Mike Allen has the goods:

Advisers to Fred Thompson have begun exploring a range of staffing options -- including talking to potential campaign managers -- as the actor and former Tennessee senator firms up his plans to enter the Republican presidential contest, according to people involved in the conversations.

Thompson has not made a final decision but is on track to be ready to announce his candidacy in June or July, his advisers say.

Originally I thought it was less than 50/50 Fred Thompson would get in the race, but after the last few weeks of interviews, disclosures, op-eds, and high profile speaking engagements, it now seems easily better than 50/50 he will get into the race. At this point if Thompson chooses not to run he probably still takes the title from Colin Powell for biggest flirtation with a Republican presidential run in recent history.

Here's the new web video from the Giuliani campaign:

At the end of this clip from ABC's This Week, host George Stephanopoulos and George Will have this interesting exchange:

Stephanopoulos: If this now declared deadline of Gen. Petraeus of September, if the political goals haven't been met by then, do you see large scale Republican defections at that point?

Will: Absolutely. They do not want to have, as they had in 2006, another election on Iraq. George, it took 30, 40 years for the Republican Party to get out from under Herbert Hoover. People would say, "Are you going to vote for Nixon in '60?" "No, I don't like Hoover." The Depression haunted the Republican Party. This could be a foreign policy equivalent of the Depression, forfeiting the Republican advantage they've had since the '68 convention of the Democratic Party and the nomination of [George] McGovern. The advantage Republicans have had on national security matters may be forfeited.

As Stephanopoulos says, Wow.

Compare that to what William F. Buckley Jr. wrote the other day (which Drudge highlighted today in very important red lettering):

General Petraeus is a wonderfully commanding figure. But if the enemy is in the nature of a disease, he cannot win against it. Students of politics ask then the derivative question: How can the Republican party, headed by a president determined on a war he can't see an end to, attract the support of a majority of the voters? General Petraeus, in his Pentagon briefing on April 26, reported persuasively that there has been progress, but cautioned, "I want to be very clear that there is vastly more work to be done across the board and in many areas, and again I note that we are really just getting started with the new effort."

The general makes it a point to steer away from the political implications of the struggle, but this cannot be done in the wider arena. There are grounds for wondering whether the Republican party will survive this dilemma.

Even though both Buckley and Will are careful to hedge slightly on their predictions, essentially two of the most respected and smartest minds in conservative politics just declared that the Republican Party will not only suffer greatly in 2008, but that it is in danger of becoming a minority party for generations.

I won't dispute the possibility of such a scenario, but we need to consider where exactly the Iraq war will fit in history. For instance, does Will's Depression-analogy hold up? The only answer is that we won't know for several years, if not decades. But right now I think it's still a far-fetched notion. The Depression was a world-changing event that lasted for over a decade and affected every aspect of society. As bad as Iraq is -- and for the fallen soldiers' families, it is incalculably worse -- the average American is simply not suffering on a level commensurate with the Depression because of the war.

As for their more general point that 2008 will be another rough year for Republicans barring any real change in Iraq, that will almost certainly be the case, as would Will's point that the White House will start to see defections by the fall if not earlier should the surge not produce noticeable results.

I took the newly released list of the Top 20 newspapers by circulation posted earlier to Drudge and rearranged them by percentage of gain or loss versus year ago:

20) Dallas Morning News*, -14.3%

19) Newsday, - 6.9%
18) NJ Star-Ledger, -6.1%
17) Minneapolis Star Tribune, -4.9%
16) Detroit Free Press, -4.7%
15) Los Angeles Times, -4.2%
14) Boston Globe, -3.7%
13) Washington Post, -3.4%
12) San Francisco Chronicle, -2.9%
T-10) Chicago Tribune, -2.1%
T-10) Atlanta Journal-Constitution, -2.1%
9) Houston Chronicle, -2.0%
8) New York Times, -1.9%
7) Arizona Republic, -1.1%
6) USA Today, +0.2%
5) Clevelan Plain Dealer, +0.5%
4) Wall Street Journal, +0.6%
3) Philadelphia Inquirer, +0.6%
2) New York Daily News, +1.4%
1) New York Post, +7.6%

*The Dallas Morning News is reporting for the first time since being censured in 2004 for misstating circulation figures.

Reporting Period: Six month period ending in March, 2007.

As you can see, only six out of the twenty posted positive circ numbers. It should be noted that two of those papers, USA Today and the Wall Street Journal, are the biggest papers in the country by far at 2.278 million and 2.062 million, respectively. The NY Post is also in the Top 5 in circulation, making its 7.6% increase all that more impressive in relative terms.

Sen. Tim Johnson (D-SD) has been discharged from a rehabilitation hospital and is now home with his family where he'll continue therapy and work with staff, though there are no details about his condition, other than apparently improved.

In presidential politics, the New York Times' Patrick Healy writes that the Hillary Clinton campaign has changed tactics in dealing with Barack Obama, opting for lighter touches instead of hammer blows against Obama, a new approach exemplified in an e-mail to reporters and supporters that talked about "commander-in-chief issues, such as how a president should deal with terrorists" after her performance in last week's debate. The e-mail included the overlooked line Clinton delivered during the debate: "Let's focus on those who have attacked us, and do everything we can to destroy them."

Finally, the UK's Telegraph declares in a headline, "Reagan's men are backing -- an actor" who is of course Fred Thompson. The article doesn't say Reagan deputy chief of staff Mike Deaver has actually done anything to help Thompson other than offering dismissive quotes about the depth of Rudy Giuliani's support and praising Thompson's rhetorical talent and popularity.

The real news is that Thompson will address the annual dinner of the Orange County, Calif., Lincoln Club this Friday -- a day after the GOP debate in nearby Simi Valley -- and full of some of the state's richest businessmen, who are a "necessity if you need to raise $20 million quickly in order to compete" in the Republican field.

If you haven't already done so, be sure to check out RCP's Video Vault page, where we have a full week's worth of the best political videos from around the Web.

In today's Video Vault, you can catch up on the best of the Sunday talk shows you might have missed, including the Fox News Roundtable and This Week's Panel. Also in there is Bob Schieffer's interview with Rep. Jack Murtha and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

From the Today Show this morning, we have Tom Brokaw's interview with former CIA Director George Tenet, who talks about his new controversial book.

Rick Klein is leaving the Boston Globe and will join ABC News as a Senior Political Reporter and head honcho at The Note, set to relaunch this week.

UPDATE: And The Note's old boss, Mark Halperin, is heading to Time as an editor-at-large and senior political analyst, starting this week, though apparently he's going to keep his job as an ABC News political analyst.

They may not be in the White House together, but the Clintons and Al Gore are a presence in the presidential race as today's news reminds us.

Bill Clinton took the stage yesterday in Detroit at the 10,000-strong NAACP Fight For Freedom dinner after speaking to the group last in 2000. Meanwhile, The Politico's Ben Smith reports that Gore hired a Democratic political operative who's worked for Sen. Joe Lieberman and Gore in their respective presidential runs. The operative worked for a company co-founded by pollster Mark Penn, whom the Washington Post's Anne Kornblut profiles today in his role as Hillary Clinton's political guru. Penn, who has made his influence felt on Clinton's campaign, is known to be mostly cautious in his advice and a hawkish centrist in his politics. If Clinton resembles an insider and appears arrogant about her chances to win the nomination, it's because Penn is both of those things, Kornblut writes, but he's also smart, experienced and loved by Clinton.

Both Clinton and Barack Obama have collected contributions from more than 100 donors who funded one or both of President Bush's campaigns for the White House, reports the New York Sun's Josh Gerstein. Some have become disenchanted with Bush, while others may have personal ties that "transcend partisan politics." Business executives "regularly straddle the field, even supporting multiple candidates in the same race" while other donors may give to undermine a politician by supporting a rival that seems like less of a threat.

In separate speeches at the California Democratic Party's convention yesterday, both Clinton and Obama said the bill Congress sent to Bush to leave Iraq next year is the best chance at terminating the war, the New York Times' Adam Nagourney reports. John Edwards was a little stronger in his rhetoric but supported a timetable for withdrawal. Sen. Chris Dodd, Rep. Dennis Kucinich and Bill Richardson all suggested the current bill was "too leisurely in its deadlines and urged Congress to adopt even tougher legislation by cutting off financing for the war."

While Obama was in California, he remembered the 1992 Los Angeles Riots and tied the war to domestic problems, saying, "We have now spent half a trillion dollars on a war that should have never been authorized, and should have never been waged. We could have invested that money in South Central Los Angeles, or the South Side of Chicago, in jobs and infrastructure and hospitals and schools. Why is it we can find the money in a second for a war that doesn't make any sense?"

On Iraq, Sens. Joe Biden and Sam Brownback may team up on a plan that would split the country into three loosely federated states, the Sun's Russell Berman reports. Fred Thompson's foreign policy would possibly help overthrow the Iranian regime next door by capitalizing on internal disdain for the regime.

Meanwhile, as recently as January Thompson was making calls on behalf of John McCain to potential donors and supporters, including politicos in Thompson's home state of Tennessee, reports Newsweek's Holly Bailey. Thompson called McCain in March before announcing he was mulling a run.

Elsewhere in the GOP field, The Politico's Jonathan Martin reports that McCain accused Romney of "naivete" about Osama bin Laden's importance to the War on Terror after Romney said "it's not worth moving heaven and earth spending billions of dollars just trying to catch one person."

Get these and today's other elections stories at RCP's Politics and Elections page.

More details emerge on the British fertilizer bombers. It turns out that two of them had direct links to the 7/7 attacks and not "on the periphery" as MI5 initially categorized them.

Rich Miller, a fellow Sun-Times columnist and proprietor of the influential Illinois political newsletter Capitol Fax, commissioned an automated phone poll of Illinois voters last week on 2008 preferences.

On the Democratic side, Obama holds a two-to-one lead over Clinton, while the Republican race is wide open with Fred Thompson making a strong 3rd place showing:

Democrats
Obama 52.6
Clinton 24.6
Edwards 9.5
Undecided 6.9

Republicans
McCain 26.1
Giuliani 25.7
F. Thompson 17.7
Romney 10.2
T. Thompson 3.3
Undecided 17

Here's Miller on the poll's methodology:

The automated phone poll was conducted by "Ask Illinois," which has done a lot of polling for political candidates and interest groups and has a good reputation among insiders. The firm uses special technology to blast out hundreds of calls simultaneously and they contact huge numbers of people. In this case 3,509 hardcore Democrats and 3,761 Republicans responded to the poll, leaving us with an extremely low margin of error of +/- 1.18 to +/- 1.52 percent, depending on the question. Republicans and Democrats who indicated they intend to cross over to the other party next year were omitted from these results. The difference was statistically insignificant.

Money follows power.

Anne E. Kornblut of The Washington Post profiles Hillary Clinton's pollster and go-to strategist, Mark Penn.

They say any publicity is good publicity, but that's not altogether true. This piece, for example, reinforces all the stereotypes that many people find unappealing about politics. More specifically, it's a caricature of what the current left-wing activist base of the Democratic party despises most: the beltway uber-pollster/strategist with the $5 million Georgetown mansion who simultaneously runs a presidential campaign and a public relations firm with high-powered corporate clients and who generates reams of polling data to help advise his candidate on which positions she should take.

If Hillary tried to take a step forward with the netroots last week, this profile will almost certainly represent two steps back.

As to Penn's analysis of the race, here is how Kornblut reports it:

Turning again to the data, he [Penn] mapped out a specific strategy for victory in the electoral college: luring to the Democratic Party several percentage points' worth of women as well as more Hispanics, two groups to which Clinton traditionally appeals.

"When you look at this thing nationally -- how is she going to win -- I think it's really important to look at what were the two groups that defected from the Democrats in 2004 to give it to Bush," Penn said. "And those were women and Latino voters. And almost all the change in that election from 2000 was among those two groups, and those are her two strongest groups. And I think that's some of the reason you see her doing so well in places like Ohio and Florida -- because I think those are both states that she could take."

And then, he said, "you won't have to go any further on the map."

Penn's theory of the 2008 race has always been that after two tumultuous terms under Bush, the electorate will want change -- but not too much change. Clinton offers a perfect mix, Penn believes. She inherently represents change, as a woman, without being unfamiliar or untested, thanks to her many years in Washington.

Penn did not anticipate that another Democrat might come along with a similar ability to fit that bill -- as supporters of Obama, who would be the first black president, believe he can -- but he says Clinton has another advantage in her ability to appeal to the underprivileged. Penn believes, and independent surveys confirm, that she outperforms other Democrats among lower-income voters, especially members of a family of four making less than $75,000 a year.

This last point is one Ron Brownstein made last month, which is that for Obama to win he has to expand his base of support beyond the chablis-sipping white collar set and into the ranks of beer-swilling blue collar voters. It remains to be seen whether Obama can connect with this group but, in general, polls show he still has massive potential for growth while Hillary's appears to be limited.

Not a political war room, but a draft-day war room in the NFL. USA Today lifts the curtain on the drama surrounding Brady Quinn's first round tumble before being selected by the Cleveland Browns.

Republicans have been searching in vain for the "next Reagan" ever since the first one left office, but the two-decade old quest is hanging especially heavy over the current presidential race.

Nostalgia for Reagan may be heightened this year by the former president's passing in June 2004 -- an event that elevated his already legendary status among Republicans -- but mostly it's driven by Republican dissatisfaction with the current crop of candidates and the current president.

The polling firm Strategic Vision recently began asking Republicans in six states whether they believe George W. Bush is "a conservative in the mode of Ronald Reagan." The results were surprisingly consistent and overwhelmingly negative: 62% of Republicans in Florida answered "no." The numbers were even worse in the five other states: 68% in Wisconsin, 69% in Pennsylvania, 71% in Michigan, 77% in Iowa and 78% in Georgia.

In a corresponding question, sizable majorities of Republican voters responded that it is "somewhat" or "very" important for the presidential candidate in 2008 to be "a conservative Republican in the mode of Ronald Reagan."

Reagan's shadow will continue to loom over the Republican primary race as candidates work to invoke his name and associate themselves with his legacy -- starting next week when they face off in their first debate, to be held, fittingly, at the Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California. One more thing worth noting: Rudy Giuliani led the entire Republican presidential field in all six of Strategic Vision's state polls.

The rough consensus on last night's Democratic debate is that Barack Obama stumbled, Hillary Clinton appeared solid, Edwards gently swiped at both and the others improved their standings.

The New York Times' Adam Nagorney and Jeff Zeleny write that Clinton and Obama didn't tangle at all so it "fell to their rivals to take cuts at them, and even those were modest." Edwards said Clinton's 2002 Iraq vote is between her and her conscience, and he "obliquely suggested" that Obama hadn't offered much substance on health care, saying that "highfalutin language is not enough."

The Politico's Ben Smith reports that Obama was asked to name America's three major allies, and he "embarked on a world tour, naming the European Union and Japan and trailing off into a discussion of China." Moderator Brian Williams said, "I didn't hear you mention Israel," which shoved Obama "into a patch of political quicksand."

Obama assured Williams that Israel is an all and then responded to the question of how to deal with simultaneous terror attacks by saying first that there should be an effective emergency response and second, good intelligence. This left Clinton and Edwards to respond with more sharply military tones. "I think a president must move as swiftly as is prudent to retaliate," Clinton said.

The Des Moines Register's David Yepsen focused more on candidates' style, writing that Clinton "seemed disjointed in some of her answers, though her admission that she made a mistake in the way she handled health care as first lady was refreshing." Yepsen continues, "One wonders why she just doesn't do the same with her vote for the Iraq war, to get that issue behind her." Edwards seemed "blindsided and lost when asked who his moral leader was" and kept taking questions and digs over his $400 haircut, a "misstep that threatens to erode his carefully built claim to be the champion of the poor."

Yepsen writes that by contrast, Chris Dodd, Joe Biden and Bill Richardson gained ground: Dodd by giving crisp answers, Biden by saying only "Yes" when asked if he could discipline his famously verbose mouth as president, and Richardson by showing his humorous side.

Time's Karen Tumultry would disagree, writing that none those three managed what they were hoping for, which was a badly needed breakout moment and the top tier did "little to hurt or help themselves." The show-stealer seems to have been former Alaska Senator and NYC cab driver Mike Gravel who said he would make it a felony for the U.S to stay in Iraq and that Osama bin Laden was "rolling in his blankets" with joy over the invasion and a number of other zingers that left the audience in stitches.

The Politico's Roger Simon writes that the field won because a number of Democratic voters probably looked at a number of the candidates and thought they could be president, which "doesn't narrow the field, but it is a little early to narrow the field."

NBC News political director Chuck Todd writes that South Carolina is still not yet the "decisive primary" in Democratic politics like it is for the GOP, partially because there's no bipartisan cooperation among the state's parties to work for a better calendar date. Still, Democrats have focused on the state: Clinton and Obama because of the large portion of black voters in the primary, Edwards because he was born there and both Biden and Richardson have concentrated resources there.

John McCain was also in South Carolina yesterday where he said pulling out of Iraq could produce an "international crisis" that would draw in the U.S. McCain also reiterated his call for Attorney General Gonzales to resign and touched on reforming immigration and entitlements. At another stop in the state, "Barbara Anne" played as his theme song after he sang "Bomb, Bomb, Iran" to its tune earlier this month. Meanwhile, Mitt Romney pointed out that McCain and Rudy Giuliani's changes on positions to defend his own changes.

Get these and today's other elections stories at RCP's Politics and Elections page.

This week, Hillary Clinton did something she rarely ever does: She engaged the online community in a conversation. On Tuesday, Clinton penned a post titled "Equal Pay, Equal Respect" at the progressive blog FireDogLake, and then stuck around for about 30 minutes to chat about it.

Clinton is perhaps realizing the error of her previous ways. To this point in her campaign she has largely ignored the progressive netroots, and as a result has finished poorly in blog polls, consistently garnering only single-digit support and often placing lower than even Dennis Kucinich. (See Tom's post about the significance of these polls.) Meanwhile, Barack Obama and John Edwards, who have both excelled online, filed impressive first quarter fundraising numbers and have chipped away at Clinton's aura of invincibility in both national and local primary polls.

But that Clinton is finally engaging bloggers isn't the most interesting part of her new strategy. The most interesting part is the who, what and where of that strategy. Traditionally, netroot Democrats -- including Obama, Edwards, Ned Lamont, Jon Tester and my old boss Jim Webb -- have helped grow and maintain their online support by posting diaries at Daily Kos. The logic here is simple. With over 600,000 visitors a day, Daily Kos is by far the most trafficked of any political blog and easiest way for a Democratic candidate to create a worthwhile conversation with progressive activists.

But Clinton has never posted a diary at Daily Kos, which only begs the question: Why would she proactively avoid recreating the success of other recent candidates? And the most likely the answer is, because Markos Moulitsas, founder of Daily Kos -- aka "Kos" -- hates her.

The top result of a google search of "Markos Moulitsas" AND "Hillary Clinton" turns up a Op/Ed Kos wrote in the Washington Post in May, 2006 titled "Too much of a Clinton Democrat?" In it, he is not too fond of either Clinton:

Hillary Clinton leads her Democratic rivals in the polls and in fundraising. Unfortunately, however, the New York senator is part of a failed Democratic Party establishment -- led by her husband -- that enabled the George W. Bush presidency and the Republican majorities, and all the havoc they have wreaked at home and abroad.

And after Clinton refused to apologize for her vote authorizing the war in Iraq in February of this year, Kos wrote:

Not only is the Clinton campaign pig-headed, they are also remarkably out-of-touch. They are "surprised" at the anger this war is generating? Has she been living in a cave the last four years (yes, the Senate apparently is a cave). The last thing we need in the White House is another out-of-touch, tone-deaf Bush-style presidency, unable or unwilling to admit mistakes and change course as a result.

Hillary will now see her campaign events hijacked by anti-war protesters, with people demanding she defend her vote at every corner. Iraq will dominate coverage of her campaign, and she's on the wrong side of the issue. And by going this far without admitting her mistake, she has painted herself into a corner. Any attempt now to back off and apologize would be met with the proper scorn.

For Hillary, No amount of nuance will make this issue go away.

Today she lost my potential vote. I doubt I'm the only person in this position. Thankfully, as Hillary so helpfully pointed out, the rest of the field 1) didn't make the mistake to begin with, or 2) aren't afraid to admit their mistakes

Realizing that Kossacks may not be the most receptive group to her message, Clinton went smaller. With about 60,000 visitors a day, FireDogLake is a tenth the size of Daily Kos, but nonetheless a respectable sized audience. But perhaps more importantly, the founder and most substantive bloggers on FireDogLake are women. So even though Equal Pay hasn't been a top ten issue for a while, it makes sense for Clinton, as the only woman running for President, to try to move her online campaign out of neutral by having a conversation with women about women, even if it means less exposure.

It will be interesting to see over the next few months whether Clinton, new strategy in hand, can generate any hint of internet support. But it may be the case that the disdain for her in the liberal blogosphere -- for her style, her vote on the war, and her refusal to apologize for that vote -- is so great that even a perfect internet plan would fail.

I'm afraid John McCain won't be getting any signatures for his petition from this advertisement:

Yes, I'll be waiting to see how the Big Three (Clinton, Obama, and Edwards) handle themselves tonight, but the candidate I'm most interested in seeing on the stage is Bill Richardson. He's running a very distant fourth in the low single digits in the national polls, but he's jumped up to third place in Kos's latest straw poll based in part on a very well received performance at Moveon.org's recent online forum on Iraq.

Richardson also just went up with a pair of ads in Iowa and New Hampshire to raise his profile further. Here they are:

In many ways tonight is a no lose for Richardson. All of the focus, pressure and expectations are on the Big Three, and with that comes very little upside and a potentially significant downside. So if Richardson can find a way to differentiate himself tonight in a positive way, it could help build on the little boomlette he's got going with the Democratic base.

As expected, former Republican Governor of Virginia and former RNC Chair Jim Gilmore officially entered the Presidential race today. Here's the video announcement posted to his web site:

Check out more political clips in the RCP Video Vault.

Jonathan Martin and Mike Allen report:

Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney accused Democrats of cowardice in ducking presidential debates hosted by sponsors they dislike, saying that Republicans have proven more willing to appear in potentially hostile forums.

Romney said the May 3 debate at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library -- co-sponsored by The Politico and MSNBC -- proves that Republicans "have a lot more courage of our convictions," because they are willing to take questions from a moderator who earlier in his career worked as an aide to Democratic politicians. Democratic presidential candidates have refused to take part in two debates co-sponsored by Fox News, arguing that the network is slanted toward Republicans.

"Why is it that the Democrats wouldn't even go on Fox, but we Republicans are happy to sit there and have Chris Matthews of the Carter administration, former chief of staff to (ex-House speaker) Tip O'Neill?" asked Romney, in a Tuesday evening interview here with The Politico. "We're happy to sit there and have him dish questions to us, but they won't even go on Fox."

Why other Republican candidates didn't jump on this angle right away is beyond me, because in addition to being obvious and true, it plays well with the base on a number of levels. The idea that Brit Hume is somehow more partisan or less professional than Chris Matthews, Tim Russert or George Stephanopoulos is beyond laughable.

Quinnipiac is out with results from three states:

Florida
Democrats
Clinton 36
Gore 15
Obama 13
Edwards 11
Undecided 14

Republicans
Giuliani 38
McCain 15
Romney 7
Gingrich 6
F. Thompson 5
Undecided 21

Head to Head Matchups
Clinton 41 - Giuliani 49
Clinton 45 - McCain 45
Clinton 48 - Thompson 38

Obama 38 - Giuliani 49
Obama 41 - McCain 41
Obama 42 - Thompson 35

Gore 43 - Giuliani 47
Gore 46 - McCain 43
Gore 48 - Thompson 36

Ohio
Democrats
Clinton 37
Edwards 17
Obama 14
Gore 11
Undecided 14

Republicans
Giuliani 23
McCain 21
Gingrich 9
F. Thompson 8
Romney 6
Undecided 23

Head to Head Matchups
Clinton 41 - Giuliani 46
Clinton 42 - McCain 44
Clinton 45 - Thompson 35

Obama 37 - Giuliani 45
Obama 36 - McCain 42
Obama 44 - Thompson 31

Gore 39 - Giuliani 47
Gore 39 - McCain 46
Gore 44 - Thompson 35

Pennsylvania
Democrats
Clinton 36
Obama 14
Gore 14
Edwards 13
Undecided 16

Republicans
Giuliani 29
McCain 17
Gingrich 10
F. Thompson 6
Romney 5
Undecided 21

Head to Head Matchups
Clinton 43 - Giuliani 47
Clinton 43 - McCain 45
Clinton 47 - Thompson 36

Obama 41 - Giuliani 45
Obama 43 - McCain 41
Obama 45 - Thompson 33

Gore 44 - Giuliani 44
Gore 45 - McCain 42
Gore 48 - Thompson 34

As the Democratic candidates arrive in South Carolina for tonight's debate they'll only have about six minutes of speaking time to make their case to the audience, not enough time to score many points but enough to overhaul their public image, writes The Politico's Ben Smith. Barack Obama's goal should be to show there's "substance under the sizzle," according to Democratic strategist Bob Shrum. While Obama is the "most famous orator of the group," his 2004 debates were "by most accounts, unremarkable." In the same year John Edwards stayed out of the Democratic crossfire, and Sen. Hillary Clinton has prepared more for debates than her rivals against Republicans, and in the last one she came across as "well-prepared and at ease, if not dominant."

The Hill's Sam Youngman writes that last week's Supreme Court partial-birth abortion ruling as well as gun control could be part of the opening questions volley and Democrats may face the "precarious balancing act" between state and national voters. Clinton will almost surely be asked about her thoughts on the likelihood of Democrats succeeding to get President Bush to accept a timeline for Iraq withdrawal. The New York Sun's Russell Berman reports that Clinton said, "I think that it will be extremely challenging, if at all possible. We're going to keep trying, but at some point we don't want Democrats being blamed for our troops not being well-equipped, not having the resources they need..."

Yesterday's presidential kickoff from John McCain began with a "thinly veiled critique of the Bush administration," in which he pledged to "restore competence to foreign and domestic policy and welcome compromise with Democrats," writes the New York Times' Adam Nagourney and Michael Cooper. McCain later said Attorney General Alberto Gonzales should resign "out of loyalty" to Bush.

Bush isn't the only Republican getting criticized by McCain: Rudy Giuliani is taking heat on Iraq from McCain backers who claim he's dodging the issue, reports the New York Observer's Jason Horowitz.

Giuliani is also getting hit on abortion by Mitt Romney, who in an interview with The Politico said "there's a lot more to being pro-life beyond appointing conservative justices," including sex education, the morning-after pill, all as a part of encouraging a "culture of life rather than the culture of death." This week Romney started to air $2 million worth of ads, most of the national ones on Fox News and others in Iowa and New Hampshire.

Finally, DNC Chair Howard Dean criticized press coverage of presidential campaigns and suggested that candidates be invited to meetings and the press be barred from them. In regards to the primary races, Dean is warning that states will be punished for moving their primaries ahead of Feb. 5 and candidates who step foot in those states. Early states wouldn't collect delegates and scofflaw candidates would have their delegates reapportioned to all other delegates in the given states.

Get these and today's other elections stories at RCP's Politics and Elections page.

That was fast. The Sun-Times broke the story about Barack Obama's relationship with Tony Rezko on Monday, but I think we may have already reached the point where Obama's reaction to the story is drawing more attention than the particulars of the story itself. Carol Marin, a reporter for NBC 5 and a columnist for the Sun-Times, puts the boot in today:

Barack Obama tells us he is the messenger of a new kind of politics.

Open. Transparent. Different.

But put the pedal to the metal and ask Illinois' junior senator new and serious questions about his radioactive, federally indicted, former friend Antoin "Tony" Rezko, and suddenly this gleaming presidential hopeful and paragon of new politics behaves just like any other dissembling, dismissive Chicago pol, ducking the discussion while pretending not to.

Read the rest.

Meanwhile, the Chicago Tribune runs a somewhat unflattering report on Obama's history of charitable giving which begins this way:

Giving, service and compassion are recurrent themes on the campaign trail for Sen. Barack Obama, but the Democratic presidential contender has only recently dug deep into his own pockets to support charitable causes.

Lastly, Maureen Dowd questions whether it's smart for Michelle Obama to publicly chide her husband as a "mere mortal" for things like not putting his socks in the dirty hamper. Dowd writes:

Many people I talked to afterward found Michelle wondrous. But others worried that her chiding was emasculating, casting her husband -- under fire for lacking experience -- as an undisciplined child. [snip]

But it may not be smart politics to mock him in a way that turns him from the glam J.F.K. into the mundane Gerald Ford, toasting his own English muffins. If all Senator Obama is peddling is the Camelot mystique, why debunk the mystique?

And Dowd makes another point, which circles back to touch on the Sun-Times story as well:

Michelle conveys the appealing idea that she will tell her husband when he's puffed up or out of line. She aims high -- she ordered her husband to stop puffing on cigarettes as he started campaigning. But then, why didn't she see the red flags on the Rezko deal?

All in all, not a very good day for Obama as far as the media is concerned.

Over the next couple days, candidates on both sides will be more visible to the public as Democrats gather in South Carolina ahead of tomorrow's debate while Sen. John McCain officially announces for president today in New Hampshire.

Democrats will kickoff a large tour of South Carolina with tomorrow's debate, which isn't "do or die for any of the eight," reports the Greenville News' Dan Hoover, but could help Sens. Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama move past each other or help another candidate join the two at the top. The State's Lee Bandy writes that Democrats are in an upbeat mood. Large crowds are expected this week for the candidates' debate, Friday's Jefferson-Jackson Dinner and Saturday's state Democratic convention. In "sharp contrast," the state's Republicans are in a "big funk right now. They have little to cheer about. The GOP, they fear, has lost its way."

Overlooked but not unimportant is Rep. James Clyburn's annual fish fry, reports the Wall Street Journal's Amy Schatz, which is considered important for Democrats to gain Clyburn's endorsement. Clinton and Obama will attend, as will Edwards, who didn't show in 2003, which "apparently didn't go over terribly well with the host by some accounts and Clyburn's much-sought-after endorsement went to Sen. John Kerry."

The New York Observer's Jason Horowtiz reports that Al Gore supporters, especially Donna Brazile, say he probably won't run, but if he does, they'll support him. As for comments by Bill Clinton and James Carville that Gore might run, Brazile said, "They want him to make the Shermanesque statement that he is not running, period. Because if you look at the polls...[Gore] draws support from Mrs. Clinton, and a little bit from Edwards and Obama. But a lot from her. So I'm sure that's the reason why."

On the GOP side, McCain and his supporters are finding that New Hampshire is "politically very different" than the same state one he won in 2000, writes The Politico's Jonathan Martin. That year the primary was open to independents and a lackluster Democratic primary drove many of them to vote for McCain. Next year the primary may just include Republicans, but ironically this may make the primary a "test of support within the GOP base. There are signs that McCain and his team have learned from their rookie mistakes, as they highlight the senator's ardent support for a war that every New Hampshire observer contacted for this story said would not hurt him in the state's primary."

Meanwhile McCain's campaign has replaced its finance director, while Mitt Romney's deputy campaign manager resigned, citing familial obligations but coming after a report that the FBI is looking into his old boss, Rep. Tom Feeney for 2003 trips with Jack Abramoff.

Rudy Giuliani made news yesterday by saying if America is on defense in the War on Terror, as it would be with a Democratic president, "we will have more losses and it will go on longer," reports The Politico's Roger Simon. Elsewhere, Giuliani said he didn't "know the answer" to the question of whether the Iraq surge was working and declined to give the circumstances in which he would withdraw from Iraq.

Lastly, Fred Thompson will provide regular commentary on ABC News' Internet radio site, while his "Law & Order" co-star Sam Waterston told CNN he thinks Thompson will run for president.

Get these and today's other elections stories at RCP's Politics and Elections page.

Rep. Rick Renzi (R-Ariz.) temporarily stepped down from two more House committees today, having already stepped down from one last week after the FBI raided his wife's insurance business. The investigation entails a land deal from Roberta Renzi that might have benefited a fellow business associate and campaign donor.

Two quick developments from this: First, Renzi has told House Minority Leader John Boehner that he wished to be dropped from the GOP's Retain Our Majority Program, which is designed to protect the party's most vulnerable incumbents, reports the Politico's Patrick O'Connor.

Also, as the Politico notes elsewhere, Democrats are wasting no time dusting off their "culture of corruption" theme they campaigned on last year. Democrats hope to add Renzi's troubles to an FBI raid of Rep. John Doolittle's home in Northern Virginia as well as the ongoing U.S. attorney scandal to a spring offensive, reports Jeff Patch and O'Connor.

"Our intention is to keep our foot on the gas as the party of reform," said Democratic Caucus Chairman Rahm Emanuel of Illinois.

With the Dow Jones Industrial Average very near 13,000, the title of our January 4, 2007 Wall Street Journal Op-Ed - "Dow 14,000 on Tap" - no longer elicits wide-eyed reactions, like it did a few months ago.

The skeptics became even more emphatic after the sharp drop in equity prices that occurred in late February and early March. At that point, some were even talking of a new "global bear market," caused at least partly by a recession in the US.

But the US stock market, and much of the globe, has reversed course and boomed. The Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed to a new all-time high last Friday, and is up 7.6% from its recent bottom on March 5, 2006. During this same time frame, the S&P 500 jumped 8.0%, while the Nasdaq rose 7.9%.

While it's impossible to explain every zig and zag in financial markets, the recent run-up seems to be based on strong reported earnings and clear evidence that the economy is not falling into recession, as many feared.

On the earnings front, through Friday, 134 of the S&P 500 companies had reported. The results are interesting. So far, 66.4% of reporting companies had positive earnings surprises - a nice improvement from last quarter. While earnings growth has slowed to just 5.2% on a year-over-year basis, all the positive surprises suggest analysts are underestimating both micro- and macro-forces.

The micro-force is productivity growth, as companies ride a wave of new technology. At the same time, there are two important macro-forces. First, global growth is on a tear as capitalism and freedom spread. Second, the US economy refuses to be toppled.

Pessimists continue to argue that productivity growth is slowing, or will slow for good very soon. But the technology boom continues. And while it is true that productivity growth has waned in recent quarters, this appears to be driven by slightly weaker GDP growth due to a housing correction. Employment growth remains robust. As in 1995, we expect this slowdown to be temporary. The negative impact from sub-prime foreclosures is overblown.

Moreover, the global economy is experiencing its fourth year in a row of spectacular growth. Given the international focus of many US companies, this global growth is boosting returns even while the domestic economy slows.

Finally, our models - based on overall corporate profits and a conservative estimate of the current discount rate - continue to show that the broad US stock market is 20 to 25% undervalued.

Tax rates remain low, Fed policy is still accommodative, global growth is strong, and technology remains a major force. As a result, corporate profits and economic activity will continue to expand more rapidly than conventional wisdom predicts.

While tempted to raise it, we will stick with our original forecast for now. Dow 14,000 remains on tap.

Whether Fred Thompson intended it, his recent op-eds appearing in a variety of conservative publications and Web sites have touched on themes dear to conservatives: strong national defense; free-market economics; and, Thompson's latest appearing in Townhall, the primacy of federalism in our constitutional system. (A possible fourth theme would be what is known as traditional, or social, conservatism.)

Yesterday's Townhall op-ed, which is something of a continuation of a National Review op-ed from Monday, is interesting, because it's one of the first instances where Thompson seems to be defending his conservative credentials, rather than simply stating his beliefs, from a critique by NR senior editor Ramesh Ponnuru. The issue is Thompson's opposition to tort reform during his Senate days, which greatly angered conservatives at the time. As Thompson notes, he was the only senator to vote against a "good Samaritan" law that would have protected people who willingly assist others in need from civil action.

Thompson writes:

Now I can assure you that I have nothing against good Samaritans. If a person stops to help someone in distress on the highway and something bad happens, generally, the good Samaritan should not be sued by some overly ambitious trial lawyer. But states are, and have been for years, perfectly capable of handling this burning issue -- as well as all of the sub-issues that are raised, such as who should be protected as a good Samaritan. What if he was intoxicated and made a slight misstep while applying medical relief? What if he was not impaired, but made a gross error and turns a minor problem into a significant one? You get the idea. This is traditionally state law stuff. Is this really something the federal government should involve itself in?

Conservatives will have to judge for themselves the merits of Thompson's arguments. But what we're witnessing here is the rare instance of a potential presidential candidate debating political philosophy with the some of the nation's top conservatives (in this case, NR's Ramesh Ponnuru), as opposed to rival candidates. And it's a substantive debate -- not the usual aide-written stuff most candidates slap their name to. My guess is that conservatives will love this, whether they agree with Thompson or not, because so few candidates are willing (or able) to do it.

It's also a good strategy in that Thompson needs to show that despite his absence from the political scene he's still very much a student of politics and not just an actor who saw politics as a diversion.

Via Hotline on Call, here's NBC 5 Chicago's coverage of Sen. Barack Obama, who was back home yesterday, and his ties to indicted real estate mogul Tony Rezko:

As Hotline's Marc Ambinder notes, the reporter's claim that Obama "went out of his way to avoid answering questions" related to Rezko is a bit of an unfair hit, since Obama was talking to the Sun-Times.

Fred Thompson hasn't decided whether to run for president, but he's committed to headlining a major Virginia GOP fundraiser in June and addressing a dinner for a Florida bar association two weeks from now. These appearances indicate that Thompson is popular enough to draw a crowd of Republican faithful who are willing to plunk down dollars to at least hear him speak. Some will see Thompson's popularity and speeches to Republicans as more an effort to gain PR than the party's nomination, but the same was said about Rudy Giuliani a year ago and proved not to be true.

The real test will be the crowds' reactions, especially that of Virginia Republicans who must be melancholy after losing the last two gubernatorial elections and seeing their own presumptive presidential candidate, George Allen, self-destruct in last year's Senate race.

There's less horserace and more policy in today's news after two candidates delivered major policy addresses yesterday.

In Chicago, Barack Obama accused President Bush of weakening America's global leadership and repeated the call for total withdrawal from Iraq by next March, reports the Chicago Tribune's Mike Dorning. Obama also called for the addition of 60,000 Army soldiers and 27,000 Marines and for doubling foreign aid to total $50 billion by 2012. The full speech can be read here.

The Wall Street Journal's Deborah Soloman looks at Obama's economic policy where he's open to using government intervention in markets to "further core Democratic goals, though careful to avoid hard-edged liberal rhetoric," such as his "Health Care For Hybrids" bill in the Senate that assists car companies with their health-care costs in return for hybrid production. In the Senate Obama has "voted against a trade agreement and backs policies that redistribute income by taking revenue from the wealthiest to fund programs" for lower-level households.

However, health care remains the big issue among Democrats and Obama hasn't settled on specifics, though he is looking for ways to drive down costs, "possibly by creating state or national health-care pools" and incentivizing electronic record-keeping.

Obama's rise as a candidate has made a number of black elected officials in New York undecided about whether to back him or Hillary Clinton, writes the New York Times' Raymond Hernandez. The officials are impressed with Obama's campaign so far and the Clinton team is trying to secure black support by dispatching Bill Clinton to speak to minority lawmakers and activists, as well as getting heavyweights Bill Lynch and Rep. Charlie Rangel to court black leaders.

Elsewhere, Obama said he didn't know tenements owned by Chicago landlord and Obama contributor Tony Rezko were in disrepair during his time as a state senator and attorney, the Chicago Sun-Times' Tim Novak reports, after he investigated the two's relationship. "Should I have known these buildings were in a state of disrepair? My answer would be that it wasn't brought to my attention," Obama said. "As far as I can tell, we were never contacted by Rezko tenants."

On the Republican side, Sen. John McCain detailed his energy policy that would support energy-conserving technology, lift the tariff on ethanol imports and build more nuclear power plants. McCain also targeted Venezuela, Iran and al Qaeda as profiting from oil purchases.

The Hill's Alexander Bolton reports that the McCain team is "restructuring his fundraising schedule to woo mid-level political donors," who contribute less than $100, and give fundraising and organizational roles to supporters under 45 to rejuvenate the campaign.

As McCain and Rudy Giuliani engage in a popularity contest, Mitt Romney is making himself the race's "prime message/issue candidate," writes Marc Ambinder at Hotline On Call. The tactic also allows him to not say why he used to believe in more liberal ideas because now he can "respond by pulling out a sheaf of new proposals." The Politico's Kenneth Vogel reports that the GOP's main issue's man, Newt Gingrich, isn't running yet, but he's hired a fundraiser and pollster.

Get these and today's other elections stories at RCP's Politics and Elections page.

I want to bring your attention to a couple of subtle but important tweaks we've made to RCP recently. If you look in the upper right hand area of the RCP front page, you'll notice that we've reformatted the links to all the various 2008 poll data to be a user-friendly dashboard feature that displays the leaders from each party in Iowa, New Hampshire, and nationally. As always, you can click on the links to drill down for more detail on all of the polling information.

Secondly, if you look a bit lower on the front page you'll see a new feature called "top videos of the day." We've expanded our daily aggregation of political commentary and news to include a selection of the best political video clips from around the web which will be updated daily and archived in the new RealClearPolitics Video Vault.

Given how big video has become and what an important part it is playing in the 2008 campaign, we think this new feature is going to be an indispensable resource for political junkies. So please check it out and be sure to bookmark it for future visits.

Barack Obama took some heat last week for suggesting that the violence perpetrated against the victims at Virginia Tech is somehow comparable to the "verbal violence" of Don Imus or the "violence" of losing a job to outsourcing.

Candidates occasionally overreach in an effort to pull certain issues into their wheelhouse, and it was a mistake for Obama to try and use the tragic events in Blacksburg to weave a larger narrative about different types of violence in society, even if you think Obama's theme has merit.

But Obama's not the only one in the race guilty of the overreach - and at least he doesn't make a habit of it. Republican Mike Huckabee, on the other hand, includes it as part of his standard stump speech when he compares the "t