Just a week ago it seemed that Mitt Romney was on the verge of being swept away here in Iowa by Huckamania and, with McCain coming on strong in New Hampshire, from there on to political oblivion. And in a few short days it still may happen.

I think Chris Bowers at Open Left just has a terrific, no-nonsense read on where the Democratic and Republican contenders stand in Iowa. He then runs through what various scenarios in Iowa mean for New Hampshire and then nationally.

The other day, I mentioned Bloomberg’s increasing fascination with running for President. According to an inside Bloomberg source, the “environment is not yet right” to commit to a run, but “he’s working through the details of a possible strategy.

The “One Campaign” has put together a cool compilation of video commentary from every single one of the presidential candidates on “their plans to combat extreme poverty and global disease.” I have watched six or seven of the clips — and I think the template they used for this is impressive.

Here are two interesting emails I received this morning about Ron Paul’s efforts at soliciting the support of Democrats. The first is from Iowa resident, Keith Porter, who is the “Guide to US Foreign Policy” on About.com. The second is from a regular poster in TWN comments, well known as “POA” (aka Pissed Off American).

Will Hillary Clinton really keep stroking the most anti-Castro crazed elder generation of Miami’s Cuban-American community? Or will she look at the demographic and polling data that show that most Cuban-Americans want a new course in US-Cuba relations, particularly with regard to travel to and from Cuba for Cuban-American families? Some near Hillary Clinton tell…

Snow or no snow the “Obama Stand for Change tour” (or whatever it is that they are actually calling it) rolled into Iowa City yesterday. This event was supposed to target undecideds in the area, and I was told that the campaign was thinking about 300 people would show up.

Not sure what I really think about this video — it’s sort of a free ad (without the gloss) for Chris Dodd. But it is interesting to hear about firefighters taking their role in the Iowa caucuses as seriously as these guys do.

Reza Aslan, author of the excellent No god but God: The Origins, Evolution, and Future of Islam has a must-read opinion piece in today’s Washington Post, titled “He Could Care Less About Obama’s Story.

From Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance: I’d been feeling this way all through my stay in Europe. . . For three weeks I had traveled alone, down one side of the continent and up the other, by bus and train mostly, guidebook in hand.