By Howard Kurtz 

Just back from Iowa, and I’ve got a theory about why Hillary Clinton has been having a difficult time.

It’s because she is the issue.

No politician wants to be the issue and have the debate swirl around them and their foibles. And Hillary is working overtime to make Barack Obama the issue with the whole change-requires-experience argument. But I don’t see the pundits, bloggers, radio people and cable hosts sitting around debating Obama’s qualifications. They’re chattering about Hillary, as they have for 15 years. Even talking about her looks, thanks to Drudge.

Clinton’s team, as I reported yesterday, believes the press is holding their woman to a much higher standard than Obama, and some journalists agree.

For most of the year, as HRC’s election was depicted as pretty much a done deal, a number of conservative commentators seemed to be making their peace with the prospect. Hillary was more hawkish than her Democratic rivals, more experienced, and had run a surprisingly good campaign, they said. She was, in short, a grownup.

But now that she’s hit a rough patch, some of the old anti-Hillary vehemence is surfacing. Take these two reports in National Review, starting with Jonah Goldberg:

"The most enjoyable aspect of watching the HMS Hillary take on water is the prospect that Bill — and his cult of personality — will go down with the ship, too. Bill Clinton has been stumping for his wife on the Iowa hustings, framing the election as a referendum on his tenure as president. Last month in Muscatine (during the same speech in which he falsely claimed to have opposed the Iraq war from the beginning), he told the assembled Democrats that HMS Hillary could transport America ‘back to the future.’ . . .

"Hillary’s entire campaign has been grounded in her experience in the Clinton administration of the 1990s, even though that experience mostly involves designing a failed health-care plan and unsuccessfully hectoring her husband to move to the left. Still, as New York Times editorial writer Adam Cohen noted in a column last week, it was her decision to make the choice between her and Barack Obama a ‘referendum on a decade.’ So if Hillary Clinton loses the race for the nomination — heck, even if she just loses the Iowa caucuses — I hope to see this headline somewhere, perhaps in the New York Post: ‘America to Clinton(s): We’re Just Not That Into You.’ "

Noemie Emery draws a parallel to another failed candidate:

"What is one to make of Hillary Clinton, now that her front-running campaign seems to be foundering? Pretty much what one made of Al Gore when his campaign faltered. 2008 has barely begun, but already it seems quite a lot like 2000. There is a sense of deja-vu-all-over-again as Bill Clinton’s over-ambitious First Lady replays his vice president’s fate.

"The former VP and the former first lady have remarkable similarities. Both Gore and Hillary wanted to be president for a most of their lives, and with an uncommon ferocity. Each one’s rise through the ranks came about via family members — his father; her husband. Both rose to fame on the wings of Bill Clinton, who is proving to be a mixed blessing for both. Each began a campaign in a position of almost impregnable power, which each one subsequently (and quickly) undermined by errors of judgment and character.

"In short, what we see here are two campaigns that began with a huge amount of familial and institutional support for candidates who rose exclusively through the power of their respective situations, and who, in the end, are inept politicians and thus in over their heads in a high-stakes campaign."

Not sure what she means by Hillary’s character problem, since the piece is more about her being a bad politician.

Rush Limbaugh’s ruminations on the Drudge photo of Hillary’s wrinkles prompt Maureen Dowd to say Limbaugh is right about our living in a looks-obsessed society. She adds:

"Hillary doesn’t have to worry about her face. She has to worry about her mask. Back in the ‘92 race, Clinton pollsters devised strategies to humanize her and make her seem more warm and maternal. Fifteen years later, her campaign is devising strategies to humanize her and make her seem more warm and maternal.

"The public still has no idea of what part of her is stage-managed and focus-grouped, and what part is legit. It’s pretty pathetic, at this stage of her career, that she has to wage a major offensive, by helicopter and Web testimonials, to make herself appear warm-blooded."

The Bill Factor is making a comeback as a campaign narrative, as demonstrated by this Daily News piece:

"Hillary Clinton’s husband may be a political genius, but he’s also a Bill in a china shop . . .

"Hillary Clinton might not be amused at the brouhaha her husband caused by saying that as president, she would immediately enlist the first President Bush to repair the overseas mess his son is leaving.

"The New York senator has also said she’d reach out to past presidents to help fix America’s image. But Bubba’s more pointed suggestion that Poppy would help clean up his son’s mess provoked a smackdown from the older Bush’s camp.

" ‘That will not happen. There is no way he would do anything that would even indirectly suggest he has problems with his son’s foreign policy,’ a longtime friend of George H.W. Bush told the Daily News."

As if Hillary didn’t have enough to worry about, the New York Post has this:

"Owe, brother!

"Hillary Rodham Clinton’s youngest sibling is a deadbeat dad who owes tens of thousands of dollars in child support to his politically connected ex, The Post has learned.

"In a disclosure that could prove embarrassing for his sister, Anthony Rodham has stiffed his former wife, Nicole Boxer, out of $75,000 in child support, as well as $55,000 in alimony, a source close to the case said." That’s Barbara Boxer’s daughter.

Another one bites the dust:

"Representative Tom Tancredo, whose forceful opposition to illegal immigration vaulted him to national prominence, plans to announce he is abandoning his long-shot bid for the Republican presidential primary, a person close to the candidate said yesterday."

Why should he stay in? Most of the other Republicans now sound like Tancredo on illegal immigration.

I’m surprised these candidates don’t get sick more often:

"Republican Rudy Giuliani planned to head home to New York City on Thursday after spending the night in a St. Louis hospital getting checked out for flu-like symptoms, his campaign said."

A plethora of polls to catch up on. Seems like there’s one every couple of hours.

CBS has a South Carolina poll showing Huckabee leading Romney 28 to 20. Obama is essentially tied with Hillary, 35-34.

But Huckabee is the new front-runner in this Zogby poll. He leads Rudy nationally at 23-22. Romney is third at 16. Hillary leads Obama 40 to 32, but that’s tight compared to a month ago.

NBC/WSJ says Mitt and Romney are tied nationally at 20, with Huckabee at 17 and McCain at 12. But here’s the big news:

"The Journal/NBC poll may fuel arguments by the Obama campaign that their candidate is more broadly acceptable than Mrs. Clinton, a polarizing figure whose 44% negative rating exceeds her 42% positive mark. The poll shows Mr. Obama leading Mr. Giuliani by a larger margin than Mrs. Clinton does — a change from early November, when the data suggested they would both fare about the same against him.

"Against Mr. Huckabee, Mr. Obama leads by 48% to 36%, while Mrs. Clinton has a narrow 46% to 44% edge."

WashPost/ABC gives Huck a 35-27 lead over Mitt in Iowa alone.

Have you seen all the Christmas ads the candidates are churning out, complete with trees, gifts and Santa? I’ve got the details.

We keep hearing that the old McCain, circa 2000, is back. John Dickerson has some examples:

"In McCain’s conversations with voters, I’m struck by the contrast between him and Barack Obama. I have covered Barack Obama more than John McCain this campaign. Obama tells audiences he’s going to tell them uncomfortable truths, but he barely does it. McCain, on the other hand, seems to go out of his way to tell people things they don’t like, on issues from immigration to global warming.

"Midway through the questioning period in Weare, N.H., a man stood to ask why McCain and other public officials weren’t standing up to defend the military against attacks from the media. ‘You talk about torture,’ the man said, before cataloging what he saw as unfair attacks on soldiers accused of atrocities in Iraq. He continued, arguing that soldiers worried about getting prosecuted or tried in the press would become hesitant, and that would get them killed.

"The proper candidate response was to agree and praise the fighting men and women. That would win the man’s vote and pick up an easy round of applause from the room. Instead, McCain argued that ‘the unique thing about America is we hold our [soldiers] accountable.’ McCain saw that the man wasn’t swayed and asked him to speak again. He did so at length, suggesting that McCain wasn’t putting the interest of the soldiers first.

"McCain had a trump card: His son is a Marine on the ground in Iraq. So he could easily prove that he cares about the welfare of the grunts. But he didn’t mention his son (he almost never does)."

I’ve watched Huckabee in at least a dozen interviews now, and the man can hit major-league pitching. Time’s Jay Carney is impressed by yesterday’s "Today" appearance:

"You might have a new appreciation for why Mike Huckabee is surging both in both Iowa and in national polls in the race for the Republican nomination. In an interview with Meredith Vieira, Huckabee turned the hubub over the ‘floating cross’ in his Christmas ad into a lament about the absurdity of political correctness and the sullying of Christmas by conventional politicians. He stood by his criticism of President Bush’s ‘arrogant’ foreign policy by touting the ‘Powell-Schwarzkopf doctrine’ of overwhelming force. Then he deftly dismissed the GOP establishment’s opposition to him with a populist riff that was Edwardsian in both style and content. One money exchange:

"Huckabee: The Wall Street-to-Washington axis, this corridor of power, is absolutely, frantically against me. But out there in America, the reason we’re number one in the polls is because I’m the guy that doesn’t have some offshore mailbox bank account in the Caymans hiding my money. I’m the guy that worked my way up through it. And there are a whole lot of people in America that believe that the president ought to be a servant of the people and ought not to be elected to the ruling class. . . .

"Vieira: So why do you think they’re opposed to you, Governor?

"Huckabee: Because they don’t control me."

Can these folks cause heartburn for Rudy? The L.A. Times has the details:

"In an effort reminiscent of the bitter ‘Swift Boat’ campaign during the 2004 presidential race, a group of New York firefighters who lost sons in the Sept. 11 World Trade Center attacks is organizing a political committee to take on former Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani in Republican primary states. A leader of the 9/11 Firefighters and Families group met Tuesday with union leaders and political consultants, readying plans to set up a tax-exempt committee that would fund appearances and a media drive against Giuliani."

Don’t try telling Fred Thompson’s wife that he’s lazy. Here’s what she tells CBN’s David Brody:

" Brody : Has the criticism been unfair and if so why?

"Jeri Thompson: It has been stunningly unfair. The one thing that anyone that’s been close to Fred, again over the years that has worked with him knows, that his work ethic is bar none, one of the most diligent people I’ve ever met in my life."

The New York Times, like other papers, has often been accused of attack-dog journalism, but not like this. Former CNN executive Eason Jordan has the gory details:

"It was a stunning, painful sneak attack that landed me in the emergency room of the U.S. Army’s hospital in Baghdad’s Green Zone.

"The attacker: Scratch, one of The New York Times’ Baghdad bureau dogs, whose vicious bite opened three deep gashes in my right hand, sending blood spewing in all directions."

Apparently Scratch is a serial biter. And wait till you find out what Blackwater did to another Times canine.

Liberal radio talker Ed Schultz has had it with Hill and her reluctance to come on his show:

"I am done with the Clintons. I’m done with the cheap shots. I’m done with the innuendos. I’m done with the blaming it on the Des Moines Register. Hillary, I do not want you to be the nominee. Biden, I do not want you to be the nominee. I’m taking a stand here and I am being self-serving. Just like there are Americans out there being self-serving about health care. Just like there are Americans out there being self-serving about tax cuts or faith and politics. I can’t believe that Barack Obama can call me yesterday from his bus just on a whim after we asked about it maybe an hour beforehand . . . You mean to tell me that the guy who happens to be leading in Iowa is so much less busy than Hillary Clinton?"

And the day’s weightiest story comes from Mike Allen:

"Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee says he’s gained about 12 pounds in the past year and is struggling to ward off trail fat by carrying nuts and insisting on running time in an increasingly packed schedule."

Well, he’s still 98 pounds below his gubernatorial weight.

Source:  Washington Post