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Romney to run immigration ad against Huckabee, weighs how negative to go in Iowa
BOSTON (AP) -- His shot at the Republican presidential nomination in jeopardy, Mitt Romney will run a TV ad starting Tuesday against Iowa front-runner Mike Huckabee while weighing how much negative campaigning he can add to the methodical plan he's followed all year.
Romney's campaign said Monday a "contrast ad" on illegal immigration is planned for Iowa on Tuesday. Aides said the ad identifies the former Arkansas governor and characterized it as a reaction to Huckabee's own TV commercial in which he touts his immigration proposal.
Such elevated rhetoric -- including the Romney campaign's mass e-mailing Monday of an anti-Huckabee Web column
-- reflects a growing sense of urgency at Romney headquarters, where the game plan all year has been predicated on bowling over rivals with victories in lead-voting Iowa and New Hampshire.
With Huckabee taking the lead in polls in Iowa, which votes Jan. 3, and Sen. John McCain of Arizona coming on in New Hampshire, which votes Jan. 8, campaign officials have been debating whether to hit harder or simply take shots only as they present themselves.
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Analysis: Obama begins intensive effort to turn Oprah fans into primary-election voters
DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) -- Even before Oprah Winfrey had left the building during the weekend's big campaign rallies for Barack Obama, the candidate's team had begun an intensive follow-up effort
-- trying to turn tens of thousands of Oprah fans into Obama voters.
Celebrity endorsements are typically used by campaigns to draw large crowds and drive media coverage, but the Obama campaign is taking Winfrey's support to another level by trying to reach everyone who came to see her within 48 hours and get them on board.
It's especially important in Iowa, where the race is tight and just about 7,000 votes decided the winner in the last presidential caucus.
At least 66,500 people attended the weekend Oprah-Obama rallies across three pivotal states, the Democratic presidential candidate's campaign said Monday. Admission didn't cost any money, but it wasn't free
-- everyone who entered had to fill out a ticket stub with information on how they could be contacted.
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Huckabee's record on pardons while governor questioned
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) -- As governor of Arkansas, Mike Huckabee had a hand in twice as many pardons and commutations as his three predecessors combined.
The case he's asked about most concerns the parole of a castrated rapist who later killed a woman.
Although the Republican presidential contender and Southern Baptist preacher plays down any personal involvement in that release, Huckabee granted 1,033 pardons and commutations in his 10 1/2 years as governor of Arkansas. The acts of clemency benefited the stepson of a staff member, murderers who worked at the governor's mansion, a rock star and inmates who received good words from their pastors.
"It seems to be true at least anecdotally that if a minister is involved, (Huckabee) seems likely to grant clemency," prosecutor Robert Herzfeld said in 2004 after successfully battling the then-governor over the release of a killer.
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Obama talks retirement security in Las Vegas
LAS VEGAS (AP) -- Democrat Barack Obama on Monday promised residents burdened by high mortgage and health care costs that he would put more money in their wallets by undoing President Bush's tax cuts for the wealthy.
The presidential hopeful sat down with six residents to chat about retirement security, but the discussion soon centered on their economic woes.
Obama offered solutions such as redistributing tax breaks from the wealthy to lower income earners.
"Part of the problem in terms of retirement security is just making enough money in the first place to be able to save," he said, before detailing plans to roll back the tax breaks that Bush put in place for the wealthy and redistribute them, in part by reducing some of the payroll taxes paid by workers.
"So, George, you would get the equivalent of a bigger paycheck," Obama told George Hicks, a roundtable participant and broiler cook at the Circus Circus hotel-casino on the Las Vegas Strip.
Obama also said he would push to eliminate all income taxes for seniors earning less than $50,000 a year, and mandate that companies implement workplace pension plans with opt-out provisions.
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McCain looks to nuclear power, hydrogen energy to help address U.S. dependence on oil
AIKEN, S.C. (AP) -- Republican presidential hopeful John McCain said Monday the United States needs to reduce its dependence on troubled parts of the world for oil, and instead look to hydrogen and nuclear power as alternatives.
"Great nations don't leave the lifeblood of their economy in the hands of foreign cartels or bet their future on a commodity located in countries where authoritarians repress their people and terrorists find their main support," McCain told a crowd of about 200 people at the Center for Hydrogen Research in this early voting state.
"We're one successful attack away from an economic crisis," he added.
The Arizona senator said that more nuclear power had been stymied by politics.
"We've let the fears of 30 years ago, and an endless political squabble over the storage of nuclear spent fuel, make it virtually impossible to build a single new plant that produces a form of energy that is safe and nonpolluting," McCain said.
___ Edwards urges Americans to rise up to country's challenges
DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) -- Democrat John Edwards on Monday encouraged Americans to rise up to the challenges the country is facing just as they have done in the past.
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 "When America has been faced with great obstacles, what did the American people do? They rose up, they stood up, they spoke up, they faced these challenges and they brought about the change that America needed," he said during a rally in downtown Des Moines. "Well, we are in that place again, it is time for us to stand up, it is time for us to rise up."
The former North Carolina senator was in Iowa to kick off an eight-day bus tour. During the trip he says he'll urge voters to live up to "the great moral test of our generation" and fulfill the American promise of providing a better life to the next generation.
Edwards' bus tour, called the "Main Street Express" will feature stops with actors Kevin Bacon and Tim Robbins, who promise to sign campaign memorabilia for Iowans helping out with campaign efforts. Over the weekend Barack Obama had media mogul Oprah Winfrey campaign for him, and Hillary Rodham Clinton has had the backing of her famous husband, former President Bill Clinton, on the campaign trail in recent weeks.
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Thompson criticizes Huckabee's position on Cuban embargo
MIAMI (AP) -- Republican presidential candidate Fred Thompson criticized rival Mike Huckabee for previously saying the Cuban trade embargo should be lifted.
"He's been a long opponent of the embargo against (Cuban President Fidel) Castro. He thinks we should lift the embargo against Castro, and I disagree with that," Thompson said Monday after touring a museum honoring men who participated in the failed 1961 Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba.
As Arkansas governor, Huckabee said the embargo should be lifted, saying it hurt the state's farmers. But before Thompson's event, he told reporters in Miami that he has come to understand Cuban-Americans' perspective on the embargo and said as president he would veto any legislation attempting to lift it.
Thompson said that was a political move.
"People take the views they've had all their political lives and when they decide they want to run for president, they change them. So the question is, where are you going to be in your future?" Thompson said. "It raises issues when politicians change their view on a dime to appeal to a particular group of people right before an election."
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Dodd claims electability and experience as assets in new ad
DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) -- Behind in the polls and fundraising, Democratic presidential candidate Chris Dodd will begin airing an ad in Iowa promoting one asset he has
-- long experience in government.
"As you might have guessed," he says in the 30-second television spot, "I'm not a former first lady. Or a celebrity. But I am the only Democrat running who's a veteran and I served in the Peace Corps."
The spot, which the campaign said will start airing Tuesday in Des Moines and Cedar Rapids before going statewide, ends with a bold assessment: "I'm Chris Dodd and I approve this message because I'm the candidate who can win next November and I am ready to be president."
Dodd has made no secret that Iowa is his one and only chance in the presidential contest. He and his family decamped to Des Moines where they rent an apartment. He has spent more than $1 million in advertising in the state, but that pales in comparison to the sums spent by Democratic rivals Hillary Rodham Clinton (the former first lady) and Barack Obama (the celebrity).
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Maya Angelou calls Clinton 'my girl' in South Carolina radio ad
COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) -- Poet Maya Angelou calls Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton "my girl" in a new radio ad airing in South Carolina.
"Let me tell you about my girl," Angelou says in the 60-second ad that began airing over the weekend in this early voting state. "I am inspired by Hillary Clinton
-- a daughter, a wife, a mother. My girl."
Angelou, whose works include "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings," was the inaugural poet for President Bill Clinton in 1993. She endorsed Hillary Clinton in June.
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SCHEDULE:
THE DEMOCRATS
Sen. Barack Obama of Illinois has a concert-fundraiser in Los Angeles.
Former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards speaks to Iowa voters. Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware also campaigns in the state.
Sen. Chris Dodd of Connecticut participates in a town hall meeting at Google's headquarters in Mountain View, Calif.
New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson speaks at the Green Xchange Global Conference in Los Angeles.
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THE REPUBLICANS
Sen. John McCain of Arizona talks to voters in South Carolina.
Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani meets with supporters in San Francisco.
Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee raises money in Dallas.
Former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson visits Miami.
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QUOTE OF THE DAY:
"Time's a wastin' now and they can't afford to alienate anybody now who could show up at the polls."
-- Susan MacManus, a political scientist at the University of South Florida, on the Republican presidential candidates.
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STAT OF THE DAY:
Sixty-six percent of those who say they are having an easy time financially say they are likely to vote in the presidential primaries or caucuses, compared with 49 percent of those who say times are tough, according to an AP-Yahoo News survey.
[Associated Press]
Compiled by Ann Sanner.
Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This
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