On MSNBC this morning:

Senator John McCain:

“I think we all can appreciate why this is so important to America. Pakistan is our ally in our war against the Taliban in Afghanistan. I think you know that Pakistan is a nuclear armed state… I think you also know that there has been a lot of domestic upheaval going on in that country. And apparently it was proceeding to a situation where Musharraf would step down as the leader of the military and was running for president. He very likely was going to succeed there, and Benazir Bhutto was probably going to be the prime minister. An uneasy relationship between Benazir Bhutto and Musharraf.”

“It probably would have been a different situation, but the democratic process would have moved forward. Her opponent, an individual named Sharif, is probably a person that has a history in Pakistan that, at least in my person opinion was not the most admirable.”

“I don’t know all the circumstances surrounding her death and it’s not really important right now except that it was a great tragedy. And, of course, whenever something like this happens you figure out who are the winners and losers.”

“Right now there is significant unrest in Pakistan as we speak. There are people who are blaming Musharraf for it. That’s why I say, ‘who are the winners and losers?’ It seems to me that the winners are the radical Islamic extremists. Benazir Bhutto had dedicated herself and had said on several occasions that she would fight a battle against jihadists and radical Islamic extremists. And she promised the people of Pakistan that.
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From CNN and candidate blogs:
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Remarks of Senator Barack Obama
Our Moment Is Now
Thursday, December 27th, 2007
Des Moines, Iowa

Ten months ago, I stood on the steps of the Old State Capitol in Springfield, Illinois, and began an unlikely journey to change America.

I did not run for the presidency to fulfill some long-held ambition or because I believed it was somehow owed to me. I chose to run in this election – at this moment – because of what Dr. King called “the fierce urgency of now.” Because we are at a defining moment in our history. Our nation is at war. Our planet is in peril. Our health care system is broken, our economy is out of balance, our education system fails too many of our children, and our retirement system is in tatters.

At this defining moment, we cannot wait any longer for universal health care. We cannot wait to fix our schools. We cannot wait for good jobs, and living wages, and pensions we can count on. We cannot wait to halt global warming, and we cannot wait to end this war in Iraq.

I chose to run because I believed that the size of these challenges had outgrown the capacity of our broken and divided politics to solve them; because I believed that Americans of every political stripe were hungry for a new kind of politics, a politics that focused not just on how to win but why we should, a politics that focused on those values and ideals that we held in common as Americans; a politics that favored common sense over ideology, straight talk over spin.
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Senator Hillary Clinton has become the first guest blogger on Glamour magazine’s Glamocracy blog using the opportunity to write a piece on women finding their voices. For many who have hoped to see greater use of blogging by the candidates themselves and not just their staffers, the piece is probably a disappointing read, more like a short essay or editorial and of course it is for a mainstream media outlet. With that said, it is a step in the right direction!

Glamour has invited all of the candidates to either guest blog or answer questions and Senator John McCain will be next.

Fred Thompson told Iowa voters no woman ought to be president next year obviously referring to Senator Hillary Clinton without saying her name. Thompson said “There is no woman on the horizon that ought to be president next year, let’s all agree on that” and then continued to refer to the next president of the united states as “he”.

My advice? If I were the Clinton campaign I would jump all over it and use it to my advantage not only to point out what is perceived by Democrats as wrong with Republicans but also to highlight her gender against her party rivals. The small band of people who this statement plays to won’t vote for a Democrat regardless of who it is, meanwhile the gender discrimination overtones can be used to score lots of points with Dems. Win-win for the Clinton campaign and a continued bad trend for the sinking ship that is the Fred Thompson camp.

If you haven’t been watching the news this morning you might not know that former Prime Minister of Pakistan and until today the current major challenger to President General Pervez Musharraf, Benazir Bhutto, was murdered in a suicide bombing of a rally. It is an assassination that has rocked Pakistan and could cause further instability in the region.

The tragic event is a reminder on the eve of our election. A reminder of several things. First that as difficult and bloody as the move toward democracy in the developing world is in comparison to the relative stability in our own country, we shouldn’t forget that our own fight for liberty was not without bloodshed and the threat of tyranny and treason. The American Revolution was paid for with the blood of many people and it has unfortunately been upheld that way.

Second, that our American system is a wonderful and vibrant one in which the masses do not resort to the destruction of the rule of law simply for political gain. We peacefully exchange power and hold free elections. In a weeks time the splendor of our system will be on full display in Iowa and then New Hampshire and it will continue on through November. We too have faced assassination’s and we did so without the destruction of liberty and justice and without forsaking the rule of law.

Finally it is a reminder of the harsh realities and the difficult choices facing our nation’s next commander-in-chief and head of state. The next president will oversea a world that is crumbling in the area of personal liberty and freedom of choice while it is at the same time giving birth to amazing new technology and philosophy. Our world is a complex and wonderful place with few easy answers, unfortunate horror and many possible directions on which we may travel.

Now is the opportunity to elect a leader who will see us through these difficult times, who will maintain our liberty and justice in the face of great strife and build bridges to a better and lasting future.

Mike Huckabee is pheasant hunting in Iowa today, the second such hunting trip he has taken in the state during the campaign. Sporting Benelli Black Eagle 12-gauge camouflage shotgun Huckabee told reporters he is “just talking about taking care of business” while locking the gun. His main rival, Mitt Romney, has gotten into trouble recently saying he had previously been endorsed by the NRA but that turned out not to be true.

Romney also received flak when he said he was a life-long rabbit and rodent hunter.

Ballot Access News reports that Fred Thompson has failed to turn in signatures to qualify for the District of Columbia ballot. The Thompson campaign received the petition papers but turned in no names. Oddly enough D.C. does not check the validity of signatures so the campaign would only need to have turned in the sheets with at least 298 names on it.

CQPolitics has a year-by-year history of American primaries from 1912-64, their first installment in a series.