Mike Huckabee has responded to reports of his stances on AIDS in 1992 — that he was for quarantining patients, opposed new federal money for research, and called homosexuality "an aberrant, unnatural, and sinful lifestyle, and we now know it can pose a dangerous public health risk." Huckabee now claims that back in 1992, people still did not completely know how HIV/AIDS was spread.

"But looking back almost 20 years, my concern was the uncertain risk to the general population – if we got it wrong, many people would die needlessly," Huckabee said. "My concern was safety first, political correctness last."

Huckabee now also supports greater federal funding for HIV research. His full statement is available after the jump.

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John McCain has a new ad up in New Hampshire — where he appears to be making something of a last stand after tanking in Iowa — featuring New England celebrity Curt Schilling:

"I've seen some tough competitors in my time," Schilling says. "But none tougher that John McCain. He's a winner."

During a campaign stop in Iowa yesterday, Fred Thompson dismissed the National Intelligence Estimate's findings that Iran is no longer developing nuclear weapons — a further sign that the war hawks just aren't going to give up on their Iran narrative.

"They're still enriching uranium, and I'm very suspicious of the thing," Thompson said, then going even further and suggesting that the evidence of Iran having ceased to develop nuclear weapons was itself planted by the Iranian regime. "I wouldn't be surprised if some of that info wasn't put out by (the Iranian government) so they can say 'look, there's no need to mess with us now.'"

Here's a fun quote that Mike Huckabee will now have to answer for on the campaign trail — the sort of thing that would undermine his image as a man of compassion. The Associates Press reports that back in 1992, Huckabee wanted to have AIDS patients quarantined.

"It is difficult to understand the public policy towards AIDS," Huckabee wrote in an AP questionnaire, as a candidate that year for the U.S. Senate. "It is the first time in the history of civilization in which the carriers of a genuine plague have not been isolated from the general population, and in which this deadly disease for which there is no cure is being treated as a civil rights issue instead of the true health crisis it represents."

Huckabee also opposed additional federal spending for AIDS research, and ridiculed the celebrity activists who pushed for it. "In light of the extraordinary funds already being given for AIDS research, it does not seem that additional federal spending can be justified," he wrote. "An alternative would be to request that multimillionaire celebrities, such as Elizabeth Taylor [,] Madonna and others who are pushing for more AIDS funding be encouraged to give out of their own personal treasuries increased amounts for AIDS research."

Former basketball coach Dick Versace, who had recruited by the Democrats to run for the seat of retiring Congressman Ray LaHood (R-IL), has dropped out of the race, citing "unforeseen personal circumstances."

No other Democrats had filed for the seat, leaving the Dems without a candidate after the filing deadline. Under state law, the party will be able to name a new candidate — but this does leave them without their star recruit in a GOP-leaning seat, increasing the GOP's likelihood of retaining it.

Yet another House Republican is headed for the exits. Congressman Jim McCrery (R-LA), who helped shepherd the Bush tax cuts through the House in 2001, announced today that he is retiring after ten terms.

In his statement, McCrery acknowledged the GOP's minority status affected his decision — had they retained the majority, he would have become chairman of the powerful Ways and Means Committee. "The chairmanship would have allowed me to play a leading role in addressing some of the biggest long-term problems facing our country," McCrery said.

The district is a Republican safe seat, going to President Bush with 59% of the vote in 2004, so the GOP will likely retain it unless the Dems can garner a lot of ticket splitting.

Fred Thompson has a great piece of literature in Iowa attacking Mike Huckabee, comparing him to another famous Arkansan. The mailer splices pictures of Huckabee together with none other than Bill Clinton, and warns Iowans, "Mike Huckabee talks like a Republican but taxes like a Democrat.

Jonathan Martin has a scan of the piece. It definitely shows two things: a) That Huckabee is the man ahead in Iowa now, and thus is the main target of everyone else's attacks, and b) that Fred Thompson has failed to catch on with voters by his own positives, and has to go negative on the other candidates.

In a surprise announcement today, Albuquerque Mayor Martin Chávez dropped out of the New Mexico Senate race, essentially clearing the Democratic field for Congressman Tom Udall. Chávez had previously indicated that he would wage a tough primary race, running to the right of Udall, but in his announcement showed that he'd clearly changed his mind. The announcement makes the campaign much easier for Udall, who is the favorite in polling for the seat of retiring GOP Senator Pete Domenici.

"While I deeply appreciate all the support I have received, it has become very clear to me that Democrats should not be divided in the upcoming election," Chavez said. "A hotly contested primary, as this one certainly would be, would likely weaken the Democratic nominee and place the general election in jeopardy."

Earlier today we noted that Barack Obama's planned New Hampshire event with Oprah this weekend had hit a potential snag: The stadium that the Obama campaign had chosen for the gathering was non-union.

Now, however, it looks as the New Hampshire AFL-CIO, which has been trying to gain a foothold at the stadium, has reached an agreement with the Obama camp not to mar the festivities. "There will not be a picket," the union's President, Mark MacKenzie, said in a statement. He added that "a satisfactory agreement" had been reached after negotiations with the Obama campaign, though it's as yet unclear what that agreement was.

So Oprah Weekend will proceed as planned.

The new Iowa poll from Newsweek gives Mike Huckabee his best showing yet — and Mitt Romney his worst in quite a long time. Huckabee has an astonishing 39% support in the poll, up from only 6% back in late September. As for Romney, he has only 17% support, less than half of Huckabee's and down from his 25% in the September poll. Everyone else is in bad shape, too: Thompson 10%, Giuliani 9%, and McCain 6%.

Even worse for Romney is that 16% openly said they were less likely to vote for him because he is a Mormon — which makes one wonder just how many are thinking the same thing but won't admit it.

On the Democratic side, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama are in a statistical dead heat, with 30% for Hillary and 29% for Obama. Edwards is in third with 21%. Among those most likely to participate, Obama leads with 35% to Hillary's 29%, with Edwards way behind at 18%. Election Central earlier today obtained an Edwards campaign internal poll, and they cast themselves in a much better light.

John Edwards' campaign pollster has produced an internal poll that he claims shows that Edwards is locked with Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama in a statistical three-way tie for first place in Iowa.

The info about the poll is contained in a polling memo produced by Edwards' polling firm, Global Strategy Group, and sent to Edwards Iowa state director Jennifer O'Malley Dillon. The memo was obtained by Election Central and its veracity was confirmed by the Edwards campaign.

The memo claims that the poll was completed Wednesday night, finding that Hillary has 27% of likely caucus goers, Edwards has 24%, and Obama has 22%. "Support for the top three candidates is so close that it is impossible to distinguish among them with the commonly accepted level of statistical confidence," the memo says.

Make of this what you will. You can read a PDF of the full polling memo right here in our TPM Document collection, and the full text of it is after the jump.

Late Update: One of the problems with reading too much into a single internal poll, obviously, is that you don't know what all the campaign's other internal polls show.

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Barack Obama's big New Hampshire rally with Oprah this weekend has hit a potential snag: The stadium the campaign selected for the event is non-union.

The New Hampshire Union Leader reports that the rally is set to happen regardless, and the Obama campaign and the local union that's been trying to gain a foothold at the site are in last-minute negotiations to see if there's a way for the show to go on without a picket. Obama may make a strong pro-labor statement at the event, for instance.

The Club For Growth has a new ad up attacking Mike Huckabee's record on taxes when he was governor of Arkansas:

The ad will run in Iowa and South Carolina, as well as nationwide on Fox News. It's a sign that the economic conservatives are taking Huckabee's populist threat very seriously, and as such are ready to do everything they can to convince conservative voters that he isn't an acceptable option.

There's some good cheer in the Edwards camp today -- he's scored the endorsement of the first Iowa newspaper that isn't for students.

"Edwards isn’t afraid to speak out against the political machine that has corrupted our system for years and has pledged as a candidate to refuse contributions from Washington lobbyists – a personal decision that is an important first step towards true campaign finance reform," says today's Valley News of Shenandoah, Iowa.

"In an unusually strong field of contenders, Edwards is by far the least polarizing of the other top tier candidates and will clearly provide Democrats the best chance of defeating the Republicans next November." Read the endorsement here.

Late Update: I should have specified that the Edwards campaign is claiming that this is the first endorsement from a daily non-college Iowa newspaper. The weekly Vinton Eagle endorsed Hillary earlier this week.

The antiwar group VoteVets.org has become the first group to come out and condemn GOP Senate leader Mitch McConnell over our report that he belittled the deaths of professional soldiers in a meeting with constituents this week.

"I would say that Mitch McConnell owes every member of our service and the families of the fallen an apology, but no apology from him can take back the venom he has spewed at our troops," a VoteVets.org senior advisor, Retired Lt. Col. Andrew Horne, said in a statement.

"For anyone to believe that casualties of war are somehow more acceptable because they were not draftees is disgusting," continued Horne, who served in Iraq with the Marines and lives in McConnell's home state of Kentucky. "For the Republican leader in the United States Senate to say that is beyond repugnant."

If Harry Reid said something like this it would be news for days and days. So it'll be interesting to see if this goes anywhere.

Check this out, from the Associated Press:

SANTA FE, N.M.—Democratic presidential hopeful Bill Richardson has a Christmas wish for some of the state government employees in his administration: pack your bags and head to Iowa.

The two-term governor is asking governmental appointees and other state employees to volunteer to help his campaign by traveling to Iowa before the Jan. 3 leadoff presidential contest...

Last month, the governor and his presidential campaign manager, Dave Contarino, met with a group of state workers and other supporters at a Santa Fe hotel to appeal for campaign volunteers and update them on how Richardson is faring.

State employees were invited to the lunch hour meeting by the campaign with messages sent to private e-mail accounts and, in some cases, private cell phones.

Seems a bit odd to us. The story specifies that the state employees working for Richardson are taking unpaid leave. But still, a governor is asking state employees -- his employees -- to help his political campaign. Not easy to say no to your boss, obviously. This permissible under New Mexico law? What about the ethics here? Readers?

Mitt Romney has a new TV ad in Iowa, stressing to conservative voters how he's stood with them on issues like the right to life, traditional marriage, and upholding the English language — opposition to which is derided by the announcer as "politically correct."

Expect Romney to be pushing the social conservative messages in the home stretch, as he seeks to win over Iowa evangelicals who might be uncomfortable with his religion by employing much the same tactic as he did in yesterday's speech — stressing that they share a common foundation of conservative values.

A new American Research Group poll of Nevada finds Hillary Clinton with a wide lead over the Democratic competition here. Meanwhile, the Republican race could be turning into a dogfight between Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee — so if Huckabee were to win Iowa, he might get a decent momentum bump here, too:

Democrats:
Clinton 45%
Obama 18%
Edwards 14%

Republicans:
Romney 29%
Huckabee 23%
Giuliani 17%
McCain 7%
Thompson 5%

Meanwhile, Bill Richardson is at a mere 2% support. Obviously, his hopes of winning Latino votes aren't panning out.

With only weeks to go before the voting begins, the Hillary camp is giving a big push to the argument that she's the most experienced candidate, releasing a letter attesting to her foreign policy depth that's signed by nearly three dozen former ambassadors that served when the Clintons were in the White House.

What's interesting about the letter is the fact that it's highlighting her time as First Lady in making the case for her foreign policy experience. This is, of course, a notion that Barack Obama mocked. Key quote:

"As diplomats and former Ambassadors who represented the
United States to the rest of the world, we were personal witnesses to
the important role Hillary Clinton played as First Lady in promoting
American interests and values abroad," the letter says.

"Senator Clinton's diplomatic accomplishments as First Lady and her achievements in the Senate, including her service on the Senate Armed Services Committee, make her uniquely qualified to lead our nation at this time of great challenge."

Full letter and signatories after the jump.

Late Update: A commenter below writes:

Has there been any assessment of how many of these ambassadors were career foreign service professionals vs. how many were political appointees?

Obviously those who were appointed as ambassador by President Clinton based on their political ties (campaign workers, policy advisors, fundraisers) might be perceived as a less than totally objective source on the subject.

Valid points. My interest in this is mainly that it's obviously intended at least partly as push-back against Obama's mockery of the notion that her time as First Lady counts as relevant experience.

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Uh oh -- looks like GOP Senate leader Mitch McConnell has got a problem on his hands. Check out what he said about the death of American troops in Iraq in a meeting with constituents this week, according to Kentucky's Grayson County News-Gazette:

“Unfortunately, most of our friends on the other isle are having a hard time admitting things are getting better; some days I almost think the critics of this war don't want us to win. Nobody is happy about losing lives but remember these are not draftees, these are full-time professional soldiers."

It's hard to read this as anything but belittling the importance of the deaths of troops because they're "professional soldiers." What McConnell is basically saying here is, "hey, they signed up for this."

Maybe someone should get clarification from McConnell on this.

A spokesman for the Mitt Romney campaign is thus far refusing to say whether Romney sees any positive role in America for atheists and other non-believers, after Election Central inquired about the topic yesterday

It's a sign that Romney may be seeking to submerge evangelical distaste for Mormonism by uniting the two groups together in a wider culture war. Romney's speech has come under some criticism, even from conservatives like David Brooks and Ramesh Ponnuru, for positively mentioning many prominent religions but failing to include anything positive about atheists and agnostics.

Indeed, the only mentions of non-believers were very much negative. "It is as if they're intent on establishing a new religion in America – the religion of secularism. They're wrong," Romney said, being met by applause from the audience.

The Lexington Herald-Leader reports that Kentucky state Auditor Crit Luallen, who was being recruited by the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, is telling party leaders that she has decided not to challenge Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R) next year. Additionally, outgoing state Attorney General Greg Stumbo, who was exploring a campaign, is now expressing a desire to return to the state legislature instead.

The news leaves Democrats without a top flight challenger to put McConnell on the defensive. Louisville attorney Andrew Horne, an Iraq veteran who lost the Democratic primary in Kentucky's Third Congressional District to now-Rep. John Yarmuth in 2006, says that he will consider running if Luallen makes her decision final.

Late Update: Luallen issued a statement today saying that she has "no plans" to enter the race.

The Des Moines Register gathered some reactions among Iowa evangelicals to Mitt Romney's speech yesterday — and not surprisingly, those who were for Romney gave it a good review, and anti-Mormon evangelicals didn't change their minds about him. As such, we'll have to wait and see if it really had any impact at all among the final caucus participants, if it can be measured at all.

"He was doing the Potomac two-step around the issues that concern many evangelicals," said Rev. Frank Cook of Des Moines, who then admitted that evangelical opposition to Romney has little or nothing to do with his stances on the issues, but is largely about his religion. "Most evangelicals, including myself and my church, agree with Governor Romney's stand on most moral issues in our country. Our objection with his candidacy is not so much with his public stance as it is with how the Mormon faith has tried to disguise the tenets of their faith."

A new AP/Ipsos poll finds that Mike Huckabee has jumped to second place nationally among Republicans. Rudy Giuliani was first with a 26% plurality, followed by Huckabee at 18% — an eight-point improvement from a month ago. John McCain had 13%, Mitt Romney 12%, and Fred Thompson 11%.

The poll was conducted from December 3-5 — relatively recent, but before Huckabee really started feeling the heat over the Dumond case.

This news really ought to puncture the "Support The Troops" line from the war hawks. A new Los Angeles Times/Bloomberg poll finds that the opinions of military families regarding Iraq are not that much different from the country as a whole.

Among those families with troops in Iraq or Afghanistan, 60% say the war in Iraq was not worth the cost, the same number as the general population. And even worse for the administration, 27% of those same respondents said the troops should be brought home immediately, and 42% said they should be brought home within the next year — numbers that are actually slightly higher than among the general population, though the difference does appear to be statistically significant.

Democrats can breathe a sigh of relief over California's electoral votes. The Republican-backed initiative to split the state's votes by Congressional district will not be on the June ballot, its backers have admitted, effectively sinking GOP hopes of grabbing the presidency in California.

If the initiative had passed in the low-turnout June primary, Republicans would have been able to get an estimated 20 electoral votes — as good as winning Ohio. Now its only hope is to be on the November ballot, in which heavier turnout would make it much more likely to be defeated.

Looking to stake out a firm position against a long-term Iraq commitment, with only weeks to go before the early caucuses and primaries, Hillary Clinton rolled out new legislation today designed to challenge the White House's authority on Iraq.

The proposal deals with "status of forces agreements" that the Bush Administration has been making with the Iraqi government that would create a long-term American commitment. Hillary's legislation would deny funding for any commitments made under a SOFA, and would hold that they do not carry the force of law — as opposed to treaties, which are approved by Congress and are legally binding.

The full text of Hillary's Senate office press release is available after the jump.

Here's a highlight reel of Mitt Romney's speech this morning, in which he stood by both his Mormon religion and personal independence, and insisted that America is and should be a place that is tolerant of religious differences — while at the same time declaring that religion itself must have a key role in our public life, a message sure to please many conservative evangelicals:

Here's a fun video clip just making its way around YouTube — Mike Huckabee at the Liberty University convocation last week, attributing his rise in the polls to divine power, and the intercessionary prayers of his supporters:

In an interview this morning on MSNBC's Morning Joe, Mike Huckabee lashed out repeatedly at The Huffington Post in response to the Web site's explosive story yesterday alleging that Huck had pushed for parole for a serial rapist despite the fact that the rapist's victims had pleaded with the former Arkansas Governor not to.

The decision by Huckabee to attack HuffPo and to blame the left for his travails -- a reliable and time-tested tactic in GOP primaries -- suggests that Huck and his advisers have gone into heavy damage control mode at a moment when the story shows no signs of abating. Take a look:

Transcript:

Let's first of all look at the source. The Huffington Post, one of the most left-wing blogs in the blogosphere, There are factual errors in what they have printed. Some of it is outrageously incorrect...

The only thing that I think is just despicable is to use [the rape victims' families'] grief and pain as a political weapon. What a sad state of affairs it is in this country when we exploit people's pain for political purposes. That's what's happening...The Huffington Post just doesn't want to give the whole story of what's going on...

This agenda of the Huffington Post is outrageously misleading -- let's go beyond -- it's just downright false.

Huckabee only contested a single fact in the original HuffPo story -- he claimed he hadn't ignored a letter he'd received from a rape victim pleading with him not to push for parole for Wayne Dumond. He didn't explain how this denial squared with his decision to push for parole with Dumond, however. (More on this soon.)

He also accused HuffPo of taking a former Huck aide's quotes out of context in a second story the Web site posted yesterday. The story reported that the aide recalled Huckabee advocating for parole for Dumond at a private parole board meeting in 1996.

We hear that The Huffington Post is preparing a major response to Huckabee's attacks for this afternoon.

Stay tuned.

A new Rasmussen poll shows a dramatic surge for Mike Huckabee in South Carolina. The poll, conducted before the Wayne Dumond story gained traction in the media, has Huckabee at 25%, with Romney and Thompson tied at 18%. That's a big jump from last month, when Thompson and Romney led the field at 21% each, and Huckabee registered in fourth place at 12%, behind Giuliani's 13%.

The poll comes as further evidence of a Huckabee bounce, with the former Governor claiming the lead in some recent Iowa polls, and is even holding a slight lead in Rasmussen's latest national polls.

On the Democratic side, Hillary edges Obama by a 36%-34% margin, down from the 43%-33% lead she held in November, giving yet another sign of a tightening race in the early primary states.

Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN) was elected chairman of the Senate Republican Conference this morning, defeating the relatively more conservative Richard Burr of North Carolina. Alexander ran for whip last year, but lost to Trent Lott by one vote.

The leadership election was called after Lott's surprise resignation announcement, and current conference chairman Jon Kyl's (AZ) unopposed run for the whip spot.

Congressman Tom Lantos (D-CA) might be on the verge of facing a really tough primary challenge. Former state Sen. Jackie Speier claims she has an internal poll that shows her beating Lantos in the primary by a 57%-27% margin. Speier has some name recognition built up after she ran for Lt. Governor in 2006, narrowly losing the Democratic primary, but she has not yet officially announced a campaign against Lantos.

Speier's pollster also told Roll Call that her poll did not include any push questions, but simply asked, "Who would you most likely support in the Democratic party primary for United States Congress, if the choice was..." and then the two candidates' names given in rotation.

Oprah Winfrey sure is a draw in South Carolina. After free tickets sold out for her event this weekend with Barack Obama at a venue seating 18,000, they've moved it to a football stadium that seats 80,000.

The rally is in three days, so we'll see how many seats the Obama campaign can fill in that time, although they've already been inviting people to sign up for a waiting list. Even if the place gets only half-filled, that would still mean 40,000 people showing up to see Oprah Winfrey — plus her favored candidate for president.

Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) is standing by his earlier prediction that Mitt Romney will win the Iowa caucus, albeit with Mike Huckabee a close second — and he also thinks Barack Obama will triumph on the Democratic side.

In an interview with the Des Moines Register, he also said he thinks Hillary Clinton could possibly come in third. "I think Edwards is going to come out of Iowa looking better than he does nationally, and it may even help him nationally," Grassley said — although he still predicts that Hillary will be the Dem nominee.

On a Hillary campaign conference call yesterday with reporters, Ret. Gen. Wes Clark put the blame on Barack Obama for the current mud-slinging within the Democratic primaries.

"I was at the debate in Philadelphia," said Clark. "That's where it really started, and I think it started with Barack advertising that he was going to go on the offensive and start attacking.

Mitt Romney is scheduled to give his long-awaited "JFK Speech" today at 10:30 a.m. ET, from the George H. W. Bush library at Texas A&M. The big question is whether he'll be able to assuage doubts among conservative evangelicals about his Mormon religion — some of whom might be drawn to the former Baptist minister in the race, Mike Huckabee.

Romney will acknowledge the separation of church and state in the speech, according to prepared excerpts provided to Election Central. But he will also give a conservative-friendly message that religion itself should be integral to politics, and that Mormonism shares "a common creed of moral convictions" with other sects. He will also declare, "Our greatness would not long endure without judges who respect the foundation of faith upon which our constitution rests."

More excerpts are available after the jump.

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Here's a first look at a new Barack Obama ad that just went up in Iowa. The 60-second spot, which features footage of Obama's speech at the Jefferson Jackson Dinner, is in keeping with the Obama campaign message that he's uniquely positioned in various ways to be a "game changer" when it comes to American foreign and domestic policy:

The ad never mentions Hillary, but it features footage of him again making the case here that she is too encumbered with baggage to be the game-changer he is. Obama closes the ad with: "I don't wanna spend the next year or the next four years refighting the same fights that we had in the 1990s. I don't wanna pit red America against blue America. I want to be the President...of the United States of America."

Mike Huckabee appeared on CNN today to talk about the Wayne Dumond story. Huckabee insisted that he had no part in paroling Dumond — indeed, from his standpoint it sounds like the only part he had in the case was to deny commutation. Huckabee also said the the allegations from former parole board members that he had worked to influence them were false and politically motivated:

Interestingly, Huckabee was not asked about the latest development in the Dumond controversy: The report in the Huffington Post featuring the letters that Dumond's victims had written to Huckabee in the 1990's, urging that Dumond not be released.

The new Iowa poll from Republican firm Strategic Vision shows Barack Obama and Mike Huckabee leading their respective caucuses:

Democrats:
Obama 32%
Clinton 25%
Edwards 25%

Republicans:
Huckabee 27%
Romney 24%
Giuliani 13%
Thompson 11%

The last Strategic Vision poll from a week ago had Obama and Hillary tied at 29% each, and Romney with a 26%-24% lead over Huckabee.

The new Washington Post/ABC News poll released moments ago finds that Hillary is hanging on to a six point lead in New Hampshire -- a margin that the pollsters say puts Obama within "striking distance" of her, though they also conclude that her support has solidified in key ways:

Clinton: 35%

Obama: 29%

Edwards: 17%

This seems to be Obama's best showing yet against Hillary in New Hampshire. And other findings in the poll suggest that her rivals' attacks may be continuing to work, with far more saying that she doesn't say what she truly thinks than say the same of her competitors.

At the same time, however, the poll finds that more Hillary supporters are definitely sticking with their candidate, and also that fewer of those who may change their minds support her, suggesting more solid support for her than for Obama, the pollsters argue.

Late Update: The Washington Post's write up of this is grimmer for Hillary, observing that she "holds only a single-digit lead" over Obama in a state "her campaign has viewed as a potential firewall should she stumble in the Iowa caucuses."

So the Iowa county chair who was volunteering for Hillary and sent the Obama Muslim smear email has been identified: She's one Judy Rose.

Judy Rose -- or, at least, someone with the same name -- is, or was, one of the members of the 250 Iowa women who are leading Team H