Iraq Benchmarks - 1 down

The Iraqi Parliament on Saturday passed the Accountability and Justice Act, which enables former members of Saddam's Baath Party to resume jobs in government. It is the first of the so-called benchmarks to be achieved. NYTimes has got a good piece on it.

What About Michigan?

While the Republicans are all off campaigning in Michigan, there are a few recent developments with the Democrats.

Kucinich is the only candidate actively campaigning in the Great Lakes State. Both the Clinton and Obama campaign vowed to not campaign in Michigan in support of the DNC 's decision to strip the state of its delegates at the National Convention. This comes as a consequence for the MI legislature's vote to move the primary up to January 15. The candidates that remain on the ballot are Sen. Hillary Clinton, Rep. Dennis Kucinich, Sen. Christopher Dodd, and Fmr. Sen. Mike Gravel.

While Kucinich attempted to withdraw his name from the ballot, his campaign failed to meet the guidelines for filing the affidavit with the Secretary of State.

Governor Jennifer Granholm has thrown her support behind Hillary Clinton and has asked Michigan Democrats to vote for her on the 15th. Kucinich will likely come in second place.

Why does this matter? Some think the DNC may restore some of Michigan's delegates closer to the date of the convention.

Campaign News

Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) is asking for a recount in New Hampshire challenging a discrepancy between the electronic and paper results.

January Endorsements:

Obama

Senator John Kerry
Fmr Senator Bill Bradley
Senator Tim Johnson
Rep. George Miller
Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano
Wisconsin Governor Jim Doyle

Clinton:

1/12 Stamford Mayor Dan Malloy
1/11 American Samoa Governor Tulafono
1/11 Lieutenant Governor John Garamendi
1/10 Henry Cisneros and Edward Romero (Previously working for the Richardson Camp)
1/10 State Senator Bob Coffin
1/10 State Senator Bob Coffin
1/9 Congresswoman Shelley Berkley
1/9 Delaware Governor Ruth Ann Minner
1/6 Former Biden Supporter State Representative Bill Hatch
1/6 Former Biden Supporter State Representative Jim Webber Endorses Senator Clinton for President
1/5 EL Mundo Endorses Hillary Clinton for President
1/5 McClintock, Domenech Endorse Hillary Clinton
1/4 Virginia Delegates Adam Ebbin and Jennifer McClellan

1/4 Former North Dakota Governor and First Lady, George and Jane Sinner
1/1 New Jersey Rep. Donald Payne

NH Shakedown

NH has got a much tighter race in the works between BO and HRC than polls were indicating. I just caught a couple stats from MSNBC that are relevant in this regard --

1) among voters to make their decision in the past 3 days, HRC and BO are tied at 38%.

2) among women (57% of electorate), HRC is leading 47% - 34% (Edwards = 15%).
This compared to women in Iowa: BO-35%, HRC-30%, Edwards-23%.

The bottom line behind HRCs early lead in NH is that women are going for HRC and young voters are less of a force (Im told that up to 10,000 college students returned to school early to caucus for Obama - which was huge). BOs margin of victory in Iowa also may not have been ultimately positive - he started to gain an inevitability factor and it appears to be working against him.

Obama Wins Dixville Notch

Dixville Notch and Hart's Location are two towns near the Canadian border where the first ballots are counted in the New Hampshire Primary. It has a population of 75 and has a long standing midnight voting tradition (NH state law allows towns with a population less than 100 to vote at midnight) .

Here are the results:

Dixville Notch:
Obama: 7
Edwards: 2
Richardson: 1

McCain: 4
Romney: 2
Guiliani: 1


Hart's Location:
Obama: 9
Clinton: 3
Edwards: 1

McCain: 6
Huckabee: 5
Paul: 4
Romney: 1

new governor of Pakistan's NW province

The governor of Pakistan's NW frontier province, Ali Mohammad Jan Orkzai, will retire. He will be replaced by the Balochistan Governor, Owais Ahmed Ghani. In an August 2007 interview, Ghani contends that US and NATO forces in Afghanistan are now more of a problem than a solution.

Israelis end Nablus military operation

the link here is to a nytimes article detailing the end of a 3-day Israeli military operation in the West Bank town of Nablus. among other things, it points out that Nablus has been a test case for the Palestinian security capabilities.