Everyone's been waiting impatiently for the final Des Moines Register poll before Thursday's caucuses, and the paper just released it. It's not good news for our man Mitt: it has him solidly behind Mike Huckabee, 32%-26%.

The polling was done Sunday, which means after all the Christmas-table conversations; after Romney's negative advertising; after Huckabee's awkward responses to the Pakistan crisis; after all of it. And Huckabee is still beating Romney.

Romney's awesome Iowa organization won't make that big a difference on caucus day -- it might be worth a couple of points, but not more than that.

Of course, the numbers could still change. But at this point, I think it's pretty clear that Iowa voters have made their decision about Romney, and about Huckabee, pro or con; I suspect that the other GOP candidates' numbers may change a fair amount, but the top two look pretty set -- and my reading of Romney's campaign behavior the past couple of days suggests that their internal numbers say the same.

Speaking of those other candidates, McCain looks like a solid third, although I could see Fred Thompson getting a little late burst. Giuliani now looks like an inescapable 6th, which, regardless of how much he "tried" in Iowa, is a humiliation for the supposed "national" candidate.

For the Dems, the Register has Obama well out in the lead, with Clinton and Edwards deadlocked but well behind.

Please note that last week I predicted that Huckabee will win Iowa, with the Dems finishing Obama-Edwards-Clinton.

Yesterday, Mike Huckabee told Politico that he wants Mitt Romney to apologize to him, for telling lies about Huckabee's record. Imagine -- Romney apologize! Good one, Huckster!

It got me to thinking: has Mitt Romney ever actually been seen personally apologizing for anything? I know he has, on rare occasions, apologized through spokespeople (for use of the term "tar baby," for instance). I know that reports have sometimes referred to him as apologizing for something, when in fact his wording never contained an actual apology or acceptance of responsibility.

I'm just curious. A quick web search didn't bring me any immediately obvious examples of Romney apologizing. So I'll throw it out to you folks: can anyone come up with an instance where the Mittster personally apologized for something?

Against stiff competition -- personally, I think I would have gone with Giuliani's prostate-cancer data -- our own former governor Mitt Romney has been named the winner of the Washington Post Fact Checker blog's 2007 Pinocchio Award. His winning falsehood was the one exposed right here by yours truly: "I saw my father march with Martin Luther King."

The Nashua Telegraph has endorsed John McCain, making it a clean sweep for McCain of every major newspaper within hurling distance of New Hampshire. Question: What is the closest newspaper to Romney's home in Belmont to endorse him?

Mad Man Mitt also got a remarkable smackdown the other day from Time Magazine's Joe Klein:

I've never seen a candidate who showed such arrant disrespect for the public--and for himself. Indeed, Romney has performed a political self-lobotomy. Not just on his brain, which seemed an impressive instrument a year ago, but also on whatever nagging moral sense he might have had. He did this in order to conform--in the primaries, at least--to every last polling preference, no matter how skeevy, of his party's base. ... I've also never seen a candidate so loathed, privately, by his competitors.

The Boston Globe today tells the tale of William Hayhurst III, who vaulted from 623rd to 1st on the Boston Fire Department hiring list thanks to a special law championed by state Senate President Therese Murray, described in the article as a friend of the Hayhurst family. Bostonians are worried enough about the state of the BFD these days without a pol from the Cape sticking her nose in and making patronage hiring decisions, don't you think?

Funny, it seems oddly similar to the way Murray stuck her nose in and funneled the state's international tourism marketing contract to Bill MacDougall, an acquaintence of Murray's, as I described in this article back in February. Murray, as I wrote then, intervened to get MacDougall the multi-million-dollar contract, after the agency responsible for choosing a contractor "not only... recommend[ed] a different bidder... it concluded that MacDougall's bid was ineligible -- i.e., it did not meet the statute's criteria."

It's quite a campaign slogan -- Terri Murray: champion of the ineligible contractor and the unqualified firefighter.

You might recall that after my article appeared -- and after she publicly denounced the article as pure fiction -- Murray requested that the state Inspector General investigate the MacDougall contract. She did this to defray concerns of some of her colleagues, whose votes she needed to become senate president upon the resignation of Robert Travaglini.

Some senators suggested that the vote be postponed until after the IG issued its findings. They would still be waiting: almost a year later, the Inspector General has yet to issue a report.

If you don't know who John Hawkins is, you obviously don't spend much time in the conservative blogosphere. His regular blog is rightwingnews.com -- a highly-ranked site on its own accord -- and he also runs Conservative Grapevine. He is a regular columnist at Townhall.com. He has interviewed many of the country's leading conservative pols and pundits for his blog. His blog gets ads from a variety of respectable folks, through blogads. He founded Rightroots, a fundraising site intended as a right-wing version of ActBlue. Many of the top-read conservative web sites link to him. He was a consultant for Duncan Hunter for a stretch, and is now pushing Fred Thompson's candidacy.

In his weekly Q&A Friday blogging today, he received the question: "If you could go back and completely erase one person from the pages of history, who would it be and why?"

Here's his response, in full:

Answer: Hitler would seem to be a rather obvious choice, but he would be in third place for me.

Second place would be occupied by Karl Marx because Communism produced a higher count than Nazism in the long run and I have to wonder if Communism would have taken off without its "Father."

However, first place would probably have to go to Muhammad, who made up a religion from scratch that now has more than a billion people under its spell, has helped stagnate the growth of a large part of the world for 5 centuries -- and has turned at least 100 million plus of Islam's current adherents into backwards, misogynistic anti-Semites who support terrorism and murder.

Barely an hour after I posted about a possible Joe Biden surge scenario, I received the latest press email from the Biden campaign, boasting that Biden is "gaining steam" in Iowa.

It goes on to say that: "Over the next week, Mo-Joe '08 will sweep across Iowa."

Turns out, he's been using the phrase "Mo-Joe" for the past week or so. I apparently had blocked it out.

I would mock him for it, but anyone who cribs from the '04 Lieberman campaign is really at the self-mockery phase, don't you think?

This isn't a prediction, but a possibility. My sense is that a lot of Democrats personally prefer Joe Biden, but haven't really considered "wasting" a vote on him.

He is in great position for a late surge in Iowa, particularly with the renewed focus on international affairs after the Bhutto assassination. I can easily see him finishing a strong fourth there, perhaps even in shouting range of John Edwards.

That knocks out Richardson and Dodd, whose supporters have presumably already rejected the "top tier" candidates. Also, if Edwards finishes third in Iowa, his support in New Hampshire (currently at 20% according to one poll) could quickly soften. Biden could move to a strong third third, knocking out Edwards.

That creates a three-way Clinton-Obama-Biden race, with four weeks to Mega Tuesday. That means he'll get a lot of serious attention. We have seen all year how good Biden is in debates, and he'll have chances to show that in much more focused, closely watched forums.

It's all a long shot, but as I say, it's a possibility.

A certain political-science professor of my close acquaintence rues the imminent early end of Fred Thompson's Presidential campaign, because of the amazing, perhaps unprecedented, day-to-day disaster it has been. Yesterday, Thompson lowered his game to a new level yet again. Other candidates, in the aftermath of the Bhutto assassination, maneuvered to press the argument for their own foreign-policy credentials, without appearing to overly politicize it. Thompson, on the other hand, chose to openly politicize it for the express purpose of insulting an entire gender.

Yes, while most people were thinking of terrorism, instability in an extraordinarily tense region, our support of a thuggish Pakistani leader, and the security of that country's nuclear weapons, Fred was thinking about the fact that the assassination victim was running for prime minister even though she's a woman.

The problem in Pakistan apparently had much to do with the fact that a woman was seeking top office. And, you, know, a woman is seeking the Presidency here in America, too -- but in Thompson's eyes, there are no women qualified for the Presidency in the US yet.

And here I thought that Thompson couldn't do worse than refusing to put on a fire chief's helmet, calling it a "silly hat." Way to show respect for our first responders! And now women! Keep 'em coming, Freddie!

For anyone still wondering whether to believe the eyewitness accounts provided by the Romney campaign to Politico Friday, purporting to verify Martin Luther King Jr.'s presence with George Romney at a Grosse Pointe, Michigan, march on June 29, 1963 (King was actually in New Jersey at the time), I'll pass along this link to the Grosse Pointe News coverage of the march, in its July 4, 1963 edition. The article about the march begins on page 1 (column 3) and continues on page 2.

This week's Boston Phoenix is our look-ahead issue, and in it I lay out the roadmap to electing a new President in November 2008. It's out tomorrow in print, but online now.

The Amazing Race: We break down the Presidential campaign to its six essential parts, and predict your next Commander-in-Chief.

Update: The Washington Post's "Fact Checker" has upgraded the Romney claims from two pinocchios ("significant omissions and/or exaggerations) to four pinocchios ("whopper").

_______________________________________________

Two women contacted the Mitt Romney campaign this week, offering their memories of seeing Romney's father march with Martin Luther King Jr., in Grosse Point Michigan in 1963. Campaign officials were well aware that the women were mistaken. Yet, they directed those women to tell their stories to a Politico reporter. The motives and memories of the two women are unknown and irrelevant; the motives of the campaign, however, were obvious -- to spread information they knew to be untrue, for the good of the candidate.

By getting this story out late on Friday afternoon, heading into the holiday weekend -- good luck getting a King historian on the phone before Wednesday -- the campaign was pretty well assured that it could keep alive through Christmas their claim that Mitt Romney was mistaken only about "seeing" it, not about it taking place.

Then-governor George Romney did indeed march in Grosse Pointe, on Saturday, June 29, 1963, but Martin Luther King Jr. was not there; he was in New Brunswick, New Jersey, addressing the closing session of the annual New Jersey AFL-CIO labor institute at Rutgers University.

Those facts are indisputable, and quite frankly, the campaign must have known the women's story would eventually be debunked -- few people's every daily movement has been as closely tracked and documented as King's. As I write this, I am looking at an article from page E8 of the June 30, 1963 Chicago Tribune, which discusses both events (among other civil-rights actions of the previous day), clearly placing the two men hundreds of miles apart. I also have here the June 30, 1963 San Antonio News, which carries a photo and article about Romney at the Grosse Pointe march; and an AP story about King's speech in New Jersey.

A King researcher editing his letters from that time has stated definitively that the two men never marched together; Michigan and Grosse Pointe historians have stated definitively that King was not at the 1963 Grosse Pointe march; Michigan civil-rights participants of the time have concurred; so have those who worked for George Romney at the time.

All of this evidence is important to present to the general public, but it is unnecessary for the Romney campaign -- it has been clear for some time that they know perfectly well that the two men never marched together.

Bear in mind that the Romney team has a substantial research team (and vast resources for outsourcing more). Bear in mind that the campaign has compiled vast documentation about the candidate's father, particularly his civil-rights activities, long before the Phoenix posed the question earlier this week. Bear in mind that the campaign has direct access to George Romney's materials and documents, his family members, his friends, his former staff, etc.

Believe me, they know the two men never marched together. This is an attempt to rewrite history. And even if it is a small rewriting, it is offensive.

It is offensive because of people like Russell Peebles.

Peebles is an 88-year-old man, a former resident of Grosse Pointe for 48 years, who was present at both the Grosse Pointe march in 1963, and the MLK speech in Grosse point in 1968 -- the event at which the Romney campaign initially insisted Romney and King marched together.

I tried to contact Peebles earlier this week, prior to writing the original article, but we missed each other back-and-forth. Peebles sent me an email today, attesting to the fact that George Romney was at the 1963 march, but not the 1968 speech; and that King was at the 1968 speech, but not the 1963 march.

Peebles, and many others like him, deserve to have the history of what they did told honestly. Changing that history by mistake -- which is quite possibly how this began -- is unfortunate. Changing that history intentionally -- which is what the campaign is doing now -- is offensive.

Politico's Mike Allen reports that two women claim to have seen Martin Luther King Jr. with George W. Romney, father of Mitt Romney, at the Grosse Pointe, Michigan march in 1963.

Meanwhile, Mitt Romney, speaking on the Howie Carr radio show this afternoon, spoke about the controversy. The Romney campaign provided this transcript to the Phoenix:

"Well, it’s been my understanding all my life that he marched with Martin Luther King, and it’s actually been written about in a couple of books.  David Broder wrote a book about it and talked about him marching there. And, I know that some people can debate that. That’s been my understanding all my life. I think the key thing is that he marched with Martin Luther King Jr.’s Freedom Marchers, and did march, and Martin Luther King did come to Detroit and organized these Freedom Marches, and my Dad was in one of them.  And my memory and my understanding is that he was in one that Martin Luther King himself was in, but you know, we’ll see as time goes on."

The two witnesses interviewed by Politico, women now living in Florida and Massachusetts, describe seeing then-Governor Romney with King in Grosse Pointe. Both contacted the Romney campaign when they learned of the controversy, and the campaign gave their contact information to the reporter, the story says.

Contemporaneous news accounts confirm that George Romney, then governor of Michigan, unexpectedly joined that Grosse Pointe march, which took place on June 29, 1963, six days after King led a large Freedom March in Detroit, which Romney did not attend.

None of those accounts of the June 29 event in Grosse Pointe mention King's presence.

An Associated Press report of the event, which ran in several newspapers the following day, reported that "this Saturday's orderly parade attracted an estimated 250 people." The report mentions that Romney had rejected the invitation to participate in the earlier Detroit march, because it was held on Sunday.

The Detroit Free Press has reported that its coverage of the event, which estimated the crowd at 500, describes George Romney attending, but not King. A New York Times account of the event likewise mentions Romney but not King.

Another Associated Press story, which also appeared in newspapers of Sunday, June 30, 1963, says that Dr. King spoke to an AFL-CIO gathering in New Brunswick, New Jersey, that Saturday of the Grosse Pointe event.

Earlier today, the Boston Globe quoted Susan Englander, assistant editor of the Martin Luther King Jr. Papers Project at Stanford University, saying that: "I researched this question, and indeed it is untrue that George Romney marched with Martin Luther King."

Grosse Pointe historians have told the Phoenix that King was not at that June 29, 1963 march in that town.

A detailed timeline of all of Martin Luther King Jr.'s appearances in Michigan appeared earlier this year in the Michigan Citizen, compiled by Paul Lee; it includes the June 23 march in Detroit, but not the June 29 event in Grosse Pointe.

"The answer is no, Governor Romney did not march with Dr. King -- not in Detroit, not in Grosse Pointe," Lee emailed the Phoenix.

Lee noted, however, that Romney's mother, Lenore Romney, attended Dr. King's speech at East Lansing on February 11, 1965.

Please see this new web exclusive, an analysis of the Romney/MLK controversy, that I have posted today.

As of yesterday afternoon, Mitt Romney and his staff were still insisting that they believed George W. Romney marched with Martin Luther King Jr., conceding only that Mitt never literally saw it happen. By digging in like this, it appears they are only prolonging the story (originally broken by the Phoenix, here), because the evidence has piled up beyond the media tipping point.

Last night on CNN, Anderson Cooper stated flatly, of the two men marching together, that "it never happened."  (He then played footage of Romney parsing the word "saw" yesterday afternoon, followed by the infamous clip of Bill Clinton parsing the word "is.")

The Detroit Free Press had reported by then that both Arthur Johnson, former NAACP-Detroit president, and Richard Milliman, George Romney's former press secretary, had any recollection of the two men marching together.

This morning, the Boston Globe's Michael Levenson quotes Susan Englander of Stanford University -- who is editing King's papers -- saying "I researched this question, and indeed it is untrue that George Romney marched with Martin Luther King."

Romney: “My own eyes? You know, I speak in the sense of I saw my dad become president of American Motors. I wasn’t actually there when he became president of American Motors, but I saw him in the figurative sense of he marched with Martin Luther King. My brother also remembers him marching with Martin Luther King and so in that sense I saw him march with Martin Luther King.”

....

He added, “You know, I’m an English literature major as well. When we say, ‘I saw the Patriots win the World Series, it doesn’t necessarily mean you were there — excuse me, the Super Bowl. I saw my dad become president of American Motors. Did that mean you were there for the ceremony? No, it’s a figure of speech.”

Eric Fehrnstrom, said today that the younger Romney was speaking "figuratively" when he said he "saw" his father march with King. Fehrnstrom offered an example to explain: "It's like if I said 'I can see Mike Huckabee as president.'"

From Todd Spangler of the Detroit Free Press:

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney has said he watched his father, the late Michigan Gov. George Romney, in a 1960s civil rights march in Michigan with Martin Luther King Jr.

On Wednesday, Romney's campaign said his recollections of watching his father, an ardent civil rights supporter, march with King were meant to be figurative.

"He was speaking figuratively, not literally," Eric Fehrnstrom, spokesman for the Romney campaign, said of the candidate.

The campaign was responding to questions raised by the Free Press and other media after a Boston publication challenged the accuracy of Mitt Romney's account.

UPDATE: ROMNEY CAMPAIGN SAYS “TOGETHER” MAY MEAN DIFFERENT CITIES, DIFFERENT DAYS

A spokesperson for Mitt Romney now tells the Boston Phoenix that George W. Romney and Martin Luther King Jr. marched together in June, 1963 -- although possibly not on the same day or in the same city.

Romney, according to one piece of written source material provided by the campaign, made a “surprise” appearance at a small march in Grosse Pointe, Michigan, in late June -- several days after King led a much larger march in Detroit. Romney spokesperson Eric Fehrnstrom suggests that these two were part of the same “series” of events, co-sponsored by King and the NAACP, and is thus consistent with Romney’s claim that “I saw my father march with Martin Luther King.”

“The record is convincing and clear – George Romney marched with Martin Luther King and other civil rights demonstrators,” Fehrnstrom wrote in an email. 

Fehrnstrom had originally told the Phoenix that the two men marched together in Grosse Pointe, Michigan, either in June 1963 or March 1968, a claim the Phoenix called into question earlier today. An additional source, William LeFevre of the Reuther Library at Wayne State University, who is in charge of the papers of the Grosse Pointe Civil Liberties Association, has since confirmed to the Phoenix that George Romney was not at the 1968 event, and that King was not at the 1963 event.

Fehrnstrom now says that the event in question was King’s “Freedom March” in Detroit on June 23, 1963.

He provides one reference, a 1972 book about Detroit, which mentions that Michigan’s then-governor George Romney “was among the prominent whites marching with Reverend King” in the Freedom March (which the book erroneously says took place on July 23).

However, numerous contemporaneous and historical accounts say that Romney did not participate in the Detroit Freedom March, because it was held on the Sabbath. The New York Times, for example, wrote the next day that “Gov. George Romney, who is Mormon and does not make public appearances on Sundays, issued a special proclamation.”

The Romney campaign also provided one account, from a 1987 book about Detroit, that places George Romney at the march in Grosse Pointe later the same month. A Grosse Pointe historian has told the Phoenix that Romney did not participate in that 1963 Grosse Pointe event.

King did not participate in the Grosse Pointe event, but Fehrnstrom argues that the King’s Freedom March in Detroit and the Grosse Pointe march later that month, were part of the same “series” of marches, co-sponsored by King and the NAACP.

(Peter Kadzis, executive editor of the Phoenix Media/Commuications Group, makes a guest appearance in Talking Politics):

Former Boston City Councilor Albert "Dapper" O'Neil began his career as a political joke, and he ended it as a municipal embarrassment. But along the way, he won the affections of legions of blue-collar Bostonians by tirelessly defending their interests.

   >>From the archives: a 1997 profile of Dapper O'Neil by then-Phoenix (now Boston Globe) reporter Yvonne Abraham

Policy was not a strong point. In fact, Dapper opposed most "policies," such as forced busing to achieve racial integration, affirmative action, and just about anything that smacked of equal rights for women. Potholes, road signs, and zoning disputes were his specialties. Woe unto the public figure who even thought of compromising the rights of a home owner. And if a landlord didn't provide sufficient heat for the tenants in the winter, Dapper would huff and puff until city inspectors swarmed all over the rapacious bastard like a cheap suit, of which O'Neil had a closet full.

A lifelong bachelor, the Dap (as he was also known) was blessed with a longtime "lady friend." In fidelity to the customs of a now all but forgotten age, they maintained separate apartments. My late aunt, Margaret Donovan of Ward 16 (St. Brendan's Parrish, Dorchester) thought that was not only decorous, but also sensible. Her theory was that no woman in her right mind would want Dapper under foot night and day.

Dapper was a scold's scold, a loudmouth's loudmouth. His idea of a sound bite was a 15-minute harangue — and that was when he was aiming for understatement. I have a vague childhood recollection of an incident in the late 1960s or early ’70s when Dapper rented a flat-bed truck and had it driven to the Boston Common so that he could stand on the back and throw bars of soap at hippies.

City Councilor Michael Flaherty now holds the seat Dapper once held. By the end of his tenure, Dapper had become more of a footnote than an anachronism. O'Neil got his start in politics as a street worker for Mayor James Michael Curley and served for a time as driver for patrician Democratic Governor Endicott "Chub" Peabody. But despite this seemingly all-thing-to-all-people pedigree, Dapper did not win elected office until 1971 when City Councilor Louise Day Hicks  was elected to the US Congress.

At a time when Boston was rent with the crisis of forced busing, O'Neil was one of a gang of politicians who played the roles of brevet-rank George Wallaces. Over time, the more hateful aspects of his posturing came to be accepted as something less than charming but a fact of political life. Reality caught up with Dapper in the early 1990s when a wisecrack about Vietnamese residents of Dorchester during a Dorchester Day parade proved to be one drop of bile too many for city-wide voters.
O'Neil died in his sleep, in a West Roxbury nursing home, December 19. He was 87.
_Peter Kadzis

It is now difficult to keep track of the vast array of publicly endorsed and institutionally supported aberrations—from homosexuality and pedophilia to sadomasochism and necrophilia.

Abortion, environmentalism, AIDS, pornography, drug abuse, and homosexual activism have fragmented and polarized our communities.

...sometimes it's nice to pull aside from all of that and just remember that what really matters is the celebration of the birth of Christ...

Today was, incredibly, the first time Mitt Romney has ever gone on Meet the Press, and it was for the full-hour candidate treatment. I think he survived it.

Russert focused almost exclusively on Romney's flip-flopping (after an initial query on religion), perhaps with the thought that an hour of it would accumulate into something that might throw Romney off his game -- fat chance, Tim.

The one harmful piece, I thought, was the tape recording of Romney speaking to the Boston Globe in 2005, effectively calling the old McCain immigration proposal reasonable. That is intensely at odds not only with Romney's current position, but moreso with Romney's berating of his Republican opponents on immigration. If that audio clip now gets renewed life, I think it could seriously hurt Romney in Iowa and New Hampshire.

By concentrating just on the flip-flopping, Russert didn't really go at Romney at all on his performance as Massachusetts governor, Winter Olympics chairman, or Bain Capital owner, or a variety of other issues and questions. The flip-flopping -- or evolution, depending on one's view -- is pretty well established in most voters minds by now, I think, so rehashing those points probably doesn't hurt Romney too much. Doesn't help, but probably doesn't hurt too much.

I wonder what Mitt Romney wants to emphasize about today's endorsement from Judge Robert Bork? Here's Mitt's quote from the press release:

"For decades, Judge Bork has been a leader in moving the conservative legal movement forward. As one of our nation's premier conservative jurists, he has been an important voice for our conservative values in Washington."

Emphasis mine... although I think really it's Romney's, too.

Unless I'm mistaken, the Mittster does radio today with ardent Romneyphile Hugh Hewitt, whose show airs at 6:00pm on WTTT 1150. Someone please correct me if I'm mistaken.

Rudy Giuliani has a new ad up in which he swears that he holds unreasonable views on illegal immigration; so Romney is distributing video evidence that Giuliani used to hold reasonable views on illegal immigration. Gotcha!

Don't miss this exciting live event! says Team Romney of a videocast scheduled for Wednesday.

And finally, the weirdest, creepiest, Romney thing I have yet laid eyes upon. One of Romney's sons put six Tshirt designs on the "Five Brothers" blog and let commenters vote. The winner is an obvious Che Guevara homage that, to my eyes, looks like a Romnified perversion of the once-ubiquitous Andre the Giant image. Judge for yourself. If you dare!

Michael Flaherty -- perhaps trying to justify his #1 ranking on my list of mayoral contenders? -- just issued a press release about the city's woeful response to yesterday's snowstorm. Without calling Mayor Tommy out specifically, Flaherty is clearly pointing fingers at the man in charge.

Those with long memories may recall that Maura Hennigan briefly tried to make this an issue in '05, when Hurrican Katrina led to the realization that Boston's emergency evacuation plan was somewhat non-existent. Menino supposedly solved that problem, mostly by putting up those nifty blue-and-white signs with arrows you see all over the place. Judging by yesterday's fun-filled commute, those signs might not be enough.

(Although they do solve a great Boston dilemma: How to help out-of-towners leave our unwelcoming city, without providing them useful information for navigating the Hub? But now, unfortunately, Boston's legendary inhospitability to visiting drivers is under new and mortal threat -- from GPS systems. Is anyone at City Hall working on a way to foil these wretched devices, or are we simply giving in and allowing any Kansas family in a rental car to find their way from point A to point B in this town? But I digress....)

Here is Councilor Flaherty's press release:

FLAHERTY: CITY UNPREPARED - WITH EXTENSIVE IMPLICATIONS FOR A REAL
EMERGENCY AND CITYWIDE EVACUATION, FLAHERTY
IMPLORES CITY TO LEARN FROM ITS MISTAKES

(Boston) - At-Large City Councillor Michael Flaherty voiced serious
concerns about the city's poor response to yesterday's snow storm.

"Thursday morning I had the impression we were adequately prepared for
the coming storm," said Flaherty.   "Yet countless reports from
constituents either stuck in traffic or waiting until 10pm to have their
kids come home from school have told me otherwise."

"Keeping the streets safe for drivers requires timely and efficient
plowing with a well staffed operation, prepared to handle any type of
storm.   Yesterday, the city had its first bad storm of the season and
an even worse response.  We need to hold ourselves accountable by
learning from yesterday's lessons." 

"Improving communications and coordination between relevant offices is
essential, as is identifying better ways to alleviate congestion and
divert traffic during a snow storm - or worse, a real emergency that
requires evacuation.  For me, Thursday's storm is an indication of how
much work the city has to do on its emergency preparedness," said
Flaherty.  


# # #

The Rudy Giuliani campaign has long called Florida its "firewall," meaning that even if he does poorly in the early states, Giuliani is so popular in Florida (and the state is so expensive for others to advertise in) that he will win the January 29 primary there, propelling him to the February 5 super-primary day.

On Sunday's Meet The Press, when Russert asked Giuliani about his poor poll numbers in Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina, Giuliani joked "I wish you had shown Florida."

Well, a new Rasmussen poll says the firewall is down -- it shows Giuliani in third place at 19%, behind Mike Huckabee (27%) and Mitt Romney (23%).

It's certainly possible that Huckabee will collapse between now and then, but the notion of Giuliani holding a Florida advantage is pretty much gone.

Today's quiz: What is the common theme between the recent Boston Public Library debacle and the collapse of the Boston Fire Department reform process, reported today by Donovan Slack?

The answer is Mayor Tom Menino's insistence on always placing his own loyalists in every position, everywhere, so as to keep total control of everything. The result at the BPL was the ouster of Margolis. The result at the BFD was the mayor's ability to appoint (personally or through the commissioner) almost every one of the 13 members of the new 'strategic planning committee' formed to implement reforms.

In this case, Menino doesn't hold the cards. He can't implement most of the reforms without union cooperation, and he's not going to be able to bully the union.

Complain about the firefighters' union all you want -- and you'll be right about most of it -- but that doesn't improve the mayor's hand right now. He's had plenty of opportunities to negotiate these reforms over the years, and never did it. Now he's under political pressure, and his heavy-handed approach isn't going to work.

Every day that passes now is one more day the BFD is operating without random drug testing, and without the other reforms so badly needed. Since everything is so solidly under one person's control, at least we know who to blame.

While everyone else was scouring the Mitchell report, I was watching the final pre-Iowa Democratic debate for you. I thought John Edwards did a heck of a job closing the sale.

Barack Obama and, to a lesser degree, Hillary Clinton, were also good. But I thought Edwards did an excellent job, sort of coming around the side of the two megasaurs and saying hey, I'm the one who's in this to fight for the people and the good of the country against the entrenched interests. He ratcheted back the anger and hit all the right notes, I thought.

I also watched yesterday's Republican debate, in which I thought Mitt Romney came out fine. But he (and others) have to keep poking holes in Huckabee, and that's tough for them to do now, after giving him a free pass all year.

Not to mention, people are way more interested in the names in the Mitchell report....

In this week's issue of the Boston Phoenix -- out tomorrow, online now -- I analyze Mitt Romney's big "religion speech" of last Thursday. I suggest that observers have failed to appreciate Romney's cynical and manipulative use of the "Mormon card" to present himself to evangelicals as a fellow victim of a secular anti-religious elite.

Read it here:

Mad Mitt: Romney's religion speech was aimed at Christian conservatives, but his model wasn't JFK -- it was Mel Gibson

I am grateful for your generous invitation to state my views.

While the so-called religious issue is necessarily and properly the chief topic here tonight, I want to emphasize from the outset that I believe that we have far more critical issues in the 1960 election: the spread of Communist influence, until it now festers only ninety miles off the coast of Florida -- the humiliating treatment of our President and Vice President by those who no longer respect our power -- the hungry children I saw in West Virginia, the old people who cannot pay their doctor's bills, the families forced to give up their farms -- an America with too many slums, with too few schools, and too late to the moon and outer space.

These are the real issues which should decide this campaign. And they are not religious issues -- for war and hunger and ignorance and despair know no religious barrier.

There are some who may feel that religion is not a matter to be seriously considered in the context of the weighty threats that face us.  If so, they are at odds with the nation’s founders, for they, when our nation faced its greatest peril, sought the blessings of the Creator.

Freedom requires religion just as religion requires freedom....When I place my hand on the Bible and take the oath of office, that oath becomes my highest promise to God....in recent years, the notion of the separation of church and state has been taken by some well beyond its original meaning.  They seek to remove from the public domain any acknowledgment of God.  Religion is seen as merely a private affair with no place in public life.  It is as if they are intent on establishing a new religion in America – the religion of secularism. They are wrong....We should acknowledge the Creator as did the founders – in ceremony and word.  He should remain on our currency, in our pledge, in the teaching of our history, and during the holiday season, nativity scenes and menorahs should be welcome in our public places.  Our greatness would not long endure without judges who respect the foundation of faith upon which our constitution rests.  I will take care to separate the affairs of government from any religion, but I will not separate us from ‘the God who gave us liberty....The diversity of our cultural expression, and the vibrancy of our religious dialogue, has kept America in the forefront of civilized nations even as others regard religious freedom as something to be destroyed.

That's all dandy, but it would seem to make the issue of Romney's particular faith more important rather than less -- making it all the more glaring that he won't talk about those details at all, even in this speech.

Update: He said the word "Mormon" once.

Globe catches Romney still using illegal immigrants to care for his house. I am shocked, SHOCKED to discover that Mitt Romney failed to follow through on something after making a big public commitment to it.

In Romney's defense, I don't suppose he's been at his Belmont house more than what, ten days out of the past three years?

Next question for Mitt: Do you think that your landscaping contractor should go to jail for this?

Next question for Giuliani: Do you think Mitt Romney should go to jail for this?

Despite the blathering about the Clinton supporter's question, the truth about last Wednesday's CNN/YouTube debate was how unfairly the questions tilted toward the socially conservative right wing and other ideologically hard-line "movement conservative" issues -- just to take the most prominent example, the debate spent an inordinate amount of time on illegal immigration. I don't know how much of this bias stemmed from the submitted questions, or from CNN producers' assumptions about what Republican voters care about, but I do know that the effect was tough on John McCain, who is the devil incarnate to most of those movement conservatives. He is especially hated by rabid anti-taxer Grover Norquist, whose question on a no-tax-raises pledge was aired in that debate.

This evening, McCain did an MTV/MySpace "Presidential Dialogue" at Southern New Hampshire University, which I just finished watching. McCain noted toward the end of the hour-long forum that the questions -- which came from students at the forum, live text-messagers, and a popular-vote-winning video submission -- were a whole lot better than the ones in last week's event. He was absolutely right.

The questions touched on global warming, public schools, higher-ed affordability, health care costs, Darfur, Iraq strategy, stem-cell research, use of torture, bipartisanship, etc. These are issues of serious interest to most Republicans, not to mention independents who might vote in open primaries (like in NH).

McCain does very well on most of these, and the instant on-line feedback polling, for what it's worth, showed dramatic positive response by the end of the hour. He also gave an actually stirring call at the end for young Americans to participate in politics and in service to something "greater than your own self-interest."

McCain is thus far the only Republican contender to submit himself to the MTV/MySpace forum (John Edwards and Barack Obama have done it among the Democrats) and you can see why the others haven't. Either they should, or -- and I never thought I'd be caught saying this -- the major news organizations need to take a lesson from MTV.

I've been out of town for a few days, so here are a few thoughts on what's been going on.

--When Tom Menino appointed a special commission to look into the need for reforms at the Boston Fire Department, many people wondered why it was needed, when previous commissions had looked into the same issue in the past and made sensible recommendations that were never implemented. Apparently the commission agreed, and essentially turned right around and said 'um, our job's already been done... we recommend that this time, the Mayor actually follow the recommendations.' Menino says he will, on account of it being a whole political thing now. The firefighters union couldn't be happier -- there's nothing better than having your boss desperately need a concession from you that he should have gotten during the last actual contract negotiation. How much will Menino have to pay now (from future city coffers, natch) to save his political skin on this one? Stay tuned...

--Wouldn't it be nice if once in his political career Mitt Romney would do one single thing out of personal conviction rather than political calculation? Like, stand up for his lifelong religious convictions? Mitt has held the "Mormon speech" in his pocket all year like an NFL coach with one of those red challenge flags, waiting and calculating whether to throw it. Falling behind Huckabee in Iowa a month before the caucuses finally triggered the decision to throw it. But, his problem gaining voters in Iowa has little or nothing to do with his Mormonism, so there's really no reason to treat this like an important speech. On the other hand, it will be fun to hear him beg for the acceptance and tolerance he refuses to offer to Muslims and Latinos. Should we give Mormons exactly the same consideration we give to all other religious adherents, while refusing to name Muslims in cabinet positions? Should we take great pains to not blame all Mormons for the sins of those who committed past atrocities and injustices, while declaring war on "fundamentalist Islam" and wiretapping mosques? Should we celebrate Mormons' clinging to distinct cultural and religious activity and social circles, while blaming Hispanics for failing to assimilate, and immersing Spanish-speaking children in English-only classrooms? Just asking, Mittster.

--Mitt's got trouble brewing in NH as well, where John McCain has climbed into second place in most polls, and yesterday picked up the critical endorsement of the Manchester Union-Leader. The U-L endorsement is a bit of a shocker, because it hasn't endorsed a mainstream Republican in the primary since Reagan; they always go for the (wealthy) anti-tax populist type like Forbes, DuPont, or Buchanan. Also, McCain's in the state all this week, including appearances with Curt Schilling!

--So, the first high-profile act of violence against Hillary Clinton and/or her supporters comes not from a rabid Clinton-hater, but from a mentally ill guy with the liberal cause of better public support and treatment for the mentally ill. Although really, aren't almost all attacks like this, in a sense, a call for that same cause?

--For those who doubt whether there's really big money to be made in casinos in Massachusetts (for the casinos and by extension the state taking a percentage of the gross), please note the growing number of investors eagerly jumping into the competition for the select few licenses that would be auctioned off. Apparently they believe the optimistic numbers.