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Uniting the conservative coalition is not enough to win a presidential election, but it is a prerequisite for building on that coalition. Rudolph Giuliani did extraordinary work as mayor of New York and was inspirational on 9/11. But he and Mike Huckabee would pull apart the coalition from opposite ends: Giuliani alienating the social conservatives, and Huckabee the economic (and foreign-policy) conservatives. A Republican party that abandoned either limited government or moral standards would be much diminished in the service it could give the country.

While most of the talk this week has focused around Iowa, New Hampshire is just five days later, on June 8.

And while Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee battle for Iowa, John McCain and Ron Paul -- both once presumed innocuous by much of the political panjandrum -- stand to have a major impact on the outcome of the first Primary in the nation, and could potentially bollix everything up.

McCain, of course, won New Hampshire in 2000.  His sardonic humor, curmudgeonly style, and unexpurgated straight-talk plays well this sort of milieu.  What is more, his incessant style of campaigning, which largely consists of speaking to voters at Town Hall events, is extremely effective and efficient in this small state where pecuniary benefits are not as important as they are elsewhere.

And if Hillary Clinton should win Iowa, it's possible that enough of the Independents and Democrats who might otherwise vote for Barack Obama would cross-over and vote for McCain, as state law allows, thereby giving him a victory.  It is entirely possible McCain will win New Hampshire, but regardless, it is highly probable he will have a major impact on the race.

Ron Paul's style also fits well into the "Live Free or Die" ethos of New Hampshire.  Like "Pitchfork" Pat Buchanan, who garnered an impressive 38 percent of the vote in 1992 against George H.W. Bush, Buchanan's progeny, "Pitchfork" Paul, has the potential to surprise the so-called experts in New Hampshire.

Of course, unlike McCain, Ron Paul will also have plenty of money ...  On December 17, 1773, American Patriots dumped tea into the Boston Harbor to protest taxation, and to celebrate, on December 17, 2007, Ron Paul will attempt to raise $10 million on the internet ... in one day.  Can he do it?  Considering he raised more than $4 million on Guy Fawkes day, it's not out of the question.  While political insiders consider his "Paulites" to be the political Lumpenproletariat, Paul continues to rake in the dollars.  He probably won't win, but he will have an impact in deciding who does win.

And with the feckless and indolent Fred Thompson out of the New Hampshire race, and Romney and Huckabee fighting it out in Iowa, McCain and Paul will likely have a lot more face-time than other candidates -- in a state that values meeting their candidates.

Of course, a Romney or Huckabee victory in Iowa might also create enough momentum to propel either to the top stop in New Hampshire, thereby undercutting McCain and Paul's chances. 

Lacking any historical model, it is impossible to predict whether or not the short time frame between Iowa and New Hampshire will increase -- or decrease -- the amount of momentum gained from winning Iowa.  This has essentially been the Gordian knot for 2008 political prognosticators. 

"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," said Thompson, whose campaign put out a statement the day before attacking Huckabee on the issue.

...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.

Not a bad idea to hitch himself to the Huckabee press-wagon in Miami, but couldn't he jump on a plane to Iowa right after? This morning, he was on the Glenn Beck Show, on which he didn't mention Iowa or being there, and I've heard nary a word about him since.

It smacks of Mitt desperation to the political class who know where Drudge is getting his dirt, but the other 99 percent of Americans who click on the site are only reading negative information about Huck.   And it's now happening on a near-daily basis. 

CNN:

On the Democratic side, former President Bill Clinton has canceled planned stops on behalf of his wife, New York Sen. Hillary Clinton. The events were to take him to In West Branch, Wapello, and Burlington, Iowa.

John Edwards canceled his first event of the day in Clinton, though the campaign hoped the former North Carolina senator would be able to make it to planned evening in events the eastern part of the state.

As for Republicans, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee – the leader in recent Hawkeye State polls – has canceled two appearances.

COUNCIL BLUFFS, Iowa -- Huckabee announced this morning the endorsement of Jim Gilchrist, the founder of the anti-illegal immigration and border security group the Minutemen. More to come.

“The people of Iowa, especially I think, are turned off by negative attack ads, and that campaign can call that [ad] anything it wants, but that's what it is, and it's the first one of the season, and we feel honored to be in the middle of it. My experience is people here kind of want to vote for somebody not just against somebody, and they like to believe that a candidate has enough of a platform that he can stand on it not knock the props out from under the guy next to him.

"If the basis of running for the presidency is, 'Let me tell you what's wrong with the other guy,' not 'Let me tell you what I'd do for America,' I think the people of Iowa -- who have been through this so many times, will say, 'I vote for the guy who has a plan for the future of America' not just somebody looking around and saying, as the tattle tale in the third grade, let me tell you what this guy's doing. We didn't like it when we were in the third grade. I don't think we like it electing a president either."

... First, it attempts to blur any differences between Romney and Huckabee on issues of importance to social conservative voters by noting that both men are pro-life and favor traditional marriage -- a strategy he debuted in a "PostTalk" interview several weeks ago. Left unsaid is the fact that Romney is a far more recent convert on each of the issues than Huckabee.

More ...

... The problem for Romney is that the ads aren't running in a vacuum. Huckabee has suddenly become the "cool" candidate, the one with buzz and momentum. That's hard to stop even with a well-crafted attack like this one. When a candidate is riding as high as Huckabee currently is, voters tend to ignore negative information about him (or her) as they are too busy falling in love. It may well be that Romney is simply laying the groundwork right now for an extended onslaught on Huckabee -- that would be our bet -- and this first ad is simply designed to sow the seeds for that effort by raising small questions ("Maybe Huckabee isn't so great?") in voters' minds.

And, Romney's decision to go negative (or comparative, whatever the case may be) also opens him up to criticism from his rivals -- each of whom is doing their own positioning in Iowa and beyond ...

"I saw him coming through the doors" and took cover, Assam said. "I came out of cover and identified myself and engaged him and took him down.""God was with me," Assam said. "I didn't think for a minute to run away."

Update: Jimbo's right. She's magnificent.

“She just started walking toward the gunman firing the whole way,” said Bourbonnais, who was shot in the arm. “She was just yelling ‘Surrender,’ walking and shooting the whole time.”

While pundits and analysts have pored over the details of Mitt Romney’s speech last week, nearly half the nation’s voters could not identify which Republican had given a major speech on faith and religion. A Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey found that 60% were able to identify Romney as that candidate. That figure includes 66% of Republicans nationwide, but just 52% of Evangelical Christian voters.

Overall, 69 % of voters can identify Romney as the candidate who is a Mormon. Among Republicans, that figure is 75%. It’s interesting to note that Evangelical Christians are somewhat less likely than the population at large to know of Romney’s faith. Among Evangelical Christians, 65% were able to identify Romney as the Mormon.