The Note: Straw-Poll Strikes:

August 9, 2007 — -- Five questions to ponder on a steamy summer day: Which endorsement matters more -- Angelina Jolie's or Colin Powell's? Will Centro and 801 Grand in Des Moines stay open Christmas Eve (and if not, will the caucuses still matter)? Forget revolving-door laws in Congress -- can't Fred Thompson's campaign institute one of its own? Will Dennis Kucinich "win" another Democratic forum tonight (legalizing gay marriage means for this crowd approximately what spiking NAFTA meant to the AFL-CIO audience)? How much food-on-a-stick can Mitt Romney eat (and will fried dough upset the chemical balance that keeps his hair in place)?

We'll know the answer to that last question Saturday in Ames, where Romney, R-Mass., is set for a straw-poll romp that matters only for how it matches up with expectations. But he made things more interesting yesterday by attacking former mayor Rudolph Giuliani, R-N.Y., over the issue of illegal immigration. "If you look at lists compiled on Web sites of sanctuary cities, New York is at the top of the list when Mayor Giuliani was mayor," Romney said in Iowa.

Romney's sourcing (and his own Guatemalan lawn help) aside, this is a tactical strike (delivered, of course, in Romney's aw-shucks style) that aims to burnish Mitt's conservative credentials more than take Rudy down a peg. (Though doing both doesn't hurt.) The exchange marks "one of the strongest conflicts yet between Republican presidential front-runners," ABC's Jake Tapper and Ron Claiborne report, and it comes on one of the most "compelling issue for conservative Republicans": illegal immigration. The Giuliani camp responds, "The mayor's record speaks for itself" -- sort of making Romney's point for him.

The ride aboard the Mitt Mobile was already bumpy this week -- and not just because managing expectations is a dangerous game. Romney's getting pressed on his right by Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., and his attacks on abortion, so he'd rather be talking about immigration. He also succeeded in (partially) redirecting the storyline away from his thud of a joke equating military service with his sons' decision to campaign for him.

"One of the ways my sons are showing support for our nation is helping to get me elected, because they think I'd be a great president," Romney said. He's right -- spinning around Iowa in a luxury (unarmored!) Winnebago paid for by your multimillionaire father is grueling work when you could be out on your Jet Skis at the lake house. Josh Romney told The New York Times' Michael Luo that "his family is doing what it can to support the troops." "My dad's made a big point of trying to support the troops," he said, adding that military service is "just something none of us have done."

As for the Democrats, the field (minus Dodd and Biden) converges in Los Angeles at 9 pm ET tonight for the second presidential forum in three nights. Following up on the AFL-CIO debate, this event will focus on gay and lesbian issues (think anyone's afraid of running left?), with panelists to include Melissa Etheridge. Look at how the discussion is shifting: All of the Democrats support civil unions, if not gay marriage, and all want to reverse "don't ask don't tell" and at least part of the Defense of Marriage Act. "The party's enthusiasm for expanding gay rights will be on prominent display Thursday night, when six Democratic candidates -- including the four who are topping national and state-level polls -- participate in a forum on gay issues," per ABC News' preview.

With the candidates broadly agreeing on most issues, it's the subtle signs that could count for the gay community, the Chicago Tribune's Mike Dorning reports. "While opposition operatives will be watching for a video moment that later can be used to portray a candidate as out of the social mainstream, gay-rights advocates will be alert to signs of discomfort or hedged commitment," Dorning writes.

No endorsement came out of the AFL-CIO debate, but it wasn't without its highlights. High on the list: Sen. Barack Obama's attacks on Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's decision to continue to accept lobbyists' contributions. But The Boston Globe's Scott Helman examines the record and finds Obama, D-Ill., to have received "hundreds of thousands of dollars from lobbyists and PACs as a state legislator in Illinois, a US senator, and a presidential aspirant." "In Obama's eight years in the Illinois Senate, from 1996 to 2004, almost two-thirds of the money he raised for his campaigns -- $296,000 of $461,000 -- came from PACs, corporate contributions, or unions," Helman writes. And 8 percent of the money he raised in his US Senate campaign account came from PACs -- compared with 4 percent of the cash raised by Clinton, D-N.Y., he reports.

Another critic of lobbyists' money, former senator John Edwards, D-N.C., is still the favored candidate of trial lawyers, though the other Democrats are making inroads with the constituency, reports Leslie Wayne of The New York Times. "It is hard to overstate lawyer donations' continuing importance to Mr. Edwards's campaign," Wayne writes. "While he may trail Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Obama in the polls and in overall fund-raising, he is ahead, though slightly, in such contributions."