By Steve Clemons

Quite dramatic scene of desperation and beauty from up north. Slightly larger version here.

The neoconservative movement has been around for a long time — and now with the news that Bill Kristol is going to have a weekly column in the New York Times, it is clear that the influence of this wing of the policy establishment is going to be around a lot longer.

Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, and South Carolina are races that help establish momentum tempered by regional realities. Iowa has given a big boost to Obama — and his advocates are swooning and those on the fence are impressed. But the delegate race has a long way to go.

Just got this from Slate‘s John Dickerson over his “twitter” comments on Facebook: Nashua: Just saw Bill O’Reilly misbehaving at Obama rallly. Shoving Obama staffer. Someone have that staffer call me! If O’Reilly is engaged in assaulting staffers, the world should know. . . — Steve Clemons Update: Lynn Sweet has more.

Andrew Sullivan kindly gave me a friendly nod to mimic his “view from your window” practice at his blog. Today’s winner is a photo of the storm that has hit the Sierra Nevada region in California and Nevada.

Just heard from a friend in New Hampshire listening to Bill Clinton that he was very negative and very defensive — blaming the press for the outcome in Iowa and for ganging up on his wife.

Chuck Hagel in Biden Garb on Halloween 2007 in the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Hearing Room with the allegedly real Joe Biden Joe Biden is not one of those types of candidates who does focus groups on the framing of everything he says, although i bet his team sometimes wishes he did, at least occasionally….

Bill Hartung notes that while Mike Huckabee calls John Bolton an informal foreign policy adviser — when contacted, Bolton said that the two had never met.

This is interesting news. I have worked through the campaigns today — and while I don’t have all the detail on which campaigns did what exact back deals, I know that the Hillary Clinton campaign approached every single one of the others.

From Michael Crowley’s “Air Spin One“: he preternaturally jolly McAuliffe is a good man to have spinning for you in a pinch. But his good cheer dimmed when I asked him about Bill Richardson, who appears to have made an 11th-hour deal to throw his supporters to Obama.