So who's heard this joke: If Hillary Clinton becomes president, that makes Bill Clinton first lady! There have been many Bill/Hillary jokes on talk shows, the media, and probably even your office. But have these jokes gone too far?

The folks holding the 2008 presidential online elections blogged an entry about Bill for First Lady Campaign. It's funny, yet serious!

http://ourvote.us

I tell a lot of people that Obama is the only Democratic candidate who has released his earmarks to the public, and how important this is.

Then I can tell by the looks on their faces that most of them don't really know what I'm talking about.

Let me explain:

Earmarks are commonly known as "pork-barrel spending," or is money inserted by politicians into appropriations bills, often under a cloud of secrecy. The politician does not have to get any public approval for this earmark and does not have to disclose to the public how many earmarks they're inserting. The problem with this is that this can be an under-the-radar means of paying back political favors with absolutely no public accountability.

New York Times Editorial

Once upon a time, Washington managed to fully confront a corruption scandal and invent a government solution that actually worked for 30 years. The scandal was Watergate. The solution was the innovative option of providing public financing to presidential campaigns as a means of curbing the influence of big money donors like those who ran amok in President Richard Nixon’s 1972 re-election.

Since then, candidates opted for the subsidies — and the spending limits that come with them — in every general election. And most did in the primary elections, too. But not next time. Senators Hillary Rodham Clinton and John McCain have already signaled their intentions to make a shameful and lucrative retreat to private fund-raising. The Clinton camp is creating a new honored donor category for those who bag at least a million dollars each, with strategists mirthfully debating whether to dub these fat-cat groomers “Pathfinders” or “Hillraisers.” We suggest Recidivists.

By Kristin Jensen

Jan. 29 (Bloomberg) -- For many presidential hopefuls, the first campaign trip to Iowa is about pancake breakfasts, church socials and quiet chats with voters. Not so for Hillary Clinton.

Hundreds of reporters followed Clinton to events in Des Moines and Davenport that overflowed with Iowa voters yesterday and Saturday. A small meet-and-greet in Cedar Rapids on Saturday night attracted ``unprecedented'' interest, causing organizer Marcia Rogers to open her home to more than 100 people.

It is this star appeal that makes the former first lady the front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination; she leads in the national polls, expects to raise record sums of money and has more political and organizational support around the country than her rivals.

By MIKE GLOVER

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) - New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton blamed President Bush on Saturday for misusing authority given him by Congress to act in Iraq, but conceded "I take responsibility" for her role in allowing that to happen.

In an interview with The Associated Press, Clinton also said she would not cede black votes to Barack Obama and that she had proven as a U.S. senator that gender is irrelevant.

Of her husband, the former president, she said he would have a role in the campaign but "I'm the one running for president."

Clinton was making her first campaign swing through this early nominating state, which twice voted for Bill Clinton for president. She met with key activists and held a raucous town hall meeting with 1,500 cheering backers and hundreds of journalists.

By Joe Klein

I was having a fascinating conversation with a Middle East expert about the intricacies of Israel's disengagement from Gaza when I noticed the fellow growing impatient. "Enough of this," he said. "What about Hillary?" Welcome to my life. In airports, on checkout lines, at the doctor's office: "What about Hillary?" (Everywhere except in Washington, where everyone "knows" she's running.) I shrug, I try to avoid the question, I say it's too early—and it is. But you want to know too, right? So here it is. I like Senator Clinton. She has a wicked, ironic sense of humor (in private) and a great raucous belly laugh. She is smart and solid; she inspires tremendous loyalty among those who work for her. She is not quite as creative a policy thinker as her husband, but she easily masters difficult issues—her newfound grasp of military matters has impressed colleagues of both parties on the Armed Services Committee—and she is not even vaguely the left-wing harridan portrayed by the Precambrian right. I also think that a Clinton presidential candidacy in 2008 would be a disaster on many levels.

Over 50,000 messages of support and over 11,000 blog contest submissions have already been submitted; 50,000 participated in live video webcasts

Supporters are flocking to Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign web site at an historic rate, further demonstrating the groundswell of enthusiasm generated by her candidacy. Specifically, some 140,000 supporters have signed up as supporters through the campaign web site, www.hillaryclinton.com in the last five days alone.

"The online response has been overwhelming," Clinton Internet Director Peter Daou said. "140,000 people have signed up since we launched, including nearly a hundred thousand who signed up in the first 48 hours. Senator Clinton's three consecutive live web conversations were attended by tens of thousands of viewers who asked more than 25,000 questions."

By THOMAS BEAUMONT
REGISTER STAFF WRITER

Sen. Hillary Clinton plans to headline a series of public forums across Iowa this weekend on her first trip to the leadoff caucus state as a presidential prospect, her staff announced Thursday.

Aides also confirmed that the New York Democrat had hired veteran Iowa campaign leader JoDee Winterhof to run her campaign for the state's nominating caucuses.

"You're going to see a strong, experienced, hungry team on the ground working on this campaign," said Winterhof, a former chief of staff to Iowa Sen. Tom Harkin.

Winterhof also led the national voter outreach group America Coming Together during the 2004 presidential campaign.

By TONY KARON

Hillary Clinton is the clear front-runner to win the Democratic Party's nomination for President in 2008, but the Republican race will be a close contest between Senator John McCain and former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani — with McCain edging Giuliani by a three- to four-point margin. And a presidential face-off between Clinton and McCain, right now, would be close to a dead heat. Those are some of the key findings of a new TIME poll earlier this week that canvassed a random sample of 1,064 registered voters by phone.

Despite the buzz generated by Senator Barack Obama entering the race, the survey found that Senator Clinton would beat him for the Democratic nomination by a margin of 40% to 21%. Senator John Edwards is a distant third with 11%. Obama clearly suffers a disadvantage in profile among likely voters, with only 51% indicating that they knew enough about him to form an opinion, compared with 94% saying the same of Hillary Clinton. In Obama's favor, however, is his far lower negative ratings. While 58% of voters familiar with Hillary Clinton have a positive view of her, 41% give her negative marks, for a net favorability score of +17. By contrast, Obama's net favorability score is +47. On the Republican side, Giuliani has a net favorability rating of +68, with only 14% having a negative view of him. McCain's net favorability score is +45.