Photo: Mark Wilson / Getty Images

But Thompson has his own problems on the abortion front. As NEWSWEEK has previously reported, Thompson was also very moderate on the matter during his two campaigns for the Senate a decade ago, indicating on various questionnaires that he didn’t believe in criminalizing abortion. Other documents, on file with his Senate records at the University of Tennessee, indicate that Thompson struggled with the question of when life begins. “It comes down to whether life begins at conception. I don’t know in my own mind if that is the case, so I don’t feel the law ought to impose that standard on other people,” he said in a 1994 interview with a Tennessee newspaper. The file also includes a copy of answers provided in 1994 to another newspaper. “The ultimate decision on abortion should be left with the woman and not the government,” he answered. But in the NRLC’s view, actions speak louder than words. During his eight years in the Senate Thompson supported a ban on partial-birth abortions and joined with conservatives to block federal funding of abortions. The NRLC rewarded him with a 100-percent ranking on its annual survey of lawmakers—a stat that was pivotal in the group’s decision to give Thompson the nod.

Will the NLRC help rally other pro-life activists to Thompson’s side? Hard to say. While Thompson has moved to the right on the issue—he says his position was firmed up when he saw the ultrasound image of his now four-year-old daughter—the former senator still hasn’t made his views on abortion a central thrust of his campaign. In fact, he opposes a constitutional amendment banning abortion—an item high on many pro-lifers’ wish lists. Thompson, who is a federalist, believes the issue should be left up to the states—and that could be a deal breaker for some anti-abortion activists. Then again, maybe not. Pat Robertson’s endorsement aside, Rudy Giuliani is still considered by many social conservatives to be too moderate. Thompson has a long way to go in positioning himself as the more conservative alternative, but he takes one big step closer today.

She tells NEWSWEEK that the CIA's Publications Review Board, the wing of the agency that edits the public writings of ex-employees, moved to approve her work before being overruled by director Michael Hayden. According to Plame, board chairman Richard Puhl told her that her book required only minor redactions before publication, but that "the seventh floor"--a euphemism for senior management--was still debating more extensive cuts. A week later, Puhl told her that she could not reveal that she worked for the CIA prior to 2002, a decision that required her to strike large sections of text. Puhl also told her that the decision was "ludicrous" and that the CIA's censorship was merely a "fig leaf" over information that was already public in the Congressional Record and elsewhere. In 2006, the CIA sent Plame an unclassified letter about her pension eligibility that said she had worked for the agency for "20 years, 7 days," including "6 years, 1 month and 29 days of overseas service."

Imagine you're sitting around one night watching TV and a pollster calls. The nice man wants you to participate in a "blind bio" poll, which means he will describe several potential presidential candidates to you and then ask you which person you'd hypothetically support. He won't give you any names, only a brief description of the candidates' biographies. You think, well, "Scrubs" is over, I might as well hear him out. 

The pollster starts talking about this one guy, call him "Candidate A," who seems pretty cool:   He's "an experienced candidate from the South who has been Vice President...and a U.S. Senator." Wow!  Sounds great. Who could it be, though? This person has won "several awards, including an Oscar, a Grammy, and an Emmy for his documentary about global climate change."  Man, you're thinking, this guy is amazing! If only someone like that would run in real life. How could I not  vote for such a person?  

But wait!  It gets better. This mysterious hypothetical dream candidate also just won the Nobel Peace Prize! Woah! Think that's good? "This candidate has been against the Iraq war from the beginning." OMG! You are sold, especially when you learn that two of the other "blind bio" candidates "voted to authorize" the war but now say it was "wrong" or have been critical of how it's been handled. Flip-floppers. The only other candidate mentioned is a "first-term" Senator who "draws huge crowds to campaign rallies." Big whup.  

You think it over for half a second and tell the pollster you're choosing "Candidate A" over those war supporters B and D and the inexperienced C. You and 35 percent of the 527 "likely Democratic voters" interviewed nationwide October 24-27 agree that this mysterious fellow is a dream candidate.  (Which begs the question: who are the 65 percent of Dems who voted for the flip-floppers and non-Nobel winners?) The poll was done by Zogby International market research and was commissioned by something called "algore.org." Stay tuned to this space as our investigation into who this mysterious candidate might be continues.

Maya Soetoro-Ng; Photo: Lucy Pemoni / AP

Barack Obama rolls out a new campaign weapon this week: his half-sister, Maya Soetoro-Ng, who hits the campaign trail on Thursday. The 37-year-old Soetoro-Ng, a high-school teacher in Honolulu whose red hatchback is plastered with her brother’s bumper stickers, says she always knew Barack was destined for great things. “My mom and I had a joke that he would become the first black president,” she told NEWSWEEK. “He was so smart, but also wise beyond his years. He had so commanding a presence. He was like a little big man. We called him ‘the little big man,’ because in many ways he was an old man when he was a kid.”

About a decade younger than Obama, she has those familiar wide-set eyes, the generous grin, the measured speaking cadence. They share a mother, Ann Dunham. They share, too, the absence of a father. Her father, an Indonesian business executive, and her mother divorced not long after Soetoro-Ng was born. Obama also grew up without knowing his father, Barack Obama Sr., who returned to his native Kenya. Even by the multicultural standards of Hawaii, the half-siblings grew up knowing their home was scarcely the social norm, with strands connecting Kansas, Kenya and Jakarta. Soetoro-Ng says that Barack helped her sift through those complexities. “He really took over a great many of the responsibilities of raising me,” she says—crediting her brother with introducing her to the works of Toni Morrison and James Baldwin (in his book “Dreams of My Father” Barack recalls scolding Soetoro-Ng for watching TV and neglecting the stack of books he’d given her)—and taking her through the streets of Chicago and New York. They spent summers together in Honolulu, Chicago and Somerville, Mass.

Soetoro-Ng plans to fly from her home in Honolulu to Chicago and then strike out for such key early states as Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina. It’s her first real foray into politics—though she admits bashfully to taking part in some protest marches as a teenager. Don’t look to Soetoro-Ng to help Obama start throwing punches, as he’s promised, at his rivals. Her motherly sensibilities seem far afield from the instinct for the political jugular. Requests to engage on even mildly controversial topics in the campaign are politely rebuffed. The toughest thing she’d say about her sibling? “He could be bossy, but he was never mean. He still is.”

It's one thing to believe you have the presidential nomination in the bag several months before the first votes are cast. But what does it say about a campaign when you're ready to celebrate several weeks before a debate?

That's what happened today on the Clinton campaign's Website. For a communications team that has a reputation for perfection, the Clinton group made the rookie mistake of posting what looked like a template for local groups to influence their hometown newspapers.

Perhaps the best line: "Insert quote from party host here--You can use the talking points on the Club44 web site to help you develop your quote about why you support Hillary Clinton. Ann Lewis will also provide you some guidance on the post-debate conference call."

There's nothing like a spontaneous outpouring of support for a candidate, after another successful debate. Complete with talking points, conference calls and developed quotes. Even if the debate in question is to be held in Las Vegas almost a month from today.

Club44, in case you were wondering, is "an effort to identify and mobilize young women voters who support Hillary Clinton for president," according to the campaign's website. It also sounds like an effort to channel their minds--ahead of time.

For her part, Hillary seems confident. "I'm overwhelmed by the support from the women of Club44," she said about the events that had yet to take place. 

(When asked about the episode, a Clinton spokesperson called Newsweek's interest in it "a tad absurd.")

Full memo after the jump:

End of the Trail: Brownback. Photo: Brendan Smialowski / Getty Images

And then there were nine. On Friday, Sam Brownback will drop his bid for the GOP presidential nomination. The Kansas senator, while popular with the conservative base of the party, never seemed to catch fire in the polls. Yet that’s not the reason he’s quitting. A source close to Brownback, who declined to speak on the record because the senator has yet to announce his intentions publicly, says the decision is purely about the money--that is, his lack of it. Brownback raised just $4.2 million during the first nine months of the campaign and blew through most of it, ending the third-quarter with just under $95,000 in the bank. (Interestingly, that’s about how much John McCain has to spend in the primary, when you figure in his campaign’s debts.)

Where did the money go? Well, for one thing, Brownback bet the farm on Iowa. According to his latest campaign reports, he spent at least $300,000 on the Ames Straw Poll--not including the potentially thousands of dollars more the senator spent on “get out the vote” efforts related to the event that were not clearly identified among his expenditures. According to his Federal Election Commission filing, Brownback spent $128,900 on straw poll tickets alone--which, at $35 a pop means he bought more than 3600 tickets. Yet Brownback got just 2,192 votes that day, coming in third, so that means he likely paid for someone to vote for another candidate. Bummer. He spent nearly $20,000 on buses to bring his would-be supporters to Ames.

All of the "Will He or Won't He?" coverage of Al Gore today strikes me as silly--and I've been a part of it on TV. There's no opening for him in the race right now, even with a Nobel in hand. Could there be buyers' remorse a couple of months down the road, if people get sick of Hillary Clinton as the inevitable nominee? Sure, but by then the glow of the Nobel halo will have faded a bit. And it will fade further should Gore get in the race and have to endure the usual scrutiny and answer a million questions on a million topics other than climate change. Which is exactly why Gore, who knows all of this, is keeping his distance from the race. He wants to keep the focus on what he considers to be the most pressing challenge in human history.

You can bet he's not thinking about a presidential campaign today. He's savoring his sweet political vindication, though. He can't help but remember when President George H.W. Bush called him "Ozone Man" in 1992 and the Republicans called him radical on the environment in 2000. Life is strange. Seven years ago this December, when his popular vote victory failed to land him in the White House, Al Gore seemed like one of history's biggest losers. No more.

The big question heading into tonight’s GOP presidential debate in Michigan--the seventh? Eighth? We lost count long ago--is how Fred Thompson will perform. It’s not only the first time the former Tennessee senator will appear onstage with his GOP rivals, it’s also the first time Thompson has debated in more than a decade. The last time he sparred with a political rival was during his 1996 Senate re-election campaign. Needless to say, Thompson is perhaps the only candidate heading into tonight’s debate with expectations both low and high simultaneously.

On one hand, it’s been so long since his last debate that some are expecting him to tank. On the other hand, Thompson is an actor who knows how to work the camera--though his performances have been somewhat spotty since he finally entered the race last month. What will happen? Who knows? One thing’s for sure: Thompson’s campaign hasn’t had the best go lately. This morning his campaign e-mailed reporters a list of campaign surrogates set to appear in the so-called “spin room” after the debate tonight, and it misidentified Todd Harris, Thompson’s top press guy, as “Todd Rich.” The campaign corrected his name almost an hour later, explaining that they had accidentally merged the names of Harris and Rich Bond, another top adviser. Asked later about the goof, Harris only laughed.

When Barack Obama chose not to land a big punch at the last TV debate for the Democratic candidates, many pundits concluded that the Illinois senator lacked the stomach for the fight. And several opined that the Democratic challenger to Hillary Clinton was so boxed in by his optimistic rhetoric that he could not engage in a tough contest for the presidential nomination.

That was two weeks ago. Since then, Obama has engaged in a series of attacks on a certain unnamed Democrat who has spent much of her recent time in Washington.

Speaking in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, on Monday, Obama positioned himself as a leader on alternative energy and climate change, after what his campaign called “years of broken promises.” His policy proposals include a cap-and-trade system for greenhouse gas emissions, heavy investment in new energy sources and stricter regulations on energy efficiency.

But the policy ideas weren’t nearly as striking as the political context he sketched out.

“There are some in this race who actually make the argument that the more time you spend immersed in the broken politics of Washington, the more likely you are to change it,” Obama said in prepared remarks. “I always find this a little amusing. I know that change makes for good campaign rhetoric, but when these same people had the chance to actually make it happen, they didn’t lead. When they had the chance to stand up and require automakers to raise their fuel standards, they refused. When they had multiple chances to reduce our dependence on foreign oil by investing in renewable fuels that we can literally grow right here in America, they said no.”

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Who could Obama be talking about? It turns out Senator Clinton voted against phased increases in fuel economy standards in 2005. She also spoke out against ethanol in her first term in the Senate, and voted against ethanol as a fuel additive several times in the same period. While those positions looked sensible for New Yorkers trying to keep gas prices down, they don’t look so attractive now that she’s campaigning for votes in rural Iowa.

Obama’s energy-driven attack follows a week of speeches knocking Clinton for her initial vote to authorize war in Iraq. One of his biggest applause lines: “We need to ask those who voted for the war: how can you give the president a blank check and then act surprised when he cashes it?”

Obama is trying to carve out space that is more than just the archetypal Washington outsider. He suggests that he is a truth-teller who bucks “conventional thinking” and isn’t in the pockets of the special interests. “If you want conventional Washington thinking, I’m not your man,” he said in his Iraq speech. “If you want rigid ideology, I’m not your man. If you think that fundamental change can wait, I’m definitely not your man.”

Maybe so. But many Democrats also want a candidate who can stand up for themselves in a TV debate in the general election. And Obama’s inability to land his punches on Clinton during the Democratic debates has given many Democrats cause for concern.

For some of Obama’s aides, such criticism is unwarranted. They prefer to think of the few moments when he has aimed his fire at Clinton: his attack on lobbyists’ influence at the Yearly Kos debate, and his swipe over healthcare in the last debate in New Hampshire. Obama suggested that Clinton had taken a “lonely” position on healthcare in 1993. “Part of the reason it was lonely, Hillary, was because you closed the door to a lot of potential allies in that process,” he said.

If you think that a lonely process is a soft attack, you’re not, well, alone. Other aides to Obama suggest that the toned-down debate is entirely intentional. “This idea that we’re going to talk about the politics that divides us by looking for cheap political points--then turn around and look for the cheap political points, rather than something substantive-- isn’t who he is and what we’re about,” said one senior Obama adviser. “Probably the most destructive thing for this campaign is to engage in that, because what then is the point? We’d be no different from anything that everyone has done in the past.”

What’s so different about a speech that attacks another candidate (even if the speech names no names)? The answer may lie in Obama’s literary self-image and his lofty aspirations. Behind the scenes, Obama’s aides have long tried to make his TV comments more concise and more focused--in short, more like a soundbite. The pushback has come from the candidate himself, who prefers to see himself as a writer more than a media performer.

So the most important figure on Obama’s campaign travels last week was Ted Sorensen, John F. Kennedy’s speechwriter, who introduced the candidate at each of his Iraq war speeches in Iowa last week. “It’s not very often that you get the chance to hear from history,” Obama said at one rally in Coralville last week.

The Obama campaign is working hard in Iowa to evoke the memories of JFK among older caucus-goers, suggesting that the passion and hope of younger voters could spark some long dormant memories among older Iowans.

What they fail to recall is that JFK was the first president of the TV era; and one of his defining campaign moments was his triumph in his TV debate against Nixon. If Obama really wants to emulate Kennedy, he might want to remember that his role model embraced TV in much the same way that the senator has embraced the Internet.

Mitt Romney has spent an average of $200,000 a day running for president. That’s according to the official fund-raising numbers released this afternoon by the Romney campaign. Romney raised $10 million in contributions, and dug into his own deep pockets to lend his campaign $8.5 million. That means Romney has given his campaign roughly $17.5 million so far. Overall, including the loans, Romney has raised around $62 million since the beginning of the year. But here’s the important number: According to the Romney campaign, it ended the third quarter with just $9 million cash on hand, which means he’s spent close to $53 million running for president during the first nine months of the year. That's about $5.9 million a month or $194,000 a day on average. Or to really get your head around the numbers, put it this way: According to your Gaggler’s handy calculator, Romney has shelled out about $2.25 a second during the first nine months of year. If he hadn't dipped into his personal funds, his operation would be running in the red.

How does Romney's spending compare with his rivals? While we are still waiting on cash on hand totals for Democrats, including Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, there are more details available about fund-raising on the GOP side. Rudy Giuliani announced today that he raised $11 million during the third quarter, with an overall total of $46 million so far this year. According to the campaign, Giuliani will report roughly $16 million cash on hand, which means he’s spent about $30 million during the first nine months of the year. Broken down, that’s an average of $3.3 million a month, $110,000 a day or $1.27 a second. (If he weren't so dead set on winning the White House, Rudy could be kicking back with a tall caramel macchiatto every three seconds! Talk about misplaced priorities.) Meanwhile, John McCain’s campaign reports he raised $6 million this quarter--a fair number for a guy whose campaign was pronounced dead just a month ago. According the McCain camp, he’ll report $3.6 million in the bank, though there's no word on his debts, which were sizeable on his last financial report. How does his burn rate compare to Romney? Overall, McCain has raised about $31.3 million during the last nine months and spent roughly $27.7 million. That’s an average of $3.1 million a month, $101,000 a day or $1.17 a second since January. In other words, these guys are spending a lot of dough for a job that pays just $400,000 a year--or 2 days, in Romney dollars.

While we are still waiting for Rudy Giuliani to fess up about his cash, word is slowly leaking out about Mitt Romney’s third-quarter fund raising. According a report by the Associated Press based on an unnamed Romney adviser, the former Massachusetts governor will report about $10 million in contributions from July to September, not including a $6 million personal loan Romney made to his campaign during the period. If you’re counting, that means Romney has invested at least $16 million of his own money in his campaign for the White House so far. Sixteen million is a lot by most measures--ok, maybe not in Romney’s home base, where the owner of the Boston Red Sox just bought a $16 million house only to announce his plans to demolish it.

But the real news is linked to where most of that money likely went.

According to Evan Tracey, head of the Campaign Media Analysis Group, which tracks political ad buys, Romney has run nearly 10,000 TV spots since February, to the tune of nearly $8 million. That’s way more than his key GOP rivals--including Giuliani, who has aired zero TV ads; John McCain, who hit New Hampshire TV for the first time last week; and Fred Thompson, who aired literally one ad on the Fox News Channel the day before he formally got into the presidential race. In fact, it is more than anyone in the race. The only Democrat to come close is Bill Richardson, who has aired 4,000 ads, mostly in Iowa and New Hampshire. According to Tracey, Barack Obama has spent $2 million on TV ads, with Joe Biden and Chris Dodd next at roughly $1 million apiece. Hillary Clinton and John Edwards, fairly well known to early-primary-state voters, have spent very little on TV so far.

So what have 10,000 ads done for Romney’s campaign? It’s hard to say. On one hand, he’s leading in local polls in Iowa and New Hampshire, where most of his ads have aired. Yet Romney is still a blip in many national polls, where he has lost some ground in recent weeks. The latest ABC/Washington Post poll out Wednesday morning has Romney at just 11 percent, trailing Giuliani (34 percent), Thompson (17 percent) and McCain (12 percent). Still, the Romney camp is hoping to reverse the trend. The campaign is said to be expanding its TV ads to two more key primary states, South Carolina and Florida, in coming weeks. The big question: What happens to Romney's poll numbers when Giuliani and the others finally go big on TV?

Campaigns can be so tricky sometimes. Barack Obama had hoped to dominate the news cycle today with a big foreign policy speech and a trip to Iowa, but all it took was a little link forwarded to reporters by the Clinton campaign to upstage things. If you haven’t heard, Clinton, according to a very short post on her campaign website, raised $27 million over the last three months--making it the first quarter she’s out-raised Obama. No question it’s a significant accomplishment. July to September is a traditionally slow fund-raising period for candidates, which makes her numbers all the better. And yeah, Clinton has finally raised more money than the guy who’s had all the buzz. (Anyone remember that Oprah fundraiser a few weeks back?)

But as with most fund-raising numbers, there is the fine print. For one thing, the only cash that really counts right now is contributions dedicated for the primary. And in that department, Clinton raised $22 million vs. Obama’s $19 million over the last three months. Sad to say, but in a campaign year like this, when every financial record has been thrown out the window, a $3 million difference in a single quarter isn’t all that.  The big picture, based on the summary numbers (since we have to wait until they file the nitty-gritty to the FEC later this month): it looks as though Obama still leads when it comes to fund-raising strictly for the primary. According to his campaign, the Illinois senator has raised roughly $75 million to spend on the primary campaign. Clinton, meanwhile, has raised about $62 million for the primary alone. Of course, that’s not the only thing the two Democratic frontrunners are quibbling about. Last week, the Obama campaign talked up the fact that it had at least 93,000 new contributors during the third quarter. Today, the Clinton camp boasted of 100,000 new donors. Wow and wow-except that the Obama campaign admitted earlier this summer that its “donors” include people who buy campaign t-shirts and bumper stickers, a tally not often included by other campaigns, since many farm out their merchandising to outside groups.

As crucial as these numbers are, we're still waiting for the most important figures when it comes to Clinton v. Obama.  The big question facing the Dems: How much did each campaign spend over the summer? Did Clinton continue to play it frugal? And how much money does each side have in the bank to spend on the primaries? We’ll have to wait for more fine print.