memeorandum: Voting Chief Tanner Resigns (Paul Kiel/TPMmuckraker)

1:40 PM ET, December 14, 2007

Top Items:

S.C. poll: Huckabee bolts to top of GOP; Obama cuts into Clinton lead — WASHINGTON (CNN) - Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee surged to the top among Republican presidential candidates in South Carolina, while Sen. Hillary Clinton's lead over Sen. Barack Obama among Democrats narrowed since July in that state, according to a new poll.

Discussion: Jonathan Martin's Blogs, Captain's Quarters, Outside The Beltway, The Swamp, Ben Smith's Blogs, The Carpetbagger Report, Below The Beltway, Comments from Left Field, TPM Election Central, Reason Magazine, Riehl World View, PoliBlog (TM) and Marc Ambinder

Sarah Liebowitz / Concord Monitor:

Obama edges Clinton in poll — Romney well ahead in 'Monitor' survey — December 14. — Barack Obama has come from behind to turn the Democratic presidential race in New Hampshire into a toss-up, according to a new Monitor opinion poll. The results - which show Obama with a one-point edge …

Discussion: Wall Street Journal, TIME: Swampland, MyDD, michellemalkin.com, USA Today, MSNBC, TIME, TPM Election Central, Blue Hampshire, Obama HQ, Taegan Goddard's …, Pollster.com and Raising Kaine

Rasmussen Reports:

Election 2008: Florida Republican Primary — Florida: Huckabee 27% Romney 23% Giuliani 19% — Mitt Romney's strategy for winning the Republican nomination was to win the early states and build momentum. Rudy Giuliani's plan was to accept defeats in the early states and come back strong …

Discussion: Associated Press, The Corner, Riehl World View, Hot Air, Below The Beltway, eyeon08.com, PoliGazette and Taegan Goddard's …

Rich Lowry / National Review:

Huckacide — Editor's note: This column is available exclusively through King Features Syndicate. For permission to reprint or excerpt this copyrighted material, please contact: kfsreprint@hearstsc.com, or phone 800-708-7311, ext 246). — The ghost of Howard Dean haunts the pundit class.

Discussion: The Anonymous Liberal, The New Republic, Swords Crossed, Hugh Hewitt's TownHall Blog, Balloon Juice, Riehl World View and Sadly, No!

Peggy Noonan / Opinion Journal:

The Pulpit and the Potemkin Village — Would Reagan survive in today's GOP? And is Mrs. Clinton in for a fall this winter? — What is happening in Iowa is no longer boring but big, and may prove huge. — The Republican race looks—at the moment—to be determined primarily by one thing, the question of religious faith.

Discussion: Firedoglake, Washington Post, The Moderate Voice, The American Scene, Liberal Values, Eunomia, Political Machine, No More Mister Nice Blog, QandO, Below The Beltway and Fred File

Katharine Q. Seelye / New York Times:

Apologies From the Heart (of Darkness?) — It must be the season of apologies in presidential politics. — Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton apologized personally to Senator Barack Obama on Thursday for a top adviser's public suggestion that Republicans would go after Mr. Obama for his youthful drug use.

Discussion: Horses Mouth, Spin Cycle, Political Machine, NY Daily News, MSNBC, CNN Political Ticker, The RBC, Ben Smith's Blogs, The Swamp and Taylor Marsh

Matthew Yglesias:

Class Warfare — Here's a chart based on Paul Krugman's writeup of data from the CBO's new "Historical Effective Federal Tax Rates" report. Naturally, the only solution is tax cuts.

Discussion: Washington Monthly and Shakespeare's Sister

Paul Krugman:
Bush boom bah

Discussion: ECHIDNE OF THE SNAKES

Avi Zenilman / The Politico: Conservatives accuse Rudy of fuzzy math

Scarecrow / Firedoglake:

Will the Senate Gut the Constitution and FISA Again? — The Senate is expected Friday to begin consideration of bills to restore FISA, after a panicked Congress gutted FISA's Constitutional protections last August. Final votes may not occur until Monday or Wednesday, but procedural votes today …

Discussion: The Newshoggers, The Strata-Sphere and Common Dreams

Booman Tribune:
Sen. Reid Setting Us Up on FISA

Discussion: Suburban Guerrilla, The American Street and West Virginia Blue

Glenn Greenwald / Salon:
Harry Reid's FISA games

Discussion: Firedoglake, Unqualified Offerings, Eschaton, Open Left and Corrente

Michael Hirsh / Newsweek:

Why Isn't Gore Running? — The White House is the place to battle global warming. — There he was again on the world stage—in Oslo this time—celebrating his Nobel Peace Prize with singer Melissa Etheridge and actress Uma Thurman, the Hollywood hottie who called him "adorable" …

Matthew Yglesias:

The Case for Gore — Michael Hirsch says Al Gore should run for president. I think it's really too late for that, and clear enough that he doesn't want to do it that there's really no point in urging him. A successful presidential candidate, after all, has to really want to win.

Discussion: Washington Monthly

Al Kamen / Washington Post:

Instead of Plum Appointments, Maybe a Lump of Coal — Christmas is usually a time when controversial nominees for top federal jobs wait for Santa, in the form of the president of the United States, to come down the chimney with their recess appointments. — Maybe not this year.

Discussion: New York Times and AMERICAblog

E. J. Dionne Jr / Washington Post:
Plan B For Pelosi And Reid

Discussion: Washington Times, Corrente, Brilliant at Breakfast, The Glittering Eye and Bark Bark Woof Woof

Paul Kane / Washington Post:

Rove, Bolten Found in Contempt of Congress — Senate Committee Cites Top Bush Advisers in Probe of U.S. Attorney Firings — A Senate panel found former presidential adviser Karl Rove and current White House Chief of Staff Joshua B. Bolten in contempt of Congress yesterday for refusing …

Discussion: The Newshoggers, Daily Kos, The Democratic Daily, Comments from Left Field, Buck Naked Politics, Crooks and Liars and Shakespeare's Sister

CNN Political Ticker:

Veteran GOP strategist signs on with Huckabee — WASHINGTON (CNN) — A veteran Republican strategist considered by many the architect of Ronald Reagan's 1984 landslide election victory is set to take the helm of Mike Huckabee's surging presidential bid, CNN has learned.

Discussion: Jonathan Martin's Blogs, The New Republic, Donklephant and Boston Globe

From The Blotter / The Blotter:

Al Qaeda Releases New Recording — From The Blotter: — A new al Qaeda communique featuring Al-Qaeda's number-two man was released on the internet Friday morning. — References to last month's peace conference in Annapolis indicate the recording is recent.

Discussion: Weekly Standard and Atlas Shrugs

Michelle Malkin:
New Al Qaeda tape released for the holidays

Discussion: SITE Institute, Associated Press and The Jawa Report

The Corner:

Omar the Actor — In conservative circles, I take a lot of ribbing for the fact that I used to work for The New York Times. But during the years I was at the paper, my editors held us to a very high standard. Apparently, things have changed. — The most recent example is the Times quoting …

Scott Horton / Harper's:

Siegelman Update — For those of you who missed last night's segment on MSNBC with Dan Abrams, here it is. As Abrams said, the prosecutors have had a pass on their completely outrageous conduct for far too long, and now it's time for the mainstream media to keep on top of them and expose …

Discussion: Balloon Juice

John McCormick / The Swamp:

Vilsack's neighbor: first Clinton, now Obama — MONTICELLO, Iowa - From her front yard in Mt. Pleasant, Iowa, the video shows Susan Klopfer talking about the state of the race among the Democratic presidential candidates in Iowa. — And the former precinct captain for Sen. Hillary Clinton …

Discussion: Ben Smith's Blogs and CNN Political Ticker