Remembering that Iowa voters have a history of being turned off by negative, direct, rhetorical fist-on-face contact, the Republican field (now with more Alan Keyes!) debated for the final time before the Iowa caucus yesterday afternoon and took it nice and easy on each other.

You've done the advance work. You've called everyone. You've invested campaign time and campaign money into putting together several days' worth of events.

Source: ahhyeah's photostream, flickr

Then an ice storm ruins everything. Now what?

All my rowdy friends are coming over to see Phil King rule that the state doesn't have jurisdiction over this business-to-business dispute. Jerry Jones and Roger Goodell, Commissioner of the NFL, were in Austin yesterday to make their respective cases about whether the NFL Network should be available on basic cable or if it should be some sort of premium charge.

Early voting is underway in the House District 97 special election in Tarrant County.

In yesterday's mailbag, someone asked what the candidates are doing to get people's attention these days. Mike Huckabee has apparently decided the best way to get your attention is to open up a 22-point lead over Mitt Romney in Iowa.

It's Friday, and I find myself faced with a tough choice. Do I talk about matters of significant political import, or do I talk about Ron Paul's blimp? (Hint: I actually do both.)

The GOP's judgment of KBH's latest moves? Not conservative enough. Hutchison has stepped aside in the scramble to fill the void left by Trent Lott, clearing the way for others to move up to the number 3 spot in the GOP leadership.

The White House ran into a difficult issue yesterday on Iran: despite all of the saber rattling and mushroom-cloud style rhetoric from the US swearing up and down that Iran has a robust nuclear weapons program, a National Intelligence Estimate, partially declassified yesterday, shows that Iran hasn't had a nuclear weapons program since 2003.

If you're in the market for a presidential caucus that will be in flux right down to the wire, Iowa is looking to be right up your alley.

This week will be one full of speeches, notably coming from President Bush (on war funding, today) and from Mitt Romney (on his religion, Thursday).