Eastern Elites and Evangelicals: the Cage Match [Byron York, The Corner]: "Mike Huckabee was on the "Today" show this morning.... Huckabee got into what is really the basis of his appeal for many voters. He's tapping into that new sort of evangelicalism, that Rick Warren-style worldview that David Brooks and others have been writing about for a few years now. It is real, it is different from older-style evangelicalism, as well as from economic or national-security conservatism, and Huckabee has his finger on it:"

Big League Bargaining [Paul Krugman, Conscience of a Liberal]: "My thoughts [on Obama and health care]: being president isn’t at all like being a state legislator, Illinois Republicans aren’t like the national Republican party, 2009 won’t be 2003, and the insurance industry’s opposition to national health reform — which must, if it is to mean anything, strike deep at the industry’s fundamental business — will be much harsher than its opposition to a basically quite mild state-level reform effort."

Say It Ain't So [Mark Ambinder, The Atlantic]: "Is John Edwards's surge a media-created phenomenon, a collective reaction formation to the media's desire to see a three-person race, or guilt for building up Barack Obama? Does the media really have that power? Or are we seeing something more organic?"

Polling Up North, Out West [CNN/Field Research]: New Hampshire CNN/WMUR poll, Dec. 13-17: Mitt Romney, 34%; John McCain 22%, and Rudy Giuliani 16 %. Hillary Clinton, 38%; Barack Obama, 26%; John Edwards 14%. California Field poll, Dec. 10-17: Hillary Clinton, 36%, Barack Obama 22%, John Edwards 13%.

 --Dayo Olopade