In a good day for Obama, the two front-runners neutralize each other at CNN debate

Today was tough for Hillary Clinton. First came the series of polls showing Obama catching up with Clinton in key February 5th states. Now only a few points behind nationally, the Obama campaign is hoping to ride the momentum it got from its South Carolina victory and Kennedy's endorsement, which the campaign is milking as much as possible. Kennedy is in particular seeking to appeal to Latino voters by conducting interviews on Univision and Hispanic radio.

The Obama campaign also appears increasingly willing to go negative on Hillary and draw harsh contrasts. Consider these two new mailers that are being sent to February 5th households this week, one going after Hillary for her Iraq vote and the second blasting Hillary's health care plan for forcing "uninsured people to buy insurance, even if they can't afford it." The debate over mandates has been one of the clearest policy debates of the Democratic primary so far all year, and Obama's campaign has long believed that it is a winner for them despite the fact that many on the left (particularly Paul Krugman) have denounced his use of right-wing talking points on this issue.

Then the news emerged that Obama has raised $32 million dollar in January alone and attracted 170,000 new donors to his campaign. That is truly an astonishing figure that will the Clinton campaign will be unable to match. Obama's amazing financial shape has allowed the campaign to go all out in February 5th states. He is now running advertisements in 20 of the 22 states voting on Tuesday, while Clinton is following suit in only 12 contests, one of which is her home-state of New York. Now, the Obama campaign has started running ads in post-Super Tuesday states, which should serve as a reminder that it is unlikely that the race will be over come Tuesday night no matter what the results are. He is advertising in all the states that will be voting in the week following February 5th namely Louisiana, Nebraksa, Washington, Maine, Virginia, Maryland and DC.

In such a tense environment, one could have expected tonight's debate to take an acrimonious tone. After all, it was only a week ago that Obama and Clinton had unleashed against each other in South Carolina. Instead, both candidates sought to downplay their antagonism and prepare to confront John McCain, setting up for a civil debate that allows both candidates to come out of the night satisfied they achieved their goals.

The debate underscored just as much as Obama's decision to buy ads in February 9th and 12th states that the candidates expect the campaign to continue past Super Tuesday. Both camps expect Obama and Clinton to neutralize each other come Tuesday, each getting a large enough number of delegates to stay in the hunt for the nomination. And as such, both candidates wanted to keep their ammunition for future encounters.

This was the first debate with only the two of them on stage, since John Edwards only withdrew two days ago; which also means that there are no more white males in the hunt for the nomination. "Just by looking at us, you can tell, we are not more of the same. We will change our country,” said Clinton. Throughout the debate, both candidates emphasized their friendships and how much they ultimately agreed on. When Clinton declared, “We're having such a good time. We are. We are. We're having a wonderful time," there was little touch of sarcasm in her tone. Clinton and Obama were simply trying to show they were conscious that their real opponent was the Republican nominee and took swipes at John McCain. “Somewhere along the line, the Straight Talk Express lost some wheels,” said Obama, as both candidates derided McCain's assertion that the US could stay in Iraq for a hundred years plus (that quote, McCain's recent warning that "there will be more wars" are sure to be used by the Democratic nominee against the Arizona Senator later in the year).

The debate was mostly centered on policy and the candidates had ample time to develop their responses since there were no time limit restrictions. That allowed Hillary Clinton to shine, as she is always very comfortable discussing details of domestic policy. In the long discussion on health care, Clinton effectively criticized Obama for giving up too much ground from the beginning; starting positions are crucial to negotiations, she reminded viewers: "If you don't start by saying you're going to achieve universal health care, you will be nibbled to death." But Obama did not let Clinton get much of an advantage; he has been through many of these debates now, and the health care argument has been going on for a couple of months now. Obama is more comfortable engaging policy questions now than he was in the fall, and that allowed him to keep pace with the New York Senator.

The second issue on which the discussion got heated was immigration. Barack Obama brought back the charge that Clinton had taken 6 weeks to decide her position on the drivers' license issue, and Clinton hit back that Obama had been unable to offer an answer of his own to the same question (as is confirmed by my wrap-up of that encounter). But Obama effectively appealed to the Latino community by explaining that immigrants were often used as scapegoats for an economic downturn.

But the defining segment of the debate was devoted to the Iraq War, with an unexpectedly long sequence devoted to Hillary Clinton's 2002 votes against the Levin amendment and in favor of the war authorization. It had been quite a while that Clinton had not been made to account for those votes in such detail, as she had been accustomed to do early in 2007. And just as she was done explaining why exactly she thought that she was not giving Bush the authority to go to war, Wolf Blitzer asked her if she was saying she was naive, forcing Clinton to start her explanation one more time. While Clinton did her best to move on to current Iraq policy and embrace Obama as tightly as possible (pointing out that the two vote similarly in the Senate) and while she did not stumble in her justification of her 2002 votes, there is no question that this is the last issue Clinton wants to be discussing in the final 30 minutes of a debate.

The Clinton campaign can hope that not too many voters are left that could be swayed by Clinton's support for the war. The one fact about both candidates most voters probably know is Obama's opposition to Iraq from the start and Clinton's support, which means that the difference has largely been incorporated already. It is therefore unlikely that even an extensive discussion of the topic fundamentally alters anyone's mind at this point. However, such segments are a great boost for Barack Obama, who many voters worry does not have the experience to lead the country. By putting Clinton on the defensive and reminding voters that he had the right judgement, Obama not only scores points on the topic of Iraq but also on the larger issue of experience and readiness. He also helps his effort to portray himself as the most un-Bush: "I want to end the mindset that got us into war in the first place," Obama said.

Obama came in the debate seeking to capitalize on his upward move. With a sizable number of undecided voters possibly watching the debate -- and many Edwards supporters wondering where to turn -- Obama needed to show that he could match Clinton on policy. Helped by the format and the fact that only the two candidates were left on stage, Obama reassured those voters who might think he is not as ready to lead as Hillary.

On the other hand, Clinton also had a good night. She managed to move past weeks of bickerings that have left her diminished in the eyes of many Democratic voters. She also displayed teh depth of her grasp of issues and her commanding tone suited the image of poised leadership she was out to convey. Clinton is still clinging to a small lead in many of the February 5th states and she desperately needed an performance to neutralize Obama's momentum and stabilize her own decline. This performance will certainly allow her to change the storyline away from Obama's surge, she hopes in a more durable manner than she was able to with her Florida victory. With 5 days to Super Tuesday, she has to run out the clock and she did that successfully tonight.

Primary polls: Key states tightening, including for Republicans

Yesterday afternoon alone, poll numbers from New York, California, Connecticut and Massachusetts showed Obama tightening the race in all these states. With three more polls this morning, we are starting to get a better idea of where things are heading on Tuesday:

• Rasmussen released a poll from California that has Clinton down to a 3% lead, stunning progress on Obama's part. Clinton is up 43% to 40%, with Edwards still getting 9%, way more than the margin between the two front-runners.
• Confirming that (1) Clinton could get the nomination on the strength of her Latino support and that (2) the polarization of the white vote only applies to the South, Clinton leads by 27% among Hispanics and trails by 3% among whites.


• Among Republicans, the California race looks tighter than expected, with McCain leading 32% to 28%.

The survey was taken in the hours following McCain's Florida win and before Giuliani's withdrawal (he gets 14%), so McCain should still get a bounce out of those events. But since the conventional wisdom holds that McCain will just blow Romney out of the water at this point, this has got to be heartwarming for Romney supporters. Also comforting is a new poll from Illinois, also from Rasmussen:

• McCain is up 34% to Romney's 26%, confirming that Romney is holding his own. But the survey was taken mostly prior to McCain's Florida win, so it's going to be very difficult for Romney to climb those 8%.

And with that we get a series of polls from Southern states that are voting in 5 days, confirming that Tennessee and Georgia aren't that suspensful on the Democratic side but will be key battlegrounds for Republicans:

• In Tennessee, Insider Advantager has McCain leading 33% to 25% for Huckabee at 18% for Mitt Romney.
• Among Democrats, Clinton has a massive 59% to 26% lead. Edwards was not included in the poll. This follows a poll released earlier this week that gives Clinton a clear lead as well.


• In Georgia, Insider Advantage shows Obama ahead 52% to 36%. John Edwards was not included here either.
• John McCain is winning this Southern state as well, 35% to 24% for Huckabee and Romney.


• PPP also has a Georgia survey out, and it confirms Obama's lead. In a survey taken after Edwards's withdrawal, Obama is ahead 51% to 41%. He wins 73% of the black vote, but trails 56% to 36% among whites.
• Among Republiacns, PPP contradicts Insider Advantage showing Romney at 32% with McCain at 31% and Huckabee at 24%.

Update: Gallup's latest national tracking poll numbers are out, and they show Obama continuing to gain ground. He is now trailing 43% to 39%, a stunning come back as Barack trailed by double-digits just three days ago. Edwards is now at 8% -- down from 12%, and Gallup does say that his support does not seem to be going to one candidate overwhelmingly. Giuliani's support is massively benefit McCain, on the other hand, who is now ahead 37% to 22% for Romney (it was 32% to 21% yesterday).

McCain survives Los Angeles debate, gets major endorsements

The four remaining Republican candidates gathered in LA last night for a CNN debate at the Reagan library. With McCain clearly in the position of front-runner, the Arizona Senator did not need to make any waves. His status had been solidified earlier in the day when Rudy Giuliani withdrew from the race and endorsed him. However expected Giuliani's move was, it will greatly help McCain who no longer has to divide the votes of moderate Republicans with the former Mayor. And McCain looks stronger than ever in places like New York, New Jersey and Connecticut with Giuliani's departure.

News also emerged last night that California Governor Arnold Schwarzenneger is preparing to endorse John McCain. While Schwarzenneger is not universally popular among conservative voters, he confirms that the moderate vote is anchoring itself solidly to McCain. If anything Schwarzenneger's position is similar to Crist's, and there is no evidence of a conservative backlash in Florida to the Governor's endorsement.

And with that four candidates took center stage last night, with the main topic to be addressed: Is McCain a true conservative? Romney started off by going after McCain's conservative credentials and saying he falls outside of the conserative mainstream; but he did so timidly, realizing that McCain had never really been attacked before and unsure of how to proceed. McCain gladly retaliated by bringing up Romney's record during his tenure as Massachusetts Governor.

Romney shyied away from pressing his point again later in the debate when the moderators pressed John McCain on two issues that conservatives see as the Senator's main apostasies: tax cuts and immigration. Asked to explain why he voted against the Bush tax cuts years ago and more precisely about the justification he offered then that they were too skewed to the rich, McCain ignored his original quote and reverted to his usual lines about spending. Later on, McCain was asked if he would vote for his own immigration bill again if it came on the floor of the Senate given his new rhetoric on the issue. McCain answered that the bill will not come to a vote instead of offering a straight answer. Both occasions were perfect set-ups for Romney to go after McCain and use these moments to show that the Senator is not fit to be the GOP nominee, but Romney stayed put.

Huckabee could have been a great help to Romney last night; he also could have jumped on McCain for such moments, and he could have also pointed out the flaws of McCain's record. The new front-runner was able to fight back on Romney's charges and make it seem like usual campaign back-and-forth, but it would have been harder for him to resist a team effort to paint him as too moderate. But Huckabee, of course, is auditioning for VP at this point.

And then came the debate's climax, as Anderson Cooper asked Mitt Romney to respond to McCain's claim in Florida over the week-end that he had supported a timetable for withdrawal back in April. Looking infuriated, Romney denied the charge and, turning to McCain, accused him of the kind of dirty tricks Reagan would never approve of (!) bringing up that most news agencies were calling McCain's attack a dishonest lie. And there is really no question that McCain is distorting Romney's words; but that did not prevent him from once again lashing into Romney for using the word timetable, which, McCain says, was the "buzzword" of the time.

McCain muddied the charges even further by adding that Romney did not support the surge from the beginning, conflating two unrelated issues. But that had the result of confusing Romney even more, as he launched into an elaborate series of defenses. While his points were obvious, they did not necessarily come across as such; and Romney's repeated lament that McCain would have brought up this old quote at one of the 12 prior debates if it was truly an issue was not the most effective of push-backs.

Romney managed to make McCain look petty in that exchange, as the Senator's tendency to grin condescendingly and attack gratuitously was once again on display yesterday. Neither of those charges fit the image of the "Straight Talk Express," but it is one that has been evident throughout the debates of the past month. Unfortunately for Romney, his challenge was to convince voters that McCain is not conservative, not that he does not always follow the principles of clean politics. If anything, many Republicans could be relieved to see McCain willing to go negative if they conceive of the Senator as a too conciliatory politician.

John McCain can thank his GOP rivals for getting him where he is

John McCain is now close to clinching his party's nomination, a remarkable come back that would not have been possible without the help of fellow candidates Rudy Giuliani, Mike Huckabee and Fred Thompson, who seemingly did everything they could to get him where he is today. Over the past six weeks, these candidates seemed intent on hurting Mitt Romney and boosting John McCain and they allowed the Arizona Senator to coast through January mostly unscathed. Here are a few key dates in the effort by McCain's rivals to help their opponent and the accompanying story lines.

December 16th: Giuliani pulls out of New Hampshire: The first Rudy Giuliani's stunning decision to concede New Hampshire opened the door wide for McCain's come-back. I reported on this on December 16th, just 6 weeks ago. Remember, Giuliani was not gaining ground in New Hampshire but as of December, he was tied with McCain around 20%, with Romney hovering above 30%. Check this mid-December poll for example, that had Romney at 32%, McCain at 18% and Giuliani at 15%.

Giuliani's pulling out caused his support to collapse, with McCain carrying most of it. Romney remained at the same level for weeks and weeks up to January 8th, showing no sign of weakening. Giuliani's collapse in Florida also helped McCain pull out those 5%, particularly in Miami-Dade where Giuliani thought he was particularly strong.

And this followed other very lucky breaks McCain got in the run-up to Iowa and New Hampshire. If Huckabee had not surged in late November and overtaken Mitt Romney in Iowa, McCain would not have been able to derail Romney's game plan of easily winning the caucuses and concentrating his attention on New Hampshire. Given Romney's healthy lead in New Hampshire until the final days of 2007 where McCain pulled into a tie, it is difficult to imagine Romney not riding the wave of an Iowa victory into New Hampshire. Though I grant that Huckabee's Iowa surge was not consciously planned by the candidate to help McCain, the Arizona Senator enjoyed a series of events that were outside of his control but that lined up perfectly for him to make his move.

January 10th: No one challenges McCain in debate: In most of the January debates, there was only one target, and that was Mitt Romney. And only the former Massachusetts Governor went after McCain, even when it became obvious that McCain was the candidate to beat. It all began at ABC's New Hampshire debate on January 5th, where the candidates ganged up on Romney. Then, on January 10th, after one more encounter which McCain left unscathed, I asked, "Do Rudy Giuliani, Fred Thompson and Mike Huckabee want John McCain to be the GOP nominee?" I had not realized yet to what extent that would prove true.

January 27th: Huckabee rushes to Giuliani's rescue: In the run-up to South Carolina and to Florida, Mike Huckabee and Rudy Giuliani knew they were days away from elimination and that staying alive required taking swipes at John McCain. Yet, both of them dramatically refused to do so. Huckabee in fact spent more time praising the Arizona Senator than criticizing him. As Romney and McCain were engaged in some harsh rhetoric over Romney's alleged support of a withdrawal timetable, Huckabee rushed to McCain's rescue. In an indirect swipe at Romney, Huckabee declared, "I’ve never seen John McCain say something that is just blatantly untrue... We have a civil approach to presidential process. Neither of us has sought the office by cracking the kneecaps of the other.”

As mysterious was Giuliani's decision to not capitalize on a rare major policy disagreement among the GOP candidates. McCain opposes the idea of a national catastrophic fund, which is a big issue in Florida and which Giuliani supports. But instead of hitting McCain for this position on the airwaves and in mailers, Giuliani only released a web video criticizing McCain's opposition to the fund. More stunning still,

Mike Huckabee has been transparently campaigning for a vice-presidential spot at this point. But what is more difficult to explain is why Huckabee decided to more or less give up his quest for the nomination and focus on the VP spot when he still had a chance of getting the presidential nod. At the January 10th debate for example, the Iowa caucuses were still a week old and Huckabee had all his chances in the South Carolina primary. Why did he decide to give McCain a free pass and continued doing so in the next three weeks?

Many observers doubted that John McCain would get clinch the nomination given the distrust he inspires among conservatives. But for that distrust to kick in and cost McCain victory, his rivals had to step up and commit to pointing out the deficiencies in McCain's record. Instead, Romney remained the only candidate attempting any sort of attack on John McCain and the Arizona Senator is close to becoming his party's nominee. After a year long campaign from which all his GOP rivals are emerging bruised and wimping, John McCain is arguably even more unscathed than he was on day one.

The ground is shifting in Obama's favor, but does he have enough time?

With 6 days to go to Super Tuesday and with the GOP having gone a long way towards settling on a nominee last night, all eyes are now on the Democratic primary where the stakes of the next few days are much higher. Hillary Clinton is seeking to halt the seemingly unending stream of good news for Obama (South Carolina triumph, Kennedy endorsement) by putting forward her Florida win. And the campaign must be happy with the controversy over whether Obama snubbed on the floor of the Senate. Images of that "incident" are now being widely covered by the media, and every news cycle Clinton can own this week could make the difference come Super Tuesday.

The poll numbers indicate that the ground is shifting in Obama's favor and that he is getting closer to his rival. But with 6 days to go and the campaign now national, does Obama have enough time to make his case in the states he needs to do well in come Tuesday, for example in California? That is the huge question we are facing right now. And unfortunately for those of us who are accustomed to relying on polls to get some idea of where an election is heading, it will be very difficult to assess the state of the race in the next week. For one, most polls that are being released yesterday and today were taken late this week-end or on Monday, in other words in the immediate aftermath both of Obama's South Carolina victory and of Ted Kennedy's endorsement. Is that a lasting bounce like the one McCain got out of New Hampshire and South Carolina? Or will it subside in a few days like the one Obama got post-Iowa? It will be very difficult to assess this for a few more days.

Second, John Edwards's withdrawal dramatically alters the race, freeing 10% to 15% of the electorate who will have to choose a second choice. While some will probably stick with Edwards, this could significantly change the dynamnics between Obama and Clinton, and we will not have much indication of where the Edwards vote is going for a couple of days. And third, there is a debate tomorrow night that will probably be watched closely by many Super Tuesday voters, and its impact will likely be decisive. Don't forget that we have already had a couple of game-changing debates, whether October's Philadelphia debate that was the start of Clinton's troubles, the New Hampshire debate on January 5th that caused the female vote to rally around Hillary or the South Carolina debate of last week in which the image of Obama being tag-teamed by two white candidates could have a lot to do with what we saw on Saturday night.

With those words of caution, let's launch into today's polls as nearly all states are tightening right now in what is shaping up to be a fascinating run-up to Super Tuesday. First, Gallup's national poll has some fascinating national numbers in its tracking poll:

• In the latest poll that was in the field from Sunday to Tuesday, Barack Obama has risen to his highest percentage in yet (in the past 3 weeks) and is trailing Clinton by only 6%, 44% to 38%. Five days ago, it was 47% to 32% Clinton; two days ago, it was 44% to 33%. Yesterday, 44% to 34%. Clinton has been steadily declining for about a week now and this is a very worrying trend because a national lead is essential to her chances on Tuesday in what is essentially a national primary. Edwards gets 12% in the latest poll, double the margin between Obama and Clinton... The next few days could prove very instructive.

With that, let's move on to some state polls including in two states that Clinton should be winning very comfortably.

• In Connecticut, in Clinton's backyard, a Rasmussen poll shows Clinton and Obama tied at 40%. The poll was entirely conducted on Sunday, the day after Obama's SC victory, and it has John Edwards at 11%. Clinton can hardly afford to lose one of the states of the Tri-State Area, so she better pay special attention to Connecticut. No previous poll confirms that this primary is heading towards a toss-up, but it fits with the narrative of Obama's rise.
• Among the Republican winner-take-all primary, McCain is ahead big, 42% to 26% for Romney, as we would expect. Giuliani, still including in the poll, gets 12% in what was supposed to be one of his momentum-proof states.


• Next, we have a PPP poll that has Hillary only up by 12% against Obama, 45% to Obama's 33%, with Edwards at 10%. The numbers are strange given the high number of undecideds, particularly among white voters who break 44-29 for Clinton and black voters who go 44-32 for Obama (a lower proportion than we are used to seeing). Clinton leads 64% to 31% among Hispanics, in what is clearly a key constituency for her. Also keep in mind that Obama coming in relatively close to Clinton in New York could get him a big number of delegates from Clinton's very own home-state.


• And with that we move on to some better news for Clinton, a Tennessee poll that has her leading 43% to Obama's 32% with Edwards at 16%. Tennessee will be a disputed state come Tuesday but this is one contest where Edwards's withdrawal should benefit Clinton. He gets 2% among black voters, among whom Obama leads 60% to 20% but he ties Obama among whites (of which Clinton gets 50%).

• The most worrisome numbers yet come from California, where a tracking poll conducted on behalf of an anti-gambling campaign (which is polling an initiative that is also on the ballot and including primary questions) shows Obama only 5% behind Clinton (36-31) in a period ending on Sunday. On Sunday alone, Obama is up 3%, but the margin of error of such a small sample is obviously gigantic. The point remains that Obama is tightening the race, but Obama supporters should not get carried away yet: (1) SUSA's survey that I reported yesterday is probably more reliable was taken entirely on Sunday and has Clinton up 11%; (2) California is one of those states Obama could have an early-voting problem, as about a quarter of the electorate has probably already voted and gone for Clinton big. Can Obama really make up for it?
  

Finally, let's close this poll post with a reminder of why many Democrats would have much rather seen Romney win Florida than McCain. The latest general election numbers come to us from Rasmussen and they have good news for the GOP:

• John McCain defeats Hillary Clinton 48% to 40% and tops Obama 47% to 41%. That's a reversal from two weeks ago when both Obama and Clinton led McCain, albeit by a small margin.

Keep in mind that McCain has gotten a lot of good press lately with his rivals leaving him unscathed, which accounts for why he appears so strong at the moment. Rasmussen will start a daily tracking poll this week-end pitting McCain against both Democrats, so we will see if McCain's numbers go down a bit as the attention shifts back to the Democratic race.

Update: Add one more state in which Obama is rising fast, and this one is directly due to Kennedy's endorsement. A new Rasmussen poll from Massachusetts has Clinton only leading 43% to 37% in a state in which she used to be much stronger. There is no past Rasmussen poll to compare trendlines.

House GOP loses three more members, and Kentucky filing deadline marked by last-minute chaos

It seems blasphemous to cover anything but the presidential races right now given the high drama of both the Democratic and Republican races right now (though the GOP contest will be much less exciting from now on), but it's hard to ignore that still more Republican-held House seats have opend up since Monday.

VA-11: I first reported on rumors of Tom Davis's imminent retirement on Monday, and it is now being confirmed. VA-11 shoots up to the very top of Democratic opportunities, and Leslie Byrne, the Democratic candidate, carried the district handily in her statewide campaign for Lieutenant governship in 2005. Check the analysis of VA-11 I wrote on Monday.

MO-Gov and MO-09: Governor Blunt's unexpected retirement last week prompted Republican confusion, and there has been a lot of jockeying around among the state GOP. With statewide officials already in the race, all eyes were on the state's representatives. Would any of them seek to win the Governor's mansion and leave their seat open? On Monday, Kenny Hulshof from MO-09 announced she was jumping in the gubernatorial race. That gives Republicans a strong candidate to take on Democratic Attorney General Nixon for governor, but it means one more House seat to defend. Fortunately for the GOP, MO-09 leans Republican, so it does not represent a gigantic headache for Republicans; but it is definitely the type of district Democrats had some success in at the last midterms.

Chaos in KY-02: As if Rep. Ron Lewis's retirement was not shocking enough, but the manner in which he did it is just stunning. The filling deadline in Kentucky was expiring yesterday at 4pm, and Ron Lewis had let out no sign that he was planning on retiring. Minutes before the deadline, the wife of his chief of staff Daniel London went to the SOS office to withdraw Lewis's name and file papers for London instead! Lewis's ploy to get his chief of staff nominated failed as state Sen. Brett Guthrie had somehow heard of the possibility of this happening and was also waiting at the SOS's office. Guthrie immediately filed his own candidacy papers, setting up a Guthrie v. London primary. (Read the detailed wrap-up of this ridiculous ploy over at CQPolitics).

In any case, KY-02 is now an open seat. And Democrats have a strong candidate in the race, state Senator David Boswell, who had filed thinking he would compete against Lewis. (Democrats must be very relieved they made sure to file a candidate here). KY-02 is a strongly Republican district. Bush prevailed here with about 65% of the vote, though Lewis only got 55% in 2006 in an under-the-radar race that the underfunded Democrat kept surprisingly close. Republicans are favored, but it is unclear at this point how strong Brett Guthrie might be in the general election, so we will have to keep a close watch on this race.

KY-03: Republicans got some good news in another Kentucky race, as former Rep. Northup jumped in the 3rd district race against John Yarmuth, who defeated her in 2006. This had also been rumored for the past week or two, but Northup's intentions had not been fully confirmed. KY-03 is a good district for Democrats, and Yarmuth will likely keep it for a few cycles if he manages to beat the well-known Northup next year. It is worth noting that Northup lost the GOP's gubernatorial primary last year against incumbent Fletcher, though the moderate credential that did her in in that primary are likely to play well in the KY-03 general election.

KY-Sen: Kentucky's Senate contest was the hottest race this November, where the DSCC was pushing hard to get Treasurer Luallen or AG Stumbo to jump in the race. Both announced they would not run since then, and now that the filing deadline passed the field is set. The Democrats filed attorney Andrew Horne, businessman Greg Fisher and a last-minute addendum is Bruce Lunsford who lost the gubernatorial primary in 2007 to now-Governor Beshear. Lunsford is a centrist Democrat who is distrusted by his party's activists, so it is unclear what the dynamics of this primary will be. There is no question that the field is much weaker than it could have been, and that the DSCC did not do well at recruiting here.

John Edwards unexpectedly drops out, will not endorse today

In an unexpected move a week from Super Tuesday, John Edwards has dropped out of the presidential race. The AP is reporting that the candidate will announce his decision today from New Orleans.

Edwards's exit makes the race an Obama-Clinton duel, as all their rivals have dropped out; and it also means that only the two of them will be on stage tomorrow night at the CNN debate. Much of the drama in the previous debates had been based on who Edwards chose to side with, and there will be no tag-teaming this time around.

Edwards had rested most of his hopes on winning the Iowa caucuses, where he kept close to Obama and Clinton throughout 2007 but ended up falling short. He followed that up with a series of disappointing finishes, the last of which in South Carolina. In the process, Edwards injected themes of poverty and ethics in the campaign, relentlessly attacking his opponents for their ties to lobbyists and advocated for policies that were more progressive than had been heard for a long time in the Democratic Party.

The immediate consequence of Edwards dropping out is that he will not get delegates next week. He might get some here and there, as people could still vote for him and as many people have already done so in early-voting but he is unlikely to cross the 15% viability threshold in many places. That means that (1) Clinton and Obama will divide the delegates up between themselves, making it more likely there is some margin between them next Wednesday morning and (2) there will be no brokered convention. For that to happen required Edwards to get many delegates to prevent either of his rivals from reaching a majority and emerge as king-maker.

The million dollar question now is who Edwards's supports will migrate to (and whether Edwards will endorse): This is 10% to 15% of the electorate we are talking about, and it could make the difference in tight delegate races next week if the majority of voters go for one candidate. It is very difficult to determine if that is likely to happen and where voters might go.

On the one hand, the obvious answer seems to be that Barack Obama stands to benefit from this, as Edwards's voters tend to be anti-Clinton. Edwards himself had often sided with Obama at debates, famously deriding Clinton as the candidate of the status-quo. This was obvious in Iowa, where Edwards supporters chose Obama primarily as their second-choice. The argument here also goes that the party's left, Edwards's base, would prefer Obama to Clinton.

But the dynamics could be different in February 5th states, where Clinton is much more at ease than in Iowa and where she holds a lead already, much of which comes from voters knowing her better than they do her rivals. In this context, the natural choice some Edwards supporters could be led back to their starting point, Hillary Clinton. And it is unclear whether the party's left will really prefer Obama over Clinton, given that the Illinois Senator has been heavily criticized for going too far to the center and emphasizing his message of unity too much. Furthermore, exit polls suggested that the Edwards voters do not tend to be that liberal anyway, and that Edwards tends to do better among conservative Democrats, which makes things even more confusing. For all it's worth, the LA Times poll of late January noted that, when asked to realign, "slightly more Edwards voters leaned toward Clinton than toward Obama, the poll found."

The best way to determine Edwards's impact might be to look at his strongest demographics; but even that yields few results. Edwards tends to do better among males, a group Clinton has struggled with which bodes well for Obama. On the other hand, Edwards's strength is among whites and he is already nowhere in the black vote. Given the campaign's racial polarization over the past few weeks, that could ultimately end up helping Clinton. Similarly, Edwards is strong among union workers and lower-class voters, a constituency that is one of Clinton's strongest.

So who Edwards helps depends on the region of the country, perhaps. In the South where the electorate looks particularly polarized -- just look at South Carolina -- Edwards's exit could make the white vote go more towards Clinton, giving her an opening to win states like Georgia and Alabama. In states outside of the South, Obama is much more comfortable winning the white vote -- as he did in Iowa -- and this should cause a problem for him. As most of the battleground states of Super Tuesday are not in the South but in the Midwest, Northeast and Southwest, this factor should not be that determinant.

Ultimately, the bottom line is that Edwards's withdrawal gives Obama an opening, 10% of the electorate that is now without a candidate and that could be convinced just in time for Super Tuesday in which he needs to move a significant amount of the votes fast. And since Clinton wants to keep the votes as stable as possible, such massive a portion of the electorate suddenly floating at such a crucial time of the campaign -- and at a time Clinton has been falling a bit -- is bad news.

Update: It looks like Edwards will not be endorsing today but aides of his campaign are telling the media that he might still announce his support for a candidate by February 5th which could obviously be a huge development. However, Marc Ambinder reports that aides are saying to not expect an endorsement in the near future. Overall, it is very difficult to imagine Edwards endorsing Clinton; after all, while he has had some very harsh exchanges with Obama (at the last debate, over health care, over union involvement in Iowa) most of his attacks have long been centered on Clinton and her ties to the status-quo and to lobbyists. His January 5th performance where he described Obama as a fellow candidate of change gives us a good idea of where he is heading.

Republicans: John McCain marching towards the nomination

The night of Romney's Michigan victory -- exactly two weeks ago -- the GOP race looked to be in complete chaos. And the prospect of an all-out brawl for the nomination of both parties -- with perhaps even two brokered conventions! -- was very exciting for all political junkies. But things ended up very differently. Within two weeks and with a week still to go before Super Tuesday, the GOP almost has settled on its nominee. And what for months was the most unpredictable and wide open contest of modern history is drawing to a close.

McCain, who was already leading in most major Feb. 5th states, will be even harder to stop next week. He is already leading in New York, Connecticut, New Jersey, Arizona and California, just to mention a few. The first four of these are winner-take-all and by themselves should guarantee that McCain comes out of Super Tuesday with a massive delegate lead. Romney's hope was to win Florida yesterday and ride that wave to launch a massive advertisement blitz in the big states and overtake McCain. Now, Romney can at best hope to win some Southern or interior states, and even there he probably will have to divide many of the delegates with his rivals as the states in which Romney could be strong are not necessarily winner-take-all.

Let's take a moment to reflect how implausible it is that McCain came back from the dead to now be the clear favorite to get the nomination. Remember, McCain stabilized his position early in the fall after his disastrous July, but it wasn't until December -- after the huge Huckabee surge of November/early December -- that McCain suddenly stormed ahead and took everyone by surprise.

I am aware that I am writing this in the heat of McCain's victory. If there is anything Romney has done again and again throughout January, it's turn around moments that were supposed to be fatal and stay alive against all odds. Iowa was supposed to kill him, he lost no ground in New Hampshire; losing the second contest in a row in New Hampshire was really described as the end of him, but Romney stayed alive and prevailed in Michigan. His distant third-place in South Carolina was a disappointment, but Romney closed the gap in Florida's final week and entered Election Day in a complete toss-up. Yet, this loss is obviously very different, as this is the first time the winning candidate was the one who had the momentum going in, and the momentum going forward. And with the election now going national, Romney cannot duplicate his January strategy.

That does not mean that Romney will not contest the race strongly in the next week. Advisers are saying that he is still likely to spend significant amounts of his own money in a last push to shift numbers, but it is unclear where he can contest McCain's domination. He will go for the South, but has to deal with Huckabee's strength there; he could win Western states, but how far can that possibly get him? And to make matters worse Romney will have to deal with the massive deficit in early-voting.

So does Huckabee have anywhere to go? Huckabee is going to contest a Southern strategy, hoping to capitalize on the large share of conservatives and evangelicals. But Huckabee was marginalized on January 19th when he failed to win South Carolina. Not that he really tried to derail McCain, though. He will probably manage to win a few Southern primaries, but these are unlikely to be attributed to anything else than his evangelical base at this point; and Huckabee will be hurt by Romney's own Southern strategy. Then again, don't rule out Huckabee staying in the race longer than Romney can, particularly if Huckabee wins Missouri.

And that leaves us with Rudy Giuliani, whose collapse was as dramatic as it was not surprising. Yes, Giuliani was still ahead in all national polls at the end of 2007. But he had no credible paths to the nomination -- and frankly, he stopped having one when he decided to concede New Hampshire early in December (as I reported on December 16th). Giuliani's late-state strategy never made sense, and I said so starting very early in the fall. (Almost) everything that happened in the lead-up to Florida was Rudy's ideal scenario and he failed to get even half of McCain's total.

The debate among political pundits now is whether Giuliani would have been better-served if he had contested South Carolina and New Hampshire, with some saying that Giuliani's road to the nomination was doomed from the start because of his position on social issues and that he ended up being too unpopular among GOP voters. That is very much true, and Giuliani's December decline in New Hampshire even though he spent millions there speaks to that. But my claim is not that Giuliani would have won the nomination by contesting in the early-states; rather, it is that his reliance on momentum-proof leads made very little sense and that was tragically obvious to most people outside of the campaign.

A week from Super Tuesday, Clinton is holding her ground and performs well among key groups

There was no suspense tonight in the Democratic primary, as Hillary Clinton was marching towards a convincing Florida victory. But there were still a few questions that needed to be answered, as I explained this morning: margin, turnout and media coverage.

Margin and exit polls: Hillary's margin of victory was substantial. While she did not cross the 50% threshold, she did win by 17% which is a very healthy lead -- and she led both among early-voters and those who voted today. While Obama and Edwards did not campaign here, neither did Clinton so these polls are an interesting indication of what can be described as default numbers, similar to a national poll. And the fact that she is holding this big a lead has got to be reassuring for Clinton heading into Super Tuesday. After the catastrophic past few days (South Carolina debacle, Kennedy endorsement), she managed to hold her lead.

The exit polls do point to a few troubling signs for Clinton. For example, she trails among those who made their minds in the past month (though she wins among those who made their mind today), underscoring that Clinton has lost ground in the past month. Also, Obama's 33% is a good result that shows he has been able to capitalize on the withdrawal of other candidates and on his own buzz to raise above where he was a few weeks ago.

But the Clinton campaign will not deny that. After all, they started 2008 with a big enough national lead that they can lose some ground and still hold a lead. If Clinton survives Super Tuesday -- which is only in a week -- she will feel good about holding on after that since the bulk of states will have voted. And however momentum Obama has, he has not yet eroded Clinton's national lead (reflected in her numbers in places like California).

With Feb. 5th voters now paying attention, Obama has an opening to make his case and move some numbers. But Florida was meant to give us some indication of whether Obama can outperform expectations and show that there is some movement building. This was a perfect opportunity for him to hammer Clinton a bit more and prove that the SC win and Kennedy endorsement have fundamentally changed the playing field. But he did not do that tonight. While he could have lost by more, certainly, there is no big shift just yet and Clinton is holding her own.

Looking at the detail of exit polls also should make Clinton feel better about next week. First, she got a higher proportion of the black vote in South Carolina (about 23-24%) and it is essential for her to cut her losses as much as possible among African-Americans. If anything, she would lose a lot of delegates next week if she fails to break 15% in some precincts and counties. Second, Clinton once against came out with a strong lead among Latinos, just as in Nevada, confirming her strength among that group that should help her greatly next week in California and Arizona.

Turnout: More than 1.7 million voters went to the poll in a Democratic primary that had been hammered as insignificant. That is comparable to the less than 2 million who voted in the GOP primary, described as a momentous occasion. Not only does that say something about the level of excitement on the Democratic side (that we witnessed in even more dramatic fashion in South Carolina), it also allows Hillary to argue that impressive turnout does not necessarily benefit Obama and that she can expand the voter universe too. More importantly, Clinton can argue that it's hard to ignore a contest with this many voters.

Media coverage: This is where Clinton is coming out the loser tonight, as she benefited from very little coverage. MSNBC mostly ignored the Democratic contest and only included the GOP results in the ticker at the bottom of its screen, while CNN's Wolf Blitzer rarely mentioned Clinton's victory without adding the modifier that there were no delegates at stake. Similarly, the Democratic results are hardly visible on the NYT's web frontpage right now. The networks carried the beginning of Clinton's speech live, but neither MSNBC and CNN let it run in its entirety. If you want a more precise rundown of what was seen on TV tonight, our very own commentator Robert V. summarized the media's ignoring the Democratic primary.

This means that Clinton will have to work overdrive to spin this into a result that should be covered. And while it gives her an opportunity to change the subject and stop bleeding support in the run-up to Super Tuesday, don't expect Florida to give her a significant bounce. It will at best allow her to stabilize herself and keep on to whatever edge she has left at this point.

Ultimately, this determination to ignore the Florida results is strange. I have been writing about the absurdity of the pledge for many months now, and this week's developments are not making me feel better about this calendar's chaos. First, as I explained this morning, delegates are not the number we should be looking at just yet. They will be in the morning of February 6th if no one gets a decisive victory on Super Tuesday. Second, Clinton did got half of the vote in a state in which no one campaigned thus in which no one had a particularly strong advantage. At the end of the day, the Clinton camp is very satisfied tonight that its support is not eroding as they were afraid it might be, and that satisfaction is not just spin.

Edwards: John Edwards got 14.6% tonight, very close to the viability threshold of 15% he will have to meet next week to get delegates. This will be the test of whether the convention might be brokered: Will Edwards take enough delegates to prevent Clinton and Obama from getting a majority? He will have to get to 15% either statewide or in a significant number of districts to do so, and tonight's number suggests he is still in the hunt. He won a few counties in Northern Florida and was strong in dfiferent parts of the state. He is hovering in an area in which he can get delegates, so don't count him out as kingmaker just yet.

Florida results thread: McCain wins and is close to the nomination, Clinton prevails, Giuliani could endorse McCain

12:30am: Full analysis will come soon, but here are the almost final results from Florida. Among Republicans, John McCain gets 36% to Romney's 31.1. Giuliani barely hangs on to third place with 14.6% with Mike Huckabee at 13.5%. As predicted, Romney won Jacksonville County big (41% to 27%) but did not do well in the I-4 corridor, losing Tampa's Hillsborough County 47% to 40%. McCain also outperformed Romney in the conservative panhandle, where Huckabee drew a lot of votes (and won a few counties). But it is Miami-Dade County that did Romney in, as McCain got 49% there to Romney's 16%.
Among Democrats, Hillary Clinton finished barely below 50%, at 49.7%, with Obama at 33%. Edwards got 14.4% and won a few counties in the North.

9:35pm: Rudy Giuliani's concession speech went through the main elements of his stump speech... using past tense to talk about his campaign: "We ran a campaign that was uplifting." He did not announce his intentions, and then CNN (and presumably other networks) interrupted his speech, as Romney had started speaking. Romney's concession speech took many shots at Washington DC and how they "haven't" done anything, as an upbeat Romney and a raucous crowd vowed to press on. A preview of next week's campaigning. Meanwhile with two-thirds of precincts reporting, Clinton is at 50% while McCain is ahead by 60,000 votes, 36% to 32%.

9:15pm: The election is called for John McCain. A huge victory for the Arizona Senator who gets all of the state's 57 delegates. This could be the end of the fight for the Republican nomination. With Giuliani perhaps getting behind McCain within 24 hours and McCain already ahead in states like California, New York, it's going to be very hard for Romney to stop him.

9:10pm: With Rudy Giuliani a distant third, the discussion tonight is when he withdraws -- and when he endorses McCain, with whom he is close. CNN is reporting that there are "ongoing conversations" that Giuliani could endorse McCain as early as tomorrow, something Time is reporting with a bit more certainty. Meanwhile, Huckabe gave a speech that pledged to press forward to Super Tuesday. And this could create a situation in which Giuliani's votes go to McCain but Romney is deprived of Huckabee's.
With 51% reporting, McCain is looking stronger, now up 36% to 31% which is a 50,000 margin. Romney is running weaker than he wanted to in the I-4 Corridor, particularly in the Tampa area and in Orlando's, where McCain and Romney are tied. That's a county Romney had to do well in And to make matters worse, McCain is looking good in the Panhandle and... Palm Beach hasn't even started reporting. Things are looking very good for McCain.

8:55pm: Clinton is ahead with 51% and she just gave a fiery victory speech. The networks carried 5 minutes of her speech before interrupting, despite Clinton's very large victory. Also noteworthy is that Clinton carried.the Latino vote big and that her big lead indicates that she did not lose any votes in the past week despite the awful week-end she had.
With 46% of the vote in, McCain is building up his lead. He is slowly climbing up and is now leading by 37,000 votes -- 35% to 32%. 31% of Miami Dade is in, and McCain is leading 46% to 13% for Romney (Giuliani gets 32%). There are still thousands and thousands of votes to come in in Miami, so McCain's lead will still grow thanks to Miami. Marc Ambinder is quoting a Romney adviser acknowledging that this is heading towards a McCain victory.

8:30pm: John King on CNN is going through the vote county by county and shows McCain performing well in areas he has to do well; and Romney is doing more poorly in counties he has to do well in. Miami Dade has started reporting and Romney is way behind, 44% to 12% for now. The Panhandle is still mostly out.

8:15pm: With 30% reporting, Romney surged and is behind only 8,000 votes -- 34% to 33%. This is obviously not very significant, but it should serve as a reminder that we are waiting for votes from some of the biggest counties in the state. But exit polls are now showing that Romney is running third among Hispanics, behind McCain and Giuliani. And the Southern part of the state (and Dade County) with the highest proportion of Hispanics is not really reporting yet.

8:05pm: Networks call it for Hillary Clinton, who is flirting with the 50% threshold. And the Republican side is staying way to close to call, with McCain up 21,000 votes 34% to 31% with 24% in. And the exit polls are now being released, and they show McCain up 2% on Romney (though I don't think that includes early-voting).

7:55pm: 12% of precincts now reporting (apparently Florida did not learn to not release results before all polls are closed) and McCain is up 34% to 31%, with most of the important counties still outstanding. The Panhandle, of course, but also Miami, Tampa and Jacksonville's areas. A troubling sign for the Romney campaign: He was supposed to do well for Saratosa County. But with almost all the county in, McCain is leading there 39% to 33%. Among Democrats, Clinton is up with 52% also with 12% precincts counted. Hillary would obviously love to break 50%.

7:40pm: With 3% in, Romney and McCain and Romney are a hundred votes apart at 31%, with Giuliani at 17% and Huckabee at 14%. (These are MSNBC's numbers, the SOS website has Romney up 35-31 with as many precincts reporting). Numbers could fluctuate more than in other states as different parts of the state favor different candidates, and they are also different voting techniques which mean that the different regions will report at different rhythms.

7:10pm: Rumors of exit polls are circulating more today than in prior elections. The National Review hears that McCain is up 2% in the second wave of exit polls (i.e. to close to call), but that Romney is up by 6% among absentee/early-voters which make up about a third of voters. And Time Magazine actually is releasing early exit poll hints that have McCain leading big among senior citizens and Hispanics. Remember these are all early exit polls -- and we all know how wrong those can be.

Original Post: The polls in most of the state close at 7pm but the Panhandle -- which is on Central Time -- will close one hour late. The first hard results should not come to us before then, but exit polls could start being leaked within the next hour.

This results thread could be the one in which the GOP goes a long towards determining its nominee. It will be very hard for Mitt Romney to wrestle the nomination away from John McCain if the latter wins Florida tonight. But we aren't there yet at all. This is the first Republican contest in which no one has any idea what will happen. We went in IA, NH, MI, NV and SC with polls generally in agreement about the winner; but Florida surveys have consistently shown a toss-up with Romney and McCain swapping leads and staying within the margin of error. To make matters more complicated, a significant portion of the electorate (possibly about 40%) will have voted absentee and in early-voting, which will complicate our reading of exit polls and will also make some of the results unpredictable because immune to last minute momentum.

Was it really too much to ask for a Florida election with no irregularities?

Florida still has a lot of work to do to clean up its electoral process. In fact, there is anecdotal evidence that independents are being allowed to vote in the GOP primary. And if that is a widespread phenomenon, it could lift John McCain to victory in today's results.

Florida's primary is closed. That means that only registered Republicans can vote in the GOP primary (and registered Democrats in their party's). Independents cannot participate in primaries in this state. This is obviously a huge disadvantage for John McCain, who won independents in New Hampshire and South Carolina by wide margins whereas he had trouble pulling ahead among registered Republicans, tying Romney in NH and Huckabee in SC among that group. So the fact that Florida is the first closed primary (there are many more on February 5th) is a major test for McCain's appeal.

But also on the ballot today is a referendum on property taxes. The campaign for that has been raging for months, with Governor Crist, labor unions and many other groups duking it out on the airwaves and in a multi-million campaign effort. Independents are naturally allowed to participate in this referendum, so many of them went to the polls today to do just that.

Now, it appears that some of these independents ended up voting in the presidential primaries as well, presumably because their polling place only had Democratic and Republican types of ballots. And if that is confirmed to have happened at many places and to involve many people, expect McCain to receive many votes he shouldn't be receiving. Two separate incidents were described in the Sun-Sentinel today. The first involved "Robin Garrett, a registered independent:"

She signed in and was handed a voting slip. She then handed it to a poll worker, who asked which ballot style she needed: “Democrat or Republican?”
“I was taken aback by the question,” said Garrett, who made a trip to the polls to vote on the property tax amendment. But she said she played ignorant and blurted out, “Republican.”
She then put her card in the screen and the Republican field popped up. She cast a ballot and went on her way.

The second is even more problematic, as the independent voter actually told the poll workers that he was not supposed to vote but they told him it was the only way he could participate in the initiative:

David Nirenberg... said poll workers insisted he choose a party ballot. "He said to me, 'Are you Democrat or Republican?' I said, 'Neither, I am independent.' He said, 'Well, you have to pick one,''' Nirenberg said... Nirenberg said he tried to explain to the poll worker that he should not vote on a party ballot because of his "no party affiliation" status...
Nirenberg said a second poll worker was called over who agreed that independents should not use party ballots, but said they had received instructions to the contrary. "He said, 'Ya know, that is kind of funny, but it was what we were told.' … I was shocked when they told me that." Nirenberg said he went ahead and voted for John McCain.

If Romney loses by a few points tonight, he could question where those "instructions to the contrary" came from, and whether there is a deliberate effort to push independents to vote in the primary here. The problem does not appear for now to be widespread enough to be considered a massive irregularity, but with Florida's history you would expect state officials to be a little more careful with such elementary problems. A closed primary is a closed primary, after all.

Naturally, there also were complaints of machines malfunctioning, the most remarkable of which involves Rush Limbaugh, the arch-conservative radio host. Limbaugh told the Palm Beach Post that he might have voted twice because the machine was not functioning correctly.

How important is Florida's Democratic primary?

Hillary Clinton is doing what she can to make Florida matter. She is holding a rally tonight in Florida after the polls close (well at 7pm, so an hour before). The pledge forbids pre-election campaigning, but says nothing about celebrating results in the state. That also probably means that she will deliver a victory speech tonight, and the networks will probably cover it since they will be on air anyway covering the GOP race. The Clinton campaign also organized a conference call today to push coverage of Florida. Howard Wolfson, for example, emphasized that it was, "heartening and extraordinary to see record numbers of people coming out and saying that their preferences and their voices and their choices matter."

The Obama camp has been trying to dismiss Florida for weeks, arguing that the primary here is a beauty contest with no delegates. And they rolled out John Kerry today to argue against the Clinton spin: "As voters look to the meaning of the Florida primary, they’re not looking of this kind of tactic." But how much does it matter that the state has no delegates? The odds of the convention being brokered are still extremely low, for they requires results to stay close until the summer and John Edwards to get a lot of delegates. While delegates will not be added tonight, the winner of a primary contest is usually determined by how manages expectations and the flow of momentum the best. And until we get a better indication that delegates will matter, the fact of the matter is that Florida will be a welcome break after a few days of (very) bad news for the Clinton campaign.

If the importance of Florida is momentum rather than delegates, the question is whether Super Tuesday voters care about Florida not having delegates? And will they even know that it does not and will they understand why that could matter (which I am not even sure it does until we know that the convention is brokered)? Or will they just tune in to see that Clinton has won in one of the biggest states in the country against the entire field -- unlike Michigan?

The answers to these questions are very much up in the air. We don't know what impact Florida might have, and it depends on three things:

• Margin: How much does Clinton win by? If she gets a big victory -- crossing 50% -- it is hard to ignore the fact that a majority of voters went for her. After all, her rival campaigns like to point out that most of the party is anti-Clinton. On the other hand, if Barack manages to keep it close it will serve as more evidence that Clinton is going down rapidly and that the Kennedy endorsement is playing out big in Obama's favor.
• Turnout: How many voters go to the polls? Most estimations are that it will be more than a million, and remember that there is a controversial initiative on the ballot today on property taxes that has attracted a lot of spending and that could drive up turnout.
• Media coverage: This is obviously the big question. Will the networks tonight and the press tomorrow cover this primary? This is where it gets tricky. It obviously depends on turnout and margins, but there is no question that the Democratic primary will be massively overshadowed by the GOP contest given how huge that one is. But that also means that the Democratic primary will get some coverage no matter what and if Clinton delivers a speech tonight it is likely to be covered.

One last thought on Florida: If Clinton loses the race (which would be a gigantic polling error next to which New Hampshire would look like it was spot-on), it could be a lot of fun to see the Obama campaign start arguing for why Florida matters and that turnout was big and see the Clinton campaign argue that this is a fight for delegates.

Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton got some more good news by grabbing an endorsement by Maxine Waters, an African-American representative from California who is considered one of the more left-of-center congresswoman in DC. Considering the building perception that Hillary is sinking among black voters and that nearly everyone who is endorsing over the past 3-4 days is going for Barack, this at least provides some comfort to the Clintons.

And Obama has received the endorsement of Kansas Governor Sibelius, who could be a big help in February 5th. I already covered and analyzed this on Sunday, when the first reports had emerged, but the media appears to be really covering it only now. Obama's goal on Super Tuesday is to do well in the interior states to hit Clinton's inability to win away from the coasts, so doing well in Kansas is an important part of his strategy.

Final Florida trends: Polls, spending and early-voting

The polls have opened in Florida , so all the agitation has now ceased as the (Republican) campaigns anxiously await the results. Will the week leading to Super Tuesday be suspenseful and chaotic? Or will McCain pretty much have wrapped up the nomination? The final round of polling released last night and this morning tells us very little about where this is going to end up:

• Despite having released a poll yesterday afternoon, SUSA did a final check on the results polling through Monday night and found no late movement, with McCain at 31.6% and Romney at 31.2% (!). Giuliani is at 15% and Huckabee at 13%.
• Among Democrats, Clinton has held firm and is up 52% to 28%, with 13% for Edwards. I will talk more tomorrow about how much this vote might matter.


• ARG also came out with its final poll which shows Romney continuing to pick up steam, but the race is still a toss-up -- 34% Romney to 32% McCain -- with Huckabee at 12% and Giuliani at 11%. In the 4 polls taken this week by ARG, Romney gets 22%, 26%, 33% and 34% while McCain only rose from 29% to 32%. Late-deciders moving to Romney was confirmed by yesterday's PPP survey.


• Yet, Zogby is showing momentum for McCain, who is now up 35% to 31%, up from a tie at 30% two days ago. Huckabee and Giuliani are tied at 13%.

The Romney campaign is confident that its vastly superior organization will help boost its results by a few points which could be the difference between losing and winning. Remember that McCain heavily concentrated on New Hampshire and to some extent on South Carolina and did not have the money to compete anywhere else, which puts him at a slight disadvantage in a large state like Florida. From last night's New York Times article: "[Romney's] Florida field staff, in the midst of an enormous get-out-the-vote operation, telephoned more than 100,000 voters in 30 counties over the weekend... Mr. Romney built a sophisticated grass-roots and fund-raising operation in the state over the last year, while Mr. McCain has had virtually no Florida infrastructure since his campaign stalled over the summer."

To get an idea of the magnitude of this discrepancy, consider that Romney outspent McCain on ads 8:1. That's taking into account all ads that have aired since September, when Romney started running ads, whereas McCain only launched his first in January. The spending totals in Iowa and New Hampshire were similarly disproportionate. To be fair to Romney, he did start with a significant name recognition disadvantage and he had to correct that. But the fact that he is failing to pull off victories with this kind of spending is stunning.

Finally, keep in mind that more than almost 600,000 Floridians have already voted and will not be going to the polls today. More than half of that total has cast their vote absentee. That will not only limit any last minute momentum shifts but will also mean that exit polls have to be read with great caution. Florida is one of the only states where early voting does not benefit McCain as in the other large states of Super Tuesday since Rudy Giuliani and Mitt Romney have had a much larger effort to push people to lock in their votes than McCain did until recently.

February 5th polls: How much will early-voting doom Obama and Romney?

It's easy to forget that Super Tuesday is in 8 days considering tomorrow's GOP primary could be more decisive than anything that can happen in a week. But it is time to look ahead at February 5th states, in particular California. Keep in mind that margins and winning areas will be particularly important in California as delegates are allocated according to complicated formulas. That said, Clinton and McCain hold very comfortable leads in all three polls released today:

• SUSA has McCain leading 37% to 25% for Romney, with Huckabee at 14% and Giuliani at 12%. Early-voters make up 30% of voters already and have McCain up by a similar margin.
• Among Democrats, it's Clinton up 49% to Obama's 38%. Early-voters make up 23% of the vote and 56% back Clinton.
  


• The LA Times poll has comparable numbers, with McCain leading 39% to 26% against Romney and Clinton up 49% to 32% against Obama, mostly because of her 2:1 lead among women. That's some big movement on the GOP side from two weeks ago where McCain got 20% and all four major candidates were within 4%. The Democratic side is stable. Most of the poll was conducted prior to South Carolina and Kennedy's endorsement, so it does not register any bounce Obama might have gotten out of this week-end.
  


• Finally, Gallup also looked at California and has McCain up 35% to 27% for Romney among registered voters and 36% to 31% among likely voters. Among Democrats, Clinton is up 47% to 35% among registered voters and 51% to 33% among likely voters. Gallup also tells us that 20% of the electorate has already voted and locked-in their preferences.

These patters of early-voting will be duplicated across the country in all states that allow for extensive absentee and early-voting programs. And they are likely to cause dramatic headaches for the Romney and Obama campaigns. Voters in states like California started voting weeks ago and about a quarter have already locked in their choice in weeks during which Clinton was way ahead and Romney was not really visible (given that he never really ran a visible national campaign and stayed low in the polls outside of IA, NH and SC until his Michigan win). That means that Romney and Obama will not only have to catch up to McCain and Clinton in the coming 8 days but make up the deficit of early-voting by having a healthy lead among those who vote on Election Day. And the difficulty of this exercise should give new ammunition to those who denounce early-voting for making the last weeks much less relevant even though most of the campaign happens then.

Turning to two other February 5th states, it is obvious that McCain and Clinton are going in with an advantage, and that Romney really needs a win tomorrow to stop McCain's march towards the nomination. In New York, first of all:

• Gallup shows that Giuliani has completely collapsed and trails McCain widely. The AZ Senator is up 40% to 21% to Giuliani among likely voters, while Romney is at 17%. But more than half of Republican voters say they might still change their mind, underscoring how important last minute decisions often are.
  
• Among Democrats, Clinton is crushing Obama 56% to 28% in her home-state, with Edwards at 11%.

And in Oklahoma, a SUSA poll:

• McCain is ahead with 37% followed by Huckabee at 28% and Romney at 19%. Giuliani gets 6%, tied with Paul. 42% of the electorate says they might still change their mind.
• Among Democrats, Clinton leads 44% to 27% against Edwards (who was a very very close second in 2004) with Obama at 19%.

With winner-take-all states like New York and New Jersey looking strong for McCain, Romney will have to find places to compete next week. California looks like it could be promising but that early-voting deficit will be hard to overcome. But in most of these states it is probable that the campaign hasn't fully engaged yet. And Romney should have an opening in places like this if he wins tomorrow. 65% of the electorate describes itself as conservative, and Romney has to blast his anti-McCain message out non-stop for a week in places he wants to be competitive. His recognition deficit has not yet been overcome, but he has the money to fight that.

Similarly, much of Obama's deficits in states like California and Oklahoma are only the reflection of his trailing nationally, thus among voters who don't fully pay attention or go for the better-known Clinton. But Obama's problem is naturally that Super Tuesday is national and Obama better hope that developments like Kennedy's endorsement give him a big enough national megaphone.

Romney and McCain going all out in the Sunshine State

With Huckabee voluntary giving up on the nomination and Giuliani fading into irrelevance, the race is more than ever an all-out showdown between John McCain and Mitt Romney. And while seven polls out this morning showing a Romney-McCain toss-up in the Sunshine State, there were some hints of McCain pulling ahead in the wake of Crist's endorsement.

Well, think again. Two new polls have good news for Romney -- and both were taken exclusively on Sunday, so after what was supposed to be a good news cycle for the Arizona Senator:

• PPP has Romney pulling ahead 35% to 28% with Huckabee at 13% and Giuliani at 12%. Among those who made up their mind in the past week, Romney leads by an outstanding 47% to 28% and he is also ahead among those who have already voted, 39% to 30%. This could very well be an outlier, but keep in mind that a Datamar poll out yesterday also had Romney up big. Nonetheless, given that nearly all other polls show the two front-runners separated by one or two points don't put too much stock on a clear Romney lead.

• The second poll is SUSA's survey that has Romney slightly up 32% to 31%, much more in line with other surveys. Giuliani is at 16% and Huckabee at 13%. Three days ago, McCain was up 30% to 28% so Romney has picked up some support. And among those who have already voted, Romney is up 36% to 31% -- which confirms PPP's number and bodes well for Romney.

Considering McCain has long detested Romney and that their New Hampshire race was particularly vicious, it is not surprising that the two candidates are at each other's throats in Florida. McCain's decision to twist Romney's words on a withdrawal timetable upped the rhetoric, and Romney is now striking back.

The former Massachusetts Governor is no Huckabee; he wants to win, and he knows what he needs to do to hurt McCain: Remind conservatives of why they've always distrusted their new front-runner. This might all be too little and weeks too late, but Romney's new strategy is to hammer McCain for everything in his record that has given him a maverick reputation.

Romney's exhibit A is McCain's parading around Florida with Joe Lieberman, who endorsed his Senate colleague despite still being a Democrat and has been stumping for him in the state in the past few days. I am actually at a loss to explain why McCain would think this is a good idea. His big problem has always been the conservative vote and he has the moderate vote pretty much locked up at this point; not only that, but if there is one state in which Lieberman's image is probably more closely associated with that of a partisan Democrat than a centrist almost-Republican, it's probably in Florida where memories of the 2000 recount are still vivid. In any case, Romney used this association on Fox News this morning. Asked about McCain's economic record, Romney answered among other things: "In particular, McCain–Lieberman, this is a bill that would add a $1,000 to people's gasoline bill every year, a gas tax if you will."

And Romney is broadening this attack by reminding voters of McCain's flirtation with all sorts of Democrats, for example the rumors of his becoming John Kerry's running-mate back in 2004. Romney is now blasting away with a robo-call reminding voters of McCain's supposedly Democratic leanings:

You can learn a lot about a candidate by looking at their friends. John McCain and Ted Kennedy wrote an amnesty bill. And McCain teamed with another liberal Democrat to write campaign finance reform. John McCain also joined with Democrats to vote against the Bush tax cuts. And listen to what Bill Clinton said about John McCain just last week. Bill Clinton audio: 'She and John McCain are very close.'

In response, McCain went after Romney's flip-flops ("He has consistently taken both sides of any major issue. He has consistently flip-flopped on every issue") and he brought up Romney's electability (or lack thereof). He also went out with a new radio ad blasting Romney's Massachusetts record.

Remember how this week was meant to be Giuliani's last stand? The media was supposed to spend 7 days covering Giuliani who was not going to suffer at all, claimed the campaign, from his skipping the early-states. As I have been repeating since early September, Giuliani's strategy simply made no sense: Even if there was no clear front-runner by Florida, there were going to be candidates who had won previous candidates who would come in as prior victors. In other words, Giuliani was hoping that the race would remain muddied and that he would benefit, but even in that scenario it was unclear how he could possibly recover -- and that is exactly how it has played out over the past month. The first five contests made the race into a McCain-Romney showdown, and Giuliani has been unable to fit in.

Giuliani surprisingly declared today, "The winner of Florida will win the nomination" (via the LA Times). He might not be entirely right (a Romney win would in no way ensure a Romney nomination) but he has at least finally realized that Florida is indeed his first and last stand. Does this mean he will drop out prior to Super Tuesday if things don't go well tomorrow? That could totally scramble the field in states like New York and New Jersey.

House diary: Has Tom Davis finally reached a decision?

Tom Davis has been taking a lot of time to decide whether he wants another term in the House. Davis, who had prepared himself for years to run for Senate, had to withdraw from the Senate race earlier in the fall when the state GOP chose to hold a convention rather than a primary to settle on its nominee. That gave too much of an edge to former Governor Gilmore and Davis announced he would not run for higher office.

But that did not answer the question of whether he would run for re-election in VA-11, and the speculation only intensified after his wife was crushed in her re-election campaign to the Virginia House of Delegates -- underscoring just how blue that area of Northern Virginia is trending.

Now, reports are coming in (via NLS, especially) that Tom Davis has decided to retire; he will reportedly make this announcement at the end of the week. This open seat could be one of the biggest headaches for House Republicans yet, as VA-11 looks to be trending too Democratic at this point for the NRCC to attempt a credible defense of the seat. Not to mention that the Democratic candidate, former Rep. Leslie Byrne, is a strong and credible contender who the party is excited about.

If it is confirmed in the coming days, Davis's retirement would be one of the biggest blows yet to the GOP's prospects in the House. More soon.

Democrats got more good news this week-end as the first public independent poll of the Wyoming At-Large seat -- one of the most Republican districts in the country -- gives a small edge to the Democrat. The poll is a Mason-Dixon survey and is thus very reliable. It has Democrat Gary Trauer edging out Republican Cynthia Lummis 41% to 40%. Trauer lost a nail-biter to Rep. Cubin in 2006. But because Cubin has always been an unpopular figure, her retirement earlier in the fall was seen as good news for the GOP.

Yet, it looks like Republicans will have trouble defending this open-seat. Trauer and Lummis have equivalent name recognition, so that is not helping either of them right now. The big problem for Trauer, of course, is how he can go from 41% to 50%. In a very red state in a presidential year, it will not be easy to get those extra points to a majority.

In tight Florida race, some (small) evidence of a Crist boost for McCain

We are 24 hours from what is potentially the most important race in the GOP nomination, and whatever small edge Romney might have been building after a week of discussion of the economy has probably been erased by the deluge of good news McCain received over the week-end. Not only did he manage to switch the subject to national security and draw lots of praise from Mike Huckabee, but the headlines throughout the state were focusing on the endorsement of Governor Crist.

With that, let's get to the (many) polls released from Florida today, starting with those that were not taken post-Crist:

• Quinnipiac shows John McCain barely edging Romney 32% to 31%, with Giuliani at 14% and Huckabee at 13%. This poll was on the field Thursday to Sunday, so not very useful to determine any last-minute shifts.
• Among Democrats, Clinton is up 50% to 30% on Obama.


• ARG was in the field Friday-Saturday and shows a significant Romney improvement: Mitt edges McCain 33% to 32%, with Huckabee at 14% and Giuliani at 11%. Two days ago, Romney was only at 26%. Notice that ARG is including 4% of "independents" in the poll which is strange given that Florida is a closed primary!


• Strategy Vision, whose field dates are still unclear. They show McCain edging out Romney 27% to 26%, with Giuliani at 17% and Huckabee at 15%.


• And with that we get to Datamar, which was in the field Friday to Sunday and which is a complete outlier compared to anything else, showing Romney at 36% ahead of McCain at 23%!

Finally, we have two polls that explicitly measure the Crist effect and find a noticeable McCain boost following the endorsement:

• Zogby's tracking poll first of all has McCain bumped 3%, now leading 33% to 30% with Giuliani at 14% and Huckabee at 11%. Zogby adds that Sunday was a big day for McCain, who led 38% to 31% on Sunday alone.


• The worst news for Romney comes from Rasmussen, whose survey was entirely in the field on Sunday. In a poll released just yesterday, Romney was ahead 33% to 27%. 24 hours later, it's tied at 31% with Giuliani at 16% and Huckabee at 11%.


• Update: A seventh poll was now released, this one from Suffolk in the field Friday-Sunday. McCain is ahead 30% to 27% with Giuliani at 14% and Huckabee at 11%. The press release emphasizes the potential importance of Saturday's night endorsement, does that mean that their numbers show gains on Sunday for McCain?

Of all the GOP primaries, Florida's is the first one which has no favorite going in. And that will give that much of a bigger boost to the victor. If the race was indeed tied going into this week-end, it is indeed probable that McCain is now coming out with a small edge, however, and the Politico's Jonathan Martin thinks that Crist's support pretty much sealed the deal for the Arizona Senator. And it's hard not to notice that it is McCain who edges out Romney by 1% in most polls, though that is way within the margin of error.

On the Democratic side, it is worth watching the margin between Clinton and Obama. The stakes are much lower, but Clinton could get some revenge from Saturday's humiliation. And depending on how many voters do turn out (all indications are that Democratic turn out will be strong) Clinton could get some positive buzz out of a large victory.

We also got an interesting poll of the Colorado caucuses this morning, taken by Mason-Dixon. Colorado is a February 5th state, so we will hear a lot about it in the coming week:

• On the Republican side, Mitt Romney has a wide lead over John McCain, 43% to 24%, with Huckabee at 17%, Ron Paul at 5% and Giuliani at 4%.
• Among Democrats, Barack Obama edges out Hillary Clinton 34% to 32% with Edwards running strong at 17%.

Colorado is one of the state Obama has put the most effort in, and his organization there is strong. Given that the contest is a caucus, organization is especially important and could help Obama build on those 2%. His campaign wants to win the states on the interior to be able to make the argument that Hillary Clinton is strong only on the coasts (which is why the Missouri contest is particularly important).

With Ted Kennedy's endorsement, good news keeps coming for Barack Obama

Barack Obama scored one of the most important endorsements of the 2008 season. Rumors were circulating for a few days and they are now confirmed. Contrary to the expectation that he would remain neutral in this year's race, Ted Kennedy has decided to endorse Barack Obama and plans to appear alongside the candidate tomorrow in DC. This is a particularly damaging blow to Hillary Clinton who has a close relationship with Kennedy. She lobbied intensely to get Kennedy's support and, in the past few days, to convince him to stay out of the race.

Ted Kennedy is one of the only politicians whose endorsement can actually matter. In 2004, Kennedy backed John Kerry and stumped for him for weeks in Iowa and New Hampshire; many credit him for single-handedly saving the sinking Kerry campaign. His immense popularity among the base and his last name make him a revered figure in the party, and his support complements Obama's coalition admirably at the most critical time possible.

Obama is strong among upper-income well-educated voters and has had trouble contesting the vote of the working-class and lower-income voters. Ted Kennedy is most popular precisely among the group Obama is the weakest in and any improvement there would be huge on Super Tuesday. Similarly, Obama can use the support of one of the most committed advocates of comprehensive immigration reform to make inroads among Latino voters.

Starting today, the Democratic campaign is going national. 22 states are voting on February 5th, and there is no more time for retail politics and winning votes in town hall events. The campaigns will run on ads, mailings and they will target specific congressional districts -- not even entire states. There are 8 more news cycles before Super Tuesday, and every one of them counts. What is important is to earn media and positive coverage. And the Kennedy endorsement will give Obama a lot of buzz in the coming days and will allow him to dominate the news cycle for a few more days -- at least until the Florida results come out. Not to mention that Massachusetts is voting on February 5th and Kennedy can definitely help Obama rise in his home state.

Overall, Kennedy's sudden decision to jump in the 2008 race confirms that things are moving in Obama's direction. He is getting voters to pay attention to him and is accumulating high-profile endorsements. The question now is whether 8 days is enough time for him to catch up with Clinton in states like California and Missouri where he still looks to be trailing. Expect the Obama campaign to concentrate on a few regions of California and New York rather than contest the whole states since February 5th will be as much a fight for delegates than a battle to win states.

Ted Kennedy's endorsement follows Caroline Kennedy's op-ed in the NYT endorsing Barack Obama. In response to this dual endorsement, Clinton issued a statement written by Kathleen Kennedy Towsend, the daughter of Robert F. Kennedy: "I respect Caroline and Teddy's decision but I have made a different choice... At this moment when so much is at stake at home and overseas, I urge our fellow Americans to support Hillary Clinton. That is why my brother Bobby, my sister Kerry, and I are supporting Hillary Clinton." The Obama-Clinton showdown is dividing the Kennedy family.

And in another blow to the Clinton campaign, Marc Ambinder reports that Kansas Govenor Kathleen Sibelius is planning to endorse Obama. Sibelius, who is delivering the Democratic response to tomorrow's State of the Union address, was supposed to have been closer to Clinton's camp, so this is definitely a huge get for Obama, and in a February 5th state! And this is why the Clinton-Obama contest is not your usual establishment-insurgent showdown. For the past few weeks, most high-profile endorsements have gone to Barack.

All eyes are now on Florida, where McCain picks up the support of Governor Crist and... Mike Huckabee?!

The Democrats dominated the news over the past few days, but the attention now shifts to the Republican race and their Florida primary. If McCain wins on Tuesday, he will be very close to clinching the nomination. The two new polls released this morning show a very tight race with Romney making up his deficit of the past few days:

• Zogby's tracking poll has McCain and Romney tied at 30%, an improvement for Mitt who trailed 31-28 yesterday. There is also some movement behind, as Huckabee has surged from 10% to 14% and Giuliani has fallen to fourth place at 13%. Among very conservative voters, Romney leads 40% to McCain's 19%, with Huckabee at 20%. Among moderates, it's 42% for McCain and 17% for Romney.
• Next, the Rasmussen poll continues to show Romney up, this time 33% to 27% with Giuliani at 18% and Huckabee at 12%. Earlier in the week, Romney was up 4%.
• Update: A third poll has Romney opening up a small lead, as Insider Advantage shows him ahead 26% to 24%. The previous numbers were tied at 23%. (Second update: In the comments, Steve points out that those were yesterday's number and that today's have Romney and McCain back in a tie, at 25%.)
  

But new developments since these polls were taken could help McCain (though with about a third of the electorate having already voted absentee or early, last-minute shifts will be harder to discern than usual). In particular, McCain got two significant endorsements over the past few days. First, Senator Mel Martinez announced he would back his colleague which should help McCain in the Cuban community. More importantly, Governor Crist announced yesterday that he was endorsing McCain and would stump with the Senator. Crist, first elected in 2006, is very popular in the state though he is distrusted by some conservative activists (a group that McCain has arguably already lost).

Crist's choice is a blow to Rudy Giuliani who had been courting the Governor. Crist was reportedly on supporting Giuliani in the fall but McCain's camp got him to wait and see if McCain could recover. Indeed, McCain had campaigned for Crist in 2006 and was hoping that the newly-elected governor would return the favor. Now, Crist's endorsement at such a critical time has led to speculation that McCain could tap Crist for VP.

Perhaps worried that his own VP spot is still very fragile, Mike Huckabee has decided to throw off all pretense and openly run to be McCain's running mate. You might remember that Huckabee held back from attacking McCain in South Carolina and that most of his statements about the Arizona Senator were complimentary -- including at last Thursday's debate. And two days from McCain potentially clinching the nomination, Huckabee is now rushing to McCain's defense and attacking Romney.

In an interview this morning, Huckabee backed McCain's claim that Romney had supported a withdrawal timetable: “There are published reports that I’ve seen in which Mitt Romney did in fact talk about support for – not a public timetable – but a secret timetable that would be held by administration officials and members of Congress." That claim is emerging as the dominant issue in the run-up to Florida, with McCain using a Romney interview from April 2007 in which the former Governor talks of a "private timetable." McCain declared, "If we surrender and wave a white flag, like Senator Clinton wants to do, and withdraw, as Governor Romney wanted to do, then there will be chaos, genocide, and the cost of American blood and treasure would be dramatically higher." To which an angry Romney replied that McCain's statement is "simply wrong and it's dishonest, and he should apologize."

The Atlantic's Marc Ambinder convincingly explains why McCain (and now Huckabee)'s attack is misleading. And despite all the criticism Romney has received for being too eager to go negative, he has been on the receiving end of far more personal and insulting attacks, whether at the ABC debate or in McCain's New Hampshire ads. Now McCain is stepping up the attacks by making Romney's supposed weakness on national security a central part of his campaign. This is also an attempt to drive the discussion back towards national security and away from the economy, where McCain knows many conservatives distrust him and view him as too far from conservative orthodoxy. McCain is hoping to get conservatives to also distrust Romney to neutralize his advantage among that voting group.

That did not prevent Huckabee from attacking Romney for being overly negative today when asked if McCain's attacks on Romney's Iraq record were dishonest: “Dishonest? I’ve never seen John McCain say something that is just blatantly untrue... We have a civil approach to presidential process. Neither of us has sought the office by cracking the kneecaps of the other.”

With enemies like Huckabee and Giuliani (who is also holding back), McCain really needs no friends.