DES MOINES, Iowa -- Two questions loom over the traveling political carnival that has encamped here awaiting the verdict of Iowa Republicans in their Tuesday caucuses. The first is obvious: Who will win the first-in-the nation contest? The second is attracting less attention but is ultimately more significant: Will the result change the overall dynamic of the GOP race?

For all of the sound and fury in Iowa this weekend, the very uncertainty surrounding the first question adds to the suspicion that the answer to the second could be: not much.

Iowa's impact is open to question this year not mostly because it is uniquely quirky -- though its quirks are part of the story -- but because it accurately reflects the basic trend that has governed the GOP race over the past year. Here, as nationally, Mitt Romney is performing solidly, if not spectacularly, with the party's most pragmatic and secular elements. None of his rivals, meanwhile, is convincingly consolidating the more ideological and religiously conservative components of the party most resistant to him.

Spurred by President Obama's campaign, younger voters proved a decisive, and growing, segment of the electorate in 2008. They turned out at higher levels than they had in generations, giving Democrats wins in swing states that had been off the table for a generation or more.

This year, Democrats are again counting on those younger voters to help Obama win a second term. But a new study from a Tufts University political scientist suggests the Obama campaign is going to have to work hard to prevent those younger voters from disappearing.

The study, from Tufts' Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement, shows more than 48,000 young adults between the ages of 18-25 dropped off voter rolls in North Carolina. More than 80 percent -- 39,000 -- of those younger voters were registered Democrats. That's devastating for a state Obama won by just 14,000 votes.

Tears helped save Hillary Clinton's campaign in New Hampshire four years ago. Could they be Newt Gingrich's salvation in Iowa?

(RELATED: Video of Gingrich Tearing Up Below)

The former House speaker, in a statistical three-way tie for third place in the latest Iowa polls, is better known for incendiary ideas and rhetoric than displays of heartfelt emotion. But his tears flowed Friday at a "Moms Matter" event when moderator Frank Luntz asked him about his own mother.

A second poll underscores the opportunity that division on the right is creating for Mitt Romney in Iowa. In the NBC/Marist College Iowa survey released Friday, Romney continues to draw only modest support overall - but remains positioned to capture the state because the groups most skeptical of him are fragmenting.

Overall, the poll showed Romney leading with 23 percent, followed by Ron Paul with 21 percent, and then Rick Santorum (15 percent), Rick Perry (14 percent) and Newt Gingrich (13) all bunched closely together. That largely tracks the findings of the CNN/Time/ORC Iowa survey released earlier this week.

In the NBC/Marist poll, like the CNN/Time survey, Romney continues to draw meager support among the party's most ardent elements. The new survey shows him capture just 13 percent among both evangelical Christians and voters who describe themselves as strong tea party supporters.

What can you tell about candidates by the vehicles they ride?

It's crunch time in Iowa and four of the six Republicans competing there are using buses as rolling ads for their campaigns. The newly energized Rick Santorum travels in a Dodge Ram pickup, possibly out of fiscal prudence. Ron Paul, whose campaign is well financed, does not have a bus - maybe because he rarely does the usual thing, or perhaps to avoid the commotion his fervent supporters would create wherever the bus went.

(PICTURES: See Their Buses)

Michele Bachmann's bus simply says "Michele Bachmann for President." Mitt Romney and Rick Perry are conveying their core messages in pithy shorthand. "Conservative Businessman Leader" says Romney's bus. "Faith Jobs Freedom" says Perry's.

Gingrich's bus also has a message: "Rebuilding the America We Love." That is not, however, the most prominent feature of the bus ridden by the former House speaker. It's a huge painting of his face.

Insert joke or pop psychology analysis here.

The Republican bubble has finally lifted Rick Santorum, at least to third place in one state.

For a while it looked like he'd be the only GOP presidential candidate in Iowa to miss out on his personal rise-and-fall saga. Now comes a CNN poll showing Santorum with 16 percent of the vote in Iowa - 2 points higher than a rapidly fading Newt Gingrich.

The comparison with a CNN poll earlier this month is striking. 

The latest CNN/Time/ORC surveys released this afternoon for New Hampshire, and especially Iowa, show that on the eve of the first actual voting, the GOP race is reverting to the pattern that has defined it for most of this year: the party's more pragmatic and secular circles are consolidating around Mitt Romney more than the GOP's more ideological and evangelical wings are consolidating around any single alternative to him.

That pattern isn't enough to place Romney in a commanding position - but it does offer him the possibility of a plurality advantage in a fragmented field. The surveys provide a snapshot of the nightmare for the conservative activists most resistant to the former Massachusetts governor: it raises the possibility that he could steamroll to the nomination without ever attracting majority support in the party because the ideological voters most resistant to him fail to ever coalesce behind a single alternative.

These dynamics are most apparent in the results of the new survey in Iowa, which polled 452 GOP likely caucus participants from December 21-24 and December 26-27. Overall the survey shows Romney now leading with 25 percent, followed by Ron Paul with 22 percent; Rick Santorum has surged into third place with 16 percent, followed by Newt Gingrich with just 14 percent. In the most recent CNN/Time/ORC poll from early December, Gingrich led with 33 percent, followed by Romney at 20 percent and Paul at 17 percent.

"Iowans need to decide whether they want to keep their first in the nation role in presidential politics where candidates spend time and effort traveling to the 99 counties...'' he said in an e-mail. "Or are they going to reward the northeastern establishment's candidate who has spent the least amount of time in Iowa and the most on false advertising? The later would lead future candidates to abandon grassroots campaigning in the Hawkeye state and simply run negative ads instead.''

Take a look at the latest Romney headlines today. Sense a pattern?

Washington Post: "For Romney, stealth campaign brings real hopes of winning Iowa"

With a week to go before voters provide the answer that Romney didn't, the former Massachusetts governor appears to have about the same level of support as four years ago -- only this time that could be enough to win Tuesday's contest and put him on a path to quickly lock up the Republican presidential nomination.

Politico: "Mitt Romney in striking distance of Iowa win"

A slew of public and private polling and anecdotal evidence on the ground suggests that Romney is within striking distance of a first-place finish in Iowa -- especially as Ron Paul's momentum spurt appears to have run into the reality of front-runners' scrutiny...

In another clear sign he's playing to win, he has quietly moved a handful of staffers from his headquarters in Boston and in other states earlier this month to give his skeleton Iowa staff a needed boost. And he's cycling in a platoon of high-profile surrogates to rally around him in the state at stump stops and on talk radio, including Gov. Chris Christie, Sen. John Thune, Rep. Aaron Schock and former Sens. Norm Coleman and Jim Talent.

Wall Street Journal: "As Iowa Nears, Romney Sounds Confident"

Mitt Romney isn't about to predict victory in Iowa, the state that tripped him up four years ago. But he and his usually staid campaign are taking on a swagger not seen all year.

Los Angeles Times: "Romney Looks Poised for Iowa victory, maybe even if he loses"

After a campaign effort that has defied convention and angered top Iowa Republicans, Mitt Romney is well-positioned to emerge as a big winner in Tuesday's presidential caucuses.

Newt Gingrich has finally found a politician he considers even worse than the president he calls socialist, anti-colonialist and radical. That would be his fellow Republican Ron Paul.

"I think Barack Obama is very destructive to the future of the United States. I think Ron Paul's views are totally outside the mainstream of virtually every decent American," Gingrich said Tuesday in a CNN interview with Wolf Blitzer.

Could he vote for Paul? "No." If it came down to Paul vs. Obama? "You'd have a very hard choice at that point."

A bus tour is a great way to experience the under-appreciated glories of Iowa. (Seriously folks, the state is beautiful). It's also a valuable tool in a place that prizes personalized retail campaigning and hasn't seen all that much of it this year - especially from these two leading GOP presidential candidates.

Romney has been tending to his firewall in New Hampshire and trying to seem like he's not working too hard in Iowa lest he be embarrassed on caucus night. Gingrich has played the VIP celeb, counting mainly on debates to make him a contender.

That's changing this week in the final stretch. Romney gives a speech Tuesday night in Davenport and launches a three-day bus tour the next morning.  Gingrich and his wife Callista will be riding a bus for the duration. Their "Jobs and Prosperity" tour starts Tuesday with 11 stops in its first three days. 

That's small potatoes next to the 10 stops Michele Bachmann has scheduled for Tuesday alone. Bus tours have been a staple for Bachmann as well Rick Santorum, Rick Perry and Ron Paul - the other candidates competing hard in Iowa. 

Polling in the unsettled race suggests Paul, Romney or Gingrich could win it. Bachmann and Santorum, short on money, are looking for a better-than-expected finish to keep them afloat. If Perry makes a surprise show of strength, he could re-emerge as the chief alternative to Romney.

Adam Smith of the Tampa Bay Times pointed out this week that some 370,000 Florida Republicans already have requested absentee ballots for that state's Jan. 31 primary -- more than all the Republicans who voted in the 2008 Iowa and New Hampshire contests combined.

Still, the snowball effect of doing well in Iowa and New Hampshire cannot be ignored. Thus the bus tours, the ads, the descending of the national media. 

The most accurate indicator of how candidates will fare Jan. 3 in Iowa is the Des Moines Register poll conducted by Selzer & Co. of Des Moines. In the final days of 2007, it was the only poll to pick up on Barack Obama's growing lead over Hillary Clinton, due to his success at bringing new voters into the arcane caucus process.

The caucuses that year were also held Jan. 3 and the final poll was released Dec. 31 based on interviews conducted Dec. 27-30. Obama led Clinton 32 percent to 25 percent, a margin almost identical to his 8-percentage-point victory over Clinton and John Edwards a few days later.

The Register won't disclose when it is in the field this year. But judging by the 2007 time frame, interviewers will be talking to Iowa Republicans throughout this week of intensified candidate activity, advertising and press coverage.

Did Paul peak too soon? Did Romney and Gingrich wait too long to make a full-court press, or are they coming on strong just in time? The Register poll will be our best clue to what is likely to happen next week when Iowa Republicans cast the first votes of the primary season.

The Republican nomination fight might be all but over by March 6, or Super Tuesday, when Virginia holds its primary. But if there is still a contest, the state's chance to be relevant has vanished with the fiasco over its primary ballot.

Barring any successful appeals, the only two names on it will be Mitt Romney and Ron Paul. Their success confirms that they have the best organized campaigns, and not just in Iowa and New Hampshire. At the same time, the failures of five other major candidates to get on the ballot, including McLean, Va., resident Newt Gingrich - the frontrunner in at least one poll of his state -- suggest the Virginia rules are out of line.

Larry Sabato, director of the Center for Politics at the University of Virginia, tweeted that Virginia has "most restrictive ballot in USA." That even extends to no provision for write-ins.

Imagine what could have been: Iowa votes for Ron Paul! New Hampshire breaks for Mitt Romney! And the entire Republican presidential contest switches gears and focuses on ... The Colbert Super PAC South Carolina Republican Primary?

It was nearly the case, Stephen Colbert revealed today.

In an op-ed in The State newspaper, the Comedy Central star reveals he held serious talks with South Carolina Republican Party officials about helping them fund the state's first-in-the-South primary through his super PAC, to the tune of $400,000.

That's no small offer: Until 2008, the state Republican Party had paid for the entire primary process, renting the polling places and voting machines, printing the ballots and providing the volunteers. In 2008, the state paid for both parties' competitive primaries. This year, the state GOP looked like it would be on the hook once again.

"So I called up the South Carolina GOP and said, 'How much cash would you have to raise to keep your promise to counties? Off the record; I'll never tell a soul.' They said, '$400,000,'" Colbert writes in The State today. "I said, 'I can cover that. No strings attached.'"

The new Quinnipiac University survey out this morning in Virginia spotlights the delicate tightrope President Obama must walk to retain many of the fast-growing, new battleground states that he captured in 2008 - and why Mitt Romney may be better positioned than Newt Gingrich to snatch those prizes from the president.

In 2008, Obama became the first Democrat since Lyndon Johnson in 1964 to carry Virginia, attracting nearly 53 percent of its vote. In that election, Virginia was a luxury for the president because he also swept the table of Rust Belt swing states like Ohio, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Iowa, Michigan and Minnesota that have often decided presidential elections. But given his difficulties with blue-collar white workers, it will be difficult for Obama to repeat that performance in the Heartland. That could make it a necessity for him in 2012 to carry many of the emerging Sun Belt swing states defined by rapid growth, increasing racial diversity and (generally) high levels of white education - a list that includes Colorado, Nevada and New Mexico in the Southwest and North Carolina, Florida and Virginia in the Southeast. Of all those places, Virginia may be the closest to a tipping point state most likely to decide a close race.

Demography should help the president in these new Sun Belt battlegrounds: given the steady growth of the minority community in those places, the non-white share of the vote in them should be slightly higher in 2012 than 2008. That will likely reduce the share of whites he needs to win those states, even if economic discontent slightly erodes the preponderant share of the minority vote he captured in all of them three years ago. His problem is the share of the white vote he can attract may be declining even faster than the share that he needs - especially in the white working class.

It's a bad day for a Republican presidential candidate when he can't even get a break from Bill O'Reilly, the bullish Fox News arbiter of conservatively correct thinking. Newt Gingrich had just spent several daylight hours complaining across Iowa about the onslaught of negative campaign ads by his GOP rivals that are contributing to his downward creep in the polls. If he was looking forward to a sympathetic conversational nightcap with O'Reilly on the Republican-friendly network, he was disappointed.

O'Reilly instead came down hard during his evening talk show on Gingrich's recent comments that "radical" judges who issue rulings out of step with mainstream values can be subpoenaed and hauled before Congress by federal marshals to explain themselves before facing possible impeachment.

The bump recorded for President Obama's approval rating in two national surveys released Tuesday captures his success in framing the debate against congressional Republicans on extending the payroll tax cut. But over the long term, Obama's ability to sustain those gains (which pushed his approval rating to 49 percent in both the ABC/Washington Post and the CNN/ORC survey) will probably turn on the trajectory of Americans' attitudes about the economy.

The latest Allstate/National Journal Heartland Monitor survey, released last week, captures a paradox: groups that supported Obama in the 2008 election are generally more negative in describing their current economic situation than groups that resisted him. But the supportive groups are much more optimistic than the critical groups about where the economy is headed - and generally, though not uniformly, more positive on the impact of Obama's agenda on their economic prospects.

The table below looks at economic attitudes among nine groups that Obama carried in 2008, and nine that preferred Republican nominee John McCain, according to the 2008 exit polls. The results are taken from the most recent Heartland Monitor, conducted by FTI Strategic Communications, a communications-strategy consulting firm; the poll surveyed 1,200 adults by landline telephone and cell phone from November 30 to December 4 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 2.8 percentage points

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and his allies are making an all-out push to win the Iowa caucuses -- or at least to knock down their toughest opponent -- according to advertising data from key local markets around the first-in-the-nation caucus state.

Mitt Romney has pulled into a tie with Newt Gingrich in the latest CNN/ORC national poll on the strength of gains with both wings of the Republican Party. Both men polled at 28 percent support overall in the survey.

When Gingrich rocketed to the top of the GOP primary polls last month, he did so mostly with tea party support but also with a healthy percentage of non-tea party Republicans, who had previously provided Romney's core constituency. In the new poll, Gingrich has slightly passed Romney among Republicans who don't identify with the tea party - 28 percent to 24 percent. Last month's CNN poll had Romney up by two points among non-tea party supporters - but also with only 19 percent of them. As recently as mid-October Romney had attracted 35 percent with that group in CNN polling; he hasn't trailed with that group since late August and early September, when Rick Perry briefly consolidated both wings of the GOP before fading.

Now it is Romney's turn to eat into Gingrich's core supporters: Romney won the support of 28 percent of tea partiers in the new poll, his best showing among the most ideological Republicans in any CNN poll this year. Gingrich still leads among the group, 32 to 28, but that represents a much smaller lead among the tea party than last time around. In November, Gingrich led Romney 31 percent to 19 percent with those voters. Romney's previous high with tea party Republicans in a CNN poll this year was 27 percent in June.

Overall, Gingrich is the first GOP contender since Texas Gov. Rick Perry, in that late summer stretch, to lead among both tea party and non-tea party supporters in a CNN survey. But that could be a lagging indicator: more recent Iowa polls have found Gingrich plummeting under a sustained advertising assault.

What I am opposed to is the attempt by political hacks like Karl Rove to distract us from a rise in the uninsured, a rise in the poverty rate, a drop in the median income, to distract us from corporate scandals and a stock market that has just gone through the worst month since the Great Depression.

That's what I'm opposed to. A dumb war. A rash war. A war based not on reason but on passion, not on principle but on politics.

If you can, read Obama's speech back then.  His language is his own, although less varnished, and full of taunts. 

Today, his campaign web site features a video of his stirring speech to soldiers at Ft. Bragg, and then a video looking back his consistent statements against the war.

To be sure, which is a phrase used by journalists then they're attempting to balance a point, the withdrawal of all American troops might not have been possible without the President's decision to supplement JSOC's insurgent campaign with David Petraeus's surge -- President Bush's decision.  Nor would it be feasible without the State of Forces Agreement signed by President Bush. 

But Obama correctly foresaw the consequences of the Iraq war nine years ago, and has, as president, figured out how to end it. That's to his credit.

But what a difference a decade makes: our collective appreciation for soldiers aside.... Iraq isn't on the front pages anymore, and won't be.

We've said it before, and we'll say it again: Rules matter. Pay attention and take advantage, or face the consequences of being unprepared.

Now, just two weeks and change before the Iowa caucuses, the rules of the presidential campaign are changing again. An agreement in the Ohio legislature has moved the state's presidential primary to March 6, sweetening the pot by adding yet another 66 delegates. And as Mitt Romney's campaign starts publicly talking about a long, drawn-out campaign, it's increasingly likely that those delegates will matter.

Ohio had planned to hold its presidential primary in June, making it all but certain the primary race would be over by the time Buckeye voters saw a ballot. But after agreeing on a new redistricting plan on Wednesday, the legislature consolidated the presidential and Congressional primary elections to a single day.

That means Ohio will join Alaska (27 delegates), Georgia (76), Idaho (32), Massachusetts (41), North Dakota (28), Oklahoma (43), Tennessee (58), Texas (155), Vermont (17) and Virginia (50) on the biggest delegate day of the year. Another way to look at it: Ohio will send more delegates to the convention than Iowa (28), New Hampshire (12) and South Carolina (25) combined.

If Iowa voters changed channels a few minutes into Thursday night's Republican presidential debate, they would have taken away the impression of a gracious Newt Gingrich wishing them "a very joyous Christmas." But anyone who stuck around longer would have seen the Gingrich who makes many Republicans quake at the idea of him as their nominee.

"I sometimes get accused of using language that's too strong, so I've been standing here editing. I'm very concerned about not appearing to be zany," the former House speaker said, in a sly reference to Mitt Romney's characterization of him as unsuited to the presidency.

Whatever your definitions of strong and zany, it's doubtful that Gingrich succeeded. In fact at times during the Fox News debate in Sioux City, Iowa, he made libertarian maverick Ron Paul sound like a sober upholder of the status quo.

The exchange that summed up all of Gingrich's strengths with the GOP base, and potential weaknesses in a general election, came over his plans for the courts.

There's an ominous trend for President Obama in the latest Allstate/National Journal Heartland Monitor poll: not only is his overall approval rating lagging, but he's lost as much (or even more) ground among groups that favored him in 2008 as among those who resisted him last time.

The chart at left compares Obama's vote among key groups in 2008, according to exit polls, and his job approval rating among them in the latest Heartland Monitor released Thursday morning. (The survey, conducted by FTI Strategic Communications, polled 1200 adults by landline telephone and cell phone from November 30 to December 4 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 2.8 percentage points.)

Overall, Obama has slipped from 52.8 percent of the vote in 2008 to 44 percent approval in the new survey with 49 percent disapproving. As the chart shows, Obama has declined not only in the groups that were always dubious of him, but also with several that enthusiastically joined his winning 2008 majority.

In unequivocal fashion, make the case for why you are the man for the job and work harder to distinguish yourself from your opponents. For example, if frontrunner Gingrich makes an outrageous statement (as he is wont to do), call him on it. No, hammer him on it, and hammer him on other outrageous statements he's made. Establish a pattern of outrageous Gingrich statements and be blunt in explaining why speaking before thinking isn't advisable - and can be dangerous - for an American president.

You need to be direct and forceful, not clever and nuanced. No more bets like the awkward one with Texas Gov. Rick Perry in Des Moines. If someone tells a lie about you, call 'em a liar. To his or her face.

Show some emotion, show some fight. In Iowa and elsewhere, Americans like a fighter. In short, don't simply tread water, make a splash.

The Republican National Committee has come up with a clever way to make sure it's reaching the right audience as it seeks to build its outreach list: Advertise during a presidential debate.

The RNC will air a 30-second ad on Fox News affiliates in key states this evening, when Republicans share a debate stage for the final time before the Iowa caucuses. They'll ask viewers to enlist in the GOP's mobile army by texting the RNC's short code. Any viewer who texts that short code will be opting into the RNC's list.

The RNC isn't forking out a ton of money for the spots; it will air just a few times on Fox News during the debate in a few markets in Ohio, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Nevada and Wisconsin. Those who opt in can expect to receive texts aimed at getting them involved in their key swing states.

It's an interesting experiment in list-building. Republicans acknowledge they are well behind Democrats in building the kind of voter outreach lists at which the Obama campaign excelled in 2008. During interviews with friendly media, RNC chairman Reince Priebus has made a practice of asking viewers or listeners to text the short code in an effort to start closing that gap.

President Obama's political advisers laid out various pathways to 270-or-more electoral votes at a briefing on Tuesday, some which seemed more realistic than others.

One optimistic scenario they didn't explore, but which seems quite plausible, is the possibility of a 269-269 electoral vote tie.  That would happen if Obama carried all the Kerry states except New Hampshire (where he's struggling), and added New Mexico, Colorado and Virginia to his column.  The Republican nominee would carry the battleground states of Florida, Ohio, Nevada, and North Carolina.

It's not an unrealistic outcome, given the campaign's relative strength with white-collar, college-educated voters.  Colorado and Virginia have a disproportionately high number of those voters and those states are pivotal to his re-election hopes.  They're also performing relatively well economically: Virginia's unemployment rate is one of the lowest in the country (6.4 percent) and Colorado's 8.1 percent rate is below the national average.  Nevada (13.4 percent), Florida (10.3 percent) North Carolina (10.4 percent), and Ohio (9.0 percent) have among the highest unemployment rates in the country.

Watch out, Newt Gingrich, your rocket to the top of the Republican field may be running low on gas.

Give pollsters surveying the volatile field this year credit for consistency: Virtually every major polling firm has detected the same rises and falls of bygone front-runners Michele Bachmann, Rick Perry and Herman Cain.

And each pollster detected a similar bounce for Gingrich at the end of November. Polls conducted for NBC News by Marist, the Des Moines Register, ABC News and the Washington Post, CBS News and the New York Times and CNN and Time Magazine all showed Gingrich leaping to a lead over Mitt Romney and Ron Paul while Cain collapsed.

But there have been hints all along that Gingrich's support was soft. Pollsters at the University of Iowa, which conducted a week-long survey of 277 likely caucus-goers that ended last week, began to detect a Gingrich slide just after Cain dropped out of the race. Gingrich still led the field, taking 30 percent to Romney's 20 percent, but his support slipped dramatically in the final days during which the poll was conducted.

One Obama campaign adviser who followed Obama to the White House displays his hand - five digits, representing percentage points of the electorate and folds each one down.  "We were at 52... 51,50,49,48,47.  We can go no lower than 47.  How do we get to 50?  We find people we missed last time or find new people who fit the profile," says this adviser.

"Our base is not necessarily the Democratic base,"  campaign manager Jim Messina said in a November interview.  "Obama's base is Obama's base."

This strategy mimics the way that George W. Bush won re-election in 2004. Campaign manager Ken Mehlman and senior strategist Karl Rove divided the electorate into affinity groups, worked to inflate the size of each, and used their communication resources to disqualify their opponent, John Kerry, among demographic groups that overlay both candidates. 

Bush lost among self-identified independents in both 2000 and 2004, but he managed to grow the share of conservatives across the electorate by three percentage points.  Obama's approval rating among pure independents dropped to a low of 30 percent before Thanksgiving, and though that number will need to rise, in the eyes of Obama's strategists, it's not the metric they obsess about.

Messina has a theory of the case that tracks Rove's view of political demography:  It's as if the election will be decided by the size of your team's crowd in a football stadium, only there are no limits to the amount of tickets you can buy.  And form follows function: the campaign is set up to make sure the Obama brand is a magnet for as many voters as possible. 

These are the metrics Messina cares about:

"There are 8 million millennials who need to be registered and persuaded to vote for Obama."

"Harry Reid, Barbara Boxer and Michael Bennett all got a larger number of Latino voters than Barack Obama did because that's how fast the Latino vote is growing.  That is going to be hard for our opponent to deal with."

And then there's unmarried women, who gave 7 in ten votes to Obama in 2008, making up 27 percent of Obama's total.  The campaign wants to increase their share of the electorate by several percentage points.

How Obama finds these voters will require a significant investment in resources and a modification of tactics.  The campaign in 2008 prided itself on communicating directly with voters, so that, by the day of the election, more than 15 million people had had some form of personal contact with the campaign.  What's not usually noted is that several million of those contacted didn't vote for either candidate.  Indeed, on the fabled Obama e-mail list, a not-insignificant minority of recipients didn't vote.  There are also donors to the 2008 and 2012 campaigns who didn't vote.  So job one will be to take a flashlight into the corners of the existing Obama world and find the stragglers.

A number of Democratic strategists think that Obama is in over his head, and that his economic credibility challenges are the main problem his campaign must confront.  William Galston, a senior fellow at Brookings and a former aide to President Bill Clinton, posits that Obama's record has reduced his level of potential support across the board, that it is too late to reverse even many liberals' perception that Obama is inept when it comes to fixing the economy, that Latinos will not show up in large numbers because the President failed to push immigration reform through Congress, and because in times of distress, they are more likely to be skeptical of the in-party.  Attitudes, he believes, matter more than demography, and judging by attitudinal factors, Obama is in trouble.

So which theory is right?  Is Obama going to lose because he's lost the confidence of the people who elected him?  Or will he win because he has so much room to grow?   That's both the "demography is destiny" camp and the "economy is dispositive" camp who agree that Obama is right now not activating his base in nearly the numbers he needs to.  He needs to increase his share of the votes among those under 30 and among Latinos by at least double-digits.  That's where Messina and the campaign come in.  Closing this gap - between his demographic reality and his demographic potential - is the reason they exist. 

President Obama's re-election team is keeping a wary eye on a group pledging to put an independent ticket on the ballot in next year's elections, top Democratic strategists hinted Tuesday.

In a meeting with reporters, Obama campaign manager Jim Messina and top strategist David Axelrod said they expected the group, Americans Elect, to be on the ballot in most states next year. And though the group says it will use the most open, democratic process possible to select a nominee, Obama's campaign is questioning both their means and motives.

Americans Elect will allow any registered voter to cast a ballot in an online national primary. But those candidates must be approved by a Candidate Certification Committee, which will judge each applicant's capability of performing the duties of office. That got the Obama campaign's attention.

"You have to get approved by a council of elders deal," Messina told reporters Tuesday. Added Axelrod: "It's like uber-democracy meets backroom bosses. An amalgam of both."

Does Gingrich have a "woman problem" in the primaries? Polls are mixed - one recent poll of Republican voters showed a 9-point gender gap, while another showed no gap. Clearly he has enough support among women to be leading the GOP field in many state and national polls.

Gingrich's public contrition, redemption story and conversion to Catholicism seem to have disarmed some skeptics. Nor does his personality - at times pugnacious, outrageous, patronizing - faze GOP voters.Many enjoy his media baiting and his party is, after all, looking for someone to give voice to their anger at President Obama and the state of the nation.

Big get for surging Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich in Florida: His new state director is Jose Mallea, who helped steer Marco Rubio's come-from-behind victory in the 2010 Senate race.

Mallea's move is likely to fuel speculation that Rubio will endorse Gingrich, though the freshman senator has said he would stay neutral in the primary. Gingrich and other candidates have dropped his name as a likely running mate.

"For those of us who came up in politics in the mid 1990s, he's someone we admired,'' Mallea said. "He's so intelligent on the issues and understands where we need to go as a country.'"

Erstwhile presidential candidate Herman Cain may be out of the race, but he's promising to stick around and play a role in conservative politics. Cain has established himself as decidedly anti-establishment in a way that's proving popular with the conservative base, a niche occupied by the likes of Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich and anyone who can truly lay claim to the tea party mantle. He's unpolished, authentic and angry, and that's just the way conservatives like it.

The first big decision he has to make: Which one of his former rivals to endorse. With his typical humble understatement, Cain promised to take the process seriously: "I am in the process of making that evaluation. Remember, as a businessman, I don't shoot from the lip. And so, I have some discussions that I am going to have with several of the candidates and we've got have to see how far apart we are," Cain said on Fox News Channel's Hannity show last night.

It was the "I don't shoot from the lip" part of that sentiment that left us thinking: In fact, that's exactly what Cain does. As he told my colleague Tim Alberta back in February, he doesn't use notes, he doesn't use a TelePrompTer; Cain is the ultimate example of an unscripted politician.

AMES, Iowa -- Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul told hundreds of Iowa State students on Wednesday night that after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, there was "glee in the administration because now we can invade Iraq."

He said the Bush administration, driven by the beat of "war drums,'' was wrong to bomb Iraq because it did not orchestrate the attacks in 2001.

The crowd of roughly 1,000 people didn't react. This National Journal reporter posted Paul's comment on Twitter, leading Bush's former press secretary, Ari Fleischer, to respond: "The man is nuts.''

This is not the first time the Texas congressman has drawn flak for his views of the attacks. He has previously said U.S. military intervention in the Middle East was partly to blame, leading rival Rick Santorum to call him "irresponsible'' in a nationally televised debate in September. Paul drew boos from the audience when he responded.

The new CNN/Time/ORC polls out today for the first four states on the Republican calendar underscore the breadth of Newt Gingrich's rise - and the extent of the threat confronting the erstwhile front-runner Mitt Romney.

In each of the states except New Hampshire, Gingrich is consolidating the voters that have long been the most skeptical of Romney, while dividing those that had been most open to the former Massachusetts governor. That's a formula for success - if the former speaker can maintain it, admittedly a big question.

(RELATED: Gingrich Leads in Three of Four New Early-State Polls)

Gingrich is now succeeding among both sides of the party - dominating among the vanguard half that identifies with the tea party movement, and holding his own with the less ideological half that does not. What's more, the evidence from these polls suggests that along each track, the voters most skeptical of Romney are moving to unite behind Gingrich, at least for now. In particular, among the groups most dubious of Romney, Gingrich is now attracting much larger shares of the vote than any single candidate did in surveys earlier this fall.

In all four states, Gingrich now leads Romney among GOP primary voters who identify with the tea party movement. Gingrich's share of the vote among tea party supporters has increased as if launched from a rocket: since the last round of CNN/Time/ORC polls in late October he's up from 13 percent with them in Iowa to 40; in New Hampshire he's jumped from 6 to 37; in South Carolina from 11 to 53; and in Florida from 14 all the way to 62.

Larger version

This post has been updated with further information about Perry's radio ad buys.

Texas Gov. Rick Perry will saturate the Iowa airwaves next week in a major push to boost his poll numbers just three weeks before the state's first-in-the-nation caucuses.

Perry's campaign has purchased $1.2 million in airtime over the next four weeks, a source familiar with the ad markets said Wednesday. And new details of the spots he's purchased show his team will pour at least $653,000 into Iowa television and radio this week alone.

The major spending is a sign of life for a candidate whose poll numbers have dropped precipitously. After a series of debate flubs send his supporters fleeing, Perry's early fundraising success is proving a pivotal chance for the candidate to reconnect before a critical contest. Perry's campaign raised $17.2 million during the first month and a half of his bid, and by the end of September he had just over $15 million left in the bank.

Perry has purchased 7,762 gross ratings points in three Iowa broadcast markets for advertisements running through next Tuesday, December 13. A 2,000-point buy in a single media market is considered saturation-level; Perry has purchased more than 2,000 points in all three markets, according to data provided by a Republican watching the Iowa ad market and confirmed by other ad buyers.

Perry's team has also purchased $200,000 in national cable advertisements over the next week. That purchase comes after the campaign spend $1 million on advertisements on Fox News last month, an effort to rebuild Perry's image among national conservatives.

A sliver of sanity has finally emerged from the raucous Republican presidential race.

The GOP contest, which already resembles a TV reality show, faces a test of relevancy now that celebrity businessman Donald Trump wants to host a debate in Iowa. What could be more demeaning to the process than a half-cocked ratings grabber posing as a political kingmaker?

Newt Gingrich may have the momentum.  But Mitt Romney has the organization, and that's what could be the difference-maker in a drawn-out nomination contest.

Gingrich's latest organizational challenge: Getting on the ballot in Ohio.  It's looking very possible that Gingrich won't have enough signatures to qualify for the ballot by 4 p.m. today, according to the Washington Times' Susan Crabtree.  That would require him to mount a write-in campaign.

More from the Washington Times:

Gingrich backers said the campaign could mount a write-in effort in Ohio if need be. But missing that state's 4 p.m. Wednesday deadline would be the latest embarrassment for Mr. Gingrich's organization.

Mr. Hammond said this week that he intentionally missed the Missouri deadline for getting Mr. Gingrich's name on the state primary ballot. He said the Feb. 7 primary is nonbinding, but promised to participate in caucuses there a month later, where the state's delegates to the nominating convention will be picked.

Mr. Gingrich also turned in a messy, handwritten form for New Hampshire's first-in-the-nation primary and filled in only seven of the alternate-delegate slots - a distinction that is unlikely to have much impact because candidates rarely have to rely on alternates.

It's important to remember that organization matters more in this year's primaries, with the national party requiring all states that hold March primaries to award delegates proportionately, a process that would slow down the momentum of a surging candidate, like Newt. 

Working people deserve a candidate that represents their interests, not just Wall Street's.

WASHINGTON, D.C. - The 2.1 million-member Service Employees International Union (SEIU) voted last night to withdraw its endorsement of President Barack Obama for re-election in 2012.

The vote by SEIU's Committee on Political Education (COPE) came after rank-and-file members of the nation's fastest growing union expressed concerns it was much too early to be endorsing any candidate in the 2012 race. It does not mean SEIU is endorsing any of President Obama's rivals

"We remain hopeful that President Obama will do more than just talk about standing up for the interests of hard-working Americans," said SEIU International President Mary Kay Henry. "Our members gave $60.7 million dollars to the Obama campaign in 2008 and fought hard for his election because we were promised change. We're still waiting."

"The Republican Party is in shambles because voters are tired of politicians putting the interests of Wall Street ahead of the working class," added Henry. "President Obama still needs to show he is different."

Said the 2008 Republican nominee John McCain on Sunday: "If I had, frankly, a criticism of the process, it is that I think maybe we're really getting a little too heavy on the debates.''

It's not an uncommon refrain. But so far, there have been roughly the same number of debates in this election cycle as there were in the last Republican primary.

McCain participated in 10 debates televised on major network or cable channels as of this time four years ago, missing only the PBS debate in Baltimore on September 2007, for a total of 11 debates in all. He subsequently appeared in six more before clinching the nomination.

This year, if you don't count the May 5 debate in South Carolina that didn't include several major candidates, Thursday's debate in Des Moines will be - you guessed it -- No. 11.  (No, I'm not counting Mike Huckabee's Saturday night special or Donald Trump's wanna-be reality show or the Newt Gingrich's Lincoln-Douglas-esque debates.) Another 11 debates are proposed between Thursday and March 19^th, but who knows how many of those will materialize.

The perception that the 2012 GOP primary has been overloaded with debates may stem from their impact more than their quantity. Michele Bachmann, Herman Cain and Newt Gingrich have all seen their poll numbers soar after strong performances, while Tim Pawlenty and Rick Perry endured the opposite.

The best test of whether there are too many debates is the number of people watching them, and some have attracted twice as many viewers as they did four years ago. 

President Obama's "fair shot" address Tuesday may be remembered as one of his best, a searing and historically poignant account of the greatest challenge of the American experiment: How do we give every citizen, rich or poor, a path to the good life?

But his speech in Osawatomie, Kan., with its echoes of Theodore Roosevelt's appearance in the same city a century ago, also exposed the limits of Obama's presidency and personality. Obama is a man of his times, and this is a lousy time to command what TR called the "bully pulpit."

What's the scariest news for Mitt Romney in the nearly mirror-image polls out today showing Newt Gingrich rocketing into the lead in Iowa, South Carolina and nationally?

The short answer: the breadth of Gingrich's support. In all three surveys, Gingrich is not only lapping Romney among the ideologically conservative and religiously devout voters who have resisted the former Massachusetts governor throughout the race; Gingrich is also running step for step (or ahead) with Romney among the less ideological, more secular, voters who have been Romney's base.

All of this is a big and ominous change for Romney. Earlier he had the luxury of watching the rivals to his right divide conservative voters while he made steady progress at consolidating the party's more managerial, less ideological wing. For a brief period in late summer, Texas Gov. Rick Perry threatened to reach across the divide - but his poor debate performances quickly deflated his standing with both groups. Now Gingrich, a much steadier (if still volatile) contender than Perry, is not only consolidating conservatives, but loosening Romney's hold on the more pragmatic and managerial components of the GOP coalition.

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney's campaign has been worried about Iowa from the beginning. The Hawkeye State cost Romney real blood and treasure in his 2008 bid, and his team was wary of trying again after it became obvious his ceiling was so low.

From National Journal:

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Then again, a fractured field and disorganization among social conservatives presented Romney with a stark opportunity: Sneak away with a win in Iowa, and he could virtually lock up the nomination. Since 1980, when the modern Republican primary process began, no non-incumbent has won both the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary; Romney appeared to have that opportunity (Here's another post I wrote on Romney's hopes in Iowa a few weeks ago).

So while he hasn't shown up in Iowa much this year, it's an open secret that Romney's team has been laying the groundwork for a surprisingly strong showing (Evidence: He's up with 885 gross ratings points this week in Des Moines). Keep the expectations low, the thinking has gone, and then spring the stunning victory that knocks the rest of the field out of contention and effectively sews up the nomination.

But if Romney's ceiling is somewhere around 25 percent, he might want to revisit that initial skepticism. All indications are that Newt Gingrich is uniting a significant portion of the Republican electorate; an ABC News/Washington Post poll out today shows Gingrich at 33 percent among likely caucus-goers, while Romney and Rep. Ron Paul are tied at 18 percent. That's a bigger lead than Gingrich enjoyed in a Des Moines Register poll (Gingrich 25 percent, Paul 18, Romney 16) and an NBC News/Marist poll (Gingrich 26, Romney 18, Paul 17) released over the weekend.

For an interesting study in contrasts, compare the television advertising broadcast by the leading Republican presidential candidates ads in Iowa.

The most distinctive quality of Newt Gingrich's first ad is its speed: slow motion. Going for the heartstrings, the spot showcases amber waves of grain to purple mountain majesties, joining the scores of homages to Ronald Reagan's beloved "It's morning again in America'' ad. Gingrich says, "Some people say the America we know and love is a thing of the past. I don't believe that. Because working together, I know we can rebuild America.'' Definitely an old-school ad by an old-school politician.

Mitt Romney's ad brands him from the first frame with what could be the title of the world's most boring memoir: "Mitt Romney: Conservative Businessman.'' In a voice over, Romney says, "I spent my life in the private sector. I've competed with companies around the world. I've learned something about how it is that economies grow." The tall, dark and handsome candidate is in every frame of the spot, sometimes in color, sometimes in black and white. His ad is the only one that features a picture of himself and his equally handsome wife, Ann.

OYSTER BAY, N.Y. -- In a display case at Sagamore Hill, the historic estate of President Theodore Roosevelt, a polished blue tablet reads, "By the turn of the century, business trusts controlled 65 percent of American wealth and Wall Street dictated the course of the American economy." A century-old editorial cartoon depicts the president firing a gun at a portly man with "The Trusts" scrawled upon the man's ample belly.

In a display case at Sagamore Hill, the historic estate of President Theodore Roosevelt, a polished blue tablet reads, "By the turn of the century, business trusts controlled 65 percent of American wealth and Wall Street dictated the course of the American economy." A century-old editorial cartoon depicts the president firing a gun at a portly man with "The Trusts" scrawled upon the man's ample belly.

My 14-year-old son soaked this in with a laugh during a Thanksgiving weekend visit to the national park. "TR rocked," Tyler said. "Can Obama be the next TR?"

That is a question I've been asking myself since 2008 when I did a series of stories with a colleague of mine at The Associated Press about the presidency and the role of that office in these times of immense change. One of the series' shorter pieces, written in March 2008, suggested that Obama and GOP candidate John McCain had the potential to be "TR 2.0."

"We're living in an era of brutal transition not unlike the turn of the last century, when Teddy Roosevelt and fellow Progressive reformers helped lead an anxious nation from the agriculture era to the industrial age," I wrote at the time.

The transition from an industrial economy to the information age and a global economy is creating problems that TR would recognize: A widening gap between the rich and poor, decreased social mobility and a loss of faith in social institutions, particularly politics. Into that breach stepped Obama, a transitional figure who promised a new breed of  leadership that was bigger than partisanship.

He helped lead the country out of a financial crisis, ordered the assassination of Osama bin Laden and pushed through landmark health care reforms (with echoes of TR's agenda), but Obama's presidency is not nearly as transformational as Roosevelt's. At least not yet.

With voters as anxious and angry as they were at the dawn of the 20th century, it makes sense that Obama would travel to Osawatomie, Kansas, this week to draw a line from TR's presidency to his. On Aug. 31, 1910, Roosevelt delivered his New Nationalism address in Osawatomie, where he argued on behalf of a government powerful enough to regulate the economy and guarantee social justice.

"I stand for the square deal," Roosevelt said. "But when I say that I am for the square deal, I mean not merely that I stand for fair play under the present rules of the game, but that I stand for having those rules changed so as to work for a more substantial equality of opportunity and of reward for equally good service."

Roosevelt called for a broad range of social and political reforms including a national health service, social insurance for the elderly, a minimum wage, an eight-hour workday, workers' compensation for work-related injuries, a federal income tax and the right for women to vote.

He railed against the influence of special interests on politics, calling for strict limits and disclosure of campaign donations and the registration of lobbyists.

Roosevelt lost the 1912 election after he bolted the GOP and created the so-called Bull Moose Party, running second to Democrat Woodrow Wilson. But many of the reforms he laid out in Kansas were adopted by Wilson and Roosevelt's cousin, Franklin Roosevelt.

TR thought and acted boldly. He was bigger than any party, a sturdy bridge to the new century. His policies were right for his troubled times.

The question today is whether Obama and his policies are right for these.

The advertising wars are in full swing four weeks before the Iowa caucuses, and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney is far outspending the rest of the field, according to data provided by a Republican keeping a close eye on key media markets.

Romney has purchased another $265,000 in television time in Iowa and New Hampshire over the next week, where his campaign is running its Right Answer ad. The vast majority of that is broadcast television in Cedar Rapids (650 gross ratings points), Des Moines (800 points), Sioux City (450 points) and on WMUR in Manchester (550 points). He also spent $13,000 on Fox News specifically in Iowa.

Texas Gov. Rick Perry's team has put $89,000 behind two advertisements in Des Moines (370 points), Cedar Rapids (300 points) and Sioux City (315 points). That sounds like a small buy, but the buy only covers Saturday through Tuesday. In other words, these buys are the equivalent of about an 800-point weekly buy. Perry is dividing the buy between an ad on energy jobs and one in which he discusses his faith.

A smart Republican operative in Iowa, unaligned with any campaign, brings up an interesting way to characterize the lack of organization Newt Gingrich has established in the Hawkeye State: Gingrich, like other candidates without traditional constituencies in Iowa, has largely eschewed the traditional town hall format for his events.

That's because he doesn't have the on-the-ground organization required to actually build a crowd.

Consider his four events in Iowa this week: He visited a meeting at a Council Bluffs pizza joint headlined by Strong America Now. He stopped by a meeting at Nationwide Insurance, where he spoke with employees. He spoke at a meeting of the Iowa Association of Electric Cooperatives. And he attended a party fundraiser in Johnston, just outside Des Moines.

All four events had built-in crowds generated not by Gingrich's campaign, but by the outside groups themselves.

That hints at both Gingrich's promise and his pitfalls. The excitement around Gingrich's candidacy appears real, and several observers said they expect he will lead two Iowa polls scheduled to be released this weekend by the Des Moines Register and NBC News. But it takes real organization to round up captains and supporters in Iowa's 1,774 precincts -- organization that, at the moment, Gingrich doesn't have.

In my column this week, I analyze how the upscale and downscale wings of the evolving Republican coalition could divide over retrenching Medicare and Social Security if the GOP wins unified power in 2012.

The same polling I used to highlight that fissure also points to other potentially significant areas of convergence and divergence between the traditional college-educated core of the GOP base, and the growing non-college, working-class component of the party's coalition. These contrasts could presage other strains that Republicans might face implementing an agenda if they sweep control of the White House, House and Senate next year.

Another big potential divide in the party centers on trade. Almost all national GOP leaders support expanding free trade agreements. But an October National Journal/United Technologies Congressional Connection Poll found much more ambivalence in the GOP base when it asked Americans whether they supported or opposed the free trade agreements Congress recently approve with South Korea, Panama and Colombia.