THE NOTE: Huckabee Misfires, Leaving GOP Scrambled

Dec. 27, 2007 -- Seven days before Iowa -- and mindful of the perils of prognostication in a race where major candidates are now carrying shotguns -- here's as close to conclusive as we can be about the state of the presidential race:

For the Democrats, the Jan. 3 caucuses are likely to mark the beginning of the end of the race (and that means everyone's got a target on his or her back).

For the Republicans, that same date is looking like it will mark only the end of the beginning (yet, as both Mike Huckabee and those pheasants he introduced himself to on Wednesday know by now, this is no time for target practice).

(And then there's the always-present power of external events: How will the tragic news out of Pakistan impact the race? Watch for foreign policy to scramble the best-laid plans -- and who will be the first to shape Benazir Bhutto's assassination into a campaign message?)

It is the realization that there could be only two Democratic tickets (or maybe just one) out of Iowa that has sparked the post-Christmas sense of urgency. And the focal point of the action -- the newly dominant figure in the sense of being in the middle of all the big fights right now -- isn't Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton; it's Sen. Barack Obama.

Obama, D-Ill., is simultaneously comparing list sizes with Clinton, D-N.Y., and crowd sizes with former senator John Edwards, D-N.C. He's tussling with Edwards over 527 groups and with both Clintons over experience questions. And when he delivers his "closing argument" of a speech Thursday at 11:15 am ET in Des Moines, he's calling on his supporters (and those on the fence) to believe in him.

"My bet was that if we presented a campaign of change, then the American people would respond," Obama said Wednesday in northern Iowa, the Chicago Tribune's James Oliphant and John McCormick report. "Vote your hopes. . . . Don't vote your fears."

Obama never had a monopoly on the "change" theme, but it's been closer to his core than to his main rivals'. That's why Obama should feel pretty good about where he stands -- and how he's trending -- in this final days before Iowa. One key point from Thursday's speech, per an Obama aide: His core message has never really moved.

Per ABC's Sunlen Miller, Obama's freshly tweaked stump speech hits "the umbrella message that has defined his campaign: change. The slightly different rhetoric will likely make up his final argument trying to woo Iowa voters over one last time."

Clinton isn't very far from the line of fire. With her movie-trailer of a closing argument ad http://youtube.com/watch?v=3QaDUDN0G1k -- no words, just dramatic music photos that portray Clinton as tested and ready -- she's back where she started, too. Clinton on Thursday "injected a note of menace into her case, arguing that 'the job itself is unpredictable' and that only she among the candidates is qualified to do it,'" Anne Kornblut and Dan Balz write in The Washington Post.

"Clinton has shifted from theme to theme in the final weeks of a race that has remained consistently up for grabs, but she seemed to settle back on her original experience argument after two months of attempting to show voters a softer side," Kornblut and Balz write. "Yesterday she criticized Obama's character and questioned whether other Democratic contenders are equipped to beat the eventual Republican nominee."

There's no bigger gun than Bill Clinton in helping make his wife's case. "The subtext was clear as she presented herself as 'ready to be president on Day 1.' That suggested a return to what has been her dominant message in the race: that she has more experience than Mr. Obama and Mr. Edwards," Adam Nagourney writes in The New York Times. Sen. Clinton: "It's not going to be easy, this job never is; it's the hardest job in the world."

But if you're looking for signs of swagger, check this out from Joan Vennochi's Boston Globe column: "The candidate who last month told Katie Couric that the Democratic nominee 'will be me' now says: 'You have to make your best case . . . but if you can't seal the deal with the voters that you would be the best president and they can trust you, your experience, your understanding of the world to do what they believe should be done in the country, you can run a great campaign but you can't overcome that.' "

Compare that with Obama (setting expectations, are we?): "We are on the verge of winning Iowa," Obama said, per Jason Clayworth of the Des Moines Register.

After spending one last pre-caucus day in New Hampshire, Edwards hits Iowa for good starting Thursday. He left the Granite State with a closing-argument of an ad, titled "Power." "I will restore America's moral authority in the world, confront people who exploit their power for personal advantage, stand up for people whose voices are ignored -- just like I've done all my life," the ad says, per ABC's Raelyn Johnson.

Edwards is earning Obama's ire by getting a boost from a labor-backed 527 group -- yes, one of those moneyed special interests he loves to hate, and this one advised by Nick Baldick, who managed Edwards' 2004 campaign. The Alliance for a New America's new Iowa ad doesn't stray far from Edwards' campaign message: "The price of dependence on foreign oil; Health care in crisis; Government run by corporate lobbyists; Isn't it time someone had a plan to take them on?"

This may be quite separate from the campaign's operations -- but it looks like the Edwards campaign got at least a head's up. Per The New York Times' David Kirkpatrick, "An Oct. 8 e-mail message circulated among the union leaders who created the group suggests that they were talking with Edwards campaign officials about 'what specific kinds of support they would like to see from us' just as they were planning to create an outside group to advertise in early primary states with "a serious 527 legal structure." ("Coordination," anyone?)