Candidates Hit Home Stretch In Iowa

(CBS/AP)  Uplifting appeals largely replaced stinging insults Tuesday as Democratic and Republican candidates did the only thing left to do in Iowa races that are too close to call - encourage supporters to vote for them.

"The polls look good, but understand this - the polls are not enough. The only thing that counts is whether or not you show up to caucus," Democrat Barack Obama told a fired-up crowd of young and old packed into a high school gymnasium.

Amid murmurs of "Amen!" at a pizza parlor in Sergeant Bluff, Republican Mike Huckabee urged hundreds: "Don't go alone. Take people with you. Fill up your car. Rent a van. Hijack your church's bus, whatever you've got to do to get people to the caucus who are going to vote for me."

Candidates made the pitch repeatedly as they canvassed the state for Thursday's caucuses, the first votes of the presidential nominating process. At least 130,000 Democrats and 80,000 Republicans are expected to participate in 1,781 neighborhood meetings at schools, fire stations and community centers across Iowa on what is forecast to be a clear but cold night.

New polls show both races competitive, the outcomes extraordinarily unpredictable.

Among Democrats, Obama, an Illinois senator, is fighting with Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York for the lead as former Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina gives them strong chase. Two former governors, Huckabee of Arkansas and Mitt Romney of Massachusetts, are vying for first on the Republican side.

Given the tightness, turning out voters will be critical.

Thus, hoards of volunteers made thousands of get-out-the-vote phone calls Tuesday, the campaigns rolled out uplifting television ads and the candidates made their pitches on the first day of 2008. The efforts were intended to maximize media exposure and voter outreach.

All but one candidate, Romney, shunned the negativity that spiked in recent weeks.

Obama, Clinton and Edwards played nice. Huckabee made good on a promise to clean up his act, the day after he held a news conference to say he wouldn't run a critical ad against Romney - but then showed it to a room full of reporters and cameramen.

"It does remind you a bit of a person who stands up and says 'I'm not going to call my opponent any names, but here are the names I'd call him if I were going to call him names,"' Romney told reporters in Johnston.

With two days left in the campaign, Romney continued his ads against Huckabee. He also assailed Huckabee's defense of his own failure to read the National Intelligence Estimate on Iran last month.

"President Bush didn't read it for four years; I don't know why I should read it in four hours," Huckabee said in an interview published Monday in the Mason City Globe Gazette.

Romney seized on the comment: "I'm not sure whether Governor Huckabee meant the attack as a joke, but this is not a time to be mocking our president, and it was I think in bad taste."

For the most part, candidates spent New Year's Day trying to energize supporters.

In the Des Moines area, Romney combined football and politics at a series of "House Party Huddles." At one, children ran around bashing one another with large, red foam mitts that read "Mitt '08."

At an Elks Lodge in Cedar Rapids, Huckabee pulled out a bass guitar and played "Blue Suede Shoes" and "Mustang Sally" with a singer and drummer, a warm-up perhaps for his appearance Wednesday with Jay Leno on NBC's "Tonight Show."

Huckabee conceded he may have sent a mixed message yesterday when showed the press a negative ad against Romney -- after swearing off negative ads, CBS News correspondent Nancy Cordes reports.

"You know, at the time I thought it was an important play to prove that we actually had it," he said. "Probably if I had to do it over, I wouldn't have shown it."

Obama's family was enthusiastic, buoyed by a Des Moines Register poll that showed him in the lead. His wife, Michelle, talked about "when Barack is the next president of the United States" and he referred to her "the next first lady of the United States."

Dozens of hands shot up in the air when Obama asked for a show of undecideds in the crowd of hundreds. "We've still got some live ones in here," he said.

One of them is retired teacher Sara Denning, who told CBS News correspondent Dean Reynolds that she's pleased with the overall Democratic field.

"I'm torn between all of them," she said. "I think this is a field of many, many good candidates."

Denning attended one of Obama's events on Monday and got a chance to speak with him.

"I'm undecided," she told him. "I'm undecided, but leaning your way."

Obama, joking, asked her, "Come on, what more do I have to do?"

Obama's chief rival, Clinton, campaigned with her 88-year old mother, Dorothy Rodham, and daughter, Chelsea, in tow as she worked to solidify her already strong support among female voters. Her husband, former President Clinton, campaigned separately, joking at one event that he was missing out on a day of football games and was being "the quintessential indolent American male on New Year's Day."

His faux grumbling aside, Clinton's campaign seized on a CNN poll that had her in the lead as aides picked apart the methodology of the Register survey.

"I'm feeling great!" she said at her first event in Ames. Working hard to grab the momentum, Clinton joked about the extremes to which she would go to win support, recalling a campaign appearance among farmers and ranchers in an arena that normally is the site of cattle auctions.

"If you want to look inside my mouth to figure out whether you want to vote for me, that's fine, too," Clinton quipped. "Whatever it takes."

If the Clinton camp was troubled by the Register's poll, it might take comfort in hearing from people like Linda Emerson, who talked to pollsters on Sunday night and told them she supported Obama, but has since backed away.

"Since then, I've heard Biden and now Hillary, and Edwards, and I'm not so sure," she told CBS News chief White House correspondent Jim Axelrod.

Edwards also brought his wife and two young children along for the final push, a "marathon for the middle class" during which he will continue to hammer away at pocketbook issues on an overnight drive to energize backers and deliver them to the caucuses.

"We hope for the next 36 hours that all of you will be as focused and energized as we are," he said, beginning the tour with a rally before about 500 people jammed into a ballroom at the student union at Iowa State University in Ames.

All three also turned to the airwaves to urge voters to attend caucuses.

Clinton and Obama were to air longer-than-usual, two-minute ads during Wednesday's evening news programs. Edwards bought a full-page ad in the Des Moines Register featuring a testimonial from a worker who was laid off from an Iowa Maytag plant. The worker also will appear in a one-minute TV ad for Edwards.

In a sign of the battles beyond Iowa, Republican John McCain, who isn't playing Iowa as aggressively as he is New Hampshire, opened a new line of criticism against Romney in a new Web video that could end up on TV. "Mitt Romney says the next president doesn't need foreign policy experience," it says.

Conversely, Romney began airing an ad in New Hampshire that shifts away from his criticism of his rivals and urges people to "vote for tomorrow."

[arthall33]

On a new survey I just seen today...that rated the countries of the world on freedom and privacy...China was of course at the bottom along with Russia....but then I looked at the United States and I guess I souldnt had been surprised to see that the US was right at the bottom of the list with them...we Americans might as well go to every veteran, who died fighting for freedom, grave site and spit on it...because that what we must think of there efforts by allowing this country to be where it is today....at least there is one man who respects the sacrifice''s these soldiers made and is willing to fight for them and bring freedom back to this country and he is Ron Paul....

[heartlandjim]

Mike Huckabee Wins My Vote on Life
Mike Huckabee has always been for the santity of life from conception. He has never, ever wavered. That''s a fact and no one can dispute it.

Mitt was for abortion, then against it, then for it, then against it. Thats a fact and no one can dispute it.

When Mike Huckabee becomes President I know in my sole of soles he will nominate Supreme Court Justices for the santity of life.

If Mitt is there I keep thinking - In Mass. as govenor he signed into law a bill that allows every, yes every woman in Mass. to get an abortion for $50.00. Because he signed the bill abortions are now being done in Mass. almost for free every day. Why did Mitt do such a thing if he''s against abortion?

I honestly don''t know what type of Supreme Court Justice Mitt would Nominate when it comes to santity of life. This concerns me deeply.

I choose to go with a man I know will be on the side of the unborn child. I choose Mike Huckabee.

[piercetheval]

Here comes Hilary, Here comes Hilary, coming down Pennsylvania Ave. Here comes Hilary, Here comes Hilary, contribute what you have...

[piercetheval]

The Fed. Revserve = I OWE WHA?

[jack3213]

If you fall for Clinton''s of BS you are naive. If you recall all the irrational promises she has made and the illogical course of changes she is promoting it is wise to re-read them, she is not able to do any of them or should she. She is an emabarressment to the country and to women. She has no foreign policy experiance and no self respect, a delusional actor who makes false claims.

[piercetheval]

Back in 1800 you could buy the finest tailored suit for a 20 dollar gold piece. The same applied in 1900. In 2000 $20.00 wouldn''t buy you the tie. Study Frueds "Moses and Monotheism" then study Sanskrit. Know that all Indo-European languages came from Sanskrit. Understand the diff. between Aum and Amen. Amen was the dark Horned god of ancient Egypt that ruled death, darknesss,the past, gambling, banking and all forms of speculation. And don''t start throwing up alternate spellings [Amun, Amoun et. al.] in my face, they are all one and the same. I''ve given you the clues know figure it out for yourselves. Eck Kan Kar Sat Nam Siri Wha Guru. Aum Tat Sat Aum.

[perception5]

Slick Huck isn''t much different than that other fellow from Hope, Arkansas, Slick Willie Clinton.

Looks like the neither one of these guys can tell the truth.

And the stunt that Slick Huck pulled the other day attacking Mitt Romney without attacking him is just one more "slick" moment for Slick Huck.............................aka in Arkansas as "tax hike mike".

NEXT!

[merlgrey]

interesting that the big issues of the day are the war in iraq and the economy%u2026 and yet the candidate who receives more donations from active duty servicemen and the candidate who fights hardest for the dollar and saving us from over taxation is so far being excluded from the jan 6th fox news debate.

http://www.ronpaul2008.com/veterans/

here is a good article by the CSM about paul%u2019s upbringing and background, and his personal career long studies and practice of sound economics and national economies:

http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0102/p01s08-uspo.html

back in 2001 gold was varying around $270 an ounce, currently to buy an ounce of gold it would cost around $835. video of rockefeller being questioned about ron paul%u2019s desire to eliminate the private central bank ie the federal reserve (of course, rockefeller doesn%u2019t think it is an issue that needs addressing at this time):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ruSqkSAdWUw

[mh4cbs1]

If Democrats are stupid enough to nominate another spineless, DLC, corporate-owned candidate like Hillary Clinton then they deserve to loose (again!).

When will these stupid Dems learn that they will only win elections by returning to their long lost core values and fight! for average hard-working citizens.

Every time they try to suck-up to corporate donors, or outspend Republicans on the War Industry, or go along with the shredding of our constitution, they should realize they will NOT win. True progressives will vote Green Party, most people will stay home on election day, and the rest will get suckered into the "lesser of two evils" and our nation will continue in it''s long slow decline into a corporate-owned fascism-with-a-smile Orwellian nightmare.

[kissamaarse]

Huckabee is a hypocrite, a liar, and a scumbag. His only viability is that he bows to the light-eyed, light-skinned materialistic Germanic Jesus construct of the radical right. Sad. Sick. Pathetic.