Iowans are about to get two days of relief from political campaigning as the candidates decide to take Monday and Tuesday off.

Here's a look at their last day of stump speeches.

Hillary says she'll help veterans.

Instead of attacking her Democratic rivals, Clinton targeted the Bush administration, which she said has slashed veterans' benefits. She added that she wants to help make up for those mistakes, and said she's already been trying to assist veterans.

"I cannot tell you how many veterans I've had to intervene for, go to bat for, cut the red tape for, who were being denied what was rightfully theirs," she said. "If you are entitled to a benefit, then under our law the president of the United States shouldn't stand in the way, the president should make sure you are given what you have earned and deserve."

Clinton vowed to enact a GI Bill of Rights to expand benefits such as education and housing to service members, veterans and their families.

Barack Obama focused on trade and vowed to protect children from unsafe toys.

John Edwards released a statement responding to Obama's attack's on him: [More...]

Update: The Quad City Times in Iowa endorses Hillary Clinton.

We tested her, too, in our editorial board interview, looking for evidence of the partisan rancor that is destroying our country. We found none. Instead, we found a proven, passionate, intelligent leader with a breadth of legislative and executive experience that is the best of a good bunch. For Iowa’s Democratic caucuses, we support Hillary Clinton.

****

Sally Bedell Smith, author of a book on Hillary Clinton, has an article in Newsweek today, Hillary's Hidden Hand. It examines her years in the White House in an effort to determine her experience and preparedness to take the reins as President.

Conclusion: She is experienced. First, on an advisory level:

Hillary Clinton was no spectator at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. In campaign speeches, she often talks about what "we" thought and achieved—an acknowledgment that she and her husband have operated jointly for decades. And indeed she was uniquely immersed in the policies and politics of Bill Clinton's administration. Hillary was the first presidential spouse to have an office in the West Wing rather than the traditional First Lady's domain of the East Wing. She had no official position or specified duties, yet she was so involved in decision making that the president's staff called her "the Supreme Court" because they knew she was the last person he consulted before making up his mind.

Her advocacy for women appointees: [More...]

Republican candidate Ron Paul is on Meet the Press. (live-blog)

He wants to get rid of the IRS and income tax. We could save hundreds of millions if we had a sensible foreign policy. The goal is to cut spending.

We should bring our troops home and save hundreds of millions of dollars. We don't need to be starting wars or to be the policemen of the world. We can defend this country without troops in Germany, Japan and other places.

Presidents don't have the authority to declare war. Only Congress can declare war.

What if Iran invades Israel? They aren't going to, that's like asking what if Iran invaded Mars.

More....

The Chicago Tribune has a three page article about how prison food has evolved the past few years, the theory being, bad food can cause riots and good food makes for good inmates.

Consider the problem: How to provide 2,900 calories a day for $.92 a meal.

Since the American Correctional Association created nutritional guidelines in the 1970s, prisoner meals have adhered to strict dietary standards. Jails and prisons have their own dietitians counting calories and sodium levels, as do contractors like Aramark, which provides food to facilities across Illinois.

Consider this statistic:

From 1900 to 1995, food sparked more than 40 of the 1,334 prison riots in the United States, including the country's deadliest uprising in 1971, when 43 people died at New York's Attica prison, said Gordon A. Crews, co-author of "A History of Correctional Violence."

More...

It never fails. Every year around this time I find myself surfing around, looking for something different, something with a human touch to read. I always find it. Here's this year's story, The Gift, from Sunday's New York Times.

As a former drug addict cares for his dying mother, an unexpected bond is formed from their sometimes tortured relationship.

Very poignant, very sad, but touching.

Update: I found another story, about a judge who took a gamble on a teen who killed a neighbor who had insulted his mother. He put him in a juvenile facility for 7 years rather than sentencing him as an adult. The gamble paid off.

More....

These two stories seem related to me. First, Obama claims to have more Clintonista support than Hillary:

In Iowa on Friday, Obama suggested he had the support of more Clinton administration figures than the former first lady. Lists provided by both campaigns quickly showed hers is almost twice as large. "Why is the national security adviser of Bill Clinton, the secretary of the Navy of Bill Clinton, the assistant secretary of state for Bill Clinton, why are all these people endorsing me?" Obama said. "They apparently believe that my vision of foreign policy is better suited for the 21st century."

Clearly the Clinton mantle is still strong with Iowa Democrats and Obama is seeking to blunt it. Which makes this story even more interesting:

According to today's Washington Post, the Hillary campaign is planning to close out the Iowa and New Hampshire races with a "tight embrace" of her husband's legacy, an argument that only she is equipped to handle future foreign policy crises . . .

Makes sense to me. TPM Cafe notes:

Obama's counterargument has been that whatever the successes of the 1990s, it has also saddled Hillary with a kind of political baggage that will make her less effective as a President than his "new politics" will.

Clintonism without the Clinton baggage. It is an interesting development. I wonder if Edwards will try and flank it by rejecting Bill Clinton entirely.

As Jeralyn notes, Obama just attacked John Edwards. I guess he is a pol after all. Politico's Ben Smith reports:

"I don't just talk the talk, I walk the walk, I've been doing this all my life, and John has not had that same record," he said.

"John yesterday said that he didn't believe in 527s," he said. "We found out today that there's an outside group spending $750,000...and the individual who's running the group used to be John Edwards' campaign manager."

"You can't say yesterday you don't believe in them and today you're having three quarters of a million dollars being spent for you," he said.

Does this mean Edwards is eating into Obama's vote? Seems likely as otherwise pols don't notice their opponents. Hillary used the same trick when she was ahead and then attacked when she was being challenged. Oh and of course Edwards was the first to go really negative.

As I say, pols are pols, they do what they do.

Jerome Armstrong brings us Obama's answer on his present vote (the only legislator NOT to vote in favor of it) on an Illinois law to protect the privacy of victims of sex crimes:

What do you think of it?

Blog traffic is so slow on holidays. I'm going to try to give the gift of traffic through the holidays. For this morning:

• Via Avedon Carol at Sideshow: Brooklyn Girl, guest blogging at PowerPop, lists the ten sexiest male rockers, with sample video clips. I would have added Jon Bon Jovi.

• Donklephant writes about the WaPo's article on the FBI's newest biometric database keeping track of our most personal details.

• Sentencing Law and Policy doesn't like Huckabee's new attempt to avoid the soft-on-crime label.

• Grits for Breakfast writes about an expert who says drug sniffing dogs are wrong 48% of the time.

• Ed at Captain's Quarters, a conservative blog, gives a preview of how they will attack Obama if he's the nominee: inexperience.

• Digby on Jonbenet journalism

• Capital Defense Weekly notes that the Death Penalty Information Center has released its 2007 Capital Punishment Report, available here (pdf.)

• Marvin Kitman on Huffpo writes about Rudy's Yellow Badge of Courage

What are you reading or writing about this weekend? Let us know in comments, and please put urls in html format using the link button because otherwise they skew the site.

The AP reports on Barack Obama's changed opinions on issues over time. Chief among them:

• The death penalty

  In 1996, when he was running for a seat in the Illinois Senate, Obama's campaign filled out a questionnaire flatly stating that he did not support capital punishment. By 2004, his position was that he supported the death penalty "in theory" but felt the system was so flawed that a national moratorium on executions was required.

  Today, he doesn't talk about a moratorium and says the death penalty is appropriate for "some crimes — mass murder, the rape and murder of a child — so heinous that the community is justified in expressing the full measure of its outrage."

• The Patriot Act

  When he ran for the Senate, Obama called the act a "shoddy and dangerous law" that should be replaced. After he took office, the Senate considered an update that Obama criticized as only a modest improvement and one that was inferior to other alternatives. Still, Obama ended up voting for that renewal and update of the Patriot Act.

The article says Democrats are unlikely to attack him on his changing positions for fear of seeming negative, but Republicans may not show such restraint. Another person interviewed in the article thinks Republicans will use a different argument:

"If Obama is the Democratic candidate, I don't think the Republicans will be attacking him on a particular issue," said Dianne Bystrom, director of the Center for Women and Politics at Iowa State University. "They'd be attacking him on his experience."

Update: Obama is now criticizing John Edwards' record. I thought negativity didn't play in Iowa....

A few days ago, Jake Tapper of ABC ran this false story:

ABC News has learned that the campaign of Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., has registered the names of two Web sites with the express goal of attacking her chief rival, Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill. It's the first time this election cycle a presidential campaign has launched a Web site with the express purpose of of launching serious criticisms on a rival.

(Emphasis supplied.) It is false because as the story itself states, no site had been launched and John Edwards launched an attack site against Hillary Clinton previously. No correction has been made by ABC. It is egregiously bad jounrnalism. There is no question that, as Howard Kurtz reported, the Beltway Media detests Hillary Clinton.

But I also think there is strong evidence that Barack Obama is the Beltway Media darling. For example, consider this Obama "attack" site. Think Jake Tapper will run a story on that? Me neither. How about Obama's planted question?

In an online posting Monday, ABC reported that an Obama volunteer wearing a press pass asked the candidate a friendly question about tax policy at an Iowa event. But several of the assembled reporters huddled and concluded that it was not a story, one of them said. Clinton faced a storm of media criticism over a similar planted question.

More.

John Sasso has a pretty impressive resume -- he was John Kerry's general election manager at the Democratic National Committee in 2004, manager of Michael Dukakis's presidential campaign in 1988 and the manager of Geraldine Ferraro's campaign.

True, they all lost, but that doesn't make his thoughts irrelevant. Writing in the Boston Globe Saturday, he says Hillary Clinton will prevail and win not just the Democratic nomination, but the Presidency.

Sasso says she's already cleared the bar, particularly that of attacks by Republicans:

If Obama is the Democratic nominee, a man less intimately understood and less defined, Republicans will rush to manufacture their own brutal definition. Can Obama withstand that kind of barrage? Does he have the personal makeup to be as relentless as his opponents? Do past political positions leave him vulnerable? Because the risks are sky-high, these questions need to be reasonably raised and answered beforehand.

Clinton is well past negative redefinition. Unlike John Kerry's 2004 campaign in which veterans opposed to Kerry's candidacy challenged his war record, it will be difficult to ram a Swift Boat into her candidacy. If there is a convict in her political past, as with Willie Horton during the Dukakis 1988 campaign, he will already have been exhumed. Besides, the Clintons are veteran enough to mount a withering counterfire of their own.

Sasso calls her a "thoroughbred" of candidates and the most electable. [More...]