Blog House: Edwards remains a wild card as caucuses near

Two weeks from today, we'll know who the next president of the United States will be.

OK, that might overselling the Iowa caucuses a bit. But in 14 days we will be closer to finding out who he or she will be.

One thing we'll know for sure is who won't be the next president. The campaign will likely be over for Duncan Hunter, Tom Tancredo, Chris Dodd, Joe Biden and Bill Richardson. Dennis Kucinich and Alan Keyes also won't be president, but they won't go away. They never go away. And Ron Paul may very well be headed to a third party near you.

As it stands, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and John Edwards can all claim to be leading in Iowa -- there's a poll making the case for each of them.

The most surprising development is that Edwards, who's been consistently third in most Iowa polls, seems to have a little heat behind him. "On Monday, the Edwards campaign recorded more e-mail sign-ups than almost any day in its history," Marc Ambinder (1) reported. "Over the weekend, the campaign was forced to add four new servers to handle all the Web traffic. Contributions are up online: Thursday and Friday, the two days after the debate, made for one of the highest 2-day totals they've seen in months."

In this race, Edwards could prove to be the tortoise and Clinton and Obama a pair of hares, according to David Mizner at MyDD (2). "It wasn't supposed to be this way, with Edwards still in the thick of the race. Clinton and Obama had planned to out-spend and out-celebrity him into oblivion. The best-laid plans."

Clinton earned the coveted endorsement from the Des Moines Register, but, as her campaign has shown lately, her luck is usually shortlived. In this case, blame former Nebraska Sen. Bob Kerrey, who -- while endorsing Clinton -- said, "I like the fact that his name is Barack Hussein Obama, and that his father was a Muslim and that his paternal grandmother is a Muslim." This not-so-subtle bid to remind voters of disproven rumors that Obama is a Muslim earned Clinton more barbs in the blogosphere.

"In a perfect world, one without bigotry, it would be a good thing to stress Obama's multicultural background for [a job as important] as president," wrote Kos (3). "... But we don't live in a perfect world. We live in one where 'muslim' is synonymous with 'terrorist.' ... So back to the original question -- was Kerrey expressing honest praise for Obama, or was he engaging in insidious dogwhistle politics?"

On the Republican side, the rise of former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee has been nothing short of meteoric. Now he's the front-runner in Iowa and nipping at Rudy Giuliani's heels in national polls, but some conservatives -- as they find out more about him -- are having second thoughts.

The rumors are starting up again that Republican Rep. Jim Ramstad is having second thoughts about retirement. As Eric Black (5) noted, "Rep. Jim McCrery of Louisiana, the ranking Republican on the House Ways and Means Committee, has decided to retire. Ramstad, who has been on the key committee for years, currently ranks three seniority notches lower, but could be offered the ranking position as an inducement to stay. It could also give Ramstad something on which to publicly hang a decision to unretire."

If he does "unretire," that House seat goes from toss-up to safe Republican, wrote Sean at MnPublius (6). "In fact, I'd go as far as to say that if Jim Ramstad rejoins the race Jim Hovland and Terri Bonoff will probably drop out of the race on the [Democratic] side. I'm curious what his un-retirement would mean for all of the right wing nut jobs who cheered when he announced his retirement?"

You know the old adage: When life gives you lemons, make lemonade. Hennepin County Sheriff Rich Stanek seems to have taken that to heart. When life gave him a collapsed Interstate 35W bridge, he made a $30,000 "training" video showing the reaction of his department -- with an emphasis on him -- to the disaster.

According to Brian Lambert (7), who got his hands on an e-mail Minneapolis Police Chief Tim Dolan sent to Mayor R.T. Rybak and others, some are feeling a little slighted.

The e-mail read, "I read [Star Tribune reporter Mike] Kaszuba's article today. He did not dig to get the realities of Stanek's involvement at the 35W Bridge Collapse. His theft of the credit is not going to sit well with my staff and our hard working partners. Mayor and Barb, you were at the meeting with the president -- I asked for the Navy divers. I also met privately with the Gov to reinforce that issue and asked him to convince Rich to accept that offer. Forte was also involved in these discussions. Rich asked for Army Corps Engineers. I also had to caution Rich on his over estimates of missing. I would also doubt he closed the nearby bridges. Allen would know the facts there. It is sad, but the truth needs to be told. ..."

tobrien@startribune.com

SEE FOR YOURSELF HOW TO FIND THE BLOGS ONLINE

1 Marc Ambinder • marcambinder.theatlantic.com

2 MyDD • mydd.com

3 Obsidian Wings • obsidianwings.blogs.com

4 Daily Kos • dailykos.com

5 Eric Black Ink • ericblackink.com

6 MnPublius • mnpublius.com

7 Lambert to the Slaughter • msp.blogs.com/brianlambert

Jay Leno is returning to "The Tonight Show" and Conan O'Brien to "Late Night" on Jan. 2 -- writers' strike be damned. In Conan's case, this is good news -- he is a gifted interviewer and standup. But Leno is nothing more than a bad Borscht Belt comic, Soupy Sales with a chin. It's going to get ugly real fast. In 1952, President Harry Truman nationalized the steel industry to end a strike. Can't we do that now?