CNN

Making news today...

Obama's closing argument

WASHINGTON (CNN) – Iowa voters deliver their final verdict in just a week, and candidates are busy making their closing arguments. Today, it’s Barack Obama’s turn.

After tangling with John Edwards for most of last weekend, the Illinois senator spent his first day of post-Christmas campaigning taking jabs of a slightly more subtle nature at national frontrunner Hillary Clinton, and Clinton White House years. (If you weren’t listening closely, you might have missed them – but Phil Singer didn’t.) Obama’s big speech is scheduled for this morning in Des Moines.

Democrats are sticking to the Hawkeye State, and so is most of the Republican field - but for the second day in a row, there are a few notable exceptions. Rudy Giuliani is stumping in Florida again. Mike Huckabee also starts the day in the Sunshine State, before winding up back in Iowa.

And Mitt Romney - still recovering from his second Granite State newspaper “anti-endorsement” in less than a week - is meeting with voters in New Hampshire again today: the state is more vital than ever to his campaign, now that an Iowa victory looks less certain than it did just a few short weeks ago.

– CNN Associate Political Editor Rebecca Sinderbrand