News and Notes: Presidential Contenders

What they are up to today:

Hillary Clinton (D-NY) - Rejected her campaign aide's advice to skip Iowa in favor of subsequent primaries, but because the news got out her campaign is in overdrive denying any intention of doing so. She will campaign in Iowa again this weekend.

Rudy Giuliani (R-NY) - Cites John Edwards' rejection of the term "Global War on Terror" as proof that Democrats are in denial about terrorism. A new Gallup poll assigns him the highest favorability rating among the six major candidates of either party at 62%, with Edwards second at 56%.

Mitt Romney (R-MA) - If you guessed that Hillary Clinton got the lowest favorability score in that Gallup poll, you are wrong. Romney is 26 points behind Clinton at 27%. (Edwards, Obama, McCain and Clinton are all bunched together between 53% and 56%.)

John Edwards (D-NC) - Isn't treated altogether kindly in a new memoir by Robert Shrum, the political consultant who helped out with Edwards' U.S. Senate campaign. Shrum writes that Edwards confessed to being uncomfortable around gays, and elsewhere refers to him as "a Clinton who hadn't read the books."

Sam Brownback (R-KS) - Trots out Norma McCorvey, the plaintiff known as "Jane Roe" in the 1973 Supreme Court abortion ruling Roe v. Wade who has become an anti-abortion icon, to prop up his flagging campaign.

Al Gore (D-TN) - The non-candidate appears on tonight's "Daily Show with Jon Stewart" and "Late Show with David Letterman."

Ron Paul (R-TX) - Assigned remedial reading for Giuliani after the latter upbraided him in the last GOP debate for saying that U.S. policy in the Middle East provoked the 9/11 attack. His list: "Imperial Hubris" by Michael Scheuer, "Dying to Win" by Robert Pape, "Blowback" by Chalmers Johnson, and the 9/11 Commission Report.