. . .and to all a better 2008, or as journalist Martin Walker pines -- a more boring, less tumultuous 2008!

-- Steve Clemons

Just drove down 395 South in Nevada from Reno to Carson City. There was only one political billboard up -- and that was Ron Paul telling Nevadans he would secure the borders.

-- Steve Clemons

Just a week ago it seemed that Mitt Romney was on the verge of being swept away here in Iowa by Huckamania and, with McCain coming on strong in New Hampshire, from there on to political oblivion. And in a few short days it still may happen. (Have I mentioned before how fluid and uncertain things out here are?)

But based on the latest polls (yes, yes, I know) it looks like Mitt might be staging a bit of a comeback.

So in that spirit -- and in search of some French Toast, too -- my family and I went down to the Hamburg Inn for lunch today to see Mitt in action.

The Hamburg Inn, with irony perhaps lost on the Romney campaign, is also the home of the famous "Coffee Bean Caucus" which will, in just a few days, provide us yet another scientific predictor of Iowa voting behavior.

Making our way to the 'Burg through Iowa City today was something of an Invasion of the Body Snatchers experience. . .Everything seemed a bit off, but I couldn't figure out why. . .Until it occurred to me that virtually everyone we saw was wearing a campaign button, carrying a sign or box of literature, or otherwise engaged in inflicting sincere and enthusiastic forms of civic engagement on Iowa. . .

When Mitt emerged from the Mitt-Mobile (its not quite as good as the "Hill-a-Copter" or the "Huck-a-Bus" but you can't do quite as much with "Mitt" as you can with "Hill." I have to admit that he looked, well, presidential. The cut jaw. The smile. The shoulders. The touch of gray at the temples. (And yes, his hair is indeed fantastic) And, important in Republican circles, or so I am told, the wife.

He worked the crowd that had gathered outside quickly and with the practiced efficiency of a time and motion study. "Thanks for coming. . .thank you. . .thanks for coming. . .thank you. . .thanks for coming". Smile, shake, pivot and on. No one asked Romney anything of substance, and he and Ann seemed pleased to keep things to genial pleasantries. Ann especially, who got off the bus without her jacket and quickly came to the conclusion that she would rather be inside than standing outside on a brisk Sunday afternoon.

The crowd wasn't huge, but it was enthusiastic. And, sadly for us, once you added in the media it was big enough to keep us out of the 'Burg when Romney went in to work the room. We had been standing in line for a while, but our daughter and her friend were more interested in Sunday brunch than in waiting it out until the crowd cleared and we could get in.

Based on what I heard afterwards Romney kept the event as content-free as possible, shaking hands, thanking supporters, asserting impending victory -- and, most importantly, making sure that all the media got good pictures and B-roll of him working the room in a classic Iowa political institution. And then he was back in the Mitt-Mobile and on his way to the next event.

By all accounts in seeking to counter Huckabee, Romney's campaign has now entered uncharted territory, going negative and attacking his opponent, hard, in the days leading up to the caucus.

Conventional wisdom is that negative attacks turn people off here, and drive your supporters to turn to other candidates. But with the other Republicans all but in the single digits here, or less, (save the rejuvenated candidate hereafter to be known as I Am Legend, the effect of Romney going negative on Huckabee is less predictable.

Arguably Romney faced little choice, and whatever the conventional wisdom may once have been, the big ad buy and the attacks do seem to have gotten him some traction. Of course Romney has also been helped, immeasurably, by Huckabee's own gaffes, especially on foreign policy. Its hard to tell how much these gaffes matter to Huckabee's core supporters, but at the least it is now a race now on the Republican side, too.

And tomorrow, with none of the candidates scheduled to be around Iowa City, I can go back to the 'Burg.

And get a pie-shake. . .

-- Michael Schiffer

Michael Schiffer is The Washington Note's blogger for the Iowa Caucuses and is a resident of Iowa. He is a program officer in Policy Analysis and Dialogue at the Stanley Foundation based in Muscatine, Iowa -- and was previously senior national security adviser and legislative director in the Office of Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA)

I think Chris Bowers at Open Left just has a terrific, no-nonsense read on where the Democratic and Republican contenders stand in Iowa.

He then runs through what various scenarios in Iowa mean for New Hampshire and then nationally.

And here's his national comment:

Iowa and New Hampshire's impact on the national campaign?

According to fladem, the average national swing for a sweep of Iowa and New Hampshire is 33%. This means that if either Clinton or Obama win Iowa, and thus New Hampshire, the nomination almost certainly breaks their way.

If Edwards sweeps the two states, then it looks like a close two-way campaign between Edwards and Clinton. If Edwards wins Iowa, and Clinton hangs on to take New Hampshire, then it looks like Clinton wins the nomination. If Edwards wins Iowa, and Obama hangs on to win New Hampshire, then all three should have a good shot and it is anyone's guess as to what happens next.

I have to admit, the political junkie in me is kind of pulling for that result. This is great political theater, and I don't want it to all end on Thursday night, or even next Tuesday night.

Interesting stuff.

I'm in Reno, Nevada right now about to go for a run. One odd thing I just saw was a Ron Paul sign in the grass outside the local Neptune Society here. Odd placement.

More later.

-- Steve Clemons

The other day, I mentioned Bloomberg's increasing fascination with running for President. According to an inside Bloomberg source, the "environment is not yet right" to commit to a run, but "he's working through the details of a possible strategy."

Now we have news that former Senators Sam Nunn and David Boren are convening a bipartisan group of 17 senior Republican and Democratic leaders at the University of Oklahoma on January 6th and 7th (list amended below).

The purpose, according to organizers, is to organize "truth-telling discussions" on issues of major national concern and to send a signal to both parties that this group wants to see real commitment to a bipartisan, unity government in the next presidential administration.

Nearly all commentators speculate that this effort could be used to punctuate the beginning of an independent party presidential bid.

But the organizers of this meeting are deluding themselves if they think that getting Republicans and Democrats behind a non-specific agenda is the real challenge for the nation -- or is even worth all of this effort. Unprincipled, unfocused bipartisanship is bland, stale politics. And as Matt Stoller notes, bipartisanship too frequently is called on to anoint bad decisions to give both sides freedom from accountability.

This kind of effort reminds me of former Council on Foreign Relations Vice President Nancy Roman's "Both Sides of the Aisle," a well-intended but policy-lite treatment on what it would take to rebuild common cause across party lines and foster more bipartisanship. One of her core recommendations was that Republican and Democratic Members of Congress travel together on Congressional Delegations (CODELs) more frequently.

Traveling together does not remedy the fact that Republicans and Democrats were complicit in the Iraq War. Both parties have been complicit in the appropriations corruption that came with obscene Homeland Security spending around the nation. Both parties have been complicit in refusing to solidly challenge the most aggressive expansion of Executive Branch authority in more than a century. Both parties have been complicit in failing to shore up investment in the American economy and its workforce. Both parties have been complicit in allowing Americans to be spied on. Both parties have been complicit in allowing low level soldiers to take the hit for Abu Ghraib and allowing the decision-makers in the White House and Pentagon to get a complete pass.

The situation we have today was produced by aggressive, high-fear tactics of minority political operations within both the Republican and Democratic parties -- that then cowed a party membership that passively followed.

But some dissidents have emerged -- and Senator Chuck Hagel (R-NE) is probably the most important of these.

From what I know of Hagel, he is not bemoaning the absence of soft and fuzzy bipartisanship. He wants a change in policy -- a change in the course of the nation.

What former Senator Sam Nunn seems to be saying in the commentary he has thus far provided on the upcoming meeting is that bipartisanship should be a goal unto itself. That's wrong.

What the Republican and Democratic party members need to realize is that both of their party apparatuses have been taken over by a combination of ideological and utopian zealots as well as a policy-blind secretariat that passively follows the ideologues. The pragmatists and realists in both parties -- particularly in foreign policy but also in other spheres as well -- have been in decline.

The bubble of America's greatness was punctured by Iraq. America's hegemonic pretensions ended when the world saw America -- which once seemed to have no bounds on what it could do -- show its limits in the Iraq War.

When superpowers show their limits, allies are the first to recalculate their behavior because they won't count on us as much as they did before. And enemies move their agendas.

America's global national security position is eroding. The global equilibrium is in serious flux -- and this is no time for ideological zealotry in either the Democratic or Republican parties.

But it's not a time for purposeless bipartisanship either. This is a time to get serious about challenges and for the dissidents that have been dissatisfied to rebel.

The next President of the United States is going to be tested. Every troublesome player in the international system is going to kick the tires of our new President -- much like Khrushchev did with Kennedy.

Ahmadinejad will spark something, testing us. Hu Jintao will throw some dust in the new president's face. Kim Jong Il will remind the president that good behavior comes at a very high price. Hugo Chavez will work hard to embarrass the new occupant of the White House. Al Qaeda will engineer another mass casualty incident not just for their cause but to test the resolve of the new establishment in Washington. The Taiwanese will flirt with independence. The Israelis will test how much room they are given to run beyond what the Bush administration has already given them. And then there is Russia, and frankly a long roster of other nations that want to consolidate the appearance of their rising international power in the midst of the perception o American decline.

I don't believe that bipartisanship solves the challenges ahead. New policies might help restore some balance and the beginnings of a positive direction. But what is needed now are rebels.

I think Hagel is that kind of rebel, though he is disgusted with Washington and both parties (perhaps a good thing) -- and I think Michael Bloomberg is a hard core pragmatist. Neither of them is perfect, but they are a possible alternative to the less than compelling choices currently on the table.

Some believe that Bloomberg's tough manhandling of protesters in New York disqualify him. Many progressives who like Hagel's leadership in trying to bring the Iraq War to an end fear his social conservatism.

My only fear is that Sam Nunn (who may be auditioning for the VP slot himself with Bloomberg), David Boren, former Defense Secretary William Cohen and others concocting this January fest next week are more about getting Dems and Republicans to pal around together -- not rebelling on the basis of policy that outrages them.

The sad but real truth today is that the Bush administration came in to office in 2001 under suspect circumstances but roared and behaved as if it had won an 80% mandate. The Democrats folded and gave Bush all the room to run he wanted. There is mutual responsibility and complicity in the results we have today.

I don't want more bipartisanship for its own sake. I want dissident Republicans and dissident Democrats to make this government work in the way it is supposed to work -- and to deliver on the policies that the public expects.

So a message to David Boren and Sam Nunn -- whose personal animosity towards gays and lesbians many of whom have done great service to this country is not forgotten here -- is make your meeting about an overhaul of American public policy both domestically and in the national security and foreign policy spheres.

If you have Dems and Republicans lining up behind those policies -- terrific.

If not, this meeting is a waste of time and a fuzzy distraction.

-- Steve Clemons

Those attending University of Oklahoma Unity '08 Meeting:

Sam Nunn (Dem), David Boren (Dem), William Cohen (Rep), Christine Todd Whitman (Rep), Gary Hart (Dem), John C. "Jack" Danforth (Rep), Chuck Robb (Dem), Bill Brock (Rep), Michael Bloomberg (Ind), Chuck Hagel (Rep), Jim Leach (Rep), Alan Dixon (Dem), Susan Eisenhower (Rep/Ind), Bob Graham (Dem), David Abshire (Rep), Edward Perkins (Dem/Ind)

The "One Campaign" has put together a cool compilation of video commentary from every single one of the presidential candidates on "their plans to combat extreme poverty and global disease."

I have watched six or seven of the clips -- and I think the template they used for this is impressive.

I'd love to see other NGOs organize similar clips around their issues with all of the candidates responding, or avoiding the issue, in digitally recorded formats.

I think folks should bookmark this site -- and see what happens when one candidate after another begins dropping out. Note that Tom Tancredo's thumbnail is now plastered with "No Longer Running for President".

-- Steve Clemons

Here are two interesting emails I received this morning about Ron Paul's efforts at soliciting the support of Democrats.

The first is from Iowa resident, Keith Porter, who is the "Guide to US Foreign Policy" on About.com. The second is from a regular poster in TWN comments, well known as "POA" (aka Pissed Off American).

Will Hillary Clinton really keep stroking the most anti-Castro crazed elder generation of Miami's Cuban-American community? Or will she look at the demographic and polling data that show that most Cuban-Americans want a new course in US-Cuba relations, particularly with regard to travel to and from Cuba for Cuban-American families?

Some near Hillary Clinton tell me that given Fidel Castro's recent hint that he is moving from the front line of Cuba's political machine to a row further back (or up) in order to make way for a new generation of leaders, she is considering a full-scale policy review of her stated US-Cuba policy (i.e., potentially changing her position away from embracing the Bush administration's direction in US-Cuba relations).

This would be good -- but the bottom line is that we are forced to guess about what she might do and don't have certainty about what she will do.

Will Barack Obama tilt more towards campaign advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski's vision of tough-minded calculation of how to re-sculpt America's place in the world or will he tilt more towards the priorities of his other campaign advisor Anthony Lake?

Lake is actively promulgating a "Concert of Democracies" initiative that seems to ignore the fundamental reality that American power has deteriorated and that most of the challenging problems ahead are with areas of the world where democrats and democracies are practically non-existent. This isn't to say that a Concert of Democracies doesn't have some appeal as a sideshow at some point -- but it does little to re-establish a stable global equilibrium and to get America's national security portfolio on a positive rather than destructive course.

Obama was brave and visionary in suggesting an alternative course for US-Cuba relations. One could think that his willingness to think out of the box and to escape the incrementalism of the current strategic class and the vested interests of today's national security circumstances would be worth embracing and supporting.

But then what happened when the next opportunity came to show the same sort of boldness Obama did on Cuba? Obama, Clinton, Edwards, and nearly all of the candidates -- except perhaps Biden and Christopher Dodd and the non-candidate Chuck Hagel -- went silent during the Annapolis Peace Summit which drew together most of the Arab world, the P-5 nations, Israel, and many European and Southeast Asian nations in an effort to restart negotiations between Israel and Palestine over their long-term standoff. They all went silent as best I could tell.

I agree completely with Zbigniew Brzezinski that America's "defining challenge" in this era is its challenge in the Middle East -- and that not to get America back in a situation where it can help birth a cascading set of positive trends will ultimately turn America into a 'hegemonic has-been' (although the trend may be irreversible). The fact that the leading Democratic contenders had nothing to say about the Annapolis Summit raises legitimate questions about whether they have the commitment and wherewithal to tackle the complexity of America's defining challenge in this era.

John McCain and all of the leading Democrats are all clearly anti-torture while Mitt Romney has been working hard embracing George Bush's tough brinksmanship on Iran and recommended doubling Guantanamo. At the same time, Romney's national security adviser has written articles suggesting that America must engage Syria. In fact, Romney's national security team is about as pro-engagement with some of the world's trouble-making regimes as Obama said he would be during the debates.

But this begs the question of who is the real Mitt Romney and what would the real Mitt Romney do in the Middle East or anywhere else? It's hard to say with confidence.

Ron Paul is the less cluttered and complex version of Jack Murtha -- completely anti-war and wants America's military engagement in Iraq to end now.

Paul is attracting anti-war Republicans and Democrats far beyond the libertarian base that he would normally draw from. He is attracting a lot of progressives who believe in global justice, want the war over, and want to return to a benign American model rather than a view where America is the dangerous destabilizer of the international system.

But then Ron Paul shocks this crowd by running an advertisement that is as hostile to immigration that I have ever seen. He actually has a shocking, Jesse Helmsian line, that outdoes anything that Rudy Giuliani has said: "No more visas for students from terrorist nations." This kind of position would appeal to those buying John Bolton's new book as a Christmas present and who are reverential to the kind of pugnacious hyper-nationalism that Dick Cheney manifests.

Who then is the real Ron Paul?

I could go on in a similar way about Edwards, about Giuliani, even about Huckabee -- who flip-flopped and was pro-economic engagement with Cuba when Arkansas' Governor and now is harsher than George W. Bush when running for President.

One can do this with all of the candidates.

The fact is that no matter who emerges at the top in the coming set of primaries and caucuses, we aren't going to know the real candidate. . .perhaps ever. All of these candidates are vessels for the interests and perspectives that surround them.

I remember sitting in the kitchen of a very close friend who is one of John McCain's closest personal advisers. This friend was deeply disturbed by McCain's speech at Liberty University and his triangulation on the the war and the Bush administration, designed to try to court the Republican "establishment" that Bush and Cheney presided over.

But this person who knows McCain better than most made the point that sometimes the "person" that the candidate is just doesn't matter all that much -- at some point, the candidate becomes a franchise of so many interests and perspectives, sometimes in internal conflict with one another, that what the candidate really thinks or feels becomes less important.

That is why I spend a lot of time looking at advisers, funders, and other interests that surround these candidates. Each is somewhat of a free trade zone unto himself or herself for political interests vying to steer him or her this way or that.

It's lousy that this is the case -- but it is, and we need to be engaged as American citizens in trying to compel the candidates one direction or another -- and to punish or reward based on the positions that they are occasionally brave enough to articulate.

I'm personally sick of platitudes from the candidates.

I want to see pragmatism and steely-eyed commitment to solutions-oriented efforts on both America's domestic and international fronts. I want to see some evidence of sensible judgment. I want to see someone who has an understanding of where incremental trends are taking the nation and some Acheson-like wizardry in re-imagining a different set of global and domestic arrangements (with detail) that can help the country leapfrog out of the morass it is in into a better, sustainable position.

It is really easy to understand why most of the candidates have not captured a decisive edge in the competitions ahead. Few of them want to sculpt in fine detail their political and policy personas and want to remain blurry.

They want us to guess what they might do -- and some of us who turn our guesses into votes for an ultimate winner will still find ourselves disappointed that the reasons we supported this or that candidate got shelved in the end.

Despite all of the drama of this campaign process, when I think this through, I can very easily constrain my enthusiasm for any of the candidates.

-- Steve Clemons

Snow or no snow the "Obama Stand for Change tour" (or whatever it is that they are actually calling it) rolled into Iowa City yesterday.

This event was supposed to target undecideds in the area, and I was told that the campaign was thinking about 300 people would show up. Three times that many packed the Junior High gym. I know that the closing days of a campaign it's hard to make judgments based on crowd size -- I remember the ecstasy and delirium of the overflow crowds turning out to see Dukakis in late October 1988 -- but Obama's being able to turn out a huge crowd on a snowy day is as good an indicator as any as to how hard fought the final week will be.

Another indication might be read into the makeup of the crowd. Beyond just size it was extremely diverse, ranging from High Schoolers too young to vote (even with the caucus rules that let anyone who will be 18 by election day 2008 participate) to retirees, and with about as healthy a component of African-Americans, Hispanics and others as you can expect in Iowa. My wife Wendy commented that at a Clinton event she went to last week the crowd skewed much older.

And a final indication might be seen in where the crowd is: When Senator Obama came to the stage he was introduced by General McPeak and Representative Loebsack. He asked first how many people in the room intended to caucus. Almost all the hands went up.

He then asked who was still undecided, I'd guess somewhere between five and ten percent of the hands went up, maybe a bit more. Do the math, and this is a group bigger than the spread in the polls right now between Obama, Clinton and Edwards.

In many ways the Obama "Our Moment is Now" closing argument speech is a collection of his greatest hits, but it is one honed to perfection of delivery by months on the campaign trail. He riffed off the prepared text (I was jumping back and forth, trying to follow him and scribbling furiously whenever something new showed up.)

Not sure what I really think about this video -- it's sort of a free ad (without the gloss) for Chris Dodd.

But it is interesting to hear about firefighters taking their role in the Iowa caucuses as seriously as these guys do.

It's easy to understand why Rudy Giuliani abandoned Iowa today after this encounter.

-- Steve Clemons

Reza Aslan, author of the excellent No god but God: The Origins, Evolution, and Future of Islam has a must-read opinion piece in today's Washington Post, titled "He Could Care Less About Obama's Story."

The "He" Aslan is referring to is the "young Muslim boy" that many commentators euphemistically refer to as the person who will be most impacted by the re-branding of America with someone in the White House that "looks" innately different than his or her predecessors. I should add that this should be "She" as well.

Aslan writes:

As someone who once was that young Muslim boy everyone seems to be imagining (albeit in Iran rather than Egypt), I'll let you in on a secret: He could not care less who the president of the United States is. He is totally unconcerned with whatever barriers a black (or female, for that matter) president would be breaking. He couldn't name three U.S. presidents if he tried. He cares only about one thing: what the United States will do.

That boy is angry at the United States not because its presidents have all been white. He is angry because of Washington's unconditional support for Israel; because the United States has more than 150,000 troops in Iraq; because the United States gives the dictator of his country some $2 billion a year in aid, the vast majority of which goes toward supporting a police state. He is angry at the United States because he thinks it has hegemony over almost every aspect of his world.

Now, more than one commentator has noted that on all of these issues, the next president will have very little room to maneuver. But that is exactly the point.

The next president will have to try to build a successful, economically viable Palestinian state while protecting the safety and sovereignty of Israel. He or she will have to slowly and responsibly withdraw forces from Iraq without allowing the country to implode. He or she will have to bring Iraq's neighbors, Syria and Iran, to the negotiating table while simultaneously reining in Iran's nuclear ambitions, keeping Syria out of Lebanon, reassuring Washington's Sunni Arab allies that they have not been abandoned, coaxing Russia into becoming part of the solution (rather than part of the problem) in the region, saving an independent and democratic Afghanistan from the resurgent Taliban, preparing for an inevitable succession of leadership in Saudi Arabia, persuading China to play a more constructive role in the Middle East and keeping a nuclear-armed Pakistan from self-destructing in the wake of Benazir Bhutto's assassination.

Aslan has it exactly right -- and it is this enormously complex and fragile puzzle that Obama, Clinton, Biden, Richardson and others should be framing in ways more sophisticated than this dictator or that needs to go -- or whether a vote in Congress may have led to Bhutto's assassination.

Flynt Leverett has written frequently about the need for some kind of regional grand bargain that tracks with much of what Aslan wrote in his piece today. These candidates should be reading Aslan and Flynt Leverett and give us their reactions and something compelling.

-- Steve Clemons

From Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance:

I'd been feeling this way all through my stay in Europe. . . For three weeks I had traveled alone, down one side of the continent and up the other, by bus and train mostly, guidebook in hand. (page 301)

Obama relates experience he had in Europe on pages 301-304 of this book.

To be fair to Obama's Senate and Campaign team, I asked them for a record of his travel since 2004.

But I do think that this helps fill out Obama's European profile -- though some will still argue that seeing Europe and wrangling (or even drinking tea) with its leaders are different sorts of experiences.

-- Steve Clemons

Editor's Note: Thanks to TWN reader, Pontificator, for the reference.

I've always respected Bill Richardson's diverse public service background and his ability to work out deals with global thugs. But just truth in advertising, I've not been supportive of his ambitions to get the keys to the White House.

I would like to see him serve in a senior position in the next government, however. He would add great value.

Yesterday, his comments that the U.S. should simply push Musharraf out of Pakistan's presidency in the wake of the Bhutto assassination and arrange a new government comprised of technocrats seemed uncharacteristic of him. He's usually the truth-teller when it comes to the fact that America's leverage on most tough problems is limited and that it requires a complex, nuanced, strategic approach. I was surprised that in the midst of major Middle East turmoil, Bill Richardson would advocate another round of "regime change."

All that aside, however, I am a sucker for the email solicitations that have come to me from the campaigns. I liked the "have lunch with Hillary" campaign, which allegedly mimicked the "have dinner with Barack" fundraising effort (according to friends of mine in the Obama campaign).

But I love the line in Bill Richardson's latest email posted below that came from Richardson campaign director Dave Contarino. There's a line in there that reads "I'm not sure if the man sleeps."

I like the sizzle:

Dear Steven,

Right now, this campaign is stretched to the limit.

Over a thousand volunteers are blanketing Iowa and New Hampshire, knocking on doors and trying to get folks to caucus. Campaign staff are working around the clock, talking to the press and handling last-minute contributions.

Now we've just got to hit $400,000 by December 31 to back them up. We've got to pay for airtime, hotel rooms, meals, door hangers -- even gas for the campaign van. So with just 48 hours until the end-of-year deadline, every dollar we raise between now and Monday will count DOUBLE.

I've been on the phone all morning, taking calls from more state legislators and leaders who've come out to support the Governor. Dozens of high-profile Iowans are already backing Bill Richardson, with many more lined up behind him in New Hampshire -- and the calls are still coming!

But no one's working harder than the Governor. He's put us all to shame. He's visited all 99 counties in Iowa. He's covered over 400 miles in Iowa in just the last few days.

You saw him on MSNBC and CNN yesterday speaking about the assassination of Benazir Bhutto. Why do the cable news channels turn to Bill Richardson in time of crisis? Because he's the only candidate on either side who can speak credibly about global issues.

He went from there to deliver a speech on global terrorism, THEN held back-to-back presidential job interviews in Elkader, Anamosa and Tipton. Today's already packed with a speech on foreign policy, more job interviews, and another slate of house parties.

I'm not sure if the man sleeps.

But this is how he's going to win it. It's not about the press. It's not about the same old news about the "top three." It's all literally door-to-door, town meeting, voter-to-voter campaigning now.

Which is why we need you to keep the engine running.

Steven, YOU have the power to determine who will win this nomination. YOU can give Bill Richardson one last, big push to the finish line with $50, $100 or $250. And if you do it now, it will be DOUBLED.

Never forget that Iowa caucus-goers are not going to be told who's going to win. They don't care what the polls say. And you and I both know candidates who have surged at the last moment and done very well at the very end.

It's volatile. 40 percent of Iowa voters are undecided. But I'm seeing the momentum in the crowds. I'm hearing the phones ringing nonstop in our Iowa headquarters.

Bill Richardson's message is getting through.

Stay with us with $50 or $100 -- and let's blow them away next Thursday!

We've spent the last 11 months getting to this point. Everything is in place. And the nomination is within our grasp.

No other candidate can match the Governor. Let's show them no other supporters can match his, either!

Let's win this!

Dave

I'm sure lots of readers have other political solicitations that have either moved or irritated them -- but this is a facinating new era of campaign materials.

Good luck to the Richardson campaign -- but I do hope Bill gets some sleep along the way.

-- Steve Clemons

Harlan Ullman is a defense strategist best known as the conceptual architect of the "shock and awe" military strategy. He is also a strident critic of the Bush administration. And he was one of Benazir Bhutto's closest friends and advisers in Washington.

I can't share the essay he has written for the Washington Times and which will run next week, but I can say that he has a tidbit in his tribute to Bhutto and commentary on the implications of her death that needs to be revealed now.

Ullman shares that he had two long phone conversations with Benazir Bhutto on December 23rd. Ullman had been approached by a Musharraf emissary to encourage Bhutto to "tone down her attacks on President Peverz Musharraf." The message was that such a gesture might lead to a "final reconciliation" between the two.

In an earlier conversation, Bhutto had already confided to Ullman that she and Musharraf "might meet privately over the Christmas holidays" to work out the details of their Abu Dhabi agreed government roles following the elections.

In other words, despite Bhutto's rhetoric, Musharraf's recent imposition of martial law, and the much-reported decision by Bhutto not to collaborate with Musharraf in any way, she apparently was keeping her options open with him.

I will post the Ullman article titled "Death of a Very Great Lady," after it appears in print.

More later.

-- Steve Clemons

Obama -- and perhaps all of the presidential candidates -- have been maintaining an incredible speaking and travel schedule.

Yesterday, Obama started his first program at 9:45 am and finished at 10 pm. He spoke in five cities -- and traveled an accumulated 185 miles.

Yesterday, he visited:

Williamsburg, IA - Coralville, IA - Clinton, IA - Davenport, IA - Muscatine, IA

Today, his program started with a drive from Muscatine to Burlington when he began sharing his views at 9:45 am -- and he'll probably run until 9:30 pm tonight, driving about 188 miles for the day.

Here's the line-up:

Burlington, IA - Ft. Madison, IA - Keokuk, IA - Mt. Pleasant, IA - Ottumwa, IA

I don't have their travel schedules, but I guess that Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee, Fred Thompson, Bill Richardson, Joe Biden, Dennis Kucinich, Ron Paul, Chris Dodd, and John McCain are all managing similar manic schedules.

I wonder how many times these campaigns run into each other coming and going.

But in any case, hat tip to Barack Obama for maintaining such a grueling schedule with a smile.

-- Steve Clemons

Update: I just heard that John McCain is not in Iowa and is off back to New Hampshire.

One of the best al Qaeda watchers, Paul Cruickshank, thinks the Bhutto assassination has all the markings of al Qaeda. The Pakistan government has now accused al Qaeda of the crime.

But others are noting that many in Pakistan -- even in government circles -- wanted Bhutto done away with. Some officials have told me that there even exists the possibility that Musharraf himself might have known nothing -- but that other elders in the intelligence and military establishment could have set this up.

We just don't know.

But this raises the question of how groups might exploit the fragility of the Muslim world right now -- particularly across the Middle East. I've been particularly concerned about some violent group -- within or outside Iran, perhaps even from Iran's own IRGC al Quds force -- staging an attack on Iran in some form that made it appear that Israel or the West had struck Iran.

I'm not predicting this will happen, but I think we're in a situation where shocking incidents will be occurring with increasing frequency -- and the real culprits behind the turmoil may not always be the most obvious -- like al Qaeda in the Bhutto murder.

Others have their agendas too.

-- Steve Clemons

I have just had an interesting discussion with someone close to New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

This person says that Bloomberg isn't giving away anything regarding whether he might run for the presidency -- or whether he'll pour into concrete his non-denial denials.

But speculating, my friend thinks Bloomberg is definitely intrigued by a third party run and knows he can get on the ballot in nearly all of the states. The structural aspects of America's two party system still make it a Herculean task to win a plurality -- but the possibility exists, though most serious analysts still think his chances of winning are very low.

This source told me though -- just knowing how he thinks -- that Bloomberg may be making a calculation that runs something like this. . .

If either Giuliani or Huckabee win the Republican nomination, Bloomberg's interest in entering rises. If Romney or Thompson win, Bloomberg's interest declines.

And on the Dem side, if Obama wins the Democratic nod, Bloomberg is less likely to enter -- but he may be more inclined to run if Clinton pulls off the nomination.

According to this source, he may think that in a Clinton vs. Huckabee race or a Clinton vs. Giuliani race leaves room for a third party candidate to come in mid-year, like a storm with a lot of drama and attraction, just as both parties may be feeling some potential buyer's remorse for the candidates they picked.

I don't endorse this scenario. I'm just reporting what someone close to Bloomberg thinks.

And I'm intrigued that Bloomberg is being tutored in foreign policy and keeps meeting Chuck Hagel.

I've been recommending to Dems and Republicans alike to absorb Hagel's template for national security decision making -- and it would be well worth their time for either Barack Obama and/or Hillary Clinton to do what Michael Bloomberg has been doing -- and have Chuck Hagel over for dinner.

-- Steve Clemons