by Christi Parsons

Barack Obama's presidential campaign has been telling people not to pay too much attention to the polls lately, but now they're emailing all their supporters with news of the latest survey.

In Iowa, Obama is actually leading Democratic rivals Hillary Clinton and John Edwards among likely caucus-goers, according to a new Newsweek poll. Obama scores 28 percent in that poll while Clinton gets 24 percent and Edwards has 22 percent.

The overall numbers -- not specifically among voters who say they're "likely" to go to the caucuses -- are more favorable to Clinton. The poll also suggests that Clinton's supporters may be more solidly in her camp than are backers of the other Democrats, with a larger proportion of Clinton voters characterizing their support as "strong."

And, of course, Clinton still leads in national polls. But a letter today from Obama campaign manager David Plouffe suggests it's the likely voters who matter.

"(W)hile the pundits focus on meaningless national polls," says Plouffe's email, "we are leading in the one state where the electorate is most focused on this election and where they are getting the most exposure to Barack."

Campaign officials are officially downplaying the idea that Obama absolutely has to win Iowa in order for his campaign to go anywhere. The candidate's wife, however, was pretty candid on the point last week.

"Iowa will make the difference," Michelle Obama reportedly told Iowa voters on the campaign trail. "If Barack doesn't win Iowa, it is just a dream. If we win Iowa then we can move to the world as it should be. And we need your help in making that happen."

by Mark Silva

Seymour Hersh, the prize-winning journalist who has written of the Bush administration’s inside planning for an assault against Iran, returns with a new look in The New Yorker magazine at what he calls a shifting strategy -- a changing of the "target.'

While the Bush administration insists that it wants to resolve its differences with Iran diplomatically – yet holds out the caveat that “all options are on the table'' – Hersh says the strategy toward Iran has shifted from one that justifies a strategic assault against the country’s suspected developing nuclear weaponry program to one of attacking the forces and chain of weapon-supplies that Iran is providing for insurgents inside Iraq.

“The strategy is, it's a targeting change,’’ Hersh said on CNN’s Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer today. “We're threatening Iran. We've been doing it constantly. But instead of saying to the American people, instead of saying internally it's going to be about nuclear weapons, it's now going to be about getting the guys that are killing our boys.

“We're going to hit the border facilities, the facilities inside Iraq we think are training terrorists,’’ Hersh asserted “We're going to hit the facilities we think are supplying some of the explosive devices into Iraq. This is the administration's position.’’

Hersh also maintains that Bush will not leave office without settling the question of Iran’s nuclear designs – while Tehran insists it is developing only nuclear power, the U.S. and allies see the beginning of a bomb, though still several years from fruition, most outside analysts agree.

Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari, also interviewed by Biltzer today, suggested that the distinguished journalist, Hersh, has been “wrong’’ before about his predictions of U.S. designs for an invasion of Iran. But he did agree – “it is a fact,’’ he said – that Iran and others are supplying weapons inside Iraq, not perhaps so much as a means of destabilizing the government of Iraq but as a way of confronting American forces. Iraq, he says, has told Iran to reconsider its strategy.

For all the debates this year, the one between Rep. Ron Paul and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee got most people talking here in The Swamp. AP photo by Jim Cole.

by Mark Silva

Some September we've had.

The war, Gen. Petraeus, MoveOn.org, and Rush Limbaugh have captured our attention. The college student Tasered at John Kerry's appearance at the University of Florida and Sen. Larry Craig's suspended resignation have turned our heads. Alan Greenpan and Dick Durbin. President Bush and Barack Obama. Immigration. All big draws. But what does it say about the presidential campaign underway, and the crowded field in both parties, that the two candidates who have drawn the most comment in these Web-pages are Republicans Ron Paul and Mike Huckabee?

Here is a review of the stories in The Swamp that drew the most commentary this month (as of this hour, of course. The Swamp is always churning, so the rankings may as well.) We'd normally opt for a Top 10, but seeing how some of the top-draws covered the same subject matter, we've expanded the count to include the Top-15 draws of your comments:

No. 1: What does it say indeed that the debate sparked by Ron Paul, the Texas congressman, and Mike Huckabee, the former governor of Arkansas, topped the list for September commentary: 241 comments.

No. 2: That Tasering at the university that also calls its football stadium the Swamp was big: 145

No. 3: The "phony soldier'' story that Rush Limbaugh calls a "phony story'' has drawn considerable commentary and contoversy, which, of course, is what the radio talk show host thrives on: 137

No. 4: The war captured our attention for much of the month, starting with President Bush's surprise stop in Iraq on Labor Day, and continuing with Gen. David Petraeus' report to Congress and then the president's declaration that the U.S. will withdraw troops with a "return on success.'' But this story, about Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois drawing the line on war spending bills drew: 102

No. 5: Ron Paul again, reminding us that highway accidents claim more lives than 9/11 did: 97

No. 6: Rush Limbaugh again, trying to explain that "phony soldier'' comment of his and in the process expanding his "genuine phony soldier'' roster to include Rep. Jack Murtha (D-Pa.): 96

No. 7: More on the Taser: 94

No. 8: With President Bush poised to veto the expansion of health care coverage for the children of lower- and middle-income families, Sen. John Kerry's call to the president to try getting on the "right side of history'' drew some notice in the Swamp: 90

No. 9: Immigration is hot this year, with virtually any mention of the debate over any consideration of relief for the millions of undocumented immigrants living in the United States -- OK, Mr. Dobbs, "amnesty for aliens'' -- a big draw. The Department of Homeland Security suing Illinois over immigration law enforcement was big: 88

No. 10: That newspaper ad that MoveOn.org took out calling Gen. Petraeus "General Betray Us'' was good for some controversy, with a story about the Senate resolution rebuking MoveOn drawing: 79

No. 11: Who would have thought that Alan Greenspan, the former Federal Reserve chairman and model of reserved rhetoric, would have it in him to say the Republicans have only themselves to blame for losing Congress and to chide President Bush for a shy veto pen? Greenspan: 76

No. 12: President Bush held another press conference this month, in which he noted his own average grades as a student. He does get an A for keeping taxes low, he suggested, but admitted that "I got a B in Econ 101": 67

No. 13: More on that MoveOn.org vote in the Senate, the vote on which Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois, a Democratic candidate for president, took a walk: 61

No. 14: Sen. Larry Craig's lawyer insists that the Republican senator from Idaho had only one intention when he walked into a men's room at the Minneapolis airport in June: "To go to the bathroom." But Craig, insisting he only wanted the whole case to "go away'' when he pled guilty to disorderly conduct in August, announced at the start of this month that he would resign from the Senate -- today, in fact. Now he is seeking to overturn his conviction, and in the meantime plans to stick around the Senate. Craig had called himself "an unwanted distraction:" 61

No. 15: At that press conference of his this month, President Bush suggested that the GOP has a good record on which to run in the black community. Tom Joyner, the radio talk show host, was calling that record into the question the other night when he noted the no-shows at a debate for Republican candidates at historically black Morgan State University: Rudy Giuliani, Mitt Romney, John McCain and Fred Thompson. Bush's claim about his party's prospects drew some notice here in the Swamp: 56

by David Lightman

Rosa DeLauro thought she was such a good Catholic.

She attended Catholic schools from grade school through college. Her father received Communion daily. Her parents helped run the bingo games at St. Michael's Church in New Haven.

"I grew up in an Italian Catholic household," she said, "where the church informed all the values we were taught, the values of family, church and work ethic."

Religion was a private but vital part of her life, and yet for years, the congresswoman from Connecticut grew more frustrated and angry about what looked like the deepening crevice between her public work on a variety of issues and the positions of her church, where officials made it clear they were not pleased with abortion rights supporters.

What's more, Republicans had defined themselves as the party of the devout, and they routinely painted Democrats as godless and worse.

For more, see the story in today's Courant:

by Christi Parsons

The subject line of the email was inviting. “You, me, a TV, and a bowl of chips,” it offered.

Alas, the email was only a political come-on, this time from former president Bill Clinton. He was inviting the addressee – God knows how many of them, actually -- to apply to sit down in front of a big screen with him and watch his wife, Hillary Clinton, in an upcoming Democratic presidential debate. Not exactly the cozy evening the subject line conjured up.

But on-line political solicitors are adopting a rather familiar tone these days, using all kinds of email tricks to avoid going straight into the “delete” pile without ever being read.

by Andrew Malcolm

Newt Gingrich, the former House speaker whose political striptease over running for the 2008 Republican presidential nomination went through even more layers of clothing than Fred Thompson, sent out a spokesman today to say that the Georgian had decided not to make the effort this time.

Barely 72 hours ago the 64-year-old Gingrich had announced that a close advisor would depart Monday on a three-week nationwide trek to gauge possible financial commitments and that if he could round up $30 million worth, Gingrich didn't see how he could resist such popular pressure to run.

Today, the spokesman, Rick Tyler, said Gingrich had discovered that he could not legally explore a political opportunity like running for president while remaining head of American Solutions, his tax-exempt political organization. So he was giving up the presidential idea. "Newt is not running," Tyler said.

A master at manipulating the media, even before helping to invent the "Contract With America" that in 1994 won Congress back for the GOP after decades of minority status, Gingrich is an erudite and eloquent speaker who retains a loyal Republican following despite his resignation after Republican election losses in 1998.

A presidential confrontation next year between Gingrich and Hillary Clinton, who so often denounced his right-wing conspiracy, would have been one of the most entertaining in decades. And the debates would have surely outdrawn reruns of "The Simpsons."

The decision's implications for the other Republican candidates seem minimal, except possibly the freeing up of some Gingrich donors awaiting his decision. You can bet that the Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee and Fred Thompson folks are calling them this afternoon.

by Mark Silva

President Bush, warning that Democrats are ready to raise taxes in historic proportions, called on Congress today to exercise some fiscal retraint.

The debate comes in the midst of a dispute over the expansion of children's health care -- with the president determined to veto that bill, he did credit Congress for including the existing program in a continuing budget resolution that he will sign today in the absence of new appropriations bills for the new fiscal year that starts Monday.

The Democrats already have responded to Bush's address, with a 12-year-old in Baltimore standing for the cause of health care for children.

But Bush today, and in the week ahead, is taking the budget argument beyond health care.

"Unfortunately they seem to have chosen the path of higher spending,'' the president said in his radio address today. "They have proposed spending increases that would add an extra $205 billion on top of my Administration's budget request over the next five years. There's only one way to pay for such a large spending increase, and that is to raise taxes on the American people.''

by Mark Silva

President Bush wants to talk about the Democrats, and all their spending.

He'll be doing it on the radio today, and he'll be doing it as he travels next week to familiar and friendly terrirtory, Lancaster, Pa., to complain about the fiscal irresponsibility of Democrats who want to tax and spend Americans out of prosperity.

It's part of a way to define himself against the Democratic Congress as the election year nears, a way to rally his base behind vetoes and veto threats. Critics say Bush is a W "come-lately'' to the discipline of fiscal control -- former Fed chief Alan Greenspan says the lack of vetoes until now helped get the Republicans in the hole they're in today.

And, as Bush vetoes a children's health care bill offering an expansion of coverage for lower- and middle-income families, the president runs the risk of alienating voters who may like some of the benefits that he is determined to veto. For more, see the story in today's Tribune:

by Mark Silva

Jim Webb, the former Navy secretary, Vietnam veteran and now senator from Virginia, is trying to get some more veterans elected to Congress. Those would be Democrats, of course.

John Kerry, the senator from Massachusetts, former candidate for president and Vietnam veteran, is attempting to accomplish the same goal -- which explains why Webb is dispatching emails to Democrats on the Kerry for Veterans e-network.

They've got five candidates in mind, as well, with an eye toward reelecting two incumbents and adding three more veterrans. Webb's own name is starting to swirl in that early dust-storm of potential running mates for the party's presidential nominee next year. Something about making the point that Democrats get national security, which plays out in the electing-veterans campaign. (These would be "real soldiers,'' we also assume.).

"As I travel throughout Virginia and around the country, I hear often that Washington simply doesn't understand the serious burdens faced by our military members and their families,'' Webb writes. "This is true whether the issue is proper troop rotation policies - an issue I worked hard on this summer - health care, or adequate veterans' benefits.

"I believe it's more important than ever to elect veterans to Congress - people who understand on a personal level the tribulations and the pride of the military service, as well as the life and death consequences of our foreign policy. Simply put, we need people who understand that the strength of this nation is not in the rhetoric and bluster of its leaders, but in the character of its citizens.''

by Andrew Malcolm

It seems only fair, since President Bush recently offered an opinion about the strength of the leading candidate in the Democratic race to succeed him, that the candidate's husband, Bill Clinton, offer some thoughts on the Republican contest.

Al Hunt of Political Capital offers him just that chance tonight on Bloomberg Television.

No talk about his new book. Clinton promptly presents a rambling critical assessment of Fred Thompson's campaign launch and how Thompson has "a great manner and that macho stuff you know they love, and was vague enough so that you could read whatever you wanted to in him and maybe he could sop up some of the moderate vote; that's what they had with President Reagan in 1980, that's what they had with President Bush in 2000 -- that brilliant, compassionate conservative slogan."

He sees Mitt Romney as strong in Iowa and New Hampshire but strangely weak in national polls. "I also think Giuliani so far has proved more durable than I thought he would," Clinton says. The wild card, he adds, is former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, another native of Hope, who, Clinton says, is the Republicans' best speaker.

The real question though, he opines, "is can Romney maintain his lead in Iowa, New Hampshire until New Year's Day. If he does, but he doesn't move to second in the national polls, then the whole thing is going to be determined, in my opinion, by whether Iowa and New Hampshire voters stick with him from New Year's Day through voting."

by Tom Brune

"Don’t judge others lest you be judged.”

That’s what Rudy Giuliani told a Christian Broadcasting Network interviewer Thursday when asked about his troubled family life, with three marriages and a strained relationship with his two children.

Comparing himself to the accused adulterous woman whose life was spared by the intervention of Jesus, Giuliani cited the Biblical story in an apparent jab at presidential rivals who subtly raise his messy life.

“I’m guided a lot by the story of the woman that was going to be stoned, and Jesus put the stones down and said ‘He that hasn’t sinned cast the first stone,’ and everybody disappeared,” Giuliani said.

“It seems like nowadays in America we have people that think they could’ve passed that test,” Giuliani said. “And I don’t think anybody could’ve passed that test but Jesus.”

Andrew Zajac

Bill Leonard isn't a household name, but among open records advocates in Washington he commands respect for his willingness to challenge the Bush Administration on what some regard as an improperly expansive notion of information that should be kept secret.

Leonard, the director of the Information Security Oversight Office since 2002, will resign effective January 2008, according to an announcement Friday by ISOO's parent, the National Archives and Records Administration.

by Andrew Malcolm

A close friend and major fundraiser of former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani has identified himself as the mystery financer of the proposed California initiative to apportion the state's 55 electoral votes by congressional district instead of winner-take-all.

He is New York hedge fund billionaire Paul Singer.

He said he provided the $175,000 to initially finance the petition drive to get the measure on the June 2008 ballot. But as the Los Angeles Times Dan Morain revealed in an exclusive story, the drive has foundered on internal disputes and lack of further financing.

The petition drive's backers had remained a mystery since the effort was first revealed in July. Democratic critics portrayed it as a power grab to wrest away some of the state's electoral votes, which have all gone to the Democratic candidates for the past four presidential elections.

Some 19 of the state's 53 congressional districts would seem likely to vote for a GOP presidential candidate, enough to swing some recent national elections.

A Giuliani campaign spokeswoman, Maria Comella, said that Singer's donation "was completely independent from our campaign."

by James Kimberly

Today,Sen. Barack Obama became the first Democratic presidential candidate to weigh in on the battle over a Planned Parenthood clinic in Aurora.

Not surprisingly, the abortion rights supporter from Illinois said he would like to see the clinic open soon.

"I fully support Planned Parenthood's desire to open a new facility in Aurora," he said in a statement released this afternoon. "The proposed center will serve the growing population in a part of the state where access to a full range of reproductive health care services is lacking."

The statement went on to list some of the services the Planned Parenthood clinic would offer such as pap tests, contraceptive care, cancer screening and breast exams. It did not mention abortion procedures, which have drawn thousands of anti-abortion protesters to demonstrate outside the clinic.

Planned Parenthood built the $7.5 million, 22,000-square-foot clinic near New York Street and Oakhurst Drive on Aurora's east side this year and intended to open it Sept. 18. The City of Aurora has refused to grant Planned Parenthood an occupancy permit for the building until the city completes and independent investigation of how Planned Parenthood obtained building permits.

As the first Vietnam combat veteran elected to Congress, Jack Murtha represented the House alongside President Reagan in commemorating the Unknown Soldier of the Vietnam War. Photo from Murtha's office.

by Mark Silva

Radio’s Rush Limbaugh, catching flak for his allusion to “phony soldiers’’ this week, insists he really was speaking of only one “genuine phony soldier’’ at the time.

Yet today, Limbaugh expanded his roster of “genuine phony soldiers’’ to include Rep. Jack Murtha, Pennsylvania Democrat, a retired Marine colonel, decorated and wounded veteran of the Vietnam War who served for 37 years and was awarded the Bronze Star.

Murtha was the first Vietnam combat veteran elected to Congress, and as a congressman, also was among the first Democrats with major military credentials to speak out against the war in Iraq -- something he has in common with other veterans protesting not only the war, but also Limbaugh's characterization of war opponents.

Limbaugh today maintained that he was not speaking on his show Wednesday about soldiers who oppose the war in general, but rather one “phony soldier.’’ That would be Jesse MacBeth, who stoked opposition to the war last year speaking out about atrocities he committed as an Army Ranger. MacBeth, 23, of Tacoma, Wash., claimed to have killed more than 200 people, many at close range, some at prayer in mosques.

The only problem with MacBeth’s story was MacBeth himself: He had finished only six weeks of Army basic training, was never a Ranger and never deployed in Iraq. After conservative bloggers exposed him last year, he faced further trouble: Pleading guilty in June in federal court in Seattle to one count of making false statements to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.

The only problem with Limbaugh’s story today is what he said on his show earlier in the week – an excerpt follows below. It appears – to those looking at the words on paper – that he was speaking about soldiers who oppose the war. Yet today, denouncing the “phony soldiers’’ story as a phony story and a "smear,'' Limbaugh insisted he was talking about just one phony.

Democrats, from chairman Howard Dean on down, pounced on Limbaugh for his "phony soldiers'' comment.

“ I never said what you think I said, Congressman Pallone, congresswoman Schakowsky, Senator Kerry, or any of the rest of you in the Drive-By Media,’’ Limbaugh said today on his radio program. “I was talking about a genuine phony soldier.

“And, by the way, Jesse MacBeth is not the only one,’’ Limbaugh continued today. “How about this guy Scott Thomas who was writing fraudulent, phony things in the New Republic about atrocities he saw that never happened? How about Jack Murtha blanketly accepting the notion that Marines in Haditha engaged in wanton murder of innocent children and civilians?

“If anybody owes anybody an apology,’’ Limbaugh said, “the entire Democrat Party, from Hillary Clinton on down, owes the US military an apology.’’

by James Oliphant

You'll have two chances to see Clarence Thomas in the next few days, likely two more than you've had in a very long time.

The notoriously private justice will be on CBS' "60 Minutes" Sunday and then on ABC throughout the day on Monday, culminating in an extended interview on "Nightline." Monday is the first day of the new Supreme Court term.

Thomas, not coincidentally, has a book coming out, which explains why he's now emerging from the shadows. In years past, he has largely confined himself to giving speeches before sympathetic groups and avoiding the mainstream media. And even if you've come to Washington to see Thomas on the bench, it's highly unlikely that you've ever heard him speak. He has become legendary for keeping silent during oral argument.

Those who have chronicled Thomas on the high court say he holds the press responsible for public pillorying he took in 1991 during his confirmation hearing. His memoir, which will be released Monday, finally provides his take on the tumultuous time, although reportedly it doesn't venture beyond '91 to address his tenure on the court. He has been viewed as the most conservative of all of the justices with which he has served.

Thomas' interview with CBS' Steve Kroft is previewed here, in which Thomas suggests his opponents who rallied against him in 1991 were motivated by a fear over abortion rights, not the sexual harassment allegations Thomas was facing. "Things are out of control," Thomas reportedly says in the interview. "That's not good for the country. It's not good for the court. What are we going to look like years from now if we can't get people confirmed because everybody gets to attack them. They get to draw and quarter them."

On Monday, Thomas will be interviewed by ABC's Jan Crawford Greenburg, who argued in her recent book, "Supreme Conflict," that Thomas has played a more influential role in shaping the court than believed. (Greenburg is a former writer for the Chicago Tribune.)

By Gabrielle Russon

Don’t forget “George W. Bush is My Homeboy.” Then there’s that one, “Ralph Nader is My Hero.” And, of course, “Sen. Barack Obama is the Man.”

These Facebook groups may sound quirky as they bash and pay tribute to politicians, but presidential candidates certainly cater to audiences that use the social networking Web site.

Take Thursday’s MTV/MySpace presidential forum, for instance, or CNN’s YouTube debate held in July. Now, candidates also have their own Facebook accounts with thousands of “friends,” Web sites and blogs to attract the technology-savvy generation.

Sen. Barack Obama joined hands with Charlene Drew Jarvis, left, and Howard University President H. Patrick Swygert, during his visit as keynote speaker at convocation today. Photo by Chuck Kennedy/MCT

by Mike Dorning

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama promised today to right "glaring inequities" in the U.S. justice system that he said were exposed by local prosecutors' handling of a racially charged fight among high school students in Jena, La.

"We know these inequities are there," Obama said in a speech at the historically black Howard University in Washington, D.C. " We know they’re wrong. And yet they go largely unnoticed."

The Illinois senator has been accused by some black activists, most notably the Rev. Jesse Jackson, of insufficient passion in his response to the Jena 6 incident. Jackson told a South Carolina newspaper that Obama was "acting like he's white" as he criticized Obama for not participating in the protest march in Jena, La. Jackson later said the remark was taken out of context.

Six black high school students in Jena were charged with attempted murder for a fight with white students after white students hung nooses in a schoolyard tree. The students who hung the nooses—which appeared after black students tried to sit under a shade tree that previously had been used only by white students--were not charged with a crime or expelled from school.

With his speech at Howard, Obama turned to the Jena incident as an object lesson to assert broad structural disparities in the way the criminal justice system treats members of minority groups and offered his vision for addressing them.

by Frank James

Having had their own attempts to persuade President Bush to sign the children's health insurance program fall on deaf presidential ears, as well as appeals by supportive Republican Senate colleagues, Senate Democrats have decided to pull out all stops. They're having a 12 year old deliver their weekly radio address.

Here's a press release from Senate Democrats with a transcript of Graeme Frost's remarks.

TWELVE-YEAR-OLD CHIP PARTICIPANT ASKS PRESIDENT TO SIGN CHILDREN’S HEALTH RENEWAL INTO LAW

Washington, DC—Graeme Frost, 12, delivers this week’s Democratic Radio Address. Because of the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), Graeme was able to get the medical care he needed after a serious car accident caused severe brain trauma, paralyzed one of his vocal chords and put him in a coma. He asks President Bush to sign into law the renewal of CHIP that both houses of Congress passed this week with broad bipartisan support.

The text of the radio address, as delivered, is below:

“Hi, my name is Graeme Frost. I’m 12 years old and I live in Baltimore, Maryland. Most kids my age probably haven’t heard of CHIP, the Children’s Health Insurance Program. But I know all about it, because if it weren’t for CHIP, I might not be here today.