If you live in Iowa or New Hampshire you already know. Floridians, too, have an inkling. South Carolina senses something big on the way. It's called the fourth quarter advertising blitz, and come Sunday it will kick into high gear. Yes, with the official end to the third quarter, it will be time to start spending all the money in the presidential war chests. That means a bumper-to-bumper traffic jam of television ads from several well-funded campaigns.

Barack Obama and Mitt Romney have already begun. In Iowa, Both men have so far laid out $2.7 million for air time, and Romney has also spent another $1.7 in New Hampshire. Giuliani and Thompson are poised to pour their cash into Florida, South Carolina, and California, risking that early Romney victories in the first two states won't amount to much in the end. While Romney trails badly in national polls, if he notches a win or two, he'll have that much more free advertising. For a man with an estimated net worth upwards of $250 million, that's a whole lot of Romney on the tee vee.

Meanwhile, though Obama has outspent his rivals in Iowa, he has yet to see it translate into a first place standing in the polls. Clinton still has the lead, with Edwards and Obama in a virtual tie for second. But because it appears that Clinton has a stranglehold on the nomination, an upset in Iowa would have enormous repercussions.

So get ready, America, you're going to be hearing the following phrase more than a few times in the coming months: My name is (insert candidate's name here) and I approve this message.

Last night, some friends and I went to hear Elizabeth Edwards speak at my local bookstore here in Jacksonville, Florida. She's currently on tour to promote the paperback release of her memoir, "Saving Graces: Finding Solace and Strength from Friends and Strangers." Of course, the book is only half the story. Each stop on the tour also generates publicity for her husband's bid to become the Democratic nominee for president. Judging from the large crowd that turned out on a windswept, rainy Tuesday night, the well-timed book tour is a boon for both business as well as politics.

"Saving Graces" deals, in part, with the premature death of John and Elizabeth's son, Wade, and its message is one of optimism in the face of tragedy. Mrs. Edwards is a wonderful public speaker. She is more than comfortable behind the microphone, exhibits a quick sense of humor, and forges a strong connection with her audience.

While the night was largely devoted to the subject of grieving the loss of a family member, it was also filled with political anecdotes. We learned, for instance, that it was Elizabeth who, back in 2004, convinced John to ditch an early concession speech, and that, if it was up to her, there would have been a re-count in Ohio. Not giving up is more than just a leitmotif for Mrs. Edwards, it is at the heart of who she is. She answered questions about her own health by noting that while her cancer is in her bones, no symptoms are present-a good sign.

And how does she read the signs from the campaign? After all, a new LA Times/Bloomberg poll shows her husband falling behind Hillary Clinton in Iowa. I asked how optimistic she was feeling about winning the Hawkeye State. Of course, I knew the answer already.

"Very optimistic," she said.

Last week, I wrote about how, when it comes to the tightly contested Iowa primary, the Democratic race for president will be decided by a slim margin. John Edwards did well to receive two big union endorsements, and that very well may be enough to push him over the top. Hillary Clinton, of course, has her husband working the Iowa trail. That means two large audiences whenever Bill and Hill decide to campaign separately across the Hawkeye State.

Not to be outdone by his rivals, however, Barack Obama has a wildcard of his own. Her name is Oprah Winfrey:

Oprah, who first told CNN's Larry King last year she is backing Obama, may assume a visible role in his presidential bid, a source close to the Illinois senator tells CNN. She is already slated to hold a star-studded fundraiser at her California estate this weekend.

Oprah has repeatedly shown her name can sell nearly anything, bu the media magnate has never endorsed a presidential candidate before.

Visibility is the key for Obama. If the Oprah seal-of-approval is really going to help him, she'll need to continue to publicly wield her media power on his behalf. Somehow, I don't see her using her own show to do this. Too risky, and potentially damaging to the show if Obama ends up losing the nomination. America may love the book club, but it's hard to imagine they hunger for a political one. On the other hand, a few campaign appearances in Iowa might be just the thing.

I had only one question after last night's GOP debate: Can Mike Huckabee use it to build on his Iowa success, or will he once again fade into the woodwork? If you remember Huckabee was going nowhere until -- with next to no money -- he pulled off a surprising second place finish in the Iowa straw poll. Here then, are some random thoughts on Huckabee's debate performance last night:

Tigerhawk: "The most eloquent non-candidate up there, I would love to go to his church."

Headingright.com: Huckabee on Iraq: Has oblivious NIE pessimism thrown at him. His answer: "We broke it, we have to fix it." Color me underwhelmed. He must grasp that since he's trying to ride on McCain's coattails.

Stephen Green: I would so hire Mike Huckabee as my accountant. Heck, I might even vote for him for city council. And that's about it.

Ann Althouse: Here's what I think. Get Hunter, Paul, Tancredo, and Brownback out of there. Huckabee, McCain, and Giuliani are serious and have a lot to say. Sit them down at a table and let them talk to each other. With Fred. Gotta bring Fred in too now. Let's go into a new stage of the campaign. It's really wearing to sit through Paul's ravings and Tancredo's fumblings and Hunter's blahness and Brownback's family, family, family. Enough.

My fellow Ohio Blogger Brain Shavings alerted me to this last evening. I was not aware that Mike Huckabee along with Senator Sam Brownback joined up with Lance Armstrong and his "War on Cancer".

Huckabee committed to sign a nationwide smoking ban in public places, should such a measure win approval in Congress. Brownback said he would let anti-smoking efforts continue under the authority of states and local communities.

I don't and have never smoked, but I think that Brownback has a much better stand on principle here. While Mike Huckabee seems to be an earnest believer in the power of government to fix things. The federal government does not have the freedom to pass any law that is in the public good without violating the tenth amendment.

If individual states want to ban smoking anytime and anywhere, that's probably OK, but the federal government should not do so. Mike Huckabee may call himself a conservative, but making decisions on behalf of people for their own good is not a conservative principle, and doing so at the fed level just doubles the problem.

I still think Huckabee has a good chance of breaking out of the second tier, and especially of overtaking John McCain, but he will need the energy of conservatives to push him there, and this is not the way to get it.

Memo to the current crop of Iraq war cheerleaders, in other words, the Republican candidates for president (save Ron Paul): the people of Iowa whose votes you covet want the U.S. out of Iraq, and soon. This finding comes to us from Strategic Vision, a GOP public relations company that has just conducted a survey of Republican voters in Iowa.

When asked, "Do you favor a withdrawal of all United States military from Iraq within the next six months?" the GOP rank and file responded in the following manner:

Yes 51%
No 39%
Undecided 10%

Iowa Republicans, it would appear, are far ahead of Senator John Warner, who wants to give the nation a Christmas present of delivering a token number of soldiers home for Christmas. One gets the feeling that Republican candidates, and their counterparts in the Congress, are lagging behind the views of their constituents. Sticking by this president through thick and thin may not be such a wise move, considering another question on the survey that was asked only to Republicans:

Do you see President George W. Bush as a conservative Republican in the mode of Ronald Reagan?

Yes 9%
No 78%
Undecided 13%

On the campaign trail yesterday, Barack Obama was given to a moment of self-reflection:

"People have to feel comfortable that, 'You know what? This guy can handle the job.' It's a stretch for them because I haven't been on the national scene for long and haven't gone through the conventional paths that we traditionally draw four our presidents, so they've got to stretch a little bit during a period where there's a lot of stuff going on internationally, right?"

Lately, Obama has been confronting the experience question head-on, which is what he needs to do. He came out of the latest debate better for having the subject brought up and focused on at such length. It's all about airtime for Obama now. On the national stage he needs more time in the spotlight. A win in Iowa would certainly do the trick. In the meantime, turning the tables and being out front in the discussion of the topic of experience is a smart move.

Today's other Obama headline involves Cuba. In a rather bold move, Obama wrote an Op-Ed in today's Miami Herald decrying the travel restrictions that the Bush administration has placed on families wishing to return to Cuba to visit their families. You can read the full article here. In short, he's calling out our failed policy of isolation, and he's doing so to the most hostile audience imaginable. He may find out that some stretches are more painful than others.

Fred Thompson continues to "test the waters" of a presidential bid. He's taking his time, you see, for a very good reason. It's just that nobody seems to know what that reason is. Consider Thompson's weekend stopover in Iowa. Now, why else would he go to the state fair, if not to show people he is serious about running? And yet, his trip lasted all of a single day. From Friday's Des Moines Register:

If Fred Thompson wants a place in an already full-blown campaign for the Iowa caucuses, he will have to begin hustling today to explain who he is and why he ought to be president, Republican leaders and undecided GOP caucus goers say. But by the looks of the former Tennessee senator's schedule for this first day as a presidential prospect in the leadoff nominating state, he will have hardly begun that task by the time he leaves Iowa this afternoon.

The "lazy" label has been with Mr. Thompson since his days in the Senate. And Friday's brief golf-cart tour of the Iowa State Fair did nothing to quell the notion. Gucci loafers aside, this is no way to impress voters in the heartland. Especially when the other candidates have been working hard for the past several months to impress them.

A couple of months ago, I wrote a post that looked at the wild swings in the 2004 Democratic primary election. In short, the moral of the story is that fortunes change very quickly in politics. A few short weeks before the nation's first primary, Howard Dean was dominating the headlines, and John Kerry was placing third or forth in most polls. But momentum from victory in a single state (Iowa) propelled Kerry to a second win (New Hampshire), and, in turn, a veritable stranglehold on the nomination.

The media (and I include bloggers in that vast category) love to have a story to tell. Lately, that story has been the realization that Hillary Clinton will inevitably be the Democrats' nominee. In part, this comes from the fact that Clinton has run a sound campaign and continues to do well in national polls. But another aspect, it seems to me, is the fact that people are uncomfortable with the idea of uncertainty. As a country, we seem to just want to get the whole thing over with, hence our obsession and over-analysis of polls. But if history teaches us anything, it is that national polls are fickle. The value of state primaries is that they focus voters on the candidates themselves, rather than on the stories that we in the media write about them. They listen to them at diners and state fairs and schools, and, yes, debates. And while Mrs. Clinton may appear to have an insurmountable lead in national polls, Iowa, where the candidates have been spending the bulk of their time and energy, remains a toss-up.

At Sunday's Democratic debate, Barack Obama showed why he hasn't faded away. George Stephanopoulos gave each of the other candidates the chance to explain why Obama was too inexperienced to be president. But it was Obama himself, who turned the question to his advantage. "Nobody had more experience than Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney and many of the people on this stage that authorized this war."

This is not to say that Obama has not made mistakes. But what candidate hasn't? The fact remains that, like his two main rivals, Obama has a strong organization in Iowa, and very well may win the state, causing a chain reaction similar to, say, 2004.

The Democrats waged another round of meaningless debate today with George Stephanopoulos' moderating. My first thought upon pouring my coffee and watching this unfold was that Stephanopoulos asked better questions than Dem shill Keith Olbermann. But then again, Karl Marx would have asked better questions, but I digress.

The experience of Barack Obama was a main issue and Hillary Clinton pressed that his comments on meeting with various world leaders just shows his inexperience:

Despite her initially conciliatory tone, when pushed to comment on Obama's position, Clinton reiterated her initial criticism of Obama's statement, saying, "I don't think any president should give away a bargaining chip of a personal meeting with any leader, unless you know what you're going to get out of that."

What is Mike Huckabee's secret sauce? The Washington Times talks to a campaign consultant who thinks he knows:

That Mr. Huckabee has a knack for connecting with voters is obvious, but Rich Thau, a campaign communications consultant who is conducting focus groups on the debates, has measured it and says Mr. Huckabee was literally off the chart in one of his answers in last weekend's debate.

Mr. Thau does dial-testing, in which voters constantly rate performances by turning a dial to indicate their approval of what a candidate is saying. He posts his results on his Web site, www.messagejury.com, and he says in last weekend's debate, voters scored Mr. Huckabee's blunt "Let's get it done" answer on energy independence at a 98 out of 100, putting it in the realm of "motherhood and apple pie."

"He has yet to deliver a dud response in any of the four GOP debates," Mr. Thau said calling him the Ted Williams of the debates for combining consistency with his ability to hit a home run. "Huckabee has that ability to bring the entire issue down to a single sentence where people go, 'Yeah, that makes sense to me.' "

Rich Thau has the "get it done" answer and the audience reaction to it on his website here. Fascinating stuff.

Hillary Clinton believes the path to the White House goes through George W. Bush. Perhaps her advisers have not let her in on the secret that Bush can't run again and the GOP front-runners have not exactly been rushing to be seen with him.

The video below is interesting on several counts; first she attacks a lame-duck president to shore up the nutroots anti-war vote who see anyone taking shots at the president as "speaking truth to power, man!" But it's wasted bullets as Rudy Giuliani is much more socially moderate than Bush and Fred Thompson is a conservative, which Bush is not. They are different people and will make that clear when the time comes.

Second, there was once a time when saying what Hillary said about the president (or any other elected leader for that matter) would result in a sharp rebuke from the press or members of their own party. Those times are long gone as the things that have been said about President Bush are so disgusting and reprehensible in other media outlets that Hillary didn't even raise an eyebrow with this ad. That's another reason that it's interesting she hit at Bush and not at her opponents in the donk primaries. The people that ad was aimed at are Iowans who tend to be conservative folk. The ad just may backfire on her. I could see her running an ad like that in California or New Jersey and getting results, not in Iowa.

H/T: AP

That's how much Mike Huckabee paid to get his second place result in the Ames, Iowa Straw Poll. USA Today did an analysis:

• Third-place finisher Sam Brownback says he spent about $325,000 to win his 2,192 votes. That's $148.27 for each vote.
• Second-place finisher Mike Huckabee spent about $150,000 and received 2,587 votes. That's $57.98 per vote.
• Winner Mitt Romney has not said how much he spent. The reporting in this Washington Post article suggests at least $2 million and possibly more than twice that much. Assuming $2 million for 4,516 votes, that's $442.87 per vote. But it could top $1,000.

Mitt Romney gets no bump at all out of this. He spent $2 million while nobody else even had that kind of money. This straw poll is a pay-to-play where candidates bus in their own supporters. Romney should have won and he did. He gets no increase in standing, but he doesn't lose either. Net result, no change.

Huckabee wins because, in the political analysis presented in this piece, it's apparent that his votes came from more than just money and political organization. Apparently many of the voters bused in on other candidates transportation switched their vote at the last minute. This is saying something about Huckabee, something good. For his $150k he gets a ton of positive public press and attention that you can't buy at this stage.

Sam Brownback spent too much of his wad on a contest that ultimately means very little except generating a few headlines in the political sargasso season. And he didn't even get that. He's done, even if he doesn't know it.

With the expected-sooner-or-later news that Tommy Thompson is bowing out of the GOP presidential primary, I've been wondering, who's next?

The top tier, those who are collecting money, support, or doing well in the polls will be in it to stay. Also in it for the long haul are those for whom the message is way more important than their position in money or polling, or even their own self-respect. Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich, I'm looking at you. It's the middle tier, those who are serious candidates, have great resumes, but are now facing the obvious. They will never get their party's nomination. At least, not in this cycle.

My vote on the GOP side is for Senator Sam Brownback of Kansas. Despite placing third place in the Ames, Iowa Straw Poll, he lost to Mike Huckabee, who is competing for the exact same sets of conservative Christian voters, despite spending almost twice as much money. He's a senator, which is a weaker position than a governor, and there are still two governors or former governors in the race (plus a mayor who was the executive of a city with a bigger population than most of the states.). Basically he's redundant, and at some point he will face those facts, probably before January, long before January.

On the Democratic side, we have a close one between Joe Biden and Chris Dodd. Neither of them have a chance, most folks don't even know they are running. Obama is sucking up all the oxygen and whatever's left is going to Hillary and John Edwards. My bet is that Chris Dodd will bow out first because Joe Biden thinks very, very highly of himself, enough to overcome any feelings of inadequacy about scraping the bottom of the barrel in this contest. Chris Dodd is out before December?

What's your call? Who's out next and when?

And so it begins. The bottom tier candidates are starting to drop out as they realize that support and money are hard to come by when your chances are slim:

He says, "my campaign was completely shocked. We absolutely thought we were coming in second [at the Iowa Straw Poll]. We had no doubt in our minds. The worst we thought we'd come in was third and it didn't happen that way. Something happened between the 50-yard line and the goal line. They pulled a reverse on us and we didn't see it coming."

So you decided to punt. Enough of the football metaphors already. Tommy Thompson never stood a chance as he has nothing to make him stand out. Tom Tancredo has illegal immigration (and is still struggling), Giuliani has a history of leadership the country knows and Fred Thompson is famous and was a good senator. Tommy Thompson was a non-factor from the beginning.

Really, how could Thompson's campaign be "shocked"? He was polling low everywhere except Iowa and if he did do well at the straw poll, he would've been pummeled in the primaries anyway.

Expect others on both sides to throw in the towel soon as donors assess the landscape and decide who they want to throw their hard-earned shekels at. Come January, I expect six candidates on both sides to still be in it with two or three at most having any shot at winning.