On this day in 1864 General William Tecumseh Sherman of the Union Army set fire to the city of Atlanta and began his famous March to the Sea. Sherman's scorched earth tactics are a fitting historical backdrop to the Democratic debate set to take place this evening in Las Vegas, where Barack Obama and John Edwards will seek to keep the heat on front runner Hillary Clinton.

Molly Ball of the Las Vegas Review-Journal has a "fight night" preview, and Steven Stark offers some advice to the top-tier. Patrick Healy of the New York Times says tonight represents a chance for Clinton to "undo the damage" she's done to herself over the last two weeks that began with her debate performance at Drexel University in Philadelphia.

On a similar note, Alec MacGillis and Perry Bacon Jr. of the Washington Post point out the increased partisan tone of the Democrats' campaign. Clinton's rivals, write MacGillis and Bacon, are "reshaping the arguments for their candidacies and sparking a broader debate about the future of their party."

The subtext to tonight's debate is Nevada's quest for increased power and stature in the Democratic nominating process, which has so far been relatively fruitless. Scott Martelle of the Los Angeles Times and Shailagh Murray of the Washington Post have more.

A final note on the debate: David Jackson of USA Today says the Dems will be paying special attention to Latino voters tonight. That should make for another interesting discussion about drivers licenses for illegal immigrants, given that Clinton just announced last night - finally - that she opposes the policy.

Meanwhile, back in Iowa....a couple of caucus-related stories worth noting. The first is Lisa Rossi's look at how the early caucus date changes the strategy for getting out the youth vote.(See Reid's take on the youth vote from yesterday as well). And Jennifer Hunter of the Chicago Sun-Times reports that Obama is trying to take advantage of the caucus structure by wooing the supporters of the lower tier candidates.

On A1, above the fold, David Kirkpatrick of the New York Times has a long profile of Mitt Romney's missionary days in France in 1968.

And Jenn Abelson of the Boston Globe has an equally long profile on John Edwards looking at his transformation from a happy warrior four years ago to the angry, hard-edged populist this time around.