CHIP On Their Shoulder

"Huckabee is all about grassroots organization, which he more or less has to be given how little money he's raised. But that's what it takes to do well in Iowa."

A national poll by CBS has Rudy at 29, Thompson at 21, McCain at 18 and Romney at 12. Tell me again why the media take Romney so much more seriously than McCain? I guess it's because the senator has no money and is nowhere in Iowa.

It's hard to believe that Democratic Rep. Pete Stark said this, as Red State reports:

" But you're going to spend it to blow up innocent people if we can get enough kids to grow old enough for you to send to Iraq to get their heads blown off for the president's amusement.

"Democrats have no problem using troops or kids to advance their political goals in Washington. There should be an OUTRAGE...and this piece of human bile should be called out for it by every American who, like me, is ABSOLUTELY not amused."

You might think this is a tough season for Republicans--Denny Hastert isn't even sticking around until the end of his term--but the Weekly Standard's Fred Barnes sees glimmers of hope:

"The political direction in Washington is shifting. The White House, in a defensive crouch for much of 2007, is beginning to go on offense. The Democratic Congress is increasingly on defense. If this trend continues, the dreary prospects for Republicans in the 2008 election may improve.

"Look what's happened this fall. Democrats have abandoned their bid to end the war in Iraq or even to put limits on President Bush's policy of adding troops and pursuing a counterinsurgency strategy there. Meanwhile, the surge policy is unquestionably working.

"And while the White House is on the defensive in opposing the expansion of the S-chip program of health insurance for poor kids, the president now has an agenda of his own to pursue. This puts him on offense, tentatively anyway. The agenda consists of trade bills, fresh authorization of electronic surveillance of terrorists, confirmation of a new attorney general, and a serious effort to curb spending.

"Democrats, in contrast, have some defending to do. They must justify tax increases on energy production and tobacco, plus whatever tax hikes they propose to replace the alternative minimum tax (AMT). Democrats will also be forced to defend restrictions on surveillance of terrorists in foreign countries whose calls are routed through the United States, and explain their grounds for reneging on a pledge to support trade bills that impose labor and environmental standards."

Is McCain back in this thing? Joe Klein shows his soft spot:

"I am not suggesting that John McCain is a plausible front runner for the Republican nomination. Republicans tend not to like people like McCain: too wild, too willing to work with Senators like Ted Kennedy (gasp!) and Russ Feingold (gulp!) on legislation. Then again, what are the options? There is no plausible front runner. Each of the Republicans is flawed and flailing. The despair and hilarity as the various candidates try to squeeze into the conservative base's straitjacket, like the stepsisters struggling to fit into Cinderella's slipper, have been the gaudiest political show of 2007 . . .