ABC's Sunlen Miller wrote a misleading blog post a couple days ago titled "Obama Says He'd Consider Arnold For His Cabinet".

Some of the usual suspects like Fox New's Hannity & Colmes and the blogosphere's Taylor Marsh unquestioningly picked this story up in order to bash Obama.  But even more respectable outlets like The Sacramento Bee and the Telegraph picked it up.  As it turns out, they should have been much more questioning.

Obama leads in all matchups.
Hillary loses to Huckabee, Giuliani and McCain.
Edwards loses to Giuliani and McCain.

http://www.zogby.com/...

Obama
Romney: Obama leads 53%-35%
Huckabee: Obama leads 47%-42%
Giuliani: Obama leads 48%-39%
McCain: Obama leads 47%-43%
Thompson: Obama leads 52%-36%

Clinton
Romney: Clinton leads 46%-44%
Huckabee: Huckabee leads 48%-43%
Giuliani: Giuliani leads 46%-42%
McCain: McCain leads 49%-42%
Thompson: Clinton leads 48%-42%

Edwards
Romney: Edwards leads 50%-38%
Huckabee: Edwards leads 47%-41%
Giuliani: Giuliani leads 45%-44%
McCain: McCain leads 46%-42%
Thompson: Edwards leads 51%-35%

The telephone survey included 1,000 likely voters nationwide and carries a margin of error of +/– 3.2 percentage points. The poll was conducted Dec. 12–14, 2007.  The results were released Dec. 20, 2007.

When Paul Krugman wrote his first column about Barack Obama and Social Security on November 16th called "Played for a Sucker", I didn't think too much of it, figuring he was just using Obama to make a larger point about social security.  But when he wrote a column on November 30th about Obama and health care called "Mandates and Mudslinging", I realized there was more to it.  And when Robert Reich wrote a blog post on December 3rd entitled "Why is HRC stooping So Low?" about Hillary Clinton, social security, and health care, I knew it was about more than just Krugman.

2 new polls out of Iowa today with different results.

Link to article

PDF link to Lee/Research2000 poll
Conducted 12/10 - 12/13, with 500 Likely Voters, margin of error of plus or minus 4.5 percent

Obama 33
Clinton 24
Edwards 24
Richardson 9
Biden 3

Research2000 also polled this race exactly a month ago for KCCI-TV and had it Clinton 27, Obama 25, Edwards 21 at that time.  So it looks like Obama has had some significant movement since then, which is consistent with prior polls.

The other poll has the race much closer.  This is the first time they've polled the race, so there are no trends to look at.

PDF link to Hotline/Diageo poll
Conducted 12/07 - 12/12, with 569 Likely Voters, margin of error of plus or minus 4 percent
Obama 27
Clinton 27
Edwards 22
Richardson 8
Biden 5

After reading the recent diaries about where John Edwards and Wesley Clark stood on the issue of the Iraq War prior to its launch, I figured I would write one about Barack Obama's pre-war statements.  I agree with the previous diarists that the Iraq War is one of most important issues of our time and where our candidates stood on it before it started should be an important consideration when it comes time to choose who should lead us in 2008.