, who published the result today in a piece titled "Fred Thompson's Gamble" that focused on Thompson's concern about budgetary issues.

The non-campaign, known as the "Friends of Fred Thompson," liked the column so much that it sent it out via email immediately upon publication. Thompson is still officially in a "testing-the-waters" stage -- enabling him to avoid disclosing all of his latest donors and releasing personal financial information -- but friends say they are continuing to hear the "Law and Order" actor and former US senator from Tennessee might announce the week of Labor Day.

The tiff between Mitt Romney and an Internet snowman is heating up, or at least getting a brighter spotlight.

This evening, CNN did a segment on the sort-of argument, which is bouncing around the blogosphere.

Here's the back story: At the Democrats' CNN/YouTube debate on July 23, one of the questioners was a web snowman named Billiam, who inquired what the candidates would do about global warming.

So far, Romney is taking a pass on the Republican version scheduled for Nov. 28. Explaining why, he told the New Hampshire Union Leader last month: "I think the presidency ought to be held at a higher level than having to answer a question from a snowman."

To which, the snowman's creators on Saturday posted a YouTube video in reply. "Lighten up, slightly," the snowman says, parroting a Romney response when critics asked him about a sign at one of his campaign events bashing Democrat Barack Obama.

The biggest recall in toy maker Mattel's history provided more fodder today for Republican Rudy Giuliani to talk tough on China and for Democrat John Edwards to accuse the Bush administration of being asleep at the wheel.

Campaigning in Cumberland, Iowa, Giuliani called for increased pressure on China to ensure that products exported to the United States are safe, according to the Associated Press. At the same time, the former New York mayor stressed the need to maintain a strong relationship with China and push the nation to make improvements in human rights.

For his part, Edwards sent a letter to President Bush calling for better testing and stronger enforcement to keep dangerous made-in-China toys from harming American consumers.

"As one father to another, I'm calling on you to end your silence, speak out, and take immediate action to stop the growing crisis of dangerous toys being imported from China," Edwards wrote. "The safety of the American people should be your highest priority and these unsafe toys pose a serious threat to the health and welfare of millions of children. Given the growing scope of this crisis, we cannot rely on corporations to initiate voluntary recalls while your administration sits on the sidelines. America's families and our children deserve better than this."

Tuesday, Mattel said it was recalling more than 18.2 million toys with magnets that could be swallowed by children, plus more than 400,000 die-cast cars covered with lead paint. It is the latest safety concerns about consumer goods and food that US companies are importing from China.

It seems pretty clear now that the Barack Obama-Hillary Clinton rivalry will remain white hot for the rest of the year as the two jostle for the Democratic nomination. First they tangled over foreign policy, then over the influence of lobbyists and special interests. Now, in a high-profile interview with the Washington Post's Dan Balz, Obama contends that he would unite the divided country more "effectively" than Clinton could.

"I think it is fair to say that I believe I can bring the country together more effectively than she can," Obama told the Post. "I will add, by the way, that is not entirely a problem of her making. Some of those battles in the '90s that she went through were the result of some pretty unfair attacks on the Clintons. But that history exists, and so, yes, I believe I can bring the country together in a way she cannot do. If I didn't believe that, I wouldn't be running."

Read the whole piece here.

Obama, meanwhile, is up with a new radio ad in Spanish in Nevada, a key early primary state this cycle. Narrators describe Obama as the "son of a foreign father who came to this country looking for a better life" and "a Christian man committed to our community, his wife and his daughters." Listen to the ad here.

Mitt Romney, in the afterglow of his win in the Iowa straw poll on Saturday, today launched a new television ad that thanks Iowans and casts himself as the agent of change.

"If there's ever been a time that we needed to see change in Washington, it's now," he says in the ad, which excerpts a stump speech. "....Change begins in Iowa and change begins today."

The 30-second ad, which will air in the first caucus state, also quickly hits the high points of his campaign platform in a series of bumper sticker slogans: a stronger military, secure borders, lower taxes.

By Lisa Wangsness, Globe staff

It only took the Democrats a few hours after Mitt Romney released his personal financial filing to dig up an interesting tidbit from Romney's 1994 challenge of Senator Ted Kennedy.

During that campaign, Romney objected to Kennedy's blind trust's purchase in 1981 of a property in Washington D.C., which the trust then leased to federal tenants. Romney called it "a conflict of interest, pure and simple" and rejected Kennedy's argument that he was knew nothing about the trust's investments.

"The blind trust is an age-old ruse," Romney told the Boston Globe in October of that year. "You give a blind trust rules. You can say to a blind trust, don't invest in properties which would be in conflict of interest or where the seller might think they're going to get an advantage from me."

Romney's personal financial filing showed that Romney's trust owned some potentially controversial stocks, including China Petroleum & Chemical, which has links to Sudan, and several gambling companies(including MGM and Harrah's, which were sold).

It also showed that the trustee, Ropes & Gray's Brad Malt, got rid of some stocks that he thought clashed with Romney's political views, including two foreign oil companies with connections to Iran. (At some point, however, Malt was making money for Romney -- or trying to make money for him -- by investing in those companies.)

Like Kennedy, Romney's campaign has responded to questions about those investments by saying that Romney was not aware of the blind trust's contents until yesterday, when the FEC filings were made public. The campaign has also said that Malt tried to align the trust's holdings with Romney's politics "to the best of his ability."

Asked about Romney's 1994 remarks, Romney spokesman Kevin Madden wrote:

"The governor's trust is in fact a blind trust. There is an important distinction bewteen the references you cite. The trustee in charge of executing the governor's assets made it very clear during his explanation of the terms of the administration of the trust that he made transactions that, to the best of his ability, (were) consistent with the governor's public positions and statements.

"For instance, in order to avoid the appearance of any conflict or impropriety, the trustee did not invest in Massachusetts municipal bonds."

By Brian Mooney, Globe Staff

With a fresh endorsement today from a Michigan congressman, former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney now leads his rival, Arizona Senator John McCain, by a 29-27 margin in congressional endorsements in the Republican presidential race, The Hill reports.

Representative Vernon Ehlers of Grand Rapids signed on after Romney's win in the Iowa straw poll last weekend.

Former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani ranks third, with 21 congressional supporters, followed by former Tennessee senator Fred Thompson, who has not yet officially entered the race and has 18 members of Congress supporting him, according to the Washington political newspaper's running tally.

With the Democratic race for Iowa intensifying, Hillary Clinton is now on air there with her first TV ad of the campaign, a 60-second spot that says she will fight for the "invisible" people that President Bush can't see. "Hillary Clinton has spent her life standing up for people others don't see," the narrator says. (Watch the ad here.)

Recent polls have shown a tight race in Iowa among Clinton, Barack Obama, and John Edwards, who is staking his campaign on a strong showing in the caucus there in January.

Also today, check out this interesting piece in The Los Angeles Times about how many documents pertaining to Clinton's years as first lady remain unavailable to the public.

ST. LOUIS -- Hello mudda, hello fadda, having fun here at Camp Obama

It's been about 100 degrees here this weekend in muggy St. Louis, so perhaps it's fortunate that the Camp Obama campground was actually a nicely air-conditioned function room in the basement of the Missouri Historical Museum. For the past two days, more than 60 ardent supporters of Barack Obama have huddled here to learn how they can put their passion to use.

It's been more boot camp than summer camp: Yesterday's session was a 12-hour marathon. Participants learned how to canvass. They learned how to raise money by throwing house parties in their neighborhoods. They learned how the Iowa caucus works. They learned how to use the press. They learned how to talk on people's doorsteps about Obama's policy positions.

"You are our base," Patrick Green, a local official who is supporting Obama, told the group. "You are our foot soldiers."

Indeed, a lot is expected from these groups of volunteers, who are being carefully groomed around the country by Obama's campaign. The strength of Obama's grass-roots network has mostly been measured by his many campaign contributors -- nearly 260,000 people through June. But Camp Obama shows that his base of volunteers is big and growing, a force that his campaign hopes will make the difference by the time the primaries begin next year.

Just kidding. But the reason this is taking so long is that, due to a voting machine malfunction, the GOP is having to recount about 1,500 ballots cast in that machine.

They say it'll be only a minute or two now.

They're getting to announce the results here in Ames. Most of the people who voted have already gone home (or maybe melted in the sweltering heat). But those who are left have begun gathering in the coliseum to get the word.

By Lisa Wangsness, Globe staff

AMES, Iowa -- An Iowa Christian group is circulating flyers at today's straw poll urging people not to vote for Mitt Romney, the strong favorite in today's straw poll, because he is a Mormon.

"we strongly believe that Jesus Christ, if he were alive in the flesh in this time and voted, would NEVER vote for Mitt Romney under any circumstances," the flyer says. "Mitt Romney represents Mormonism which is counterfeit Christianity, a cult."

The flyer goes on to cite a list of reasons as to why Christians should not pick a Mormon for president.

On the flip side, it also advises Christian voters to stay away from Rudy Giuliani, Newt Gingrich, John McCain and Fred Thompson because "they can NEVER make a strong case for strong families or for strong Christian values."

Richard Green, a retired pastor from Council Bluffs, Iowa, who was passing out the flyers in one of the convention center parking lots, identified himself as a member of U.S. Christians for Truth, which he said was a group of current and retired pastors in Council Bluffs. He said he was not affiliated with any of the candidates and had not yet decided who he would support in the straw poll.

The flyer is by far the most vitriolic anti-Mormon piece we've seen so far out here in Iowa; Romney aides said they had not seen anything like it.

"Negative attacks are commonplace in the political arena," said Peter Flaherty, Romney's point man for conservative outreach. "But there should be no place for religious bigotry."

AMES, Iowa -- The straw poll is revving up here at the Hilton Coliseum at Iowa State University. This is not just a vote, it is a carnival of politics, featuring inflatable playground equipment for kids, painted buses, barbecue, bluegrass bands, troops of sign-waving supporters marching around and shouting their candidates' names.

It's going to be a blazing hot day, about 95 degrees. Everybody's already chugging bottled water -- and, Sam Brownback hopes, making a run for his air conditioned tent. (It really doesn't feel that much cooler inside.)

Mitt Romney's campaign is gearing up for a big day. All five of Romney's sons are here with their wives and kids, and more than 100 relatives have flown in from all over the country to help out.

The candidates are scheduled to begin speaking inside the Coliseum at 12:24 p.m. Voting goes on all day, and the result will be announced at 7 p.m. Central time.

By Lisa Wangsness, Globe Staff

AMES, Iowa -- A visibly upbeat Mitt Romney rallied with supporters and family this evening on the eve of the straw poll that could substantially boost his presidential bid.

The Iowa straw poll Saturday is going to be a shot "heard around the world," Romney told a crowd of about 150 at his campaign headquarters. About two-thirds of them were family members and they planned a reunion of sorts tonight.

Romney was so confident that he joked about the prospect that the Iowa caucus will be earlier than the scheduled Jan. 14 because of other states moving up their contests. "Okay, what the heck, let's have it in September," he said. "We're ready."

Romney is going all-out to lure thousands of supporters to the straw poll in Ames, renting a fleet of air-conditioned buses, buying thousands of tickets and promising free barbecue and entertainment to supporters who make the trip.

The straw poll is typically seen as a key early test of organizational strength for the GOP candidates in the first caucus state. But its significance as a prelude to the caucuses may be diminished this year because the other top GOP candidates have opted not to participate, in effect conceding the straw poll to the former Massachusetts governor.

Romney's real opponent on Saturday is an elusive one: expectations.

To do well, Romney's margin of victory must at least match his showing in the polls, or about 27 percent, said Dennis J. Goldford, a political scientist at Drake University. And an unexpected surge of support for one of the lesser candidates could hurt Romney even if he still wins, Goldford said.

"It's the Patriots playing the Emerson College women's lacrosse team," he said.

Mitt Romney, left, flips pork chops while working in the Iowa Pork Producers tent at the Iowa State Fair.
(Charlie Neibergall/Associated Press)

The last full day of campaigning before Saturday's Iowa straw poll took Mitt Romney today to the celebrated State Fair in Des Moines. There he had to navigate one of the gauntlets for presidential hopefuls -- flipping pork chops at the Iowa Pork Producers tent.

For someone accused of flip-flopping on issues, it carried more hazards than usual. But Romney, escorted by much of his family, gave it the old college try.

It soon became clear that he needs to bone up on his backyard grilling skills. Wearing a personalized blue apron emblazoned with "Not a Blah Cook" and "The Other White Meat," he dropped a chop. As the assembled media watched, he scooped it off the ground and put it back on the grill.

A reporter asked whether it was smart to be flipping anything, given the knock on his conservative credentials. "It's part of the process," Romney replied, according to NBC's Lauren Appelbaum. "It's part of the fun, to be at the Iowa State Fair and flipping pork chops."

A newly released poll of New Hampshire primary voters shows Hillary Clinton leading the Democratic field and Mitt Romney ahead on the Republican side.

In the survey, 36 percent of likely Democratic primary voters said they were most likely to support Clinton, compared to 19 percent for Barack Obama, 15 percent for John Edwards, and 12 percent for Bill Richardson. Four other candidates were supported by a total of 5 percent, and 13 percent of respondents said they were undecided.

Among Republicans, Romney led with 33 percent, Rudy Giuliani had 17 percent, John McCain 16 percent, and Fred Thompson 13 percent. Six others shared 9 percent, and 12 percent of respondents said they were undecided.

The poll of 504 Democrats and 500 Republicans was conducted between July 24 and July 26 by Peter D. Hart Research Associates, a Democratic polling firm, and McLaughlin and Associates, a Republican polling firm. It was commissioned by ONE, a nonpartisan coalition that is seeking to push candidates to address global poverty and health.

In the poll, 86 percent of Democratic voters and 67 percent of Republicans said presidential candidates should incorporate their proposals to deal with global hunger and poverty in their foreign policy platforms. Also, 81 percent of Democrats and 80 percent of Republicans said the next president should keep President Bush's commitments to fight AIDS in Africa.

"This election is an opportunity to ensure that our next president is committed to ending extreme poverty in the world's poorest countries," Susan McCue, ONE president and CEO, said in a statement. "We can finally put an end to preventable diseases like malaria and live up to our nation's tradition of compassion and leadership around the world. The ONE poll shows that voters are ready to mobilize behind a candidate who takes on global poverty, hunger, and health."

Mitt Romney, who is calling for tougher laws against illegal immigration as a major campaign theme, applauded the Bush administration's announcement today that is taking more steps to secure the border with Mexico and speed the expulsion of illegal immigrants.

"We must get serious if we are to secure our nation's borders," Romney said in a statement issued by his campaign.

"For far too long, lax enforcement and the adoption of policies that have created sanctuary cities for those entering the country illegally have put a strain on our border enforcement efforts and worsened our illegal immigration problem," the statement said. "We must take action to prevent sanctuary city policies that invite more illegal immigration and offer zones of protection for lawbreakers."

In the run-up to Saturday's straw poll in Ames, the former Massachusetts governor has been running an ad on illegal immigration and emphasizing the issue on the stump.

New Hampshire Secretary of State William Gardner, right, listens as South Carolina GOP Chairman Katon Dawson announces Jan. 19, 2008 as the date of his state's Republican presidential primary at the State House in Concord, N.H.
(Jim Cole/Associated Press)

By Susan Milligan, Globe Staff

WASHINGTON -- New Hampshire and Iowa officials face new pressure to bring forward their presidential selection contests even earlier -- perhaps before the winter holidays -- after South Carolina Republicans announced today they would move their primary to Jan. 19.

The decision -- which South Carolina GOP chairman Katon Dawson said was in response to the Florida state legislature's vote to move that state's primary to Jan. 29 -- accelerates a trend that threatens to have more than half of the parties' conventions delegates chosen by Feb. 5.

The South Carolina move prompted speculation that the New Hampshire primary would be brought forward to sometime between Jan. 9 and 12, with the Iowa party caucuses now likely to be held in the first couple days of January, or maybe even in mid-December.

"We are here to stand shoulder to shoulder with our friends in New Hampshire to reaffirm the important role that both of our states play in presidential politics," Dawson said at a news conference in Concord with New Hampshire Secretary of State William M. Gardner.

Gardner said he had not decided when to schedule the Granite State's primary, which by state law must be the first in the nation and must take place seven days ahead of the next primary. Prior to South Carolina's action, New Hampshire's contest had been tentatively scheduled for Jan. 22.

"The movement of South Carolina will certainly trigger our law,'' Gardner said. He added that he would wait until later in the year to set a primary date to make sure other states did not also accelerate their primaries.

"I don't relish waiting until later in the year, but I have in the past when it's been absolutely necessary to protect tradition. And that's what's first and foremost,'' Gardner said.

Iowa, which holds a caucus currently scheduled for Jan. 14, requires an eight-day interim between its contest and the New Hampshire primary, meaning it would also be faced with moving its contest to an earlier date.

Iowa GOP spokeswoman Mary Tiffany said the Hawkeye State would not act to move its caucuses until New Hampshire sets its primary. "Right now, we're still first in the nation,'' Tiffany said of the state's caucuses.

Iowa might be forced to move its caucuses to as early as mid-December to stay ahead of New Hampshire and to avoid the weeks of Christmas and New Year's, said Merle Black, a political scientist at Emory University in Atlanta.

"If Iowa moves [its caucuses] before Christmas, that will really diminish Iowa'' as a player in the presidential primary season, Black said. "Whoever wins there is going to get lost in Christmas and New Year's and football, and all this stuff that's important to a lot of Americans,'' he said.

More than 20 states have moved or are considering a move to the first Tuesday in February, putting heavy pressure on the 18 announced presidential candidates to raise money and travel across the country to woo voters from California to New Hampshire.

Both national parties have threatened to punish states that move up their primaries in defiance of party rules by reducing their numbers of delegates to the conventions. But local legislatures and parties -- eager to have candidates spend campaign cash in the states and address local concerns -- have been undeterred by the threat.

The attention states like Florida and South Carolina could get from presidential candidates visiting early in the campaign is more valuable than having a full slate of delegates at the conventions, party spokesmen and political analysts said.

"We'd rather have some people in Florida be relevant in the Republican selection process than have a bunch of delegates go to see the balloons drop'' at the RNC convention in Minneapolis next September, said Alberto Martinez, communications director for the majority Republicans in the Florida state House.

"We still think the biggest political prize is going to be in Florida,'' Martinez said, adding that he was skeptical that the parties would take away delegates. "We don't foresee them preventing delegates from having their say at the convention.''

Republican strategist Mike Murphy speaks during a taping of "Meet the Press" in June.
(REUTERS)

By Brian C. Mooney, Globe Staff

When the 2008 presidential campaign season was warming up last year, it created a quandary for Republican strategist and media consultant Mike Murphy.

John McCain and Mitt Romney were both considering running, and Murphy had been chief campaign adviser to both in the past. So he vowed to sit out the 2008 campaign if both decided to jump into the race. Which they did. Complicating matters further, Tommy Thompson, the former Wisconsin governor and another past Murphy client, later jumped into the GOP race.

So Murphy, who lives in Los Angeles and said he is now working on a screenplay for a possible TV series, says he decided to make contributions to all three. A Globe search of Federal Election Commission records shows that he donated $2,300, the maximum for an individual, to McCain, the Arizona senator, on Feb. 27, and $1,000 to Thompson's campaign about three weeks later.

But the Globe could find no record of a donation to Romney, the former Massachusetts governor, and a Romney campaign official said it has no record of a contribution from Murphy.

Murphy said today he thought he sent Romney a check for the $2,300 maximum around the time he gave to McCain, but after checking his records realized he hadn't.

"I'm sending Mitt a check today," he said.

Hillary Clinton, who has criticized rival Barack Obama for saying the use of nuclear weapons in Pakistan and Afghanistan should be "off the table," expressed a nearly identical sentiment about Iran a year ago, the Associated Press is reporting this afternoon.

After Obama made his remarks about nuclear weapons, Clinton said, "I don't believe that any president should make any blanket statements with respect to the use or non-use of nuclear weapons." But in an April 2006 interview with Bloomberg Television, the AP reports, Clinton, when asked about reports that the Bush administration was considering a nuclear strike against Iran's nuclear program, said: "I have said publicly no option should be off the table, but I would certainly take nuclear weapons off the table. This administration has been very willing to talk about using nuclear weapons in a way we haven't seen since the dawn of a nuclear age. I think that's a terrible mistake."

Clinton's campaign says the situations are different, but her 2006 comments complicate her attempts to paint Obama as a neophyte in world affairs. This is the second time a past remark by Clinton has come back to haunt her in the ongoing debate with Obama over foreign policy. After she called him "irresponsible" and "naive" for saying last month that he would sit down unconditionally with America's enemies, Obama's campaign noted that Clinton said earlier this year, "I think it is a terrible mistake for our president to say he will not talk with bad people."

UPDATE: Chris Dodd piles on. To wit: "I was disappointed to learn that Mrs. Clinton, like Mr. Obama, would make such an unwise categorical statement about military options," he said in a statement. "If nothing else, these kinds of careless statements expose the difference in the candidates' depth of experience and understanding when it comes to the complex world of foreign policy and military affairs."

He may not believe in pre-emptive wars, but Barack Obama does apparently believe in pre-emptive press releases. Obama today released a statement urging President Bush to sign the ethics reform bill passed by Congress before it left for August recess. Obama helped craft the bill, but Bush has made noise about vetoing it.

"President Bush cannot stand in the way of this opportunity to reform the lobbyist-driven culture in Washington that doesn’t represent real Americans or their interests," Obama said. "For too long, the American people have been stranded on the sidelines while Washington lobbyists have bought every seat at the table to stop us from reforming our health care system or our energy policy ... By vetoing the most far-reaching reform in history, President Bush would deny the American people the change they demand."

On the campaign trail, Obama often rails against lobbyists and special interests, making a point of saying he does not take special-interest money. But as the Globe reported today, that hasn't always been the case.

By Jenn Abelson, Globe Staff

A new University of Iowa poll released today shows the race for the Democratic presidential nomination tightening in Iowa with caucus goers splitting nearly evenly between former vice presidential nominee John Edwards, and Senators Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.

Edwards' clear lead has disappeared as New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson picked up support among Democrats likely to caucus. Edwards is supported by 26 percent of likely caucus-goers, followed by Clinton with 24.8 percent. But both saw their support fall since March -- Edwards dropped 8.2 percentage points and Clinton fell by 3.7 percentage points. Obama, with 19.3 percent, remained basically unchanged.

Among all Democrats, Clinton leads with 26.8 percent, followed by Obama with 22.3 percent, Edwards with 22.1 percent, and Richardson with 8.5 percent.

David Redlawsk, director of the poll and associate professor of political science at the University of Iowa, said Clinton leads among all potential caucus-goers because she picks up substantial support among Democrats who say they may caucus in 2008, but admit they have not done so regularly in the past.

"Obama and Clinton could benefit if they could get people out who historically haven't shown up. But in the past, candidates, like Howard Dean, most recently, haven't been terribly successful at getting out nontraditional caucus-goers," Redlawsk said.

About two-thirds of Democrats surveyed said that Clinton is the strongest candidate, an increase of 10.5 percentage points since March. Nearly 85 percent of the most likely caucus-goers agreed with the statement that "John Edwards is electable" compared to 81 percent for Obama and 76.3 percent for Clinton.

The results are from a random, statewide poll of registered voters in Iowa conducted July 29 through Aug. 5 and with a margin of error of plus or minus 4.9 percentage points.

Barack Obama has Obama Girl. Rudy Giuliani has Giuliani Girl.

Now, Mitt Romney has the Romney Girls. Three of them. They're blonde. And they're triplets.

In their first video, they attack Obama Girl for flip-flopping, fiscal irresponsibility, and other transgressions.

It's the latest bizarre confluence of politics, the Internet, and "Girls Gone Wild."

Romney, himself, seems to be unfazed. "There's nothing like getting a good spot on YouTube," he said on Fox News Channel's "Fox & Friends" this morning when asked about the Romney Girls video.

Then he joked that he needed to stop Ann, his wife of 38 years, from wearing hot pants.

As they stood side by side, a Fox interviewer told Ann Romney of her husband's quip.

"I heard about that," she said.

"It's in my dreams, right?" Romney asked.

Her reply: "Not in his wildest dreams."

On a more substantive note, Romney spent most of his Fox interview bashing Republican front-runner Rudy Giuliani over his handling of illegal immigrants while mayor of New York City.

By Marcella Bombardieri, Globe Staff

It was a little startling the other night to see Hillary Clinton -- Senator, former First Lady, and 59-year-old mother of a grown child -- declare with a huge smile at the AFL-CIO debate in Chicago that "If you want a winner...I'm your girl."

There's been a lot of buzz about whether that's risky language for someone trying to become the first female president. But Geraldine Ferraro, the Democratic candidate for vice-president in 1984, told the Globe it was a moment she loved. When female politicians hang out, they often call themselves "the girls," Ferraro said.

"I think it's good and healthy. She's comfortable with herself and with the campaign," Ferraro said. "I think we are in a different time, where we don't have to kill ourselves to show we are as good as men."

By Brian C. Mooney, Globe Staff

A new University of Iowa poll released today has good news for former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney and bad news for his two major Republican presidential rivals, who are taking a pass on Saturday's GOP straw poll in Ames. For one of them, Arizona Republican John McCain, the survey shows the bottom falling out of his candidacy in the first caucus state.

"Republicans appear to be punishing both (former New York mayor Rudy) Giuliani and McCain for their unwillingness to compete in the Aug. 11 straw poll, while Romney's campaign has hit its stride," said David Redlawsk, the poll's director and political science professor.

The survey of more than 300 respondents who said they were Republican caucus goers showed Romney leading with 27 percent, up from 17 percent in a poll in March, followed by Giuliani at 11 percent, a drop of nine percentage points from his March showing.

Former Tennessee senator Fred Thompson, who has not officially entered the race, was at 6.5 percent, up from 5 in March, followed by Kansas Senator Sam Brownback and Colorado Representative Tom Tancredo, both at 4.2 percent.

McCain got support from 3.2 percent, a precipitous drop from his 21-percent showing in the university's March survey.

The new poll, however, showed 31.1 percent of Republican caucus goers were still undecided, up from 23 percent in March, and more than 72 percent were "very" or "somewhat" likely to change their preference before the caucuses.

The margin of error for the survey, which was conducted from July 29 through Aug. 5, is plus or minus 5.5 percentage points.

Redlawsk said detailed poll results on the Democratic presidential race would be released later this week.

ROCHESTER, N.H. – Piggybacking on the bridge collapse in Minneapolis last week, Hillary Clinton stopped in this struggling industrial town today to raise an alarm about America’s crumbling infrastructure.

She even cited the Big Dig tunnel collapse, along with Hurricane Katrina and the tragedy in Minneapolis, as a warning sign that the country faces a crisis that threatens both safety and economic vitality.

As President, Clinton would establish a $10 billion emergency repair fund for bridges, roads, waterways and seaports, and spent $250 million for states to conduct emergency safety reviews. She would invest $1 billion in urban rail systems, and boost federal funding for public transit by $1.5 billion a year.

Sounds like a lot of money? Well, Clinton said that previous American generations, from the Civil War through World War II, were willing to sacrifice for their children and grandchildren. (But she didn’t specify how she’d pay for everything.)

“What is it we’ve done to sacrifice and share the burden that I think should be the responsibility of each American generation?” she said. “When we see what happened in Minneapolis and New Orleans, it’s hard to answer that question.”

Betsy Emerson, a recently retired social worker, she was willing to make the kind of sacrifice Clinton talked about, but still felt pessimistic that Clinton or any other potential president would manage such a massive overhaul.

“I like her programs, but I’ve heard so many people talk about so many good things,” said Emerson, 69, of Barrington, N.H. “I’ve become very discouraged with the government’s ability to follow through.”

Mitt Romney, right, visits with 87-year-old Dollie Ayres, of Wilton, Iowa, during a visit to the Wilton Candy Kitchen.
(Charlie Neibergall/Associated Press)

By Lisa Wangsness, Globe Staff

WILTON, Iowa -- Mitt Romney spent this morning barnstorming the small farming communities of Eastern Iowa, holding a series of "Ask Mitt Anything" events and urging his supporters to turn out Saturday for the straw poll in Ames.

All the time he has spent in Iowa, however, appears to have affected the former Massachusetts governor's recollection of the state he presided over for four years.

At the Wilton Candy Kitchen, which says it is the "oldest ice cream parlor/soda fountain in the world," Romney told an adoring crowd of mostly elderly residents that his son Josh was about to complete a tour of all 99 counties in Iowa.

A woman raised her hand. "Yes, please!" Romney said.

"How many counties are in Massachusetts?" she asked.

"Thirteen," he said. A few feet away, an aide shook his head and said, "Ten."

"Oh, no, I think it's 13," Romney said. "Not like your 99."

He paused for a moment. "Yeah, if you count Dukes County ... " he trailed off. "So, anyway, we have very, very few."

"Ninety-nine counties," Romney said, apparently hoping to change the subject, "Why didn't you get to 100?"

The crowd laughed good-naturedly.

A spokesman for Romney said he shortly thereafter, "corrected the record" to the right number of 14.

By Brian Mooney, Globe Staff

South Carolina Republicans will move up their 2008 presidential primary, setting the stage for New Hampshire and Iowa to schedule earlier contests to preserve their first-in-the-nation status.

William M. Gardner, New Hampshire's secretary of state, and Katon Dawson, chairman of the South Carolina Republican Party, have scheduled a press conference at 11 a.m. Thursday at the State House in Concord to announce the changes.

New Hampshire requires a week in between its first-in-the nation primary and the next primary, so it will have to move up its contest, which was tentatively scheduled for Jan. 22 under a timetable set by the Democratic National Committee.

Gardner, who is empowered under state law to set the date of the Granite State primary, this morning would not detail any specifics, but said he will wait until he is certain all other states are locked into certain dates before finalizing the date of the New Hampshire primary. A bill pending in the Michigan Legislature could conceivably alter the schedule again, he said.

The acceleration of the presidential selection process was put in play May 3 when the Florida Legislature voted to move that state's primary to Jan. 29, four days before when South Carolina Republicans had planned their primary. Dawson immediately vowed that South Carolina would keep its first-in-the-South status.

The move would not affect the South Carolina Democratic primary, which is scheduled for Jan. 29.

A New Hampshire move presumably would force Iowa, which traditionally kicks off the presidential nominating contest with the first caucuses, to set an earlier date to maintain that status. Under the DNC timetable, the Iowa caucuses were set for Jan. 14, but Iowa requires an eight-day interval before New Hampshire.

Hogan Gidley, executive director of the South Carolina Republican Party, confirmed that it will announce it is moving up its primary date, but would not specify a date.

By Globe Staff

Mitt Romney, staying focused on Iowa while still monitoring his potential general election rivals, launched a new TV ad in the Hawkeye State today while giving a big thumbs-down to the Democrats' performance in last night's AFL-CIO forum in Chicago.

The former Massachusetts governor called the forum before 17,000 union members a "pander-fest" and "a prime example" of why the Democratic presidential contenders "are unprepared to lead the country and unwilling to change the status quo in Washington."

The new 30-second television ad, titled "Change Begins," urges Iowans to attend the Saturday straw poll in Ames and send a message to Washington politicians who Romney says can't control spending or the nation's borders. Most pundits expect him to win the straw poll because the other top-tier Republicans are skipping the event.

There's nothing like a stadium full of union activists to get Democratic presidential candidates to claim the labor mantle. As they debated tonight at Soldier Field in Chicago, the candidates fell all over themselves to persuade those on union rolls that they've been with them for years.

John Edwards, who has made numerous appeals to labor during the primary campaign, argued he had been the most committed. That prompted Barack Obama to remind people that he started out as an organizer working with laid-off workers on Chicago's South Side. And then Joe Biden couldn't resist taking a shot at Edwards, accusing Edwards of only taking on labor's cause for the sake of politics. "Where were you those six years you were in the Senate?" he said.

The sharpest exchanges of the debate, though, had little to do with labor, but with foreign policy. The candidates were asked about Obama's remark last week that he would consider a unilateral strike against terrorist targets inside Pakistan. Chris Dodd called the remark "irresponsible," prompting Obama to retort pointedly that what was irresponsible was voting in 2002, as Dodd and Hillary Clinton did, to authorize President Bush to invade Iraq. And then Clinton chimed in to chide Obama, calling his comments a "mistake" that could destabilize Pakistan's government. "You can think big, but remember, you shouldn't always say everything you're thinking if you're running for president," Clinton said.

The most poignant moment of the night: when a man on crutches stood up and tearfully said that after working for years, he couldn't afford to pay for his wife's health care. The whole place stood up and applauded him.

The weirdest dodge: when Obama refused to say whether he would honor Barry Bonds at the White House when he surpasses Hank Aaron as the all-time home run leader.

The most improved player: Dennis Kucinich, who stole some of Edwards's thunder tonight with his passionate appeals to workers, including a call to end the North American Free Trade Agreement, which labor believes has hurt American workers.

By Marcella Bombardieri, Globe Staff

DERRY, N.H. — As the mortgage crisis deepens, causing stock market jitters and forcing middle class families out of their homes, the Democratic presidential contenders are seizing on the issue, a tailor-made opportunity for them to accuse Republicans of letting rapacious, unregulated companies victimize hardworking families.

Today in New Hampshire, Hillary Clinton said she would ban fees that penalize early repayments and create a $1 billion fund to help struggling homeowners avoid foreclosure.

Former North Carolina Senator John Edwards has called for banning a longer list of controversial lending practices, including balloon loans where the interest rates grow dramatically over time. Senator Barack Obama of Illinois introduced a bill that would create new criminal penalties for mortgage professionals found guilty of fraud and offer counseling for homeowners to avoid foreclosure. And Senator Chris Dodd of Connecticut, chairman of the Senate banking committee, is trumpeting his own efforts to combat the problem.

The more the crisis ripples through the economy, the more it will help Democrats make the case that Republican economic policies have spurned middle- and lower-income families, some campaign watchers said.
"It's an enormous opportunity for the Democrats to criticize the failures of the Bush administration, the fallout we are seeing from laissez-faire economic policies," Emory University political scientist Alan I. Abramowitz said yesterday.

In her speech at Ernest P. Barka Elementary School, Clinton said the next president must "restore a sense of fairness to our economy."

"What the president calls the ownership society, it's the yo-yo economy," she said. "Some go up and some go down, and someone is pulling the strings."

In addition to banning prepayment penalties, Clinton would also require mortgage lenders to include taxes and insurance in their calculations of whether the borrowers can afford the mortgage payments. She would force brokers to disclose that they earn bigger profits from selling bigger mortgages, meaning their advice isn't necessarily in the borrowers' interest.

She is also seeking to beef up state licensing standards for brokers and to publish an online registry detailing brokers’ employment histories and complaints against them. Clinton said she would introduce legislation after Labor Day.

In addition to banning more lending practices than Clinton, Edwards wants to rewrite bankruptcy laws and create a fund to help homeowners free themselves from "underwater" mortgages that are larger than the value of their home.

Of the top-tier Democratic contenders, Edwards has been campaigning most aggressively on the economic struggles of working people. Today, his campaign sought to portray Clinton as late to the issue and weaker in her response.

"We're glad Senator Clinton has chosen to follow his lead," spokeswoman Colleen Murray said in a statement. "The Edwards plan remains the most aggressive — he supports a national law that would prohibit abusive lending practices, no exceptions."

Dodd's campaign had a similar reaction, pointing out that he has cosponsored several bills since 2000 that were aimed at protecting consumers from predatory loans.

"Addressing the crisis will require more than rhetoric on the campaign trail," Dodd spokeswoman Colleen Flanagan said in a statement. "That is why as Banking Chairman, Sen. Dodd has taken the reigns on this issue and plans to continue ensuring that American homeowners are not taken advantage of."

But Congress — including Dodd’s committee — has done little more than hold hearings since the current crisis started, and contributed to the problems by loosening regulatory requirements, said Lauren E. Willis, a professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles who studies predatory lending.

The Republican National Committee said that Clinton's plan would mean more big government and would likely be financed by higher taxes. The Bush administration has said that the problems are mostly in the subprime market and is not damaging the economy.

By Susan Milligan, Globe Staff

New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson today became the latest presidential contender to embrace a requirement that all Americans get health insurance, releasing a plan he said would cut health care costs and cover all Americans without raising taxes.

Richardson's plan would expand existing programs to cover more young people, those near retirement, and veterans. It would offer Medicare as a choice to Americans 55 to 64 years old, and would expand Medicaid and S-CHIP coverage for children in poor families.

Young adults as old as 25 would have the option of staying in their parents' health care plans. Further, a new "Heroes Health Card'' would be offered to veterans -- assuring them, Richardson said, of less bureaucracy and "the same decent medical coverage that so many of us civilians take for granted.''

Mandatory health insurance is meant to lower the high cost of paying for emergency health care for the nation's 47 million uninsured. Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney, now a GOP contender for president, was an architect of the Massachusetts plan, and former North Carolina Senator John Edwards, a Democrat, has also released a plan demanding that all Americans get insurance.

But Richardson -- unlike Edwards -- does not believe he would need to raise taxes to pay for his plan. Instead, he said, he would require insurance companies to spend less on administration, setting aside at least 85 percent of spending for direct care. Credit card companies would be limited in the amount of interest they could charge for charges related to medical care.

Richardson also would allow Medicare to negotiate directly with drug companies in an effort to lower prices, an idea rejected by Congress when it passed a Medicare prescription drug coverage plan in late 2003.

Illinois Senator Barack Obama has proposed covering the uninsured by expanding the existing private system, but he has not said how much it would cost or whether he would raise taxes to pay for it. Edwards estimates that his plan would cost $90 billion to $120 billion, a sum he said could be raised by eliminating the tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans passed during President Bush's first term.

New York Senator Hillary Clinton has released proposals to contain health care costs, but she has not yet outlined how she would cover Americans without health insurance.

(AP photo)

With Bill Clinton and Elizabeth Edwards campaign trail celebrities, Michelle Obama remains the least-known spouse in the top tier of Democratic presidential hopefuls. But she has been working quietly to change that, appearing at campaign events for her husband around the country.

The morning of Fourth of July, for example, she joined Barack Obama at the Smokey Row coffee shop in downtown Oskaloosa, Iowa, where a few hundred people had packed in to hear the Illinois senator make his pitch for the presidency. She scored big points with the audience when she said that she had turned down a request from Obama's campaign to be in Iowa the day before, because their daughters, Sasha and Malia, had a "haunted trails" event at their summer camp that they wanted to see. "Family is first for us and it will always be that way," she said, drawing big cheers.

This week, Mary Mitchell of the Chicago Sun-Times is writing a series of pieces on Michelle Obama that are worth reading. Today's installment also touches on the role of family in the Obamas' life. "The first priority is to make sure that my kids have their heads on straight," Michelle Obama is quoted as saying. "They are great and they are stable and they are confident, and I want to make sure that they stay that way."

In yesterday's piece, Michelle Obama talks about a lingering -- some would say unfair -- question from some in the African-American community: Is Obama black enough? Here's what his wife had to say about it: "The thing that I worry most about . . . is not what it says about me and Barack. What does it say to our children? [T]hat somehow Michelle Obama is not black enough? Well, shoot, if I'm not black enough and Barack's not black enough, well who are they supposed to be in this world?"

(Associated Press)

Hillary Clinton greets supporters at a Derry, N.H., elementary school after proposing measures to deal with the subprime mortgage crisis.

By Marcella Bombardieri, Globe Staff

DERRY, N.H. -- Hillary Clinton this morning laid out a plan for how to crack down on mortgage abuses, saying home ownership is a cornerstone of the American dream.

As president, Clinton said she would require lenders to do more to determine if borrowers are capable of paying their mortgages. She also proposed a $1 billion fund to help homeowners avoid foreclosure.

"I don't think its right that so many hardworking, responsible families across this country are losing their most precious possession and most valuable asset," she said at an elementary school.

Clinton and other Democratic presidential contenders are starting to weigh in on the crisis in subprime mortgages -- loans given to borrowers with spotty credit records. Higher interest rates have made it more difficult for homeowners to keep up their payments. Monday, American Home Mortgage became the latest subprime lender to declare bankruptcy.

Rudy Giuliani's campaign says in Iowa today Giuliani will talk about his plans for improving kids' quality of life by curbing drug abuse, pursuing online sexual predators and combatting violence. See David Brody's preview for details.

Sure, Giuliani's a former prosecutor. But it sounds strikingly like what Mitt Romney has been talking up for the last several weeks: his his "one strike and you're ours" policy for sex offenders who use the Internet to victimize children, and his ad, "Ocean," which talks about a need to clean up "the water in which our kids are swimming" -- pornography, drugs, sex and violence in entertainment.

Giuliani's timing is noteworthy: An Washington Post/ABC News survey released August 5 showed that while Giuliani polled ahead of Romney in the "strongest leader" category, twice as many respondents said Romney was closest to them on the issues. Seems like Giuliani, known for his socially moderate positions on abortion and gay rights, could benefit by bringing some social conservatives into his camp.

The poll showed Romney, the Iowa frontrunner, 12 points ahead of Giuliani, his closest rival.

Mitt Romney is known for his cool, disciplined demeanor on the campaign trail. But last Thursday, a conservative radio talk host in Des Moines, Iowa provoked him into a rare show of ire in a heated exchange about abortion, Mormonism and the role Romney's faith should have in his politics.

Romney engaged in a protracted argument with the host, Jan Mickelson of Newsradio 1040 WHO, who repeatedly provoked him -- first by insinuating he had not followed the rules of his own church on abortion, and then by declaring that Romney was distancing himself from his religion. Romney, clearly annoyed, passionately defended his right to run as a secular candidate while remaining a faithful Mormon.

The most intense exchange happened off-air, but was captured -- unbeknownst to Romney -- by a camera in the studio. But the Romney campaign clearly thought Romney came off well; it posted the video on YouTube, and Romney supporters have been trumpeting his performance.

Yesterday, the Democratic National Committee tried to seize on the exchange, issuing a press release saying Romney had "shown a thin skin." But Kevin Madden, a spokesman for Romney, replied in an e-mail yesterday that the DNC was "as usual, tragically unaware of just how favorably the interview was received by those who viewed it."

The exchange began when Mickelson began asking Romney about his position on abortion, which Romney acknowledged had gone from "effectively pro-choice" to pro-life. Mickelson began to grill Romney on whether his original position on abortion had violated church rules.

Romney at first tried to avoid getting into it: "The great thing about this country is that individuals who run for secular office are not implementing the policies of their church, they are doing what they think is right for the nation."

Romney told Mickelson that some Mormons, including church leaders, personally opposed abortion but supported abortion rights. But he repeatedly said he was not there to talk about his religion.

Mickelson kept pushing. "I think you are making a big mistake when you distance yourself from your religion," he said.

"I'm proud of my faith," Romney shot back. "There is nothing I distance myself from." But Romney said he did not wish to impose his faith on anyone else -- for example, he said, his church forbids sex outside marriage and the consumption of alcohol, but a law forbidding those things would be out of the question.

"So don't confuse what I do as a member of my faith with what I think should be done by government," he said.

OK, this is rich: Rudy Giuliani's daughter Caroline has signaled her support for Barack Obama on her Facebook profile, Slate is reporting today. The Harvard-bound 17-year-old calls herself a "liberal" and had, until today, touted her membership in the group called "Barack Obama (One Million Strong for Barack)." (Slate reports that she listed the group on her page until Slate made inquiries.)

Much has been made about Giuliani's rocky relationship with his children -- his son Andrew said earlier this year that he was too busy with golf to help out on his dad's campaign, and that, "I got my values from my mother." But if Giuliani's daughter is backing Obama, that would be a major embarrassment, particularly as her dad tries to win political points by blasting Obama's views of foreign policy.

Two weeks into his spirited engagement with Hillary Clinton over foreign policy, Barack Obama today seized on a new perceived opening to sharpen their differences over lobbyists.

Campaigning in Iowa today, Obama went after agribusiness lobbyists who he said have carried too much influence over US agriculture policy and funneled hundreds of millions of dollars to big business instead of small farmers. He promised to work to change that in the farm bill that's now before Congress.

"When the farm bill comes up in the Senate, I will be fighting to tell all those agribusiness lobbyists that they won't be able to count on the multi-million-dollar subsidies they always get because we're going to put family farmers first," Obama said at campaign events in Le Mars and Sioux City, according to his campaign. "While you're working in the fields, lobbyists are working in Congress to block the rural reforms America needs."

Sure, Obama has been railing against lobbyists for some time and celebrating the fact that he doesn't accept their campaign contributions. But it seems clear that his Iowa remarks were designed in part to distinguish himself from Clinton, who told liberal bloggers in Chicago over the weekend that lobbyists were upstanding folks who did the people's business. "A lot of those lobbyists, whether you like it or not, represent real Americans, they actually do," Clinton said. "They represent nurses, they represent social workers, and, yes, they represent corporations that employ a lot of people."

Obama's populist message may play in the Democratic primary, but Clinton's campaign argues in a new memo today that she's the most electable in a general election. Clinton is polling higher against not just Democrats, but also against the likely GOP nominees, senior adviser Mark Penn says in the memo.

"She is the candidate of experience and change, a combination no other candidate can match," Penn wrote. "As a result we will likely see more attacks from her Democratic opponents, despite their claims to be practicing a new kind of politics or eschewing intra-party attacks."

Hmm, now who could Penn possibly be talking about?

UPDATE: In today's edition of Warring Memos, Obama's campaign just sent out its own, questioning Clinton's reliance on national polls and claiming progress at the state level. "As the Washington insiders focus on irrelevant and wildly inconsistent national polls, there are strong signs in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina of the growing power and potential of this candidacy," campaign manager David Plouffe wrote to supporters.

If you're dizzy from all this spin, you're not alone.

(Photo courtesy of Teamsters)

From Jenn Abelson, Globe staff

SIOUX CITY, Iowa -- John Edwards, speaking yesterday at a rally in support of striking Teamsters members here, encountered an unexpected protest of his own.

As Edwards praised the workers for their courage -- they have been on strike since last October -- the owner of the Standard Ready Mix cement plant unrolled a 10-foot-long "Hillary For President" banner in front of a truck next to the rally.

"Cute, that's cute," Edwards said, pausing for a moment as he watched the huge blue and white banner unfurl in support of his rival. It was the first stop for Edwards as he kicked off a two-day Iowa trip that focuses on trade and economic policies. Today he is delivering a major address in Cedar Rapids outlining what he bills as a smart and safe trade policy that grows the economy for all working families while protecting labor and environmental standards.

(AP photo)

A senior Pakistani government official today sharply criticized Barack Obama for suggesting in a speech on national security this week that he would, as president, be willing to launch a unilateral strike against terrorists in Pakistan if the country's own leaders refused to act on "actionable intelligence." "It's a very irresponsible statement, that's all I can say," Pakistani Foreign Minister Khusheed Kasuri told AP Television News. "As the election campaign in America is heating up we would not like American candidates to fight their elections and contest elections at our expense." Read the full AP account of Kasuri's comments here.

Here's a sure sign that the Ames, Iowa Republican straw poll is just days away and that the stakes are high for second-tier candidates: The campaigns of Kansas Senator Sam Brownback and former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee are locked in a bitter war of words over an email from a Huckabee supporter taking issue with Brownback's being Catholic. The dogged David Brody at the Christian Broadcasting Network has all the gory details here.

On a day when Barack Obama is getting a lot of attention for his tough stance on Pakistan, Hillary Clinton is continuing her attacks on the Bush administration over whether Congress has a right to monitor Pentagon plans for a possible withdrawal of American troops from Iraq.

The tiff began when Clinton wrote to Defense Secretary Robert Gates asking him to brief Congress on contingency plans. She got a stinging reply two weeks ago from under secretary of defense Eric Edelman, who said that discussing a withdrawal "reinforces enemy propaganda that the United States will abandon its allies in Iraq."

Gates himself later sought to calm the waters, saying he doesn't question anyone's motives.

But Vice President Dick Cheney wasn't quite so friendly on CNN's Larry King Live last night, when he said it would be wrong to share operational plans with Congress. To do so "to respond to political charges, such as those that Senator Clinton made, I think would be unwise," he said.

Clinton struck back today in an email asking supporters to sign a letter to Bush. It's the administration that's playing politics, she wrote.

"So which is it, President Bush?" she wrote. "Do you support the safe return of troops from Iraq, or are you going to continue to play politics with their lives?"

WASHINGTON -- The United States needs to add at least 7,000 troops in Afghanistan, make aid to Pakistan conditional on its progress evicting terrorists, and double spending on foreign aid to $50 billion, Barack Obama said in a major speech this morning laying out his plan for fighting terrorism.

The thrust of Obama's 35-minute speech was that America is more at risk today than it was before the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001 -- that the "misguided" war in Iraq has made the world more dangerous and diverted attention from tracking down Osama bin Laden and his followers.

"Because of a war in Iraq that should never have been authorized and should never have been waged, we are now less safe than we were before 9/11," Obama said to a roomful of journalists and scholars at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. "When I am president, we will wage the war that has to be won."

The speech comes amid a fierce debate over foreign policy between Obama and rival Hillary Clinton, who have clashed over when it's appropriate for an American president to sit down with leaders of rogue states such as Syria and Iran. He continued to sharpen their differences today by obliquely connecting Clinton's reticence to talk with what he called the failed policies of President Bush.

"It’s time to turn the page on Washington’s conventional wisdom that agreement must be reached before you meet, that talking to other countries is some kind of reward, and that presidents can only meet with people who will tell them what they want to hear," Obama said.

Obama was introduced by Lee Hamilton, the former US representative and who served on the 9/11 commission and the Iraq Study Group. Hamilton gave Obama's speech high marks afterward, but Hamilton has not endorsed a candidate in the presidential race.