Hotline After Dark -- TV's Time To Caucus

Lots of '08 news and '08ers on TV last night:

Mike Huckabee was on "Hannity & Colmes" last night:

On his ad against Romney: "We didn't run the ad. ... We pulled it. I knew that if we said we had made one and didn't reveal that it existed, there would have been this cynicism of the reporters that said oh, you really didn't have one. But we did. And I don't know how you obtained that copy because we didn't give it to anybody. We had a box of CDs of them. We gave them to no one. We showed it in that room for those reporters, and the only way they could have gotten it would have be to tape it off a camera from the screen. But the fact is we pulled it. It was my decision. It was the right decision. I understand people are going to be cynical. But you know what? At the end of the day, what matters is the decision that we made to stay positive and not to go nuclear, not to engage in the same level of politics that has been relentlessly used against us and used against John McCain in New Hampshire. We just need to change the course of the discussion."

Asked why he ran the ad for reporters if he didn't air if: "For the reason that I said just a moment ago, because
if we didn't show the ad to the reporters, I think we thought, well they would have said we didn't have one. ... We played it only for the room of those people. We did not give them the copies that we had. But ... more importantly is the fact that I think people have given me the position that I'm in in Iowa because it has been a positive campaign. No doubt that a lot of the negative attacks -- mailboxes have been full, phone calls every night, people have been inundated with television commercials. It's been very nasty, very negative. Not just with me; John McCain in New Hampshire is getting the same thing. We decided that, you know, if you talk about Ronald Reagan's legacy and his whole understanding of the leadership of the Republican party -- you can't be Reaganesque if you violate the 11th commandment of Ronald Reagan."

Asked if Romney would be his running mate if he gets the nod: "I'm going to support the nominee of our party. I'm
certainly not at a point where I get to pick the running mate yet."

Asked if he thinks he's making a tactical error to leave IA to be on the "Tonight Show": "No, not at tall. In fact, I'm going to be campaigning in Iowa from 5:30 in the morning for our first event, until about 1:00 or 2:00 in the afternoon. I make a quick trip to California. I fly right back, and will be back late tomorrow night. I'll be up early Thursday. My main goal right now in these next 48 hours is to talk to as many people in Iowa as I can. And, quite frankly, I'll be speaking to a lot of them in person, and I have a feeling I'll be talking to a lot of them on the 'Tonight Show.' I'm not missing any events. I'm just getting a chance to talk to them" (FNC, 1/1).

SPEAKING OF ADS

FNC's Van Susteren was on the Mitt Mobile in IA with Mitt Romney:

On IA: "I had no base here Iowa, so I've had to build my own team, and I think we did a pretty good job."

More: "I started off totally unknown with support from just a few percentage points of people here, and then we had, of course, John McCain was way out in front, but he's really drifted down, and then Mayor Giuliani was way out in front for awhile and then he's drifted down, and then Fred Thompson way out and he's drifted down, and Mike Huckabee has 22 points ahead of me just a couple of weeks ago and he's now drifted down, so that we're pretty close. I'm not sure what the final is going to be, but looks to me like I've been able to build, slowly but surely, and I'm either going to, I hope, come in No. 1 or No. 2. But, they say that you get three tickets coming out of Iowa, and I'm hoping to pull one of them."

Asked if he's seen his fellow GOPers: "I haven't seen the other candidates in Iowa, as of late. We typically see each other at the debates and it's like a great gathering again where we all say hi to each other, shake hands and the renewed friendships, but then we go off into our different direction. I know we're all here and we're all, you know, battling for the same votes. I understand that Mayor Giuliani was here over the weekend and John McCain has been here over the weekend. So, everybody's been working hard, but we don't see each other so much on the read because it's a big state."

Asked about Huckabee showing the media his anti-Romney ad but not airing it: "Well, I don't think he fooled the media with that and I don't think people of Iowa with that. It's a little like somebody saying: I'm not going to call my opponent any bad names, but if I were going to call him bad names, here's the bad names I'd use. And people just don't fall for that. I don't think it's going to work with the people of Iowa" ("On the Record," FNC, 1/1).

MAYBE IT'S TIME TO START DRINKING DIET COKE AGAIN

John Edwards was in the "Situation Room" last night:

On HRC and Obama criticizing him for "yelling and screaming": "I would respectfully say that the reason both of them are attacking me is that they know from what they are seeing and their campaigns are seeing is that we are moving up every single day. All the polling shows it, I see it on the ground. ... But the mistake that is being made in the criticism, of course, is I'm not the normal politician doing political talk. Instead, I'm speaking from my heart and soul and my gut about what I believe needs to be done in this country to stop corporate greed and to strengthen the middle class. And they are seeing the response, and they are trying to figure out some way to blunt it."

On Ralph Nader's support: "Oh, I welcome support from any American who supports me. I'm always proud to get support. But I think the most important thing is for ... caucus-goers in Iowa to continue to hear me say ... how strongly I feel about what we need to do to strengthen the middle class and protect jobs in this country and create jobs. It's why I'm start this 36-hour marathon for the middle class. I'm actually going to campaign for 36 straight hours with Elizabeth, which is a pretty amazing thing."

CNN's Blitzer: "You're not going to sleep at all? Is that what you are saying?"

Edwards: "Well, I didn't say that. We'll be on the bus like for an hour or an hour and a half. I'm going to try to nod off a little bit. But I won't be able to sleep a lot."

Asked his prediction for IA: "The prediction is I'm going to do great in Iowa. I can't tell you exactly what the finish will be. But I feel very, very good about it. A lot of energy, a lot of momentum" (CNN, 1/1).

THE POLL WE'RE ALL TALKING ABOUT

Des Moines Register pollster J. Ann Selzer, on finding that 60% of the voters in the Dem caucuses will be first-time caucus attendees: "We put our method in place, and we let the voters speak to us. And we found that 60 percent of the people who told us they were definitely or probably going to the caucus indicated that it would be their first time at caucus. It's not all that much bigger than 2004. It was 45 percent then. But this stands to be a historic caucus, in terms of turnout."

Selzer, on the HRC and Edwards camps questioning her methodology: "Well, of course they're reacting, because they're not in the lead. And I would expect them to find criticisms. In terms of the first-time caucusgoers, even if we statistically play with the data and say, 'OK, well, let's make it look like 2004,' Barack Obama still wins. So that's a pretty robust finding, and we feel pretty good about it" ("NewsHour," PBS, 1/1).

STAY TUNED

There were a lot of '08ers making the morning show rounds this a.m. Full details will be in today's Hotline. [EMILY GOODIN]