Jim Geraghty of the National Review writes that he sees the race coming down to a 2-person contest between McCain and Romney… and that he would bet on McCain!

Santa was good to me, and got me an XM Satellite Radio receiver. Right now on POTUS08, David E. Johnson, CEO of Strategic Vision polling company is predicting the Republican primary will come down to a two-man race between John McCain and Mitt Romney.

“We’re seeing trendlines in the direction of Romney and McCain,” he just said.

He says that last cycle his organization did see late trendlines breaking towards Kerry and Edwards, who finished first and second in Iowa.

He also notes that we could, God forbid, still see an event between now and Florida that reorients the election towards terrorism, national security, and homeland security, which would help Giuliani, he contends.

“If I were to bet right now, I would be putting my money on John McCain,” says Johnson, who worked on Bob Dole’s 1988 campaign.

McCain responds to Romney’s absurd attacks in a Fox News interview recently…

 John McCain recieved the endorsement of the Nashua Telegraph today, wrapping up a clean sweep of newspaper endorsements that shames Mitt Romney by a margin of 26-0 in the Granite State. 

And the major national papers are taking notice of this renewed interest, see this story from the NY Times…

The string of newspaper endorsements just continued to role in for Senator John McCain, getting the nod on Sunday of the Nashua Telegraph, the 26th newspaper in the region to endorse his candidacy.

Normally, newspaper endorsements have only limited value, encouraging supporters and getting voters to perhaps give a candidate another look. But Mr. McCain’s sweep of the New Hampshire area newspapers is something altogether different.

Mitt Romney, leading in the most recent polls in the state, has scored zero endorsements.

(more…)

Dr. Henry Kissinger stumps for Senator McCain…

• SmartChristian.com urges voters to take a second look at Senator McCain… the best man for the job!
   
• The NH Union Leader writes that conservatives are “coming home” as they flock to support Senator John McCain’s Presidential bid instead of Mitt Romney.
   
• Blogs4McCain writes about phone banking opportunities that are available for anyone who wishes to volunteer to help get out the vote in the early states!

Senator John McCain responds to the assassination of Benazir Bhutto earlier today.

The video’s audio quality is extremely poor, but you can understand the message. Hopefully the McCain campaign will get the problems fixed that they’ve been having with these uploaded videos.

Everyone has expected Iowa to be battle between Romney and Huckabee… and that John McCain would be a factor starting in New Hampshire.  New polls, however, are showing that we have a real chance of a top-four finish in Iowa… and perhaps even a second or third place showing!

The numbers are showing a big surge in support for McCain among Iowa caucus-goers leading up to next week’s vote…

The poll indicates that Huckabee’s support among male voters in Iowa may be slipping. Last week, Huckabee had 31 percent support among Republican men; this week, he and Rudy Giuliani are tied at 20 percent. John McCain and Mitt Romney both have the support of 17 percent of the GOP’s likely male caucus goers.

The most recent ARG polls have a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points. The polls were conducted over the phone, and had a sample size of 600 likely Democratic and 600 Republican caucus-goers living in Iowa, respectively.

The new Christmas-themed ad. I like it…

The popular Technology blog TechCrunch is holding an online primary to select a candidate from each party to endorse.  If you’re not aware, TechCrunch has hundreds of thousands of readers and is essentially as or more popular than many “paper magazines” at the supermarket.

Here’s the link to the voting…
http://primaries.techcrunch.com

Naturally, the Ron Paul people have spammed this to death… but there’s still a chance to finish second and possibly win because — frankly — no one takes Ron Paul too seriously. 

But we’re losing to Romney and Huckabee at the moment, so go there and vote!

Calling him “the man who should be president,” Ohio House Speaker Jon Husted threw his support behind underdog Republican presidential candidate John McCain on Wednesday.

Husted, a Dayton area Republican, said he has spent the past six months giving all the candidates for the GOP nomination a shot, but eventually came back to the judgment that McCain is best positioned to both win Ohio and to lead the country.

Read more about this development, click here.