Mitt Romney's campaign said this afternoon that New Hampshire's attorney general has agreed to conduct an "expedited investigation" into alleged "push polling" phone calls aimed at Romney.

"I think the attempts to attack me on the basis of my faith are un-American," Romney said at a press conference in Nevada. (Watch the full press conference above.)

Romney said its campaign chairman in New Hampshire, US Senator Judd Gregg, received assurances from Attorney General Kelly Ayotte's office about the investigation. "General Ayotte requested the names of individuals who received the calls, and the Romney campaign is cooperating in providing all relevant information it has," campaign spokesman Matt Rhoades said in a statement.

"Whichever campaign is engaging in this type of awful religious bigotry as a line of political attack, it is repulsive and, to put it bluntly, un-American," Rhoades continued. "There is no excuse for these attacks. Governor Romney is campaigning as an optimist who wants to lead the nation. These attacks are just the opposite. They are ugly and divisive."

New Hampshire law requires the all political advertising, including phone calls, identify the candidate being supported. No candidate was identified in the calls.

John McCain, one of Romney's rivals for the Republican nomination, had also called earlier today for an investigation, describing the calls as "especially shameful" because they impugned Romney's Mormon faith.

The Associated Press first reported Thursday night that residents in New Hampshire and Iowa have received phone calls raising questions about Romney, his Mormon faith, and the Vietnam War-era military deferments he received while serving as a missionary in France. It identified Western Wats, a Utah-based company, as the source of the calls. The company would not say whether it made the calls, but denied it does "push polling."

"I call on all other candidates and their supporters to repudiate these attacks and join me in pledging not to engage in such despicable tactics throughout the balance of this campaign," McCain said in a statement. "I am outraged by the cowardly telephone calls that hide behind my name in an effort to disparage one candidate and advance the candidacy of another."

McCain knows of what he speaks. In 2000, he was riding high after winning the New Hampshire primary, but in South Carolina, voters received calls suggested that McCain had an illegitimate black child. George W. Bush won that primary and went on to the nomination and the presidency. The source of the calls was never confirmed.

And if you just can't get enough of presidential debates, CNN has compiled a funny list of the best lines.

It's a top 10 zingers list, and Democrat Joe Biden has three of them. (Watch it here.)

The post-debate punditry pile-on is almost all favoring Hillary Clinton.

After appearing dazed and confused under an onslaught of attacks during the Democratic presidential debate on Oct. 30 in Philadelphia, the front-runner in the national polls was much sharper Thursday night in Las Vegas. She followed the age-old strategy of the best defense is a good offense, going after John Edwards and Barack Obama on healthcare and accusing Edwards of mudslinging.

Clinton also benefited from a friendly audience, which wildly applauded when she talked about trying to become the first woman elected president -- and booed Edwards and Obama when they criticized her.

Clinton's campaign certainly believes she bested her rivals. It has already posted videos of her debate highlights on its website.

To review, let's go back to the debate scorecard from our preview:

• How many times does Clinton start her answers with "Yes" or "No?"
  Quite a few. And on the question that flummoxed her in Philly -- driver's licenses for illegal immigrants -- she had a one-word answer. "No."
  
• Will Clinton try to turn the tables on Edwards and Obama?
  Yes, she charged Edwards with playing out of the Republican playbook -- one of the worst accusations you can hurl at a fellow Democrat. She also called him a Johnny-come-lately to universal healthcare, and said that Obama's plan would leave 15 million Americans out in the cold.
  
• Will Obama jab Clinton, or let Edwards do the dirty work?
  Obama leveled his own attacks, especially on what he called Clinton's evasions on how to fix Social Security.
  
• Will Bill Richardson leap to Clinton's defense again, building speculation that he's angling for a Cabinet post?
  Yes, he did. He admonished Edwards for class warfare and Obama for generational warfare and implored, "Give peace a chance."
  
• Will Richardson, Joe Biden, Chris Dodd, and Dennis Kucinich get much air time at all?
  For the first part of the debate, it seemed like they would never get a word in edgewise. It became a running joke for a while, until moderator Wolf Blitzer made sure that all the candidates had a chance to answer questions.
  
• Will the Democrats instead aim mostly at President Bush and the Republican candidates?
  Clinton, in particular, criticized Bush, accusing him of a laundry list of transgressions. But Obama, at one point, accused Clinton of sounding like Rudy Giuliani or Mitt Romney.
  
• And how many times will Blitzer shill CNN as "the best political team" on television."
  If the tally includes on-screen promos, frankly we lost count.
  

The debate's aftermath raises another series of questions:

• How soon will Clinton's rebound be reflected in the polls? Her support dipped after the last debate, so you might expect the opposite to happen this time.
  
• Will Obama ever figure out to bring the same passion that he shows in speeches -- the Jefferson Jackson dinner in Iowa last Saturday night the prime example -- to debates?
  
• And where do you buy asbestos pantsuits anyway?
  

Sifting through all the new polls that came out today confirms several ways to handicap the presidential race.

Mike Huckabee is the primary challenger to Mitt Romney in the Republican caucus in Iowa. Polls released by KCCI TV and American Research Group put Huckabee, the former Arkansas governor, in second place, on the heels of Romney, who has been leading in Iowa for months.

The Democratic caucus in Iowa is up for grabs. Those same two surveys show Hillary Clinton in the lead, but followed closely by John Edwards and Barack Obama, who are trying to pierce her aura of inevitability by beating her in the Hawkeye State.

And Rudy Giuliani and John McCain would fare best in a hypothetical matchup next year with Clinton, at least in the overall popular vote. A Fox News survey said Clinton would beat McCain 46 percent to 45 percent and Giuliani 47 percent to 43 percent. Clinton would beat Romney and Thompson more handily.

"It is impossible to ignore the fact that John McCain is cementing his position as the best candidate to defeat Hillary Clinton," campaign manager Rick Davis said in a statement highlighting several recent polls.

Could CNN anchor Lou Dobbs be this presidential election's Ross Perot?

John Fund, a columnist for The Wall Street Journal, explores the possibility in a commentary posted today on the Journal's website.

"Friends of Mr. Dobbs say he is seriously contemplating a race for the first time, although it's still unlikely," Fund reports.

Those friends play out a scenario under which New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg enters the race as an independent, then Dobbs jumps in as a fourth-party candidate.

A candidacy would give an even bigger audience for the self-styled populism that has made Dobbs a high-profile author and speaker. On his nightly show, Dobbs rails against illegal immigration and crusades against free trade.

In 1992, Perot, a billionaire Texas oilman, ran against the Washington elites and financed his own independent candidacy. He won nearly 19 percent of the popular vote, helping Bill Clinton win his first term and unseat the first President Bush even though he did not win a majority of the popular vote.

Barack Obama is launching a new TV ad tomorrow in New Hampshire that highlights his own educational background and articulates some broad prescriptions, including expanding early-childhood education and recruiting a new generation of teachers. It's a broad-brush, 30-second ad that offers nothing in the way of new policy, but it seeks to humanize Obama and show his attention to the classroom.

"My parents weren't rich. My father left me when I was very young," he says in the ad. "The one thing I was able to get was a great education. We should give every child the same chances that I had."

Obama graduated from the Punahou School in Honolulu before earning degrees from Columbia University and Harvard Law School. Watch the ad, called "Chances I had," here.

In addition, Obama is set to return to Boston for a small-dollar rally -- tickets are $23 -- on Sunday Dec. 2 at the Boston Park Plaza Castle. See details here.

John Edwards, the sharpest thorn in Hillary Clinton's side, is at it again on the web.

His campaign today announced it has created a website that jabs his fellow Democrat's campaign for admitting that it planted a question at an Iowa event with a college student.

With tongue firmly in cheek, Edwards' camp calls PlantsforHillary.com an one-stop shop: "Potential plants can listen to testimonials from past plants, read the 'Top 10 Questions Plants Should Never Ask Hillary,' learn how to recognize other plants at Senator Clinton's events, submit suggestions for planted questions, and purchase the soon to be released 'Questions are hard...so plant them' T-shirt."

The website also features a video, titled "The Politics of Planting," a sequel to "The Politics of Parsing" video that made fun of Clinton for her bobbing and weaving during the last debate. It shows the student asking the question, then winking.

There's a much-hyped heavyweight bout in Las Vegas tonight, but instead of boxers in the ring there will be would-be presidents on a debate stage.

Will the Democratic debate live up to the billing? Or will it be like one of those overpriced pay-per-view fights that delivers far less action than promised?

Those are only some of the questions going into the two-hour debate, which will air at 8 p.m. on CNN. Seven Democrats will be there; the eighth hopeful, former Senator Mike Gravel of Alaska, didn't make the cut because of his anemic fund-raising numbers. This debate will have a new wrinkle: For the second hour, questions will come directly from audience members, which could change the dynamics.

Much of the attention will be on Hillary Clinton, the national front-runner, after what happened in the last debate, Oct. 30 in Philadelphia. Pummeled by her rivals, she gave a series of convoluted answers. She later conceded it was not her best performance, and her aides are now saying that she wasn't prepared for the repeated questioning.

She looked particularly bad in hemming and hawing on a question about New York Governor Eliot Spitzer's plan to give driver's licenses to illegal immigrants. He ditched the proposal on Wednesday in the face of withering opposition, and Clinton issued a statement saying she agreed with Spitzer's decision and would not support a similar proposal as president.
After the debate, there were days of punditry about whether Clinton was vulnerable and of exchanges between the campaigns about whether the male candidates piled on Clinton -- and whether she sought sympathy as the first leading female presidential candidate.

Her lead in the polls shrank, nationally and in Iowa and New Hampshire, where the first Democratic voters will get their say in seven weeks. Her closest rival, Barack Obama, gave a stirring performance before Iowa Democrats at the Jefferson Jackson dinner on Saturday night, leading to more stories about his resurgence.

In an attempt to inoculate Clinton against what might happen during the debate, chief campaign strategist Mark Penn sent out a memo full of poll results favorable to her, prefaced with this:

"What is the most important card in this race? The leadership card. That is the card that we see in poll after poll that analyzes why people are voting for Hillary Clinton. And so while opponents are strategizing and re-launching their campaigns with aggressive personal attacks on Sen. Clinton, one truth remains –- running for president is not a qualification for president. The voters are looking for someone who has the strength and experience to lead, and little has changed in the last few weeks outside of the massive media coverage of the attacks."

Which all brings us to tonight. For your debate scorecard, here are some points to watch for:

• How many times does Clinton start her answers with "Yes" or "No?"
  
• Will Clinton try to turn the tables on John Edwards and Obama?
  
• Will Obama jab Clinton, or let Edwards do the dirty work?
  
• Will Bill Richardson leap to Clinton's defense again, building speculation that he's angling for a Cabinet post?
  
• Will Richardson, Joe Biden, Chris Dodd, and Dennis Kucinich get much air time at all?
  
• Will the Democrats instead aim mostly at President Bush and the Republican candidates?
  
• And how many times will moderator Wolf Blitzer shill CNN as "the best political team" on television"
  

On the eve of what debate sponsor CNN is calling the "Sin City Showdown," a nonpartisan watchdog group added up how much the presidential candidates are collecting in Nevada.

Among Democrats, who debate tonight in Las Vegas, Hillary Clinton leads with at least $448,500 in campaign donations from Nevada residents, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

Republican Mitt Romney leads overall with $715,000 in contributions, the center reported today. Both he and Clinton collected the vast majority of campaign cash from Las Vegas. Nevadans have contributed a total of $2.8 million.

Nevada moved up its caucuses to Jan. 19 to try to elevate issues of concern to voters in the West and to Hispanic voters, but so far it has not drawn as much attention from candidates as party officials expected.

Mitt Romney's campaign is responding today to attempted hits by rival camps on the Massachusetts healthcare plan he helped enact as governor.

"There are those that just talk about health care reform, and then there's Governor Mitt Romney, who actually has a record of accomplishment on health care reform."

"Governor Romney’s vision and record of accomplishment on healthcare reform includes utilizing the free-market and innovation to get more people covered with private insurance while making care more affordable by reducing the number of free-riders and government regulations that are responsible for holding back the market and driving up costs," the statement continued.

The Rudy Giuliani and Fred Thompson campaigns are pointing out that today is the deadline for Bay State residents to obtain health insurance -- or risk possible tax penalties. After today, most insurers will not guarantee coverage by Dec. 31, and those without it by then will lose their personal exemption -- worth $219 -- on the state income tax form next spring.

Many Republicans oppose such mandates, and Romney in his own healthcare plan he is pitching as a presidential candidate is leaving such proposals up to each state.

Massachusetts' healthcare reform has been a delicate dance for Romney. It is a major part of his record of accomplishments as governor. But he has been disavowing more controversial parts of it, and has bashed Democrat Hillary Clinton's plan, though it shares key elements with the one in Massachusetts.

Some of the country's most famous Mormons give their props tonight to the first member of their church to run for president.

Interviewed on "Larry King Live," the singing Osmond family has nothing but nice things to say about Mitt Romney, according to clips posted on CNN's website. (Watch them here.)

Jimmy Osmond calls Romney "a great man."

Donny Osmond said Romney's candidacy has been "absolutely wonderful for the Mormon Church" because it has made many more Americans curious about their faith.

And Marie Osmond had this to say when asked whether Romney should give a speech on his religion similar to the one that John F. Kennedy gave during the 1960 campaign before becoming the nation's first Catholic president: "I hope we've grown up since then. I hope people look at the person and what they've done."

John McCain can boast another big-name endorsement -- and hope some of his backer's postseason magic rubs off on his campaign.

On his weekly appearance on WEEI sports radio today, Red Sox pitcher Curt Schilling -- he of the bloody sock, 11-2 playoff record, and opinions about almost everything -- said he will support McCain in the 2008 presidential race.

"I gotta go with McCain," Schilling said. "I'm not voting party line any more. I'm voting for the guy that I know is going to be the same person four years from now that he was when elected. I need to trust somebody because I don't agree with anybody's platform front to back....I need somebody that I can trust to do right by the country and stick to their guns."

Schilling has a personal connection with the Arizona senator. The two stood at the start line of a 2005 fund-raising road race in Phoenix that their wives ran.

Ice cream in Le Mars, Iowa, eggs and crepes at Chez Vachon in Manchester, N.H. -- these were the presidential campaign traditions of yore. This cycle, the candidates have a new one: A stop at (where else?) the Mountain View, Calif. headquarters of Google.

Today it is Barack Obama's turn, and he is using his appearance there this afternoon to unveil his technology and innovation agenda. In his plan, Obama calls for net neutrality; allowing citizens to comment on legislation and government initiatives before they are finalized; enhancing the nation's broadband and wireless networks; appointing a US chief technology officer; creating new public media that will be the "Sesame Street of the digital age"; and investments in electronic medical records.

"We need to make sure that the next success story – the next Google – happens here in America," Obama said in prepared remarks. "The Google story is about what can be achieved when we cultivate new ideas and keep the playing field level for new businesses. But it's also about not settling for what we’ve achieved. It's about constantly raising the bar so that we’re more competitive, and so we use technology to reach ever-expanding horizons."

Read Obama's full plan here. As Ben Smith notes, the proposal is getting some warm reception in the blogosphere.

After two weeks of contorted statements about New York Governor Eliot Spitzer's proposal to give illegal immigrants driver's licenses, Hillary Clinton today said she supported his decision to abandon the plan and would not back such a measure as president.

"As president, I will not support driver's licenses for undocumented people and will press for comprehensive immigration reform that deals with all of the issues around illegal immigration including border security and fixing our broken system," Clinton said in a statement.

Clinton's attempt at clarity on an issue that has dogged her campaign brought swift retorts from her Democratic primary rivals, who noted the different answers she has given since the issue was first raised in the Democratic debate late last month. The topic seems likely to come up in tomorrow night's debate, too.

"When it takes two weeks and six different positions to answer one question on immigration, it's easier to understand why the Clinton campaign would rather plant their questions than answer them," said Barack Obama spokesman Bill Burton, referring to a controversy over Clinton campaign aides planting a question at a recent question-and-answer session in Iowa.

Chris Dodd spokeswoman Colleen Flanagan called it "flip-flopping cubed." "She was for it before she was against it, before she was for it, before she was against it," Flanagan said.

This video by the Clinton campaign is weird and funny on so many levels that we are left speechless. It's an effort to explain the caucus process to new Iowa caucus-goers, starring Bill Clinton and a hamburger.

John McCain is laughing about a potential matchup with Hillary Clinton all the way to the bank.

The Arizona Republican chortled Monday when a woman at a South Carolina campaign event asked him, "How do we beat the [rhymes with witch]?"

"May I give the translation?" he told the crowd, according to the Associated Press. "That's an excellent question. I respect Senator Clinton. I respect anyone who gets the nomination of the Democratic Party."

After a CNN anchor questioned whether McCain should have reacted more strongly to the woman, his campaign rebuffed the criticism and quickly sent out a fund-raising appeal in response.

"We are asking you to help us fight Rick Sanchez and CNN and stand with John McCain. Please make your most generous contribution from $25 up to the maximum limit of $2,300 to the only candidate who can defeat Hillary Clinton."

And now on McCain's campaign website is a tongue-in-cheek game called "The John & Hillary Show" that puts caricatures of them on a debate stage and has players answer questions whose answers are flattering to McCain.

McCain said today he responded appropriately to the woman.

"She made a comment, I made light of the comment, and then I said very seriously I treated and continue to treat Senator Clinton with respect and I've said that many times," the Arizona senator told reporters at his Phoenix office. He chuckled when a reporter brought it up, according to the Associated Press.

When asked whether he thought the woman's comment was funny, McCain said he reacted that way because he wanted to move on.

The sniping is heating up between Republicans Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee as the gap between them in the polls closes in Iowa.

The flashpoint is illegal immigration. Campaigning Tuesday in Iowa, Romney criticized Huckabee, along with rival Rudy Giuliani, on the issue, contending that Huckabee fought for tuition breaks for children of illegal immigrants while governor of Arkansas. "Giving a better deal to the children of illegal aliens than we give to US citizens from surrounding states is simply not fair and not right," Romney told reporters, according to the Associated Press.

Huckabee has explained that the bill in question provided merit scholarships to children of illegal immigrants, provided they were applying for citizenship, and has argued that barring those children would penalize them for their parents' misdeeds.

On Fox News Channel's "America's Newsroom" today, Huckabee was more pointed in his response to Romney: "I guess Mitt Romney would rather keep people out of college so they can keep working on his lawn, since he had illegals there."

That refers to a Globe report last December that the landscaping service working on Romney's lawn in Belmont employed several illegal immigrants. Romney has said his family checked that the employer was legal, but didn't know the immigration status of the workers. He has also said that the episode has not changed his tough views on illegal immigration.

In TV ads and on the stump, Romney says that as Massachusetts governor, he opposed in-state tuition for children of illegal immigrants and boasts that he authorized State Police to enforce federal immigration law, though that order was rescinded by his successor Deval Patrick before it took effect.

Huckabee is now in second place in Iowa, within striking distance of Romney, according to new New York Times/CBS News Poll published today. It shows Romney with support from 27 percent of likely Iowa GOP caucus-goers on Jan. 3, Huckabee with 21 percent, and Giuliani with 15 percent.

Huckabee says he expects more slings and arrows as he moves up in the polls.

"The fact that I am being attacked is a good sign," he said today on Fox News. "It's a sign of life. This is hunting season. I'm a hunter. You don't ever point your gun at a dead carcass. A lot of folks are pointing at me."

In an interview with the Associated Press, Romney also said he expected the Iowa race to tighten and toughen. "My guess is they're going to be shooting rockets off in my direction," he said. "It's going to get very narrow. I'm going to be facing stiff competition from one or more of the candidates."

Republican Rudy Giuliani plans to air the first TV ad of his presidential bid on Thursday, and it focuses on his record as New York mayor -- the record that made him a national celebrity and helped push him to the front of the pack without any ads.

The 60-second spot, titled "Tested," will be shown in New Hampshire, his campaign announced this morning.

Images of a city in decline alternate with Giuliani speaking directly to the camera about his tenure. He says he turned around an ungovernable city that was "in financial crisis," was "the crime capital of America," and was "the welfare capital of America."

"By the time I left office, New York City was being proclaimed as the best example of conservative government in the country," he says, alternating with happier images of a city on the rise. "We turned it into the safest large city in America. The welfare-to-work capital of America. And most importantly, the spirit of the people of the city had changed. Instead of being hopeless, the large majority of people had hope."

"So, I believe I've been tested in a way in which the American people can look to me. They're not going to find perfection, but they're going to find somebody who has dealt with crisis almost on a regular basis and has had results. And in many cases exceptional results. Results people thought weren't possible."

Interestingly, the ad does not specifically mention the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks and their aftermath -- the event that made Giuliani a national figure and put him on the cover of Time magazine as "Person of the Year."

That reputation has helped Giuliani move to the front of the national polls, and made him the favorite for the nomination. He trails, however, in the first states to vote, Iowa and New Hampshire. Mitt Romney, the former Massachusetts governor, leads in those states, in part because he has spent far more on TV ads than any other candidate -- more than $10 million at last count.

A new New York Times/CBS News Poll out tonight confirms that Mitt Romney is well ahead in New Hampshire, that Mike Huckabee is surging in Iowa, and that Hillary Clinton is in a tightening battle in New Hampshire and a three-way scrum in Iowa.

Among Democrats in New Hampshire, Clinton leads Barack Obama 37 percent to 22 percent, with John Edwards at 9 percent and Bill Richardson at 6 percent, the new poll found. That basically tracks a Boston Globe poll published Sunday, which put Clinton at 35 percent and Obama at 21 percent.

On the Republican side, Romney leads with 34 percent, compared to 16 percent each for John McCain and Rudy Giuliani, and 8 percent for Ron Paul. Both the Times/CBS and Globe polls also found many voters still undecided, less than two months before the primary.

In Iowa, the Times/CBS poll found Clinton, Edwards, and Obama tightly bunched with 25 percent, 23 percent, and 22 percent, respectively. Richardson has 12 percent.

Among Republicans in Iowa, Romney is ahead with 27 percent, Huckabee has 21 percent, Giuliani 15 percent, and Fred Thompson 9 percent.

The Times reports that Democratic voters in Iowa and New Hampshire say that Obama and Edwards are more likely than Clinton to say what they believe, but that Clinton is the best prepared and most electable Democrat.

Republican voters in the two states say that Romney shares their values, but are divided whether he or Giuliani would be the strongest candidate in the general election.

The Times/CBS poll in Iowa was conducted Nov. 2-11 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points among Democrats and 5 percentage points among Republicans. In New Hampshire, the poll was conducted Nov. 9-12, with a margin of error of plus or minus 5 percentage points for Democrats and 6 percentage points for Republicans.

Using a quote from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. about "the fierce urgency of now," Michelle Obama has joined the effort to raise $850,000 on the Internet this week for her husband's campaign, hoping to limit the amount of time he spends fund-raising.

"There's nothing Barack dislikes more about campaigning than asking people for money," she wrote in an email to supporters today. "Unfortunately, over the next few weeks, he's scheduled to travel all over the country on a series of fundraising trips. You can get him back to doing what he does best."

It's sort of like that oft-used National Public Radio fund-raising trick, where stations promise to limit the monotonous fund drives if listeners open their wallets right away. Except in this case, it's Obama, not the customer, who is spared the monotony. Which raises a question: If Obama raises enough dough to skip a finance event or two, won't his supporters who counted on seeing him be upset if he doesn't show?

During his presidential campaign, Mitt Romney has been repeatedly asked if and when he will give the speech addressing his Mormon faith, along the lines of the one John F. Kennedy gave in 1960 before becoming the nation's first Catholic president.

Kennedy emphasized the separation of church and state and said he would not answer to the pope.

Asked again about a similar speech, Romney gave a novel answer to the Concord Monitor editorial board on Monday: "John F. Kennedy gave the landmark speech on the topic. He said what needs to be said. I don't know that there's something different that needs to be said than what he said. I guess I could go back and reprint it!"

Meanwhile, the Southern Baptist Convention has issued a statement making clear that Richard Land, president of its Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, is not supporting Romney for the Republican nomination.

Romney, whose Mormon faith is a problem for some evangelical Christians, has at various times quoted Land as saying voters are choosing a commander in chief, not a pastor in chief.

"Defending Governor Romney's right to run is very different than endorsing Governor Romney, which I have not done," Land said in the statement.

"Those statements were made in response to questions about whether or not Governor Romney's faith was an absolute 'deal breaker' for evangelicals in selecting a presidential candidate, not an endorsement of Governor Romney."

US Representative Barney Frank is endorsing Hillary Clinton for president and will be an economic adviser to her campaign, it announced this afternoon.

"I have from the beginning of this campaign believed that Hillary Clinton was the candidate best qualified to serve as President," Frank said in a statement issued by the Clinton campaign. "I am convinced that once elected, the qualities she will bring to the job -- commitment, intellect, and political skills -- will make her an extremely effective leader in our effort to reverse the badly flawed course on which George Bush and past Republican Congresses have set this country."

Frank rose to the leadership of the House Financial Services Committee after Democrats wrested control of Congress last November.

He is the latest prominent Massachusetts politician to cast his or her lot in the Democratic nomination fight. Barack Obama, for instance, has the support of Governor Deval Patrick, who campaigned for him in New Hampshire this past weekend.

Fired up after a decidedly good couple weeks, Barack Obama's campaign today put out one of those state-of-the-campaign memos from campaign manager David Plouffe. This is about as confident -- dare we say cocky? -- as Obama's campaign has sounded to date.

Plouffe chronicles the positive trends in Obama's direction, from tightening polls in New Hampshire and Iowa to rave reviews of Obama's appearance Saturday at the vaunted Jefferson Jackson dinner of Iowa Democrats in Des Moines Saturday night.

"In recent weeks, we have seen an important shift in the campaign, and fifty-one days before the Iowa caucus, Barack Obama is strengthening his position in the Democratic presidential nominating race, while other candidates are stagnating or weakening," he wrote in the memo, written for media consumption. "Voters in Iowa and New Hampshire are beginning to focus on the race more intently and are increasingly making decisions. And as they do, Senator Obama is profiting at Senator [Hillary] Clinton's expense."

The memo has the requisite digs at Clinton, accusing her of "ducking and dodging tough questions at rapid pace lately." But, notably, it also takes aim at John Edwards, whose supporters Obama's Iowa team is working hard to peel away. "John Edwards's positions are not changing as rapidly, but on many core issues the Edwards of today is different than the Edwards of 1998, or even 2004," Plouffe wrote. "It's admirable to admit mistakes but John Edwards has apologized for most of his record while in the Senate."

Plouffe goes on to detail Obama's standing in the early primary states, saying, "You live by inevitability and die by inevitability and there are growing signs in the last 10 days that Clinton's support in the early states, as well as nationally, is fairly thin and eroding."

To be sure, Clinton is still in a strong position, and Obama needs to make a lot more progress to capture the nomination. But his campaign believes the three pillars of his candidacy -- "unity," "changing Washington," and "trust" will get him there. (This recalls Republican Mitt Romney's three legs of the American stool -- strong families, strong economy, strong military.)

Sure as a biting wind will sweep across Iowa's cornfields in January, rival campaigns won't let a memo like this stand unanswered for long.

The buzz on the Democratic side today is a report that John Edwards won't yet commit to endorsing Hillary Clinton if she wins the nomination.

"I am surprised at just how angry John has become," fellow Democrat Chris Dodd said in a statement. "This is not the same John Edwards I once knew. Of course, we should all come together to support the nominee. I wonder which of the Republicans John prefers to Hillary?"

The New York Times reported that in an interview last week, Edwards, the former US senator from North Carolina who was the 2004 vice presidential nominee, twice refused to say he would support Clinton. Edwards has been the most aggressive in going after Clinton, lumping her in with what he calls a corrupt culture in Washington.

Campaigning in New Hampshire today, Edwards appeared to backtrack from the interview. "I fully expect to support the Democratic nominee," he said, "and I fully expect to be the Democratic nominee."

By Marcella Bombardieri, Globe Staff

The more we hear from the Iowa college student who said she asked a planted question at a Hillary Clinton event, the worse it sounds. In an interview with CNN, Grinnell College sophomore Muriel Gallo-Chasanoff said that before Clinton's speech, a campaign staffer she talked to opened a binder to a page that listed about eight questions.

"The top one was planned specifically for a college student," she said. " It said 'college student' in brackets and then the question."

The question she agreed to ask: "As a young person, I'm worried about the long-term effects of global warming. How does your plan combat climate change?"

And she didn't think she was alone.

"After the event," she said, "I heard another man ... talking about the question he asked, and he said that the campaign had asked him to ask that question."

Hillary Clinton said in Iowa Sunday that the fact that questions had been planted was "news to me." Her campaign says it will not happen again.

John Edwards' second TV spot in his make-or-break state of Iowa focuses on healthcare and his sort-of-angry populism.

The ad, which will begin airing statewide later today, shows him on the stump pledging to take away health insurance from himself, senior presidential appointees, and members of Congress if they don't approve universal healthcare by July 2009 -- six months after he hopes to take the oath of office as president. Members of Congress get comprehensive coverage -- better than most people get through their employers -- through the federal government.

Other than that wrinkle, his universal healthcare plan is similar to those offered by his main rivals for the Democratic nomination. Polls show that healthcare is among the top concerns for Democratic voters. Edwards is focusing on Iowa, and also on New Hampshire, to break through and become the primary alternative to national front-runner Hillary Clinton.

But Edwards argues that Clinton, in particular, is too tied to special interests to get healthcare reform done.

"We all want universal health care –- but just having a plan is not enough," Edwards said in a statement issued by his campaign today. "We've seen plans fail before in Congress, and they will again unless we have a new approach. We have to be willing to take on the drug companies, insurance companies, and their Washington lobbyists who killed reform last time. But if you're defending the system, taking money from their lobbyists and giving them a seat at the table, reform is just not going to happen."

Republican Fred Thompson will be endorsed today by the National Right to Life Committee -- a boost for his campaign and the latest indication of the split among social conservatives.

Big names have been dividing their support among five Republican presidential hopefuls. For instance, John Willke, a founder of the Right to Life Committee, endorsed Mitt Romney.

It will be Thompson's biggest endorsement since his late entry into the race in September. He hoped to become the candidate around whom social and religious conservatives could coalesce, but that has not happened.

"I've had a 100 percent pro-life voting record in the United States Senate," an upbeat Thompson told reporters Monday, even as he declined to confirm the endorsement. "And I think they know that, and that's the way I would govern if I was president."

The size of Mitt Romney's TV ad barrage becomes more apparent with each new round of figures.

He has spent $10.2 million so far -- a record at this point in a presidential campaign and nearly three times as much as Democrat Barack Obama's $3.9 million, CNN's media consultant reported today. The nearest Republican to Romney's ad spending is John McCain with more than $300,000.

Romney is spending more than $85,000 a day and his commercials have aired more than 14,500 times, according to computations by TNSMI/Campaign Media Analysis Group. The ad barrage is focused on Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina, the three key early voting states.

Romney's heavy spending, backing up his methodical campaign, has put him in the lead in the polls in Iowa and New Hampshire and in the mix in South Carolina.

New Hampshire voters will see two new TV ads from Republican presidential hopefuls -- one rather pedestrian fare on reining in spending, the other a rather startling take on securing the borders.

The latter, from US Representative Tom Tancredo of Colorado, focuses on illegal immigrants and says that besides taking jobs from Americans, they could launch terrorist attacks because porous borders are allowing Islamic radicals to freely roam the country.

The ad, obtained by ABC News, shows the victims of terrorist attacks in Europe and ends with the sound of an explosion and the words on the screen: "Tancredo...before it's too late." (Watch it here.)

Tancredo, who is stuck in the second tier of Republican candidates, has crusaded against illegal immigration in Congress and has made the issue the centerpiece of his presidential bid. "I approved this message because someone needs to say it," he says in the ad, which will also run in Iowa.

The tamer spot is from John McCain, and it focuses on his pledge to stop pork-barrel spending. (Watch it here.)

"233 million for a bridge to nowhere. Outrageous," the announcer says. "3 million to study the DNA of bears in Montana. Unbelievable. A million dollars for a Woodstock Museum -- in a bill sponsored by Hillary Clinton. Predictable. Who has the guts to stand up to wasteful government spending? One man. John McCain."

"I'll stop wasteful spending by Congress. And restore Americans' trust in their government," McCain says.

By Brian C. Mooney, Globe Staff

Rudy Giuliani's campaign will stay the course of its nontraditional strategy of balancing its emphasis and resources between early-state contests, where the former New York mayor trails consistently in polls, and a large cluster of later high-delegate states, campaign officials said today.

Iowa is scheduled to kick off the Republican nomination process with its caucuses on Jan. 3, and New Hampshire, which has not yet officially set a date, is likely to hold the first primary within days after Iowa.

Giuliani has maintained a steady double-digit lead in national polls and in many large later-voting states such as California, Florida, New York, and Pennsylvania.

But in a conference call with reporters, campaign manager Michael DuHaime and strategy director Brent Seaborn would not say when Giuliani plans to start airing television ads in the key early states of Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina.

Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney, who polls show has substantial leads in Iowa and New Hampshire, has been advertising heavily on TV since the spring. Giuliani's campaign has spent heavily on radio advertising and targeted direct mail in those states, however.

DuHaime called it a "long-term strategy," not, as it has often been characterized as a "February 5 strategy," referring to the day when at least 20 states will select more than 1,000 of the nearly 2,400 delegates to the party convention next summer.

The Giuliani officials declined to say where they believe the former New York mayor must place in the early states to maintain momentum going into the Jan. 29 Florida primary, which is a cornerstone of Giuliani's game plan. But DuHaime said: "It's impossible to think that it will be over after three states." That includes South Carolina on Jan. 19, where most polls have shown Giuliani bunched in a pack with Romney, former US Senator Fred Thompson of Tennessee, and Senator John McCain of Arizona.

John McCain today strongly disavowed a TV ad blitz in South Carolina, which is being financed independent of his campaign and is raising eyebrows because of his past opposition to such efforts.

The new Foundation for a Secure and Prosperous America was set up by McCain supporters, including adman Rick Reed, who so far have ignored calls from the Arizona senator for them to cease and desist. The ads, ostensibly about a bill in Congress to improve veterans' health care, shows McCain in flattering ways.

"I have long opposed the use of soft money by independent groups trying to influence elections," McCain, long one of the most prominent crusaders for campaign finance reform, said in a statement issued by his campaign. "It is a position I hold without reservation. Anyone who believes they could assist my campaign by exploiting a loophole in campaign finance laws is doing me and our country a disservice. I ask all of my donors and supporters, including Mr. Reed, to cease and desist immediately from supporting any independent expenditures that might be construed as benefiting my campaign indirectly. If you respect me or my principles, I urge you to refrain from using my name and image in any ads or other activities."

"I will not win this election, nor would I want to win it, by acquiescing in anyone's attempt to put my campaign before my principles," McCain continued. "I will run on my principles, my record, and my vision for our country, and I will trust the voters to make the right decision. I will never betray my trust to them or my own conscience for the sake of expediency, and I want all who support me to honor that commitment."

Republican rival Mitt Romney criticized McCain today, saying the foundation represented "an entire end-run on any effort to control campaign spending and offer transparency," the Associated Press reported.

"It is the height of irony that the author of McCain-Feingold now has his supporters raising, apparently, vast sums of money, well above the contribution limits that normal citizens see, to support his campaign," Romney said, referring to McCain's co-author of campaign finance reform, US Senator Russ Feingold, a Democrat from Wisconsin.

Those who want to be the next commander-in-chief are marking Veterans Day today in ways that reflect the tenor of their campaigns.

Democrats Hillary Clinton, Chris Dodd, and John Edwards, for instance, are using the observance to highlight their plans to give more help to veterans. They are calling for improved healthcare, with particular attention to military personnel returning from Iraq and Afghanistan with post traumatic stress disorder.

Under Edwards' plan, which he plans to unveil today at Plymouth State University in New Hampshire, veterans could seek counseling for post-traumatic stress disorder outside the Veterans Health Administration system.

"I strongly believe we must restore the sacred contract we have with our veterans and their families, and that we must begin by reforming our system for treating PTSD. We also must act to remove the stigma from this disorder," Edwards said in prepared remarks his campaign provided to The Associated Press. "Warriors should never be ashamed to deal with the personal consequences of war."

Republicans Rudy Giuliani, John McCain, and Mitt Romney, on the other hand, are eschewing specific policy proposals for more general expressions of support for veterans, particularly those serving in what they call the war on terror. Romney offered his tribute in the form of a video on his campaign website (watch it here).

McCain, the only one of the three who is a veteran himself, went to a military cemetery in the battleground state of South Carolina, where a sizable military community will play a key role in the key Jan. 19 primary.

"I'm here where so many of our veterans rest," he said this morning on "Fox & Friends" on the Fox News Channel. "My service, anything I may have done, pales in comparison to what these brave young men and women did in service to their country in every war, which we are celebrating today. Also, what they are doing today. They're fighting under the most difficult and challenging conditions in Iraq and Afghanistan."

By Sasha Issenberg, Globe Staff

ROCHESTER, N.H. -- Deval Patrick may have spent Saturday campaigning across southern New Hampshire for Barack Obama, but his 2006 primary rival Chris Gabrieli was spotted in a more unlikely spot along the state's primary trail: sitting alongside former governor Jane Swift at
a John McCain town-hall meeting here.

The two were in New Hampshire as part of a day-long trip Gabrieli led for approximately fifty Harvard alumni to get an up-close view of the primary process. The group visited Hillary Clinton's state headquarters in Manchester, and heard from a variety of political insiders including Swift, a McCain supporter.

"He was impressive and the most honest I've ever seen at an event like this," said Gabrieli, chairman of the Massachusetts 2020 Foundation, who says he is not supporting any candidate in his party's presidential primary but came away impressed with McCain's skill engaging with his audience. "I know what it's like as a candidate when you get a question and you have a moment to decide how to answer it."