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[h=1]Obama can't fight class war too soon[/h] The American middle class hardly needs telling it's struggling: Obama needs to name the enemy, not emote empathy

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Barack Obama declares 'this is a make-or-break moment for the middle class'. Photograph: Reuters

Substantively, nothing in Obama's Kansas speech broke new ground. No new policies were put put forth and no new arguments were made. I'd argue that the tone – restrained frustration leavened with the pixie dust of hope – was not especially different from other recent addresses, either.
And you can't argue that it's breaking new ground for a president to empathise with a ravished middle class.
What's new is the admission by a president that the problem facing middle-class families isn't getting to the next rung on the ladder, it's that they are struggling to remain middle-class – and that this erosion is a problem of national concern, not just a set of individual sad stories that could find a happy ending with luck and pluck.
"When people are slipping out of the middle class," he said, "it drags down the entire economy from top to bottom."
This is not news to anyone actually in the middle class, or who at least used to be.
Soon, the middle class will only exist in speeches given by politicians and in the minds of workers who cannot allow themselves to identify as something below that. The face of poverty looks more and more like the face in the mirror as thousands of Americans turn to food banks and homeless shelters for the first time. Yet, I think we may be too proud to let the term "middle class" slip away – even as the moderate level of prosperity and disposable income that defined it becomes a day dream.
Obama takes a risk in his willingness to openly discuss the fragility of our national self-image: admitting how bad things have become can only work to his electoral advantage if he offers a solution that feels right to voters – or if he can channel their discontent away from himself. That's probably the logic behind his choice to invoke the language of Occupy Wall Street and to put its most basic principle (the rich should pay more in taxes) into legislation.
To be blunt about how the middle class is suffering, you have to be blunt about who is making them suffer. That he chose to ground his argument with references to Teddy Roosevelt (rather than, say, Franklin) and praise of capitalism suggests that maybe he is still unwilling to talk about how the 1% got to enjoy their privileges, though. The problem with saying that "this is a make-or-break moment for the middle class" is that it glosses over all the moments that came before it – and makes it sound like the middle class isn't already broken.
The punditocracy has reacted pretty reliably to Obama's speech: those on the left have swooned over his embrace of populist rhetoric, those on the right have raised the tattered banner of "class warfare", apparently not realising that class warfare has been going on for quite awhile now – and the rich have been winning.
Politicians always put themselves rhetorically on the side of the middle class without ever admitting there's a fight going on. Obama has finally acknowledged that the elephant in the room is crushing us.

underestimate Obama at your own peril........

[h=1]Vladimir Putin accuses Hillary Clinton of encouraging Russian protests[/h] Russian prime minister says US secretary of state gave a 'signal' to Kremlin opponents by criticising elections

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Russia's prime minister, Vladimir Putin, has accused the US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, of inciting protests. Link to this video Vladimir Putin has accused Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, of fomenting an increasingly vociferous opposition movement in Russia, threatening to derail the two countries' fragile resetting of relations.
The accusation builds on months of Russian statements and media coverage blaming popular uprisings around the Arab world on western scheming. It comes as Washington and Moscow tussle over a host of disagreements, from missile defence to Syria.
Speaking to supporters on Thursday, Putin accused Clinton of giving "the signal" to opposition leaders, who are expected to gather with tens of thousands of supporters for a protest on Saturday. He rejected Clinton's repeated criticism of a parliamentary vote last weekend that gave Putin's United Russia party nearly 50% of the vote amid widespread reports of fraud.
"[Opposition leaders] heard the signal and with the support of the US state department began active work," Putin said during a meeting of the All-Russia People's Front, a new political movement set up to support his presidential candidacy in a 4 March election.
"We are all grownups here. We all understand the organisers are acting according to a well-known scenario and in their own mercenary political interests," he said.
Clinton raised the issue of Russia's elections again on Thursday during a visit to Brussels. "Human rights is part of who we are," she said, after Putin's comments emerged. "And we expressed concerns that we thought were well founded about the conduct of the elections.
"We are supportive of the rights and aspirations of the Russian people to be able to make progress and realise a better future for themselves."
Russian opposition leaders have begun to express concern about how the Kremlin will react to Saturday's protest, spawned by growing outrage at multiple examples of electoral fraud. Nearly 30,000 people have indicated their intention to join the protest on Moscow's Revolutionary Square via Facebook. Protests have been organised in more than 80 cities around the country.
The Kremlin has stepped up the security presence in the capital, with more than 50,000 police and 2,000 interior troops patrolling the streets. Water cannon and helicopters have also been seen in Moscow.
"No one wants chaos," Putin said, adding that most Russians did not want a repeat of the overthrowing of governments in nearby Kyrgyzstan and Ukraine.
Putin has often accused the west of meddling in Russian affairs, a tested tactic to deflect attention away from the country's problems. "We are required to protect our sovereignty," he said. "We will have to think about strengthening the law and holding more responsible those who carry out the task of a foreign government to influence internal political processes."
Putin made a similar pronouncement a week before the vote, prompting a campaign against Golos, an independent election monitor that gets foreign grants.
Putin's statements marked the first time he has openly acknowledged liberal opposition to his rule. "We must carry out a dialogue with the opposition-minded, and give them the chance to use their constitutional right to demonstrate," he said. But he warned that illegal means of protest would be punished. "If someone breaks the law, then the organs of power and keepers of order must demand the law be followed."
The liberal opposition has carried out a long campaign to win the right to demonstrate, and has almost always been denied. City authorities gave permission for Saturday's rally, but warned that the permit only allowed 300 people to gather. The mayor's office was holding talks with opposition leaders in a bid to move the protest away from Revolution Square, a stone's throw from the Kremlin.
President Dmitry Medvedev also mentioned the growing protest movement during a visit to Prague on Thursday. "People must have the possibility to say their opinion, that's normal," he said. "The most important thing now is to calm nerves and allow the parliament to begin working."
Activists, organising via the internet, began spreading information on how to behave during Saturday's protest and what to do in case of arrest. A spokesman for VKontakte, the Russian version of Facebook, said the company had received a request from the Federal Security Service to shut down groups related to the protests, but declined to follow it.
While Putin has defended the election result, he also appeared to try to distance himself from United Russia, the ruling party and target of protesters' wrath. He told members of the Popular Front – which critics call a "rebranded" United Russia – the party was pressuring deputies from the new group to use their parliamentary mandates in favour of United Russia.
"I relate to United Russia with very fond feelings – it's an organisation that I, in my time, created, but I ask you not to give in to pressure," he said.
United Russia was created in 2001 with the sole purpose of supporting Putin's agenda. The Popular Front was created earlier this year to do the same thing, ahead of next year's presidential vote.
[h=2]Infamy, infamy[/h]Vladimir Putin, Russia's beleaguered prime minister, has joined a motley crew of dictators and assorted autocrats, grand panjandrums and political buffoons who blame their misfortunes on western plots and covert meddling.
It's the old cold war "reds under the bed" syndrome, played out in reverse.
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran's president, fully shares Putin's paranoia. He has long decried supposed British and American plots to deny the Iranian nation its "rights" – assumed shorthand for a nuclear bomb.
Bashar al-Assad also detected a foreign hand in this year's Syrian uprising which, to objective observers, appears undeniably indigenous in origin.

Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe, Belarus's Alexander Lukashenko, North Korea's Kim Jong-il, and Venezuela's Hugo Chávez have all claimed at various times to be victims of foreign, usually American, schemers.
So, too, have Cuba's Fidel Castro, Libya's Muammar Gaddafi, Serbia's Slobodan Milosevic, Iraq's Saddam Hussein, and Panama's Manuel Noriega. Sadly for them, their suspicions were entirely justified.
Simon Tisdall

[h=1]Vladimir Putin accuses Hillary Clinton of encouraging Russian protests[/h] Russian prime minister says US secretary of state gave a 'signal' to Kremlin opponents by criticising elections

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• Miriam Elder in Moscow
  
• guardian.co.uk, Thursday 8 December 2011 10.46 GMT
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Russia's prime minister, Vladimir Putin, has accused the US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, of inciting protests. Link to this video Vladimir Putin has accused Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, of fomenting an increasingly vociferous opposition movement in Russia, threatening to derail the two countries' fragile resetting of relations.
The accusation builds on months of Russian statements and media coverage blaming popular uprisings around the Arab world on western scheming. It comes as Washington and Moscow tussle over a host of disagreements, from missile defence to Syria.
Speaking to supporters on Thursday, Putin accused Clinton of giving "the signal" to opposition leaders, who are expected to gather with tens of thousands of supporters for a protest on Saturday. He rejected Clinton's repeated criticism of a parliamentary vote last weekend that gave Putin's United Russia party nearly 50% of the vote amid widespread reports of fraud.
"[Opposition leaders] heard the signal and with the support of the US state department began active work," Putin said during a meeting of the All-Russia People's Front, a new political movement set up to support his presidential candidacy in a 4 March election.
"We are all grownups here. We all understand the organisers are acting according to a well-known scenario and in their own mercenary political interests," he said.
Clinton raised the issue of Russia's elections again on Thursday during a visit to Brussels. "Human rights is part of who we are," she said, after Putin's comments emerged. "And we expressed concerns that we thought were well founded about the conduct of the elections.
"We are supportive of the rights and aspirations of the Russian people to be able to make progress and realise a better future for themselves."
Russian opposition leaders have begun to express concern about how the Kremlin will react to Saturday's protest, spawned by growing outrage at multiple examples of electoral fraud. Nearly 30,000 people have indicated their intention to join the protest on Moscow's Revolutionary Square via Facebook. Protests have been organised in more than 80 cities around the country.
The Kremlin has stepped up the security presence in the capital, with more than 50,000 police and 2,000 interior troops patrolling the streets. Water cannon and helicopters have also been seen in Moscow.
"No one wants chaos," Putin said, adding that most Russians did not want a repeat of the overthrowing of governments in nearby Kyrgyzstan and Ukraine.
Putin has often accused the west of meddling in Russian affairs, a tested tactic to deflect attention away from the country's problems. "We are required to protect our sovereignty," he said. "We will have to think about strengthening the law and holding more responsible those who carry out the task of a foreign government to influence internal political processes."
Putin made a similar pronouncement a week before the vote, prompting a campaign against Golos, an independent election monitor that gets foreign grants.
Putin's statements marked the first time he has openly acknowledged liberal opposition to his rule. "We must carry out a dialogue with the opposition-minded, and give them the chance to use their constitutional right to demonstrate," he said. But he warned that illegal means of protest would be punished. "If someone breaks the law, then the organs of power and keepers of order must demand the law be followed."
The liberal opposition has carried out a long campaign to win the right to demonstrate, and has almost always been denied. City authorities gave permission for Saturday's rally, but warned that the permit only allowed 300 people to gather. The mayor's office was holding talks with opposition leaders in a bid to move the protest away from Revolution Square, a stone's throw from the Kremlin.
President Dmitry Medvedev also mentioned the growing protest movement during a visit to Prague on Thursday. "People must have the possibility to say their opinion, that's normal," he said. "The most important thing now is to calm nerves and allow the parliament to begin working."
Activists, organising via the internet, began spreading information on how to behave during Saturday's protest and what to do in case of arrest. A spokesman for VKontakte, the Russian version of Facebook, said the company had received a request from the Federal Security Service to shut down groups related to the protests, but declined to follow it.
While Putin has defended the election result, he also appeared to try to distance himself from United Russia, the ruling party and target of protesters' wrath. He told members of the Popular Front – which critics call a "rebranded" United Russia – the party was pressuring deputies from the new group to use their parliamentary mandates in favour of United Russia.
"I relate to United Russia with very fond feelings – it's an organisation that I, in my time, created, but I ask you not to give in to pressure," he said.
United Russia was created in 2001 with the sole purpose of supporting Putin's agenda. The Popular Front was created earlier this year to do the same thing, ahead of next year's presidential vote.
[h=2]Infamy, infamy[/h]Vladimir Putin, Russia's beleaguered prime minister, has joined a motley crew of dictators and assorted autocrats, grand panjandrums and political buffoons who blame their misfortunes on western plots and covert meddling.
It's the old cold war "reds under the bed" syndrome, played out in reverse.
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Iran's president, fully shares Putin's paranoia. He has long decried supposed British and American plots to deny the Iranian nation its "rights" – assumed shorthand for a nuclear bomb.
Bashar al-Assad also detected a foreign hand in this year's Syrian uprising which, to objective observers, appears undeniably indigenous in origin.

Zimbabwe's Robert Mugabe, Belarus's Alexander Lukashenko, North Korea's Kim Jong-il, and Venezuela's Hugo Chávez have all claimed at various times to be victims of foreign, usually American, schemers.
So, too, have Cuba's Fidel Castro, Libya's Muammar Gaddafi, Serbia's Slobodan Milosevic, Iraq's Saddam Hussein, and Panama's Manuel Noriega. Sadly for them, their suspicions were entirely justified.
Simon Tisdall

[h=1]Newt Gingrich's gay sister backs Obama for 2012[/h] Candace Gingrich-Jones says she disagrees with her brother on gay rights issues

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Gingrich opposes gay marriage and did not attend his half-sister's wedding. Photograph: Andrew Burton/Reuters

The gay half-sister of Republican presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich has criticised his position on gay rights, saying she will support Barack Obama in the 2012 election.
Candace Gingrich-Jones, a gay rights activist, said in an interview with MSNBC that she and her older half-brother, the former speaker of the House of Representatives, were "mutually respectful" but disagree on gay rights.
"He is definitely on the wrong side of history when it comes to those issues," Gingrich-Jones said.
She said she would "work really, really hard to make sure that President Obama is re-elected next year no matter who the Republican candidate is".
Gingrich's campaign nearly sputtered to a halt last summer, but he has recently risen to the top of the polls in the Republican contest to choose a nominee to face Obama in the 2012 election.

Gingrich is known for his socially conservative views and has said he opposes gay marriage. Gingrich-Jones, a director at the Human Rights Campaign, a gay advocacy group, said he did not attend her wedding.

A spokesman for Gingrich was not immediately available for comment.

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[h=1]US politics live: Gingrich v Romney battle for the GOP nomination[/h] Mitt Romney's status as the GOP's frontrunner has gone as polls boost Newt Gingrich, and more of today's political news

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It's takes two: Newt Gingrich versus Mitt Romney. Photograph: Joe Skipper/Reuters/Nicholas Kamm/AFP

Good morning: With less than four weeks to go until the Iowa caucuses, it's getting nervous for the Republican political candidates battling for their party's nomination – with further signs that Mitt Romney's aura as the GOP's "inevitable" nominee is shreded by the latest polls.
Newt Gingrich is the latest "anyone but Romney" rising star in polls in Iowa and New Hampshire, home to the first two contests of 2012. But Gingrich has plenty of baggage, and yesterday sparked a brief firefight with another former Speaker of the House, Democrat Nancy Pelosi.
On Capitol Hill, Congress holds a strong of hearings as the Republican party uses its majority in the House for some exotic fishing expeditions. Today's highlight is from the Committee on Homeland Security's subcommittee on counterterrorism and intelligence, which will hold a hearing entitled "Jihadist Use of Social Media - How to Prevent Terrorism and Preserve Innovation".
Crazy like a hedgehog: Newt Gingrich (centre). Photograph: Chris Keane/Reuters 10.41am: Blogger Arianna Huffington has a sort of cut and paste-based examination of Newt Gingrich as a presidential contender.
Apart from a certain amount of what a psychologist might call projection – "He's a very Walt Whitmanesque candidate – he celebrates himself, he sings of himself, he is large, and he contains multitudes" – Huffington does offer this butchering of Isiah Berlin's famous "hedgehog and the fox" metaphor:
Because hedgehogs are famous for jumping.
11am: The controversy over Donald Trump's moderation of a GOP debate in Iowa on 27 December – something that appalls Karl Rove – continues to bubble along, with senior Republicans trying to knock it on the head, as the New York Times reports:
The Des Moines Register – doing sterling work covering the political action in Iowa – reports that Rick Santorum makes a telling point about the Trump debate:
Donald Trump. Photograph: Murdo MacLeod/Guardian 11.07am: Speaking of the Trump debate, here's the current standings on who's going and who isn't:
• No: Jon Huntsman and Ron Paul
• Yes: Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum
• Don't know: Rick Perry, Mitt Romney and Michele Bachmann
11.26am: In case you missed it, last night Reuters had a cracking story about Mitt Romney's elaborate efforts to destroy and delete records from his tenure as governor of Massachusetts.
This story was first broken by the Boston Globe last month.
11.37am: Not everyone agrees that Mitt Romney's hard drive wipe-a-thon was newsworthy, among them the fact-checkers at Politifact, who looked at the original reporting by the Boston Globe and concluded:
Massachusetts-based media blogger Dan Kennedy – no fan of Romney's – agrees:
Live from the Supreme Court? Photograph: Tim Sloan/AFP/Getty Images 11.52am: Should US Supreme Court procedings be televised? Yes, according to a bipartisan bill being introduced by senators Dick Durbin and Chuck Grassley.
The Senate Judiciary Committee is holding a hearing entitled Access to the Court: Televising the Supreme Court. And that hearing itself is being televised. As you'd expect.
The Scotusblog is live-blogging the hearings as well.
12.17pm: Tomorrow the Republican contenders line up to address the Republican Jewish Coalition forum in Washington DC – except Ron Paul, who was not invited by the organisation.
My colleague Chris McGreal reports:
Is Ron Paul "so far outside of the mainstream" that he might win the Iowa caucuses? Hmm.
12.29pm: The Associated Press finds that Rick Perry used his office telephone to call people:
Undisclosed is what the calls were about. Judging by Perry's debate performances, they were probably to remind the governor what his name was or what day of the week it happened to be.
12.46pm: My colleague Paul Harris goes post-modern on Ron Paul's latest blockbuster to run on TV networks in Iowa and New Hampshire – and he's unhappy at some of the imagery in the 30-second ad:
You can see it for yourself here.
1.03pm: It's that time of the election cycle when Gallup starts running daily tracking polls – because let's face it, you can never have enough polls to fixate over.
So here's Gallup's Day One:
There is lots more detail in the tracking poll, which has been running since the start of the month. Crucially, Gingrich is killing Romney in the South, the Republican party heartland, by 42% to 15%.
1.20pm: The Washington Post's Aaron Blake takes a hard look at Mitt Romney poll numbers now and in the 2007/08 primaries – and finds that support for Romney has hardly changed at all in that period:
1.31pm: Younger readers may not know this but there used to be a popular television personality named "Glenn Beck". Whatever happened to Glenn? Well, he now lives on the internet, where he posted this interview with Newt Gingrich.
In the interview Glenn adopts his comic "journalist" persona wherein he asks questions of Gingrich and pretends to understand what Gingrich says in reply. It's sweet, like watching cats run a cafe.
1.49pm: Meanwhile, Ron Paul unleashes an ad-hit against Newt Gingrich, accusing him of hypocracy, thus doing Mitt Romney's dirty work for him.
It's a slick ad. Ron Paul has some serious money or staff this time around.
2pm: President Obama is now speaking in Osawatomie, Kansas, famous for being the site of a speech by Teddy Roosevelt in 1910 (and a violent "Bleeding Kansas" fight, pre-Civil War, involving John Brown).
In 1910, Roosevelt used his Osawatomie speech to launch his "New Nationalism" crusade ahead of the 1912 presidential election. Which Teddy promptly lost.

2.27pm: Fiery stuff from Obama in his Osawatomie speech just now – thank you Fox News for cutting off the speech midway for an interview with Michele Bachmann – and what sounds like some pre-election m-testing:

2.27pm: Fiery stuff from Obama in his Osawatomie speech just now – thank you Fox News for cutting off the speech midway for an interview with Michele Bachmann – and what sounds like some pre-election m-testing:

And Obama follows up with this:
Sharp line: "you're on your own economics" – or Yoyo economics, for short. A neat metaphor for the up and down vicissitudes of the marketplace.
2.45pm: It seems some of Rick Santorum's supporters in Iowa weren't happy with his decision to agree to the Donald Trump debate. The Des Moines Register was at a Santorum meet and greet in Le Mars:
Theodore Roosevelt. Photograph: AP 3pm: President Obama's Osawatomie speech winds up by dipping into the Teddy Roosevelt bag of quotes for his conclusion:
3.15pm: Another new post-Cain Iowa poll, this time from CBS News/New York Times – and again it shows Newt Gingrich with a big lead:
That supports all the latest polls from Iowa, although Mitt Romney is doing marginally better this time around, and is above the so-called "Pauldoza line" whereby Ron Paul's poll number is the cut-off for credible candidates.
3.25pm: Actually, that CBS News/New York Times poll is uncannily similar to the earlier ABC News/Washington Post poll today from Iowa. That had Gingrich on 33%, Romney on 18%, Ron Paul on 18% and Rick Perry on 11%. Woooo.
3.49pm: Jon Huntsman was speaking at the Heritage Foundation today and must be feeling that he's still in with a chance. We know this because he started twisting in the wind over climate change:
Asked by Politico if he was changing his previous "I love science me" position, Huntsman said he wasn't but did add:
England, Scotland, whatever. East Anglia's practically in the Netherlands anyway.
4.07pm: Mitt Romney – having been rebooted and downloaded – emerges from his cave and speaks live to Fox News.
Talking about the White House's plans to extend the payroll tax cut, Romney says: "It's a nice thing to do for people who need a little extra money."
Mitt Romney's personal wealth is said to be $250m so obviously a $1,000 to $1,500 annual tax cut is a drop in the bucket. Actually, it's not even a drop.
4.12pm: News: Mitt Romney tells Fox News that he isn't taking part in Donald Trump's vanity debate scheduled for 27 December.
"I spoke to Donald Trump earlier today and indicated that we can't just make this debate," said Romney. Press by Neil Cavuto how Trump reacted, Mitt coyly says: "He said he understood and he wished me well." Sure he did.
So that means only Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum are down to take part in the Trumpathon. I'm sure Gingrich will stick in there. But I guess this means that Rick Perry and Michele Bachmann won't go either.
4.26pm: A fascinating tweet from Activate founder Michael Wolf:
Unpresidential: long holidays in Hawaii. Presidential: slightly shorter holidays in Utah. Photograph: Reuters 4.38pm: In his brief Fox News interview just now, Mitt Romney said his holiday's would be "a lot shorter" than the 17 days Barack Obama plans to take off in Hawaii over the Christmas and New Year period.
And after a nanosecond's delay, Politico's Dylan Byers points out:
Isn't 14 days "a lot shorter" than 17? No? Ok. Well, shorter.
4.43pm: So what has been going on at the House Committee on Homeland Security's subcommittee on counterterrorism and intelligence, holding a hearing named "Jihadist Use of Social Media - How to Prevent Terrorism and Preserve Innovation"?
It seems the committee is concerned that al-Qaida has been using the internet. Here's Democratic congresswoman Jackie Spier:
Facebook blogs? YouTube videos? The "bin Laden of the internet"? Whatever next.
5pm: Donald Trump lives down his disappointment over Mitt Romney's no-show at his debate, telling ABC News:
Oh well, there's always Newt and Rick.

And on that bombshell, there will be more news tomorrow as the Republicans candidates minus Ron Paul appear before the Republican Jewish Coalition in Washington DC.

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[h=1]US politics live: Gingrich v Romney battle for the GOP nomination[/h] Mitt Romney's status as the GOP's frontrunner has gone as polls boost Newt Gingrich, and more of today's political news

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It's takes two: Newt Gingrich versus Mitt Romney. Photograph: Joe Skipper/Reuters/Nicholas Kamm/AFP

Good morning: With less than four weeks to go until the Iowa caucuses, it's getting nervous for the Republican political candidates battling for their party's nomination – with further signs that Mitt Romney's aura as the GOP's "inevitable" nominee is shreded by the latest polls.
Newt Gingrich is the latest "anyone but Romney" rising star in polls in Iowa and New Hampshire, home to the first two contests of 2012. But Gingrich has plenty of baggage, and yesterday sparked a brief firefight with another former Speaker of the House, Democrat Nancy Pelosi.
On Capitol Hill, Congress holds a strong of hearings as the Republican party uses its majority in the House for some exotic fishing expeditions. Today's highlight is from the Committee on Homeland Security's subcommittee on counterterrorism and intelligence, which will hold a hearing entitled "Jihadist Use of Social Media - How to Prevent Terrorism and Preserve Innovation".
Crazy like a hedgehog: Newt Gingrich (centre). Photograph: Chris Keane/Reuters 10.41am: Blogger Arianna Huffington has a sort of cut and paste-based examination of Newt Gingrich as a presidential contender.
Apart from a certain amount of what a psychologist might call projection – "He's a very Walt Whitmanesque candidate – he celebrates himself, he sings of himself, he is large, and he contains multitudes" – Huffington does offer this butchering of Isiah Berlin's famous "hedgehog and the fox" metaphor:
Because hedgehogs are famous for jumping.
11am: The controversy over Donald Trump's moderation of a GOP debate in Iowa on 27 December – something that appalls Karl Rove – continues to bubble along, with senior Republicans trying to knock it on the head, as the New York Times reports:
The Des Moines Register – doing sterling work covering the political action in Iowa – reports that Rick Santorum makes a telling point about the Trump debate:
Donald Trump. Photograph: Murdo MacLeod/Guardian 11.07am: Speaking of the Trump debate, here's the current standings on who's going and who isn't:
• No: Jon Huntsman and Ron Paul
• Yes: Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum
• Don't know: Rick Perry, Mitt Romney and Michele Bachmann
11.26am: In case you missed it, last night Reuters had a cracking story about Mitt Romney's elaborate efforts to destroy and delete records from his tenure as governor of Massachusetts.
This story was first broken by the Boston Globe last month.
11.37am: Not everyone agrees that Mitt Romney's hard drive wipe-a-thon was newsworthy, among them the fact-checkers at Politifact, who looked at the original reporting by the Boston Globe and concluded:
Massachusetts-based media blogger Dan Kennedy – no fan of Romney's – agrees:
Live from the Supreme Court? Photograph: Tim Sloan/AFP/Getty Images 11.52am: Should US Supreme Court procedings be televised? Yes, according to a bipartisan bill being introduced by senators Dick Durbin and Chuck Grassley.
The Senate Judiciary Committee is holding a hearing entitled Access to the Court: Televising the Supreme Court. And that hearing itself is being televised. As you'd expect.
The Scotusblog is live-blogging the hearings as well.
12.17pm: Tomorrow the Republican contenders line up to address the Republican Jewish Coalition forum in Washington DC – except Ron Paul, who was not invited by the organisation.
My colleague Chris McGreal reports:
Is Ron Paul "so far outside of the mainstream" that he might win the Iowa caucuses? Hmm.
12.29pm: The Associated Press finds that Rick Perry used his office telephone to call people:
Undisclosed is what the calls were about. Judging by Perry's debate performances, they were probably to remind the governor what his name was or what day of the week it happened to be.
12.46pm: My colleague Paul Harris goes post-modern on Ron Paul's latest blockbuster to run on TV networks in Iowa and New Hampshire – and he's unhappy at some of the imagery in the 30-second ad:
You can see it for yourself here.
1.03pm: It's that time of the election cycle when Gallup starts running daily tracking polls – because let's face it, you can never have enough polls to fixate over.
So here's Gallup's Day One:
There is lots more detail in the tracking poll, which has been running since the start of the month. Crucially, Gingrich is killing Romney in the South, the Republican party heartland, by 42% to 15%.
1.20pm: The Washington Post's Aaron Blake takes a hard look at Mitt Romney poll numbers now and in the 2007/08 primaries – and finds that support for Romney has hardly changed at all in that period:
1.31pm: Younger readers may not know this but there used to be a popular television personality named "Glenn Beck". Whatever happened to Glenn? Well, he now lives on the internet, where he posted this interview with Newt Gingrich.
In the interview Glenn adopts his comic "journalist" persona wherein he asks questions of Gingrich and pretends to understand what Gingrich says in reply. It's sweet, like watching cats run a cafe.
1.49pm: Meanwhile, Ron Paul unleashes an ad-hit against Newt Gingrich, accusing him of hypocracy, thus doing Mitt Romney's dirty work for him.
It's a slick ad. Ron Paul has some serious money or staff this time around.
2pm: President Obama is now speaking in Osawatomie, Kansas, famous for being the site of a speech by Teddy Roosevelt in 1910 (and a violent "Bleeding Kansas" fight, pre-Civil War, involving John Brown).
In 1910, Roosevelt used his Osawatomie speech to launch his "New Nationalism" crusade ahead of the 1912 presidential election. Which Teddy promptly lost.

2.27pm: Fiery stuff from Obama in his Osawatomie speech just now – thank you Fox News for cutting off the speech midway for an interview with Michele Bachmann – and what sounds like some pre-election m-testing:

let the game begins..................I can not wait for this thrilling run to the finish line.........

Clinton departs from Andrews Air Force base in Maryland on 28 November

[h=1]Ron Paul's hopes boosted in Iowa by youth vote[/h] Republican candidate's anti-war, libertarian agenda resonates with young voters ahead of Iowa primary election

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US Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul meets supporters after a Town Hall meeting in Boone, Iowa. Photograph: Jim Young/REUTERS

He is a veteran candidate, with an isolationist and libertarian agenda perhaps more suited to a bygone era. But Ron Paul, one of the fringe Republicans, might just be capable of producing a surprise upset in the first of the Republican primary elections in Iowa, thanks to support from a unlikely quarter – the young.
His anti-war message, calling on America to stop acting as the world's policeman, is resonating, with more than 1,000 young people gathering in the Great Hall in Ames, Iowa, on Thursday night to cheer him repeatedly as he called on US troops to be brought back not just from Afghanistan but from Germany, Japan, Korea and 120 other countries round the world.
They cheered too as he opposed war in Syria or Iran, describing the nuclear threat posed by Tehran as overblown. More than 200 people, mainly students but also young people from round the state, including serving soldiers, stood in line afterwards to have their picture taken with him. It is one of the oddities of this campaign that the candidate attracting the youth vote is the oldest in the field, aged 76.
Paul, a long-time Congressman from Texas, said he does not know why he is proving popular with the young, beyond saying he may be old but he has "youthful ideas".
The US media tends to ignore Paul, regarding him, probably correctly, as a long shot for the White House, his isolationist and libertarian views too exotic for the Republican mainstream. In his 2008 election bid he suffered from attracting too many fringe and special interests groups, such as the Rolling Thunder vets who believe US troops are still secretly imprisoned in Russia, China and elsewhere.
But Paul has positioned himself better this time and his anti-war rhetoric is closer to the public mood. It is paying off. The Des Moines Register poll, normally the most reliable in the state, last week had Newt Gingrich on 25% and Paul on 18%, with Mitt Romney on 16%.
More significantly, Paul has adopted the Barack Obama playbook. Obama spent a lot of time in the state and built up a superbly efficient network of young volunteers who helped get his vote out in each of the 1,700 precincts. His victory in Iowa provided the momentum that took him all the way to the White House.
Meghann Walker, Paul's Iowa voter outreach director, is coy about disclosing how many precinct captains, responsible for getting out the vote on what will almost certainly be a chilly 3 January 3, she has recruited so far. But one volunteer said that two weeks ago the campaign had 150 out of 183 in Polk County, the most populous part of Iowa, and were pushing to find captains for the remainder: if those figures are replicated across the country, they are close to saturation point.
Iowa's Republican governor, Terry Branstad, said Paul's organisation was by far the best of all the Republican candidates.
Paul, like Obama, has devoted a lot of time to Iowa. He has visited once a week since May. Listen to the radio or put on the television in Iowa and there are regular ads in support of Paul. He has outspent his rivals in advertising in the state, paid for by the millions of dollars in donations coming in from small donations gathered on the internet.
Only Paul knows whether he believes he has a serious chance of becoming the next president or whether he is simply in the race because of the platform it provides to air his views. A win or second place in Iowa would provide him with a pretty big platform.
As well as being the most prominent advocate in the US today of isolationism, a strand in American thinking that can be traced back to revolutionary days and was at a high point in the Depression years, Paul favours drastic measures to reduce the country's $15tn deficit, pledging to cut $1tn in his first year as president. Much of those savings would come from ending US military involvement round the world – $4tn has been spent in the last decade in Iraq and Afghanistan – but also by cutting federal departments such as education and cutting back welfare programmes. He would also eliminate income and other taxes: smaller government would mean less taxes.
As a libertarian, he is opposed to measures such as the Patriot Act, introduced after 9/11. He regards the risk to American security as exaggerated and believes too much liberty has been sacrificed in the name of security. Among his supporters in the Great Hall was Gabe Lanz, 24, who is in the military and has done tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan. He is going to be one of Paul's precinct captains. He likes the idea of ending US involvement overseas. "He does not want to use us to fight other countries's wars for them. Let other countries be self-dependent. That resonates with me. Why do we always have to be the go-to-guys?"
The other big issue playing well with youthful voters is the deficit. They look at the $15tn and see it as a burden they are going to have to bear. Support in the Great Hall was not universal. A student at Iowa university, Emily Highnam, has not made up her mind yet who she will vote for. She liked Paul's anti-war message and plans to cut spending, but did not like the idea of cutting back on welfare.
A disproportionate slice of the Republican party in Iowa is made up of Christian evangelicals and home-schoolers, those who prefer to keep their children out of schools for a variety of reasons, including the teaching of evolution. Paul has been reaching out to them too. Among his extensive campaign literature is a Ron Paul Family Cookbook, full of recipes but mixed in with quotes from the Bible.

In Boone, a small town near Ames that looks as if it opted against moving on from the 1950s, Paul addressed a crowd of about 150 in the library. Among them was Joany Gorman, 49, mother of four and a home-schooler. Asked why she supported Paul, she pointed to the Cookbook. "The reason I support Ron Paul is because I believe Jesus Christ is the one true God," she said. She had never heard of him before this election but will vote for him on caucus day.

[h=1]Palestinians tell Gingrich to learn history after 'invented people' claim[/h] Officials in West Bank and Gaza say Republican presidential hopeful is cheaply trying to win the pro-Israel vote in US

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New Gingrich's interview. Palestinian officials have reacted with dismay after the Republican presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich said Palestinians were an "invented" people.
The Palestinian prime minister, Salam Fayyad, said Gingrich was denying "historical truths".
Gingrich said in an interview with The Jewish Channel that Palestinians were not a race of people because they had never had a state and because they were part of the Ottoman empire before the British mandate and Israel's creation.
"Remember, there was no Palestine as a state, [it was] part of the Ottoman empire," he said in a video excerpt posted online. "I think we have an invented Palestinian people who are in fact Arabs and historically part of the Arab community and they had the chance to go many places."
Fayyad demanded Gingrich "review history". He said: "From the beginning, our people have been determined to stay on their land."

Fayyad's comments were carried by the Palestinian news agency Wafa. "This, certainly, is denying historical truths," he said.

Gingrich's statements struck at the heart of Palestinian sensitivities about their national struggle. Hanan Ashrawi, a Palestinian politician, said Gingrich had "lost touch with reality" and his statements were "a cheap way to win [the] pro-Israel vote".
A spokesman for Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip, called Gingrich's statements "shameful and disgraceful". "These statements … show genuine hostility toward Palestinians," the spokesman said.

[h=1]Palestinians are an invented people, says Newt Gingrich[/h] Republican frontrunner says Israelis have a right to their modern-day homeland but implies Palestinians do not

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Newt Gingrich declares the Palestinians an 'invented' people. The US Republican presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich has declared that the Palestinians are an "invented" people who want to destroy Israel.
The Jewish Channel, a cable TV station, posted online its interview with the former US House speaker, who has risen to the top of Republican nomination candidates to challenge Democratic President Barack Obama in the November 2012 election.
Gingrich differed from official US policy that respects the Palestinians as a people deserving of their own state based on negotiations with Israel. "Remember, there was no Palestine as a state. It was part of the Ottoman Empire" until the early 20th century, Gingrich said.
"I think that we've had an invented Palestinian people who are in fact Arabs and who were historically part of the Arab community. And they had a chance to go many places, and for a variety of political reasons we have sustained this war against Israel now since the 1940s, and it's tragic," he said.
Most historians mark the start of Palestinian Arab nationalist sentiment as 1834, when Arab residents of the Palestinian region revolted against Ottoman rule.
Modern-day Israel, founded amid the 1948 Arab-Israel war, took shape along the lines of a 1947 UN plan for ethnic partition of the then-British ruled territory of Palestine. Arabs rejected the division.
Gingrich and other Republican candidates are seeking to attract Jewish support by vowing to bolster US ties with Israel if elected.
Gingrich said the Hamas militant group, which controls the Gaza Strip, and the the governing Palestinian Authority, which controls the West Bank, represented "an enormous desire to destroy Israel".
The US government has sought to encourage the Palestinian Authority to negotiate with Israel but regards Hamas as a terrorist group.
The Palestinian Authority president, Mahmoud Abbas, opposes violence against Israel as a means to secure an independent state, pinning his hopes first on negotiations and more recently on a unilateral bid for statehood via the United Nations.
Gingrich said he would be willing to consider granting clemency to Jonathan Jay Pollard, who has been serving life since 1987 for passing US secrets to Israel. Successive US presidents have refused Israel's requests to free him.

"If we can get to a point where I'm satisfied that there's no national security threat, and if he's in fact served within the range of people who've had a similar problem, then I'd be inclined to consider clemency," Gingrich said.

Gingrich sharply criticised the Obama administration's approach to Middle East diplomacy, saying it was "so out of touch with reality that it would be like taking your child to the zoo and explaining that a lion was a bunny rabbit".

[h=1]GOP presidential debate in Iowa: as it happened[/h] Mitt Romney suffered a $10,000 gaffe while Newt Gingrich brushed off a series of attacks during the GOP debate in Iowa

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Mitt Romney laughs as Newt Gingrich speaks at the Republican debate in Iowa. Photograph: Kevork Djansezian/Getty

Live from Des Moines, it's Saturday night – and welcome to live-blogging coverage of the GOP presidential debate in Des Moines, as Mitt Romney takes off the gloves against Newt Gingrich.
That's our hope at least – although when Mitt Romney takes the gloves off it's usually to reveal yet another pair of gloves underneath.
But time is running out for all the GOP presidential contenders – tonight and next Thursday are their final chance to make an impact in a nationally televised debate before the phoney war ends and actual voters start casting actual votes in the Republican primaries.
In 23 days time voters in Iowa will take part in the caucuses, and seven days later voters in New Hampshire cast their votes in the first primary.
Several candidates have pinned their hopes on winning the Iowa caucuses – although Romney and Gingrich are not among them. That's why there will be a debate within a debate tonight, as the second tier of candidates – led by Ron Paul – desperately need to break out of the pack.
For Rick Perry, a praiseworthy performance is needed to revive a stuttering campaign. For Rick Santorum and Michele Bachman, the Iowa caucuses are their first and last hope.
All of which means that after this week there are no second chances for most of the candidates on stage tonight. So let's be having you.
We'll be following all the action here live as the debate kicks off at 9pm ET (that's 2am GMT for British insomniacs), complemented by asides from the Guardian's Ewen MacAskill ringside in Des Moines and Ana Marie Cox orbiting in cyberspace.
You can leave your own comments below – the best jokes will be shamelessly lifted – or follow me on Twitter at @RichardA where I will be posting pictures of kittens. Or whatever.
8.05pm: In case you missed it – and let's be honest, you probably did – here's my earlier preview of what tonight's debate means in the context of Mitt Romney's flagging campaign, Newt Gingrich's sudden catapult to the top of the opinion polls, and Ron Paul's grassroots Iowa push:
8.15pm: The other story of tonight's debate will be how the other candidates react to Ron Paul's surge in the opinion polls in Iowa – with strong suggestions that his grassroots support and organisation may see him win the caucuses on 3 January.
A supporter holds a copy of the Ron Paul Family Cookbook during a campaign event in Marshalltown, Iowa. Photograph: Jeff Haynes/Reuters My colleague Ewen MacAskill has been watching Paul at work in the Hawkeye state:
Ron Paul's campaign is even making in-roads among Iowa's Christian conservative voters. Ewen found some at a Ron Paul event in Boone:
8.25pm: Tonight's debate is being held at Drake University in Des Moines, and is being broadcast by ABC News and Yahoo.
You can follow live streaming video of the debate via Yahoo here.
8.30pm: Hello to the people of Slovenia, or at least one of them, Peter Vilman, who emails:
8.40pm: The Guardian's Ewen MacAskill has spent the day in Iowa – and went to an election meeting in Des Moines organised by a veterans group:
That suggests all is not well with the crop of GOP contenders.
9pm: OK here we go, Diane Sawyer of ABC is introducing the candidates, it's the usual stuff.
I'm preparing for this debate by drinking very fine Kickapoo coffee. Kickapoo seems appropriate tonight.
9.04pm: First question: what is your "distinguishing idea" about creating jobs. As the front-runner, Gingrich is first up:
"As Speaker of the House I worked with President Clinton..."
Oh, you worked with President Clinton did you Newt? Would that be the impeachment or the shutting down of the federal government?
9.07pm: Mitt Romney is looking particularly tanned tonight. He reels off a seven-point plan for creating jobs, which sound like they would create about seven jobs total.
Ron Paul is next up, who embarks on a "Ludwig von Mises for Dummies" economics lecture. It's the Federal Reserve's fault, basically.
"I can diagram on a map the problem we have in America today, it's a direct line from Washington to Wall Street," says Rick Perry. Vote Perry for a man who can find places on maps.
9.11pm: Michele Bachmann's refers to "one of my win points". Or is it "wind plan" It sounds like wind, that's for sure.
Bachmann also makes a naked grab for Herman Cain's remaining 12 supporters.
Rick Santorum's answer appears to be an attempt to win some sort of bet about who can mention the largest number of small towns in Iowa.
Diane Sawyer says that of the candidates only Romney answered the question in terms of jobs created in the first four years of their presidency. Santorum jumps in to blather on about petri dishes, something.
9.15pm: Politico's Juana Summers wonders about the absent Jon Huntsman, who is boycotting this debate to hang out in New Hampshire:


Tivo it, dude.
9.19pm: So, asks George Stephanopoulos, "Who is the most conservative of you all?" (I paraphrase.)
Offered the chance to take a shot at Newt Gingrich, Mitt Romney flops and opts to attack Barack Obama instead. But then: "Speaker Gingrich and I have a lot of places where we disagree..." says Romney. Why don't you name them? asks Stephanopoulos. "Er..." pauses Romney uncomfortably, before the software kicks in and he names some batty idea of Gingrich's about building bases on the moon.
Gingrich narrows his eyes and shoots back:
Ouch! "Just a second, just a second," wibbles Romney. But Gingrich keeps going and smacks down all of Romney's points. And wins a big round of applause.
If this was boxing fight the ref would have stepped in by now.
In his response, Romney falls back on babbling about numbers.
"With regards to the idea that if I had beaten Ted Kennedy I'd have been a career politician, that's probably true," says Romney, making a joke that if he had been good enough at football he would have been in the NFL.
But that "that's probably true" line is just made for an anti-Romney attack ad.
9.26pm: In summary: awesome.
Plus, I now know how to spell Stephanopoulos.
9.28pm: All the other candidates are now queuing up to take shots at Gingrich, notably his "lobbying" work for the likes of Freddie Mac.
Michele Bachmann coins a hybrid creature, "Newt Romney," in showing how similar their positions are. This is smart stuff by Bachmann.
"Michele, a lot of what you say simply isn't true," says Gingrich. "It's important to be accurate when you say these things."
My colleague Ewen MacAskill enjoys the Romney-Gingrich fisticuffs:
9.31pm: Bachmann has done her homework, saying that Gingrich backed the individual mandate in healthcare from 1993 onwards.
This stuff hurts Gingrich, no matter that the source is Bachmann.
Romney gets a reply:
Right. Newt Romney, not clones, get that out of your mind by rebooting your software, the way Mitt would.
Of course Romney is not a clone. He's a cyborg. Big difference.
Tonight's GOP debate, directed by Tarantino 9.35pm: If you want an image of this debate so far, think of the final scenes of Reservoir Dogs, with all the principals aiming guns at each other. And you know that everyone is going to get a lead injection.
9.38pm: Now it's Rick Perry versus Mitt Romney going at it – with at some point in there Mitt Romney offering to make a $10,000 bet with Perry over his accusation that Romney was "for" individual mandates for healthcare.
That $10,000 bet line might be Mitt's biggest mistake tonight: $10,000 to Romney – personal assets of about $250m – is like a fiver to you or me. And he just reminded voters of that.
It started with Perry to Romney: "I read your first book, and it said in there that your mandate in Massachusetts, which should be the model for the country ... I'm just saying, you were for individual mandates, my friend."
Romney shot back: "You've raised that before, Rick, and you're simply wrong. Rick, I'll tell you what: 10,000 bucks? $10,000 bet?"
Perry responded: "I'm not in the betting business."
9.39pm: Now Rick Santorum attacks Michele Bachmann – and no one cares. A big hook should come out and whip Santorum out of there.
9.42pm: OK so Rick Santorum has made a convincing case why he's a better candidate ... than Michele Bachmann. Whee.
Ad break! But not before Diane Sawyer gives the candidates a more-in-disapointment-than-in-anger telling off for breaking the rules.
Here's an ad for Fred Thompson, the comedy candidate of the 2008 GOP race. Now he's touting "reverse mortgages". Rick Santorum, that could be you in four years time.
9.45pm: Ewen MacAskill on the Perry-Romney business:
No idea but the obvious answer would have been "Like most people I don't have $10,000 to throw away on gambling, Mitt."
9.46pm: And lo, there is already a #romneybets hashtag trending on Twitter.
Republican candidates Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich at the Iowa presidential debate. Photograph: Jeff Haynes/Reuters 9.50pm: And we are back! And... the first question is whether voters should take marital fidelity into account. Now then who would that be aimed at? Hmmm? The thrice-married Newt Gingrich perhaps.
The moderators tee up Perry, Santorum and Paul – all monogamously married for a million years – to answer first. Sadly no one wants to mention the Three Mrs Gingrichs, although Perry comes close:
Ron Paul manages to turn the question into fidelity to the Constitution, and wins applause.
9.53pm: They are leaving Gingrich till last on the marriage recidivism question.
"People ... have the right to ask every single question," says Gingrich. "In my case, I say openly, I've made mistakes."
So that one died like a lead balloon. Gingrich hurdled that easily. Slightly uneasy silence in the hall though.
10pm: An hour in and we're on immigration – but there doesn't seem much oxygen in the issue.
Jose Antonio Vargas is watching the debate in Iowa and he sends in these observations:
10.03pm: Now Newt Gingrich's comments about Palestinians being an "invented" people comes up.
Ron Paul uses it to make a point about America's global ambitions and says that soon it won't be a problem. Gingrich uses it as an excuse to pivot to a defence of Israel, and says he was just "telling the truth" about the Middle East:
Romney says: "I think the Speaker [Gingrich] made a mistake saying the Palestinans were an invented people." Gingrich violently shakes his head. Some chins wobble.

Gingrich actually cites the League of Nations for historical precedent. There's a big vote winner.
But this is a vey revealing and interesting mini-debate between Romney and Gingrich over Israel, with Romney saying that he wouldn't presume to speak for the people of Israel. "I didn't speak for the people of Israel, I speak as an historian," chunters Gingrich.

• Debate losers:

Mitt Romney and his $10,000 bet. I mean, really.
Twitter, since ABC limited its interactive portion of the debate to co-sponsor Yahoo! Even though Twitter was really fun tonight.
Herman Cain, who got props from Michele Bachmann in a desperate attempt to attract those voters that are nostalgic for the days of 9-9-9… I don't think there are many.
11.53pm: Earlier I mentioned the dust-up between Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich that started over a reference to the controversy that Gingrich set off by calling the Palestinians an "invented people".
Here's a slightly cleaned up (for clarity) transcript of how the to-and-fro developed:
Is that an attack soundbite out of Gingrich's mouth? "I will tell the truth, even if it's at the risk of causing some confusion." That would work.
12am: Oh it's midnight. Time to go home in my pumpkin drawn by a team of mice.
We'll do it all again on Thursday when the final debate pre-primary takes place. Although maybe we've fallen into a space-time wormhole and Rick Santorum will debate Mitt Romney and Michele Bachmann over and over again in some sort of Nietzschean eternal recurrence.

On that happy thought: good night and thanks for reading.

If I hadn't been covering this debate tonight I'd have been attending this: Amir Khan v Lamont Peterson in Washington DC. My colleague Steve Busfield is liveblogging it here.

[h=1]Mitt Romney attacked as out of touch over $10,000 TV bet attempt[/h] Republican presidential candidate's gaffe throws unwelcome spotlight on his wealth at time of rising poverty divide

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Mitt Romney (right) suggested the $10,000 bet after rival candidate Rick Perry (left) claimed he had supported healthcare reform in the first edition of his book. Photograph: Getty Images

Mitt Romney was accused of being out of touch with working-class America on Sunday, after the Republican presidential candidate tried to make an impromptu $10,000 bet during a TV debate.
The slip, at the time of high unemployment and a growing poverty divide, could damage Romney three weeks before the first of the Republican contests in Iowa.
His critics said the issue was not that he offered the bet but the size of it, consolidating Romney's reputation as a very rich man seeking to buy his way to power.
Even before the bet offer, Romney, one of the favourites to win the Republican nomination to take on Barack Obama in November's White House election, had been slipping in the polls. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich is now the front-runner.The gaffe came when a rival candidate, Texas governor Rick Perry, claimed Romney had supported national healthcare reform in a passage in his book that was excised from the paperback edition.
Romney – who brought in healthcare reform in Massachusetts that was similar to Barack Obama's, in a move unpopular with conservatives – denied he supported the measure nationwide or that the passage had been in the first edition.
"Rick, I'll tell you what: $10,000 bucks? Ten thousand bet?," Romney said, extending his hand to shake. Perry, a Christian evangelical who may have a principled stand on betting or maybe because he was wrong about the book, declined.
"I'm not in the betting business but I will show you the book," Perry said.
It was the first time that a bet has been offered in more than 50 years of televised political debates in the US.
Alice Stewart, a spokeswoman for another candidate, Michele Bachmann, told ABC, who hosted the debate: "For someone to go and throw around a $10,000 bet, just goes to show even more that he's not the same level as the people of Iowa or the country."
Bill Burton, who is helping to organise Obama's re-election campaign, wrote on Twitter: "Not a lot of 99%'ers are out there making $10,000 bets."
Romney has struggled to win over Republican voters, failing to get his poll support much above 25%, partly because of suspicion of his Mormonism among the Christian right but also because of his wealth. In the 2008 campaign, he spent $42m of his own money.
Eric Fehrnstrom, Romney's press spokesman, tried to laugh the incident off, saying it was not a serious bet. "I've made bets with friends and family for $1m," Fehrnstrom said. He added that Romney had made the bet because he knew Perry would not take it. "This guy was wrong. It was a phoney allegation."
The Republican race has been one of the most mercurial in recent history, as candidates have emerged only to fade after a few weeks. Polls show two-thirds of Republicans are undecided, dissatisfied with the entire field or prepared to switch. On Sunday a poll gave Newt Gingrich double-digit leads in South Carolina and Florida.
Gingrich, as frontrunner, was the main target in the Saturday night debate in Des Moines, the 13th so far, with one more scheduled before Iowa. His rivals focused on his alleged work as a lobbyist, his three marriages and his views on the Middle East.
[h=2]Who is the wealthiest of them all?[/h]Mitt Romney: The wealthiest candidate: in his last financial disclosure, during his 2008 White House bid, he put his personal wealth at between $190m and $250m, most of it from his time in business. About $42m has to be deducted from that, the amount of his own cash spent on the failed bid.
Jon Huntsman: Although at the bottom of the polls, he is runner-up in terms of wealth. He listed his personal assets this year as between $15m and $66m, much of it from a chemical company set up by his father.
Newt Gingrich: His finances appear shambolic, with his assets changing dramatically from year to year. He earned $2.5m last year, mainly, he says, from speeches and books but also, controversially, from his own consultancies, which his rivals say are for lobbying, a charge he denies. His consultancies have earned an estimated $100m over the past decade.
Ron Paul: His assets are between $2.29m and $5.3m, based on his disclosure in the 2008 White House race.
Rick Santorum: His personal assets, based on his financial disclosure when he was in the Senate in 2006, put him in the range of $522,000 to $1.8m.

Michele Bachmann: She is worth $1m to $2.5m, mostly profits from a therapy clinic (where gay people can allegedly pray to be "cured"). A family farm brings in $5,000 to $15,000. She is carrying $350,000 in debts: a $250,000 mortgage and a $100,000 business loan.
Rick Perry: A spokesman for the Texas governor's office put his wealth as of 2009 as $896,000, held in a blind trust. He has made his money mainly from buying and selling houses. He has debts of about $70,000, including a car loan for a Mercedes.

[h=1]Who will win Mitt Romney's $10,000 wager? Just maybe, Ron Paul[/h] Romney was the GOP debate's big loser, but Iowa wasn't betting on him anyway. Gingrich is favourite, but Paul's odds look good

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Republican nomination candidates Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich at the Iowa presidential debate. Photograph: Jeff Haynes/Reuters

This debate's $10,000 question wasn't asked by a moderator; it came from one of the candidates – and it's this: just how much will Mitt Romney's offer of a $10,000 bet cost him?
Romney made the wager in response to Rick Perry needling him (for the umpteenth time) about his Massachusetts healthcare plan. Perry said that in the first edition of his book, No Apology, Romney recommended an individual mandate for the entire nation – and then deleted it from further editions. Apparently, Romney would have won that bet, should Perry have taken it, but it's the casual invocation of ten grand that people will remember. That, and the GOP base voter belief that Romney had something to do with individual mandates, and so there.
Romney's inevitability has been slipping away for a while now, even as the electorate seemed unable to settle on who it would choose as their alternative. Newt's strong debate performance – that's pundit-speak for "he didn't make any unforced errors" – combined with his lead as the clock to the caucuses ticks down has convinced some that Gingrich will not just win Iowa, but could be the nominee, as well. One commentator on ABC even went so far as to hang "inevitable" label around Newt's thick neck.
The ads featuring former 2008 frontrunner Fred Thompson should keep people from making such pronouncements, but they don't. Newt did perform well tonight, though the debates' performative nature is part of Newt's problem: Newt's inveterate self-confidence that seemed so refreshingly sleek when he was a supporting character has started to show the tarnish of vanity that was always there. When he lists other people's errors, we are reminded that part of being "professorial" is giving out grades. And Newt Gingrich is judging you.
The candidate who will gain the most from this debate – I made a list of "winners" earlier, but that's sort of not the point – is probably Ron Paul.
There's an argument for Rick Santorum, too: he avoided blaming gays for stuff and made the night's most sane statements about Palestine; though one must consider the company. Poor Santorum has been so eager and defensive in past debates that even when he made sense (he's right to talk about keeping families intact in response to a foundering economy, even if he's wrong about what "family" means), he seemed unsuited to the office. He looks to have come to terms with his place in the contest – and that may actually give people a reason to take a second look.
But to return to Ron Paul: laughed off at first, and then deemed too far out of the mainstream, Paul has been slowly but steadily climbing in the Iowa polls. His debate showings have been similarly consistent. He is, unarguably, the most consistent of all the candidates – in his voting record, in his policies, in his persona, and I'm willing to guess in his personal life, too. Though, God bless him, he was the one candidate on stage to completely dismiss the idea that a candidate's personal life should matter. ABC hung out a huge piece of red meat, asking candidates about the importance of marriage fidelity in a politician ("HEY, NEWT, THEY ARE TALKING ABOUT YOU"), and Paul pivoted to a brief rant about being "faithful to the oath of office".

"Why don't they read Article 1, Section 8?" he asked, going on to point out the continued invasion of privacy that is the USA Patriot Act.

Ron Paul can win Iowa. Throughout this contest, he has shown himself to be patient and a little angry, much like Iowa Republicans.

[h=1]Obama appeals to Iran to return downed US spy drone[/h] President says US has requested the return of the drone – but declines to say if loss could compromise national security

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Barack Obama said he was waiting for the Iranians to respond. Photograph: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

The US has asked Iran to return a surveillance drone downed earlier this month, Barack Obama disclosed on Monday.
Obama was asked about the missing drone during a joint press conference with the Iraqi president Nouri al-Maliki to mark the withdrawal of troops from Iraq by the end of the month.
"We have asked for it back. We'll see how the Iranians respond," Obama said but ended with a smirk, an acknowledgement that Iranian co-operation was highly unlikely.
It is the first time that the US has formally acknowledged that Iran has the drone.
Obama declined to answer a question about whether US national security had been undermined by the loss of the drone to Iran. "With respect to the drone inside of Iran, I'm not going to comment on intelligence matters that are classified," he said.
Tehran said on Sunday it had reverse engineered the drone in order to extract important technical information about how it is put together.
The US insists the drone malfunctioned and was not shot down.
General Hossein Salami, deputy head of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, said on Sunday that Iran would not be handing it back because it amounted to a violation of its air space and was a hostile act.
Although Obama asked for its return, this appeared to be a formality and there is little sign that it is going to develop into a major international crisis comparable to the 1960 stand-off when Russia downed the U2 spyplane.
But tensions have been growing between Iran and the US. Israel has threatened to attack Iranian nuclear installations to prevent it achieving a nuclear weapon capability. The Obama administration has said it is reluctant to be dragged into another war.
The visit by Maliki to the White House is intended to highlight again the exit of US troops. The president announced, amid great fanfare, the withdrawal of all combat troops from Iraq last year, then again in October and again yesterday. There will be another burst of publicity when the last trooper crosses the border from Iraq into Kuwait.
One of Obama's big campaign promises was to end the war in Iraq, even though the timetable for withdrawal had already been put into place in 2008 by George W Bush. But Obama can claim in the 2012 re-election campaign that he fulfilled his pledge.
White House press spokesman Jay Carney offered a taste of this when he said: "This is a momentous visit because, as you know, the Iraq war – a war that we've been engaged in for eight and a half years – is over. And after eight and a half years of sacrifice, America's war in Iraq is coming to an end. Since President Obama took office, nearly 150,000 US troops have been removed from Iraq and hundreds of bases have been shut down. In the next two weeks the final US forces will cross the border. For the first time in over eight years no US troops will be preparing to deploy to Iraq. We will have no bases in Iraq. The war is over and the troops are coming home."
Obama was asked if he still thought, as he had said on the campaign trail, that it was a "dumb" war. Given the American war dead, he diplomatically shuffled by this, saying: "I think history will judge the original decision to go into Iraq."

On Syria, Maliki, who is politically closer to the Iranian government than to Washingotn, refused to back US calls for the removal of Syrian president Bashir al-Assad, who has signed a defence pact with Tehran. Obama agreed that there were what he called "tactical differences" between the US and Iraq in their approaches to Syria.

Maliki insisted it was not the role of the Iraqi government to call on another leader to stand down and he hoped there would be a peaceful resolution in Syria.

[h=1]At Front of Republican Pack, Skirmishes Escalate[/h] Jim Cole/Associated Press
Mitt Romney spoke at a lumber mill in Madison, N.H. on Monday. With his lead in the polls in New Hampshire slipping, Mr. Romney increased his attacks on Newt Gingrich.

[h=6]By KATHARINE Q. SEELYE[/h] [h=6]Published: December 12, 2011 [/h]

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WINDHAM, N.H. - For much of this presidential primary season, New Hampshire has been perceived as being in Mitt Romney's back pocket. He has a house in Wolfeboro, N.H., and was governor of neighboring Massachusetts, where the news media made him a constant presence in New Hampshire living rooms.



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[h=6] The Republican Presidential Field[/h] [h=6] [/h]

[h=3]Related[/h]

• [h=6] Iowa Evangelicals Split Over Caucus Endorsement (December 13, 2011) [/h]
• [h=6] Romney's Heated Exchange With a Veteran (December 12, 2011) [/h]

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[h=6]Brian Snyder/Reuters[/h] Despite pledges to keep campaigns civil, Newt Gingrich traded some direct insults with Mitt Romney on Monday as both men were on the ground in New Hampshire.


But as in other early voting states, Newt Gingrich has unexpectedly surged in the polls here in recent weeks. While Mr. Romney still holds the lead, Mr. Gingrich tops the polls in Iowa, South Carolina and Florida, gaining enough steam that while here on Monday, he repeatedly referred to himself as the front-runner.
The stakes were evident Monday as the two candidates campaigned here and engaged in their most intense skirmishes to date. Mr. Romney demanded that Mr. Gingrich return the $1.8 million in consulting fees he had received from Freddie Mac; Mr. Gingrich, a former House speaker, cast aside a vow not to attack his opponents and responded that Mr. Romney should "give back all the money he earned from bankrupting companies and laying off employees over his years at Bain."
Until now, the two had circled each other warily and largely refrained from direct attacks, often using surrogates instead. But with both men on the ground here, they took to swatting at each other directly, highlighting just how important the New Hampshire primary may be in framing the fight for the Republican nomination.
A victory for Mr. Gingrich in the Jan. 10 primary here could be a serious setback for Mr. Romney, regardless of who wins the Iowa caucuses a week earlier.
Expectations for Mr. Romney are so high here, said Andy Smith, a pollster at the University of New Hampshire, that "Gingrich could lose by 10 points and still spin that as a win."
Mr. Romney tried to lower those expectations on Monday, telling Politico that Mr. Gingrich was the front-runner "right now," perhaps eager to hand off the front-runner label - and the scrutiny - to Mr. Gingrich. The nomination, Mr. Romney said, "is not going to be decided in just a couple of contests" and "could go for months and months."
Still, Mr. Gingrich is sailing into the wind here. He has not raised nearly the money or built nearly the organization that Mr. Romney has. While organization in a small, politically active state like New Hampshire with a primary is less important than it is in the Iowa caucuses, it still helps in tailoring messages and getting out the vote.
Crucially for Mr. Romney, voters here believe by an overwhelming margin that he would be better able than Mr. Gingrich to beat President Obama, both in debates and in November.
In a University of New Hampshire poll of likely Republican primary voters released on Nov. 23, 57 percent said Mr. Romney could beat Mr. Obama; only 10 percent said Mr. Gingrich could. "That sense of electability is his strongest attribute," Mr. Smith said of Mr. Romney.
Mr. Romney, speaking to reporters at a lumber mill in Madison, N.H., sought to build on that strength by suggesting that temperamentally he was better suited to take on Mr. Obama and to govern.
"Just saying outrageous or incendiary things will get you a lot of kudos and drive your numbers up," Mr. Romney said in an appeal to the state's notably independent voters. "But it's not going to win us the White House, and it's not going to win us the respect of people on the other side of the aisle who we have to bring together to overcome the extraordinary challenges we have."
On the downside for Mr. Romney, Mr. Smith said, voters do not appear excited by him. And the momentum is with Mr. Gingrich, especially since he got the endorsement of The Union Leader, New Hampshire's influential conservative daily. He also was endorsed by Jack Kimball, an influential Tea Party activist and chairman of Herman Cain's former campaign.
And several polls have shown a Gingrich surge. A Marist/NBC poll this month showed that his support had risen to 23 percent, up from 4 percent in October. Mr. Romney dropped in support, to 38 percent from 44 percent.
A University of New Hampshire poll from the same period also had Mr. Gingrich at 4 percent, but its latest poll has him at 15 percent, while Mr. Romney has held steady at 42 percent. In the CNN/Time/ORC polling that ended Dec. 6, the two were much closer, with Mr. Gingrich at 26 percent and Mr. Romney at 35 percent.
Mr. Gingrich, coming off positive debate reviews over the weekend, is seizing the moment to try to forge an insurgency campaign here against Mr. Romney's more entrenched organization, which is advised by former Gov. John H. Sununu, who has not been shy about slamming Mr. Gingrich as unstable and unprincipled.
Mr. Gingrich is hiring aides from other campaigns that have sputtered, including those of Representative Michele Bachmann of Minnesota and Gov. Rick Perry of Texas. And as Mr. Gingrich held a town-hall-style meeting here Monday, his aides estimated that the turnout of about 1,000 was bigger than any Mr. Romney has attracted in the state since he announced his candidacy.
In their sparring Monday, Mr. Romney threw the first jab, sending an e-mail to supporters in which he called his rival an "unreliable leader," who had supported action on climate change.
He then suggested on Fox News that Mr. Gingrich return the consulting fees he earned from Freddie Mac, the government-backed mortgage giant.
Asked about the comment by reporters during a visit to a Londonderry military contractor, Mr. Gingrich hit back.
"I love the way he and his consultants do these things," he said, taking a swipe at Mr. Romney's higher-priced campaign operation. "I would just say that if Governor Romney would like to give back all the money he earned from bankrupting companies and laying off employees over his years at Bain, that I would be glad to then listen to him."
Later at his event here, Mr. Gingrich struck a positive tone and said that if any of his consultants or financial donors attacked any of his "friends" running for president, he would "publicly disown them."
Ashley Parker and Trip Gabriel contributed reporting.

[h=1]At Front of Republican Pack, Skirmishes Escalate[/h] Jim Cole/Associated Press
Mitt Romney spoke at a lumber mill in Madison, N.H. on Monday. With his lead in the polls in New Hampshire slipping, Mr. Romney increased his attacks on Newt Gingrich.

[h=6]By KATHARINE Q. SEELYE[/h] [h=6]Published: December 12, 2011 [/h]

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WINDHAM, N.H. — For much of this presidential primary season, New Hampshire has been perceived as being in Mitt Romney’s back pocket. He has a house in Wolfeboro, N.H., and was governor of neighboring Massachusetts, where the news media made him a constant presence in New Hampshire living rooms.



[h=6]Multimedia[/h]

Interactive Feature
[h=6] The Republican Presidential Field[/h] [h=6] [/h]

[h=3]Related[/h]

• [h=6] Iowa Evangelicals Split Over Caucus Endorsement (December 13, 2011) [/h]
• [h=6] Romney's Heated Exchange With a Veteran (December 12, 2011) [/h]

[h=3]Election 2012 iPhone App[/h] A one-stop destination for the latest political news — from The Times and other top sources. Plus opinion, polls, campaign data and video.

• Download Now | Learn More

Enlarge This Image

[h=6]Brian Snyder/Reuters[/h] Despite pledges to keep campaigns civil, Newt Gingrich traded some direct insults with Mitt Romney on Monday as both men were on the ground in New Hampshire.


But as in other early voting states, Newt Gingrich has unexpectedly surged in the polls here in recent weeks. While Mr. Romney still holds the lead, Mr. Gingrich tops the polls in Iowa, South Carolina and Florida, gaining enough steam that while here on Monday, he repeatedly referred to himself as the front-runner.
The stakes were evident Monday as the two candidates campaigned here and engaged in their most intense skirmishes to date. Mr. Romney demanded that Mr. Gingrich return the $1.8 million in consulting fees he had received from Freddie Mac; Mr. Gingrich, a former House speaker, cast aside a vow not to attack his opponents and responded that Mr. Romney should “give back all the money he earned from bankrupting companies and laying off employees over his years at Bain.”
Until now, the two had circled each other warily and largely refrained from direct attacks, often using surrogates instead. But with both men on the ground here, they took to swatting at each other directly, highlighting just how important the New Hampshire primary may be in framing the fight for the Republican nomination.
A victory for Mr. Gingrich in the Jan. 10 primary here could be a serious setback for Mr. Romney, regardless of who wins the Iowa caucuses a week earlier.
Expectations for Mr. Romney are so high here, said Andy Smith, a pollster at the University of New Hampshire, that “Gingrich could lose by 10 points and still spin that as a win.”
Mr. Romney tried to lower those expectations on Monday, telling Politico that Mr. Gingrich was the front-runner “right now,” perhaps eager to hand off the front-runner label — and the scrutiny — to Mr. Gingrich. The nomination, Mr. Romney said, “is not going to be decided in just a couple of contests” and “could go for months and months.”
Still, Mr. Gingrich is sailing into the wind here. He has not raised nearly the money or built nearly the organization that Mr. Romney has. While organization in a small, politically active state like New Hampshire with a primary is less important than it is in the Iowa caucuses, it still helps in tailoring messages and getting out the vote.
Crucially for Mr. Romney, voters here believe by an overwhelming margin that he would be better able than Mr. Gingrich to beat President Obama, both in debates and in November.
In a University of New Hampshire poll of likely Republican primary voters released on Nov. 23, 57 percent said Mr. Romney could beat Mr. Obama; only 10 percent said Mr. Gingrich could. “That sense of electability is his strongest attribute,” Mr. Smith said of Mr. Romney.
Mr. Romney, speaking to reporters at a lumber mill in Madison, N.H., sought to build on that strength by suggesting that temperamentally he was better suited to take on Mr. Obama and to govern.
“Just saying outrageous or incendiary things will get you a lot of kudos and drive your numbers up,” Mr. Romney said in an appeal to the state’s notably independent voters. “But it’s not going to win us the White House, and it’s not going to win us the respect of people on the other side of the aisle who we have to bring together to overcome the extraordinary challenges we have.”
On the downside for Mr. Romney, Mr. Smith said, voters do not appear excited by him. And the momentum is with Mr. Gingrich, especially since he got the endorsement of The Union Leader, New Hampshire’s influential conservative daily. He also was endorsed by Jack Kimball, an influential Tea Party activist and chairman of Herman Cain’s former campaign.
And several polls have shown a Gingrich surge. A Marist/NBC poll this month showed that his support had risen to 23 percent, up from 4 percent in October. Mr. Romney dropped in support, to 38 percent from 44 percent.
A University of New Hampshire poll from the same period also had Mr. Gingrich at 4 percent, but its latest poll has him at 15 percent, while Mr. Romney has held steady at 42 percent. In the CNN/Time/ORC polling that ended Dec. 6, the two were much closer, with Mr. Gingrich at 26 percent and Mr. Romney at 35 percent.
Mr. Gingrich, coming off positive debate reviews over the weekend, is seizing the moment to try to forge an insurgency campaign here against Mr. Romney’s more entrenched organization, which is advised by former Gov. John H. Sununu, who has not been shy about slamming Mr. Gingrich as unstable and unprincipled.
Mr. Gingrich is hiring aides from other campaigns that have sputtered, including those of Representative Michele Bachmann of Minnesota and Gov. Rick Perry of Texas. And as Mr. Gingrich held a town-hall-style meeting here Monday, his aides estimated that the turnout of about 1,000 was bigger than any Mr. Romney has attracted in the state since he announced his candidacy.
In their sparring Monday, Mr. Romney threw the first jab, sending an e-mail to supporters in which he called his rival an “unreliable leader,” who had supported action on climate change.
He then suggested on Fox News that Mr. Gingrich return the consulting fees he earned from Freddie Mac, the government-backed mortgage giant.
Asked about the comment by reporters during a visit to a Londonderry military contractor, Mr. Gingrich hit back.
“I love the way he and his consultants do these things,” he said, taking a swipe at Mr. Romney’s higher-priced campaign operation. “I would just say that if Governor Romney would like to give back all the money he earned from bankrupting companies and laying off employees over his years at Bain, that I would be glad to then listen to him.”
Later at his event here, Mr. Gingrich struck a positive tone and said that if any of his consultants or financial donors attacked any of his “friends” running for president, he would “publicly disown them.”
Ashley Parker and Trip Gabriel contributed reporting.