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Making news today:

Republicans debate immigration before largely Hispanic audience

CORAL GABLES, Fla. (AP) — Republican presidential hopeful John McCain told a Spanish language television audience that harsh immigration rhetoric voiced by some Republicans have driven Hispanics away from the party at a primary debate Sunday.   Full Story

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New polls show no clear leader in either party

WASHINGTON (CNN) — New Mason-Dixon polls released Sunday show the primary picture growing more, not less, uncertain with the first presidential voting less than a month away.  Full Story

– CNN Associate Political Editor Rebecca Sinderbrand

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Biden calls for Special Counsel to investigate CIA

(CNN) — Sen. Joe Biden, D-Delaware, says the Justice Department needs to go further than it has, by calling for the appointment of Special Counsel to investigate the CIA's destruction of videotapes that included the interrogation of terrorism suspects.  Full Story

– CNN Political Desk Editor Jamie Crawford

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The double "O" show

DES MOINES, Iowa — After 20 years covering politics, I’m a hard sell. I’ve seen every gimmick known to politicians: train trips, hang gliders, pyrotechnics and “intimate” conversations with voters in barber shops, front porches, diners and ice cream shops. Lord knows I have seen hundreds of endorsements.   Full Story

– CNN Senior Political Correspondent Candy Crowley

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Now you can take the Best Political Team with you anytime, anywhere. Subscribe to the “Best Political Podcast” for extensive coverage of the 2008 election.   Best Political Podcast

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Political Hot Topics
(Today's top political stories from news organizations across the country)

Compiled by Lindsey Pope
CNN Washington Bureau

New York Times: Republican Candidates Firm on Immigration
In front of what will probably be their most pro-immigration audience, Republican candidates toned down their rhetoric but told Spanish-language television viewers in a debate on Sunday that they would take strong measures to close off the country’s borders to illegal immigration.

Miami Herald: Republicans Soften Tone In Bilingual Debate
Facing a Spanish-speaking national audience for the first time, the Republican presidential candidates soft-pedaled their hard-line stances on immigration and sidestepped questions about the estimated 12 million undocumented workers already living in the United States.

USA Today: GOP Debate: Hopefuls Soften Immigration Rhetoric
Republican candidates pledged to crack down on illegal immigration during a debate Sunday before a largely Hispanic audience, but avoided confronting each other over who is tougher on the issue.

USA Today: Huckabee Stands By '92 View On AIDS Isolation
U.S. Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee said Sunday he will not run from his statement 15 years ago that AIDS patients should have been isolated.

DC Examiner: Huckabee’s Uphill Battle
Republican presidential contender Mike Huckabee, the underdog candidate who is now surging in the polls, faces an uphill battle to win the GOP nomination even if he prevails in the Jan. 3 Iowa caucus, political strategists say.

Des Moines Register: Home-schoolers propel Huckabee
Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee's rise in Iowa may have been a surprise to many, but not to a tightly knit group of social conservatives with something fundamental in common.

Chicago Tribune: Poll: It's Still A Three-Way Race Among Democrats
Whipsawed by an increasingly heated campaign, Democrats in Iowa and other early voting states are closely divided over which of their three top candidates to support, according to a new series of polls for McClatchy and MSNBC.

New Hampshire Union-Leader: Campaign Forum Set For Lesser-Known Pols
The New Hampshire Political Library will hold its traditional Lesser Known Candidates Forum Thursday at 4 p.m.

AP: Clinton Volunteer Asked to Resign
Hillary Rodham Clinton's campaign on Sunday requested the resignation of a second Iowa volunteer coordinator who forwarded a hoax e-mail saying Barack Obama is a Muslim possibly intent on destroying the United States.

LA Times: Clinton Rolls A Sizable Pork Barrel
It's a real estate developer's sugar-plum dream: a mega-shopping mall complete with 10 Broadway-style theaters, an indoor river, a Tuscan village and a 39-story luxury hotel sheathed in green solar panels shaped like giant blades of grass. Plus as much as $1 billion in government-backed financing, thanks in part to Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton.

New York Times: A Crime Buster, With His Eye on the Future
He was, to the popular eye, Eliot Ness reincarnated, an unsparing prosecutor for a crime-shadowed age. And when the United States attorney in Manhattan resigned in January 1989, he earned a tabloid salute: “Good News for Bad Guys,” The Daily News proclaimed. “Crimebuster Giuliani Steps Down.”

Washington Post: Giuliani Defends Continued Ties to Consulting Firm
Republican presidential hopeful Rudolph W. Giuliani reaffirmed yesterday that he continues to hold a financial stake in the security consulting firm he launched after leaving the New York mayor's office and said the company's client list will remain confidential.

Baltimore Sun: Romney Beefs Up Md. Presence
Mitt Romney has bolstered his presidential campaign in Maryland, adding prominent Republicans to a state steering committee and scheduling a major fundraiser in Baltimore County today.

Boston Globe: Amid Campaign Rhetoric, Mccain Takes A Sober Tone
When word reached the McCain campaign on Wednesday afternoon that illegal immigrants had continued to work on Mitt Romney's lawn, staff members broke out into gleeful grins and the candidate himself proved unable to restrain a giggle…Yet when McCain sat down minutes later in a campaign vehicle to discuss the subject further with reporters, his smile disappeared and his tone turned solemn…

LA Times: Clinton Campaign Branches Out By Generations
Missing the star power of Oprah Winfrey, Hillary Rodham Clinton toured the state Saturday with her mother and daughter Chelsea in tow, in a series of low-key campaign events in which she dialed down attacks on her rivals.

San Francisco Chronicle: Dems Race Narrowing In Early Contests - Top Contenders Woo State
For months, Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton has appeared to have an iron grip on California's primary election, with an army of top-name endorsers and a formidable ground organization that helped her amass a 2-1 lead in the polls over Illinois Sen. Barack Obama.

Politico: GOP Launches First Attack Invoking Hillary
The Republican Party has launched its first use of unflattering images of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) to motivate voters in two congressional special elections this week, marking the beginning of what could be a year-long barrage of ads that invoke Clinton in an effort to torpedo other Democrats running for office.

New Hampshire Union-Leader: Edwards Assails NAFTA, Corporations In Derry Gathering
Bolstered by two major union endorsements, Democrat John Edwards yesterday called for the repeal of the North American Free Trade Agreement and promised to stand up for middle-class families if elected President.

Newsweek Web Exclusive: Star Power
Barack Obama couldn't have hoped for a better endorser than Oprah. Problem was, she outshone the candidate.

Washington Post: A Mission Accepted
They had spent the past month scared and sequestered as France revolted around them, so the Mormon missionaries could hardly wait to get outside Paris and onto open country roads. The mission president and his wife readied their roomiest car, a Citroen DS. For this road trip in June 1968, they asked Mitt Romney to be their driver.

LA Times: Maybe Thompson Is (Yawn) Just Trying To Pace Himself
Now that we're coming down to the last few precious weeks before voting begins in the primaries to choose candidates in the race to decide who should lead the country and the Free World, former Sen. Fred Thompson is ramping up his campaign schedule. Seven other hard-working Republican campaigners are close on his tail.

Chicago Tribune: Biden Plans Television Ads in Iowa
Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden plans to air television ads in Iowa on Wednesday, touting his plan to end the Iraq war and his history of overcoming personal tragedy.

LA Times: Details Of Governor's Travel Costs Lacking
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's office has avoided fully disclosing payments of $1.7 million in nonprofit funds for private jets, hotel suites and support staff for his trips overseas, according to state documents and interviews.

AP: Republicans Favored To Win Va., Ohio Congressional Seats
Republicans are favored to keep two conservative congressional districts in Ohio and Virginia in special elections Tuesday to fill the seats of two recently deceased incumbents. 

Roll Call: Nervous GOP Eyes Ohio Vote
Washington, D.C., Republicans might be going in the red to keep Ohio’s 5th district that color in tomorrow’s special election.

Roll Call: Final Deals Taking Shape
As Members of Congress continue to seek an exit strategy that will allow them to leave town before Christmas — if not this week — Democrats are weighing a series of compromises that they hope will yield breakthroughs on energy, a farm bill, the alternative minimum tax and a massive omnibus spending package that seems destined to include significant war funding.

Washington Post: Subsidies' Harvest Of Misery By Jimmy Carter
Congress can still act decisively this year to right a wrong that is hurting both small American farmers and the poorest people on the planet. A long-overdue debate is taking place on reform of the 1933 farm bill, passed during the Great Depression to alleviate the suffering of America's family farmers.

Washington Post: Perino's 'Missile Crisis' Confession
Still looking for that last-minute Christmas gift for White House press secretary Dana Perino? May we recommend a gift certificate for the forthcoming book on the Cuban Missile Crisis by our colleague Michael Dobbs, "One Minute to Midnight: Kennedy, Khrushchev, and Castro on the Brink of Nuclear War," due out next summer?
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On the Trail:

Compiled by Lauren Kornreich and Katy Byron
CNN Washington Bureau

* Sen. Barack Obama, D-Illinois, holds a roundtable discussion at Clark County Public Library in Las Vegas, Nevada. Later, Obama attends a Generation Barack Obama concert featuring the Goo Goo Dolls and Ne-Yo in Universal City, California.

* Sen. John McCain, R-Arizona, meets with local residents at Al's Family Restaurant in North Augusta, South Carolina. Later, he delivers a speech on energy security in Aiken and holds a meet and greet in Batesburg-Leesville.

* Sen. Joe Biden, D-Delaware, meets with local residents in Oelwein, Independence and Waterloo, Iowa.

* Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Connecticut, participates in a town hall meeting at Google Headquarters in Mountain View, California.

* Former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards kicks off his "America Belongs to Us" bus tour at the Polk County Convention Complex in Des Moines, Iowa. Later, he holds a town hall meeting at Marshalltown Senior High School.

* Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani meets with local supporters at Mel's Drive-In in San Francisco, California.

* New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson delivers a speech at the Green Xchange Global Conference in Los Angeles, California.

* Former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson visits the Bay of Pigs Museum in Miami, Florida.

* The Senate Radio-Television Correspondents' Gallery Daybook

* The House Radio-Television Correspondents' Gallery Daybook