Mike Huckabee says his presidential campaign has received thousands of new supporters and more than 1,000 individual new financial contributors since the former Arkansas governor delivered a surprising second-place showing in last weekend's Iowa straw poll.

"We have the traction, do you have the check?" Mr. Huckabee said in an interview with the Washington Times' Eric Pfeiffer, though his campaign did not offer exact dollar figures for how much they raised.

Mr. Huckabee said his campaign spent about $90,000 on last week's straw poll and has spent less than $150,000 total in Iowa.

Members of Mr. Huckabee's staff say the campaign also has been contacted by a number of well-connected campaign fundraisers who have expressed conditional support for his message, but previously have been been unwilling to commit their resources until his campaign showed signs of electoral viability.

"We've had well over a thousand new donors since Saturday," said Huckabee spokeswoman Alice Stewart. "We have put several fundraisers on the books in the last few days and continue to reach out to our donors across the country. There has certainly been a great deal of renewed excitement for Governor Huckabee's presidential campaign."

Mr. Huckabee said the influx of cash will allow him to build his organizational strucutre in critical states like Iowa and New Hampsire. "We need to raise money and for the first time I can really see us doing it."

-- Stephen Dinan, national political reporter, The Washington Times

Immigration continues to dominate the Republican presidential campaign discussion this week, with Rudy Giuliani airing a radio ad calling for finishing the border fence and for deporting criminal aliens.

Both Giuliani and Mitt Romney, his top competitor for the Republican nomination, are now running ads highlighting their get-tough stance on immigration. But both men also are trading barbs over who had the worse record in their time in public office on the issue.

Romney charges that Giuliani ran a "sanctuary city" that protected the identity of illegal aliens so they couldn't be deported, while Giuliani's camp says Romney allowed sanctuary cities to operate freely during his time as governor of Massachusetts.

One thing's for certain -- the Republican electorate is far more familiar with this issue and its details than politicians in Washington think.

That was underscored last weekend when the thousands of people at the Iowa Republican Party straw poll burst into applause when two candidates -- Reps. Tom Tancredo and Duncan Hunter -- pledged to pardon two U.S. Border Patrol agents serving lengthy prison sentences for shooting a fleeing illegal alien drug smuggler in the buttocks.

-- Stephen Dinan, national political reporter, The Washington Times

More good news for Mike Huckabee out of Iowa -- it appears that his second-place straw poll finish wasn't a fluke.

Huckabee also is tied for second among Republicans in WHO-TV's "Cast your kernel" poll at the Iowa State Fair, which asks those old enough to vote to drop a corn kernel in the mason jar for their preferred presidential candidate.

As of today, Huckabee's 14 percent is tied with Rudy Giuliani and only trails Mitt Romney, at 38 percent. That puts him above above unannounced candidate Fred Thompson's 11 percent. John McCain is lagging far behind, at 4 percent.

On the Democratic side Hillary Rodham Clinton leads, with 33 percent, followed by John Edwards, at 27 percent and Barack Obama, at 24 percent.

While President Bush captured Iowa's electoral votes in 2004, Democrats should take heart in the fact that as of now, 9,226 kernels have been cast on their side, while just 6,214 have been cast for Republicans.

-- Stephen Dinan, national political reporter, The Washington Times

As Republicans and Democrats debate how to engage world leaders after the Bush administration ends, Rudolph W. Giuliani argues that it all begins with a new mandate for the State Department: fight back.

In a new article in Foreign Affairs magazine, Giuliani says American detractors around the globe must be put on notice that no longer will the United States stand by and let them take free shots.

In a Giuliani administration U.S. ambassadors would be the rapid-reaction force tasked with going after anti-American criticism, the former New York mayor says in Foreign Affairs.

"Too many people denounce our country or our policies simply because they are confident that they will not hear any serious refutation from our representatives," Mr. Giuliani says. "The American ideals of freedom and democracy deserve stronger advocacy. And the era of cost-free anti-Americanism must end."

John Edwards has his own piece, arguing that rather than being the world's policeman, America must get used to being the world's paramedic.

"We will most likely see an increasing need to stabilize weak and failing states and provide humanitarian assistance to the victims of disasters across the world," he says, pointing to the Indonesian tsunami of 2004 and rebuilding in Afghanistan and Iraq as examples.

-- Stephen Dinan, national political reporter, The Washington Times

Sen. John McCain, in his new book, says one of his "worst decisions" was not calling for the Confederate flag to come down from the South Carolina State House during the 2000 campaign.

In "Hard Call: Great Decisions and the Extraordinary People Who Made Them," McCain comes clean: "When I ran for president in 2000, I took a position I knew to be wrong on a controversial public issue that had a moral component because I thought it might help me win the primary in the state the issue concerned."

He later switched positions and said he later "regretted" defending flying the flag over the state house both because "it did me little political good" and "caused me to be ashamed of myself."

Judging by the voters I talked to in Iowa last week, that's part of McCain's problem -- it's unclear which he regrets more, the shame or the fact that it didn't help him politically. Voters said they just don't know what to make of McCain anymore. That could be one reason why so many of them cheered loudly when McCain's 10th-place (he didn't officially participate) showing in the Iowa Republican Party straw poll was announced.

As McCain told George Stephanopoulos in the most recent Republican debate, his greatest mistake was his involvement in the "Keating Five" savings and loan scandal.

-- Stephen Dinan, national political reporter, The Washington Times

Tommy Thompson had a lot of pluses, but one big minus -- which is why he dropped out of the Republican presidential race this weekend.

"If we lacked one thing, it was really that hot-button issue," said Steve Grubbs, Mr. Thompson's strategist, after Mr. Thompson's sixth-place showing in Saturday's Iowa Republican Party straw poll.

As a long-time governor of Wisconsin, which borders Iowa, Mr. Thompson should have been a natural candidate for Iowa voters.

But the straw-poll performance was too much to overcome, and late Sunday his campaign made it official. He becomes the second Republican to withdraw from the race, following in the footsteps of former Virginia Gov. James S. Gilmore III.

Mr. Thompson had depth and often provided a slightly different take than the rest of the field on issues such as Iraq, where he pushed for a national referendum among Iraqi voters on the U.S. role. He also raised social issues, such as health care, that rarely get much attention on the Republican side. But he never gained any traction.

Those second-tier candidates who were identified with signature issues, by contrast, did quite well. Rep. Tom Tancredo, with his signature issue of getting tough on illegal immigration, finished in fourth-place, not too far behind the second- and third-place finishers: former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee and Kansas Sen. Sam Brownback, both of whom are closely identified with pro-life, religious conservative issues.

-- Stephen Dinan, national political reporter, The Washington Times

Social and religious conservatives are reading good things into the results of the Republican presidential straw poll in Ames, Iowa, on Saturday -- even though former New York Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, Arizona Sen. John McCain and former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson didn't participate.

"The second-place showing of Mike Huckabee demonstrates that the Christian community can still deliver votes," Free Congress Foundation President Paul M. Weyrich, a social conservative, told The Washington Times' Ralph Z. Hallow.

"The former governor of Arkansas spent virtually no money, had no buses delivering people to Ames as did other candidates, and so impressed voters with his rhetorical ability that this means that Christian conservatives are alive and well."

But it was Mr. Thompson, the actor-politician-prosecutor, and not Mr. Huckabee, an ordained Baptist minister, who was introduced by the Rev. Richard Land as the dinner speaker at a Council for National Policy dinner earlier this year. It was Mr. Thompson who several social conservative leaders at the dinner said privately was their man for 2008.

Even without a single major policy speech or debate performance under his belt, Mr. Thompson remains the one that Christian conservative leaders talk about as running with the big dogs in the presidential nomination contest.

"While Huckabee had a good showing, the battle over who would be the conservative who will that takes on Giuliani remains a two-way race between Senator Thompson and Governor [Mitt] Romney," Gary Bauer, a social conservative leader and former Republican presidential candidate, told Mr. Hallow after the Ames straw poll.

-- Stephen Dinan, national political reporter, The Washington Times

Former South Carolina Gov. David Beasley says he doubts many of the lower-tier Republican presidential candidates can survive through to South Carolina's primary, now set for Jan. 19.

Beasley, who is supporting Mike Huckabee's bid, said Huckabee, Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani will still be alive for the third-in-the-nation nominating contest. He also said that Fred Thompson also could make it into South Carolina, though his performance is still too much of an unknown.

As for John McCain, the early front-runner, Beasley said he locked up many of the big names and money in the state early on but has lost much of the attraction he held for voters here in 2000.

"The pizzazz McCain had before is gone," Beasley said. "Voters in South Carolina -- the people that I hear in South Carolina -- they have really turned on McCain."

Beasley said that Romney has had the state airwaves to himself so far and that Giuliani has a natural base of support in the coastal areas.

As for Huckabee, Beasley said the former Arkansas governor shares a kinship in message and geography that would make him competitive in South Carolina's primary, if the Huckabee campaign can stay afloat through Iowa and New Hampshire.

-- Stephen Dinan, national political reporter, The Washington Times

Republican Party officials' worries over Fred Thompson stealing some of their thunder came true.

Yesterday's Des Moines Register had a banner headline announcing Thompson's plan to spend time campaigning here next week, including a visit to the Iowa State Fair.

But the bad news for Thompson comes in a new poll from National Journal, which covers campaigns and official goings-on in Washington. NJ regularly surveys political insiders about the sorts of questions political junkies are pondering, and this week's poll asked the insiders which presidential hopeful is the most overrated.

Thompson "won" among the Republican insiders, with an overwhelming 58 percent his hype higher than his substance right now.

On the Democratic side, John Edwards was judged most overrated by 42 percent, but Barack Obama was a close second with 40 percent ruling him overrated.

The most underrated candidates were Bill Richardson from the Democratic side and Mike Huckabee from the Republican side.

The poll surveyed 148 insiders. The 72 Democrats weighed in on the Democratic field, while the 76 Republicans only answered the Republican field questions.

-- Stephen Dinan, national political reporter, The Washington Times

"For Iowa, it's pretty clear. We have to stay first, even if it means going to November," Iowa's treasurer, Michael Fitzgerald, told the Des Moines Register.

The South Carolina Republican Party's decision yesterday to move its primary up to Jan. 19 has made figuring out the political calendar more difficult than making sense of the NFL playoffs tie-breaker system.

In the traditional order of things, Iowa goes first, New Hampshire goes second and South Carolina goes third. What's happened this year is that other states have tried to leapfrog into the picture, setting their own primaries for the same date as South Carolina's planned primary.

So that means New Hampshire will likely act to move its primary a week before South Carolina's and that means Iowa must move earlier still. The options are early January, which means mixing campaigning and the Christmas season, or else some time in 2007.

By way of comparison, Iowa held its caucuses in 2004 on Jan. 19 -- the same date South Carolina is now jumping to.

-- Stephen Dinan, national political reporter, The Washington Times

Following on the Rudy Giuliani comment earlier this week that birthright citizenship is a constitutional guarantee, I had a chance to ask another candidate, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, about his view of the issue.

"I would support changing that. I think there is reason to revisit that, just because a person, through sheer chance of geography, happened to be physically here at the point of birth, doesn't necessarily constitute citizenship," he said. "I think that's a very reasonable thing to do, to revisit that."

Birthright citizenship is the concept of automatic citizenship to anyone born in the United States, regardless of their parents' citizenship or legal status.

Most legal scholars say the 14th Amendment guarantees birthright citizenship to almost everyone, with the exception being children of diplomats or children born to enemies in time of war. But new legal scholarship says that's not the case, and Congress could pass a law to change citizenship rules.

That view has taken hold in the House, where H.R. 1940, the Birthright Citizenship Act of 2007, has gained 79 co-sponsors. But reception on the campaign trail is mixed.

Here's how the Republican field stands, as far as I am aware. (If anyone knows of any additions and has the supporting documents, send them on it.)

*Reps. Tom Tancredo and Duncan Hunter are co-sponsors H.R.1940.
*Mitt Romney was still studying the issue late last month, according to ABC News' Teddy Davis
*When asked earlier this year, Sen. Sam Brownback said he was going to "fudge" on what he called the "anchor baby proposal," saying it was a constitutional question and out of his hands.
*Giuliani also says it's a constitutional guarantee.
*Rather than letting the constitutional questions be an impediment, Rep. Ron Paul has introduced a constitutional amendment, H.J. RES. 46, to change the 14th Amendment.

-- Stephen Dinan, national political reporter, The Washington Times

Here are previously unreleased poll numbers from Victory Enterprises, an Iowa-based firm, for the Iowa Republican presidential caucuses. Two of the firm's top officials work for Tommy Thompson's campaign, so they offer that caveat:

Mitt Romney: 26.3
Rudy Giuliani: 8.5
Fred Thompson: 7.0
Tommy Thompson: 6.3
John McCain: 5.3
Sam Brownback: 5.0
Tom Tancredo: 4.5
Mike Huckabee: 3.8
Ron Paul: 1.0
Duncan Hunter: 0.3
Undecided: 32.3

That represents a stunning turnaround from last year, when the same poll showed Giuliani and McCain each with 21.7 percent support and Mitt Romney with just 2.2 percent.

Unlike some other polls, this one doesn't push their undecided voters to find out who they are leaning toward, said Steve Grubbs, the polling firm's president and a strategist for the Thompson campaign.

Mr. Grubbs said Mr. McCain's drop here in Iowa is entirely due to immigration.

The 2007 poll was of 400 Republican likely caucus-goers, and was taken July 24-25. It has a margin of error of plus or minus 4.9 percentage points.

-- Stephen Dinan, national political reporter, The Washington Times

Remember the name Josh Kennedy. He eventually may go down in Web-campaign history with S.R. Sidarth, the Democratic operative whose "macaca" video helped put the "former" in former Virginia Sen. George Allen.

Mr. Kennedy has been detailed by the Arkansas Democratic Party to trail Mike Huckabee around Iowa this week with a video camera.

This morning he was perched at a table in a Pizza Ranch restaurant in Spencer, balancing his camera to capture every word Mr. Huckabee, former Arkansas governor and Republican presidential hopeful, said to the 15 folks who showed up.

Mr. Huckabee, it turns out, can deliver folksy one-liners as well as any other candidate, which may be why so many observers say he's done so well in the debates.

Among yesterday's gems that Arkansas Democrats might find on their videotape are Mr. Huckabee's standards for supporters to show up at Saturday's straw poll: "What we need is a person with an Iowa driver's license, who will be 18 before November, and the semblance of a pulse."

Mr. Kennedy said he wasn't allowed to speak to the press, but Mr. Huckabee said the young man is more than welcome to keep following him.

"I'm flattered to get the attention, but No. 2, I'm glad they're spending money up here rather than back home, hurting my friends," Mr. Huckabee said, adding he wouldn't say anything in Mr. Kennedy's presence he wouldn't say away from it. "Well, maybe a few things."

--Stephen Dinan, national political reporter, The Washington Times

Mitt Romney's new television ad may rally some more folks to turn out for him at Saturday's Iowa Republican Party straw poll.

But even for those who can't make it this weekend, it's a reminder to them he's chosen to play here.

Arizona Sen. John McCain and former New York Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani have chosen not to take part in the straw poll -- traditionally a key early test of each campaign's organizing ability in this state, which always goes first in the series of nominating contests.

Earlier this week Mr. Romney said they will regret their decision.

"The process which we have used to select our nominee in the Republican Party has included the Iowa straw poll. I want to participate in the Iowa process. I believe in this process," he told reporters after a town hall in Madrid.

Iowans are very protective of their first-in-the-nation status and take it as an affront to their state when candidates don't spend the time or the money it takes to compete here.

"You do not get to the White House by bypassing Iowa. That's the message we need to send to these guys," said a staffer for Sen. Charles E. Grassley, Iowa's senior Republican national officeholder and state Republicans' most sought-after endorsement, at a forum in Hull, in the far northwest corner of the state.

Can it really hurt a candidate? Just ask Howard Dean.

Days before Iowa's Democratic caucuses in 2004, someone uncovered an interview from four years earlier on Canadian television in which Mr. Dean said the caucuses "are dominated by the special interests on both sides and both parties."

He finished third in the caucuses.

--Stephen Dinan, national political reporter, The Washington Times, in Iowa

Fred Thompson isn't participating in this weekend's Iowa Republican Party straw poll in Ames.

But The Washington Times' Ralph Z. Hallow has learned that the former Tennessee senator is trying to elbow his way into an appearance at the Iowa State Fair in Des Moines this week -- to the consternation of Iowa Republicans who want their famous straw poll to be center stage.

Mr. Thompson draws attention because he is still firting with a presidential bid but keeps putting off taking the jump. He has formed a testing-the-waters committee to gauge running for president, but apparently has put off making a final announcement until September.

Meanwhile, Arizona Sen. John McCain's nomination campaign suffered yet another setback when the deadline passed a week ago for making any changes in California's Feb. 5 presidential primary rules.

Mr. McCain's supporters had visions of changing it from a closed primary in which only registered Republicans can vote to one in which voters who "decline to state party affiliation" --independents -- also can participate.

Independents are the ones who accounted for his New Hampshire and Michigan primary upsets of George W. Bush in the 2000 nomination contests.

But it's unclear how much the move would have helped him anyway: Mr. McCain, an Iraq war supporter, has little of the appeal he once had with independents, particularly when former New York Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani is also on the primary ballot.

-- Stephen Dinan, national political reporter, The Washington Times

George Stephanopoulos might not think immigration is a major issue for Republican voters, leaving it out of Sunday's 90-minute debate among the Republican presidential hopefuls, but voters in Iowa would disagree.

The candidates, all of whom are spending at least a little time in Iowa this week before Saturday's Iowa Republican Party straw poll, can't seem to hold a town hall or meet and greet without getting at least one question about immigration. And the audiences are often times far more up on the issue than the candidates standing in front of them.

Former New York Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, found that out Sunday night at a pizza parlor in Boone, when a woman asked him about birthright citizenship, which means nearly anyone born in the United States is automatically a citizen, even if their parents are here illegally. Mr. Giuliani told the woman that it is in the Constitution so he can't change it.

"That's not true," one man piped up, apparently aware of the debate on this issue. Some Republicans in the U.S. House, using recent scholarship, have introduced a bill that would rescind birthright citizenship. They say the U.S. courts have never ruled specifically on whether illegal aliens' babies are entitled to citizenship, and they want to force the courts to have to make a final ruling.

Still, Mr. Giuliani had the last word, turning to one of the nation's foremost constitutional lawyers -- Theodore B. Olsen, the former U.S. solicitor general who is backing Mr. Giuliani and traveling with him through Iowa this week.

"Yeah, they're citizens," Mr. Olson concluded.

-- Stephen Dinan, national political reporter, The Washington Times