This story is developing. Check www.startribune.com for more on this situation and for updates.

ROCHESTER, N.H. (AP) — A man claiming to have a bomb walked into a Hillary Rodham Clinton campaign office Friday and took at least two hostages, police and witnesses said. Clinton was not in the state at the time.

The GOP debate this week produced lots of fireworks, so here’s a look at follow-up stories and websites that try to sort out the facts behind the charges.

At PolitiFact.com, the Truth-O-Meter and the Attack File concludes:
Rudy Giuliani’s claim that Mitt Romney failed to take action against sanctuary cities: Mostly true.
Mitt Romney’s claim that Giuliani welcomed illegal immigrants: True.
Mike Huckabee’s explanation about school benefits for children of illegal immigants: Barely true.
Mitt Romney (aka Bill Buckner) muffed an easy grounder: He got a key Red Sox stat wrong.
Mitt Romney’s stat on out-of-wedlock African-American births: True.
Ron Paul’s claim on receiving campaign donations from military members: True.
John McCain’s claim on saving taxpayers $2 billion: True.

Here’s an AP story that examines whether New York was a sanctuary city under Guiliani. It makes a compelling case that NYC followed the same policies toward illegal immigrants as do cities that proudly proclaim themselves as sanctuary cities. In NYC, the policy was put in place long before Giuliani became mayor, but he vigorously protected the policy.

Giuliani took a swipe at Romney, saying he had a “sanctuary mansion” because illegal immigrants worked at the former governor’s home in Massachusetts. Here’s the original Boston Globe story, which was published nearly a year ago.

This first AP story and this second AP story explore whether Rudy Giuliani hid the costs of police protection for him while he had extramarital trysts with his now-wife, Judity Nathan.

Here’s the original Politico.com report, and here’s Politico’s next-day follow-up.

Here’s Guiliani explaining away the charge, on CBS news. (Be warned: 30-second ad precedes the report.)

Who do you think was “more truthful” and who was “less truthful” in the debate?

Just a few months ago, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee shared the anonymity of the handful of other back-of-the-pack Republican presidential candidates. In recent weeks, he’s registered a stunning climb in the polls.

Mike Huckabee

And after Wednesday night’s You Tube/CNN debate, he’s bound to get another huge boost — perhaps enough to propel him to victory in Iowa.

He had what appears, at least in the immediate aftermath, to have been a breakthrough performance. He was articulate, funny, homespun and perhaps more than any other candidate he exuded a confidence and sense of comfort in who he is and what he believes. (John McCain and Fred Thompson came close behind.)

Perhaps Huckabee struggled a bit to explain his support for scholarships for children of illegal aliens. But after that he scored on virtually every question. He was direct and unapologetic and registered high on the likeability scale.

Mitt Romney may have fared the worst. He’s already suspect among many Republicans for his evolution on key issues. And his performance could not have helped any in allaying those concerns. He stumbled, stammered and didn’t seem to know what he believed on some key issues, and at times his first instinct seemed to be to duck and weave.

Some other observations:

I’ll take the citizen-submitted video format and Anderson Cooper over Wolf Blitzer and Tim Russert any day.

Even so, while the questions were generally good, this batch of videos wasn’t as creative or surprising as the batch used in the Democratic debate.

I was surprised they didn’t use Minnesota’s Billiam the Snowman, given that this debate almost didn’t happen because of opposition to Billiam.

I was disappointed that they didn’t use a Red State Update video question, as they did in the Democratic debate. Those guys are hilarious. To see their work, go to their website here.

But this video, I thought, did stand out.

So what did you think of the debate? Do you think Huckabee will get the biggest bounce? And what did you think of Thompson submitting an attack ad for his own video? What else caught your attention?

After Rachel Paulose’s resignation as U.S. Attorney for Minnesota yesterday, the Left celebrated and blamed the Bush administration for a politically-grounded appointment that was bound to fail.

The Right blamed her departure on a media lynching.

And a non-partisan, offering a more temperate view, blamed it on the common mistakes of an inexperienced supervisor.

Here’s a sample of what the bloggers had to say last night and this morning.

U.S. Attorney Rachel Paulose

TPMmuckraker
“It’s not a promotion — it’s a way out.”

TalkLeft:
“Now, how hard was that? Should have been done months ago.”

Norwegianity:
“Only with the Bushies do failures fall upwards. Pathetic.”

Power Line’s Scott Johnson, a friend of Paulose, reacting to an early StarTribune.com story about her resignation:
“Let’s see. She’s a Republican. (The position of United States Attorney is a political appointmet.) She was appointed to the position by the Bush administration. (No one other than the president and the Attorney General had the legal authority to make the appointment.) She knew Monica Goodling. (Liberals used to oppose guilty by association.) And former United States Attorney Tom Heffelfinger might have been fired if he had not resigned when he did. I understand completely.”

Lazy Gopher Pachyderm blames the media and Sen. Norm Coleman for abandoning her:
“Minnesota Republicans’ own wind-tossed strand of boiled linguini, U.S. Senator Norm Coleman, abandoned Rachel Paulose, his successful nominee for the U.S. attorney’s office in St. Paul. Bowing to unsubstantiated, even false media speculation, Coleman pulled his support, which I’m guessing is what likely led to the end of her tenure in St. Paul.”

Indiablogs:
“After the New York Times hatchet job on Rachel Paulose last week, we never had any doubt that her departure was imminent.”

Mark Cohen at Minnesota Lawyer blog says that Paulose is smart, charming, conservative in belief but not political in how she ran the office. He says she was neither the Wicked Witch her detractors claimed nor the St. Rachel that conservatives held her up to be:
“It has always been my belief that it was a management situation causing the disruptions at the office. Paulose has sterling academic credentials and a highly impressive resume for her age. But she had little real management experience.

“Intent on impressing her bosses and no doubt believing in her priorities, she plowed ahead and redirected the office without getting buy-in from the troops. She was also reportedly sometimes dictatorial in manner and abrasive toward subordinates. These are rookie mistake frequently made by inexperienced managers. But when that manager is in charge of 100 talented individuals at the U.S. Attorney’s Office and operating in a fishbowl, there is little room for error.”

What’s your analysis?

Mark your 2008 calendars for Sept. 26, Oct. 7 and Oct. 15.

Those are the dates the Commission on Presidential Debates has selected for next year’s presidential debates. Among the new rules: the candidates will engage in direct exchanges with each other.

Here are the details:

First presidential debate:
Friday, September 26
University of Mississippi, Oxford, MS
Debate focus: Domestic issues

Second presidential debate:
Tuesday, October 7
Belmont University, Nashville, TN
Debate focus: Town hall style, with issues raised by members of the audience and via the Internet.

Third presidential debate:
Wednesday, October 15
Hofstra University, Hempstead, NY
Debate focus: Foreign issues

In addition the vice presidential debate will be:
Thursday, October 2
Washington University in St. Louis, MO

All debates will be 90 minutes long, beginning at 8 p.m. (Central), and each will have a single moderator.

The first and third presidential debates and the veep debate “will be divided into 8 ten-minute issue segments; the moderator will introduce each segment with an issue on which each candidate will comment, after which the moderator will facilitate further discussion of the issue, including direct exchange between the candidates, for the balance of that segment,” the commission said.

You can read the commission’s full announcement here.

If you can’t be in Iowa, here’s the next best thing — a number of videos that give you a flavor of the campaign as it starts the homestretch run to the Jan. 3 caucuses.

This Obama campaign video shows what activists actually do — in this case, preparing for the Harkin Steak Fry, where Obama was speaking. There’s drums, cheerleaders — and everyone is “fired up, ready to go.”

In debates, John Edwards talks about the fundamentally corrupt system in Washington. That’s the subject of this speech, but it’s delivered with the kind of passion that’s hard to convey during a debate, when you’re standing behind a podium and Wolf Blizter is shouting at you: “Yes or no.”

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s campaign had some egg on its face recently, when it was disclosed that a campaign staffer planted a question — during a Clinton appearance — with an all-too-willing college student. I can’t embed the video here, but here are a couple of links to CNN videos. First, here’s the question and Clinton’s answer. And here’s an interview with the Grinnell College student who explains how it all happened.

This video of former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee isn’t quite as lively and exciting as the Obama video. But just because his supporters aren’t marching and shouting, it doesn’t mean they’re any less enthusiastic and committed to their candidate. It’s people like Bob Anderson who are behind the recent Huckabee surge in Iowa.

Here’s Rudy Giuliani (”the only Republican with an office east of Des Moines”) speaking at the University of Iowa.

Rep. Tom Tancredo last week started running a hard-edged new ad about immigration and terrorism. As he explains at the start, “I’m Tom Tancredo, and I approved this message because someone needs to say it.”

And, for old time’s sake, here’s The Scream — Howard Dean’s overly enthusiastic speech to supporters after his third-place finish in Iowa in 2004.

The consensus analysis of last night’s Democratic debate was that Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton regained her balance and appeared forceful, confident and energized.

But an interesting, and less explored, twist was the audience. It sounded awfully partisan for Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, and perhaps affected the countours of the debate.

Here’s what Slate’s John Dickerson wrote: “When Obama and Edwards tried to force Clinton into a stumble, they were booed by the occasionally raucous audience. That seemed to make them back off.

“Who knows what motivated the booing. It could have been Hillary partisans. It could have been that the audience didn’t like to hear the attacks. Clinton, for her part, only counter-punched, which may be why when she got pointed the crowd tolerated it. Or it could be that the people in the room, like most Democratic voters, wanted to hear the candidates on the issues.”

Debate organizers typically try to ensure an evenly-balanced audience — giving an equal number of tickets to each campaign, for example. Of course, an evenly-divided crowd doesn’t ensure that all the factions will behave the same way in the hall.

When Sen. Barack Obama spoke sometimes, you could hear some in the audience calling out and interrupting him. It sounded like heckling. And when he stumbled through his answer on driver’s licenses for illegal immigration, and CNN’s Wolf Blitzer called him on it, the crowd laughed heartily.

When Clinton slapped Edwards with the charge that he was engaged in “mud-slinging,” there was no disapproval from the audience.

An energized audience, with its applause and hollering, no doubt enlivens the debate from a viewer’s perspective. But at what price?

Were Obama and Edwards done a disservice by having a live audience that was more on Clinton’s side than on theirs?

Minnesota Democrats yesterday swiped at two Republicans for voting against a $105.6 billion bill that included funding for the I-35W bridge.

The Republicans — U.S. Reps. John Kline and Michele Bachmann — said they voted “no” because the bill contains excessive spending, which President Bush has threatened to veto.

Rep. John Kline

Is the Democrats’ criticism fair? Are Kline and Bachmann guilty of failing to deliver on their pledges to ensure rapid federal assistance for the bridge reconstruction, as Democrats allege?

Or are Kline and Bachmann showing strong spines — standing on the principle of containing federal spending, while knowing that their votes would open them to easy criticism?

Here’s Washington correspondent Kevin Diaz’s story. Among other things, it points out that Kline and Bachmann have signed onto a separate bill for the bridge funding.

Here’s what the DFL chair, Brian Melendez, said in a press release:
“We’ve gotten pretty used to Michele Bachmann and John Kline putting President Bush and special interests ahead of our state’s most urgent needs, but this vote goes beyond ridiculous — it’s callous. After all the lip service they’ve given to those projects, including the Northstar rail line in Bachmann’s own district, you’ve got to be kidding.
“Their mindless, lock-step partisanship and blind loyalty to a failed president is breathtaking. There’s no other way to put this: Michele Bachmann’s and John Kline’s hypocrisy is an embarrassment to Minnesota.”

Rep. Michele Bachmann

Here are some other things to consider. In voting “no,” Bachmann not only voted against the bridge funding, but also against funding for a couple projects in her own district — for the Northstar commuter line and for a bus system. Does that give her immunity to the DFL charges?

For another perspective, here are some of the things that Rep. Tim Walz, D-Minn., celebrated in the bill — some in his First District, some nationwide:

First Distrtict
$500,000 for Hwy. 14 from Waseca to Owatonna.
$350,000 for Hwy. 14 from North Mankato to New Ulm.
$300,000 for a MnDOT garage facility in Albert Lea.

Nationwide
$40.2 billion for maintaining or improving highways.
$9.65 billion for commuter or light rail.
$65 million above the president’s request for next-generation air traffic control technology.
$10 million to help small communities attract commercial air service.

Rep. James Oberstar, D-Minn., says the bill is not a budget-buster, because the Democratic Congress is adhering to the pay-as-you go rule — offsetting spending increases in one area with spending cuts in another.

But the Wall Street Journal reports in this story today about the spending battle between Bush and the Democrats: “The measure, which adds $3 billion in discretionary appropriations above President Bush’s budget requests, reflects a 6% increase in overall spending for the new fiscal year that began Oct. 1.”

So, who do you think is playing politics here?

On today’s Pig’s Eye Podcast, we talk with Ashwin Madia, an ex-Marine who served in Iraq and who’s running as a Democrat for Jim Ramstad’s congressional seat.

Madia, a 29-year-old lawyer from Plymouth, says his military experience makes him immune to “the first line of attack” in the Republican playbook, which he said was to cast Democratic candidates as soft on terror and unpatriotic.

Ashwin Madia

“They can’t play that card with me. I’m a Marine, I served in the Corps for four years, and I’ve been to Iraq. If they try anything like that with me, I think they’re going to be very, very sorry, because I’m not going to put up with it.”

To hear more from Madia, including his views on gay marriage, health care and the federal budget, go to Pig’s Eye Podcast here.

And here’s our story when he announced his candidacy.

To learn more about him, here’s the link to his website.

In less than two months, voters will begin weeding out the presidential candidates, starting with the Iowa caucuses on Jan. 3 and New Hampshire’s still-to-be-scheduled primary.

So here’s a round-up of the latest news from those two key states, starting with Iowa.

This past weekend was a big one for Democrats, with 9,000 activists attending the party’s annual fundraising event — the Jefferson Jackson Dinner — in Des Moines. At the dinner, John Edwards delivered some of the sharpest rhetoric of the night, according to this AP story.

Here’s the Des Moines Register’s account, along with excerpts of the speeches given by the six candidates who attended the dinner.

Mike Huckabee has made big gains in Iowa

The most recent polls show Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton with a very narrow lead over Sen. Barack Obama and former Sen. John Edwards. The University of Iowa’s Hawkeye Poll surveyed likely caucus-goers Oct. 17-24, and it found that Clinton had 29 percent support, while Obama had 27 percent and Edwards had 20 percent. That put all of them within the poll’s margin of sampling error of plus or minus 5.5 percent. A Zogby poll taken Nov. 6 had Clinton at 28, Obama at 25, and Edwards at 21. In both polls, New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson was a long way back, in single digits.

On the Republican side, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney holds a comfortable lead, but former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee is showing signs of surging. The Hawkeye Poll had Romney at 36 percent, and former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani and Huckabee both at about 13 percent, followed by former Sen. Fred Thompson at 11 percent. Zogby found similar results: Romeny at 31, Huckabee at 15, Giuliani at 11 and Thompson at 10.

On Friday, the New York Times had a front-page story that explored this surge by Huckabee. The story said that “there is a new sense of possiblity in the Huckabee campaign. It has been fueled in large part by evangelicals, including a politically active home-schooling population, dissatisfied with his better-financed competitors.”

On the Democratic side, Sen. Joe Biden may be trailing in the polls, but he can boast of having earned the first Iowa newspaper endorsement. Here’s the Storm Lake Times editorial from Oct. 20.

In New Hampshire, Romney again holds a significant lead, according to a Boston Globe poll taken Nov. 2-7. It had Romney at 32, Giuliani at 20, Sen. John McCain at 17, and Huckabee at 5. A Marist Poll taken at about the same time found similar numbers.

Clearly, the Huckabee surge hasn’t spread to New Hampshire, but if he beats expectations in Iowa, that could translate into an immediate boost in New Hampshire.

In the Democratic race, Clinton enjoys a larger lead over Obama than she does in Iowa. The Globe had Clinton at 35 and Obama at 21, with Edwards at 15 and Richardson at 10. The Marist Poll had it Clinton 38, Obama 26, Edwards 14 and Richardson at 6.

Meanwhile, it’s still uncertain when New Hampshire voters will go to the polls. Officials there are waiting to see if Michigan’s attempt to jump up in the schedule to Jan. 15 succeeds. If it does, then New Hampshire almost certainly would go before Michigan, possibly holding its primary in December.