With just four days to go before the Iowa Caucuses, Mitt Romney appears to catching Mike Huckabee in the Republican race, while the Democratic race remains extremely tight.

On the Republican side, it looked just a couple of weeks ago like Huckabee was running away with the contest. Now, Romney’s attack ads against Huckabee on immigration and crime appear to be taking a toll on the former Arkansas governor.

Last week, Huckabee held an average 5.2 percentage point lead in the six most recent polls. Now, Romney holds an average 0.6 percentage point lead in the five most recent polls.

But the polls show widely different results. For example, the Quad City Times poll taken Dec. 26-27, shows Huckabee up by 7 points (34-27 percent) over Romney. Yet, the American Research Group poll taken Dec. 26-28 shows Romney leading by 9 points (32-23) over Huckabee. (A week ago, American Research Group had Huckabee ahead by 8 points, so this poll is showing a dramatic reversal.)

None of the other major GOP candidates are showing much movement — with all of them pulling support of about 11 percent or less.

In the Democratic race, it continues to be a tight three-way race. Averaging the last five polls, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and John Edwards are all within 2.6 points of one another — well within the margins of error. The averages show Clinton with 28.4, Obama with 26.4 and Edwards with 25.8 percent.

Those numbers are probably most encouraging to Edwards; he’s on the upswing in the past week, while Clinton and Obama have tipped downward ever so slightly.

In New Hampshire, it’s a two-way tie between Clinton and Obama. On the Republican side, Romney leads, but Sen. John McCain has the big momentum.

For more details on these and other polls, go to Real Clear Politics.

And finally, if you haven’t checked out our new blog, Oles in ‘08, you’ve got a lot of fun reading ahead of you. Students from St. Olaf College are working on campaigns in New Hampshire and they’ve written about their encounters with candidates — impressed with McCain, bored by Rudy Giuliani — and with voters, many of whom sound like they’re on the breaking point from the incessant phone calls and door-knocks from the campaigns. It’s great, insightful and fun reading. Check it out here — Oles in ‘08.

St. Olaf students blogging from New Hampshire had some amazing experiences on their first day on the presidential campaign trail.

Incredibly, two volunteering on the McCain campaign met the candidate himself in the first hour or so on the job. They’ve got pictures to prove it. Other students write about their experiences phone-calling or knocking on voters’ doors. Some voters are eager to engage the students, others turn a cold shoulder.

You can find their reports in our new blog, Oles in ‘08. The blog began yesterday, the first day the political science students began interning on the presidential campaigns in New Hampshire. Here’s a more detailed explanation of what the students are doing and about their blog.

The assassination of Benazir Bhutto today is rocking a region where whatever stability existed came from the U.S. backing of the Afghan government and Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf’s iron rule.

What do you think Bhutto’s killing portends for this region? And what should the United States do in response to her death? Other thoughts?

Here’s an update, added to this post shortly after noon.

Star Tribune reporter Bob von Sternberg was covering Sen. John McCain in Des Moines, Iowa, this morning, and he filed this report:

DES MOINES — Sen. John McCain, who is back here running hard where nobody expected him to compete, was asked about the Bhutto assassination at a campaign event this morning.

McCain was bombarded with questions from reporters as to whether the assassination plays to his strongest suit, national security and defense issues.

“No one would want an event like this to happen,” McCain said, but added: “It shows you need a steady hand at the tiller, because this situation is fraught with danger and this is a time of great crisis.”

McCain addressed Bhutto’s death in his initial remarks this morning at an Elk’s Club rally at West Des Moines, the first of four stops he was making in Iowa today. He told about 300 people: “This is a great tragedy. The only winners in this are the radical Islamist extremists. I don’t know what’s going to happen in Pakistan right now and this is a very tense and difficult time.”

The United States, McCain said, should do “everything within our power to stabilize the situation, short of military power.”

President Musharraf needs to bring about calm, McCain said, without cracking down severely. If he does so “he’ll get credit from the people of Pakistan. A chaotic situation is not in the interests of the Pakistani people or in the interests of the American people…”

“There are lots of layers to this onion and it has to be handled with care, McCain said. “I know the area, I know the people. I could handle it.”

Polls in Iowa continue to show Mike Huckabee in the lead, but his margin has narrowed in the past week.

In the Democratic race, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton appears to be making a comeback.

Sen. John McCain

Last week, Huckabee led in the last four polls, with leads ranging from 5 points to 16 points. Now, looking at the six most recent polls, his biggest lead is 8 points — in ABC/Washington Post, CNN and American Research Group. The American Research Group poll was the most recent, taken Dec. 16-19.

The most striking thing about that poll is Sen. John McCain’s amazing surge — from 9 percent at the end of November to 20 percent now. It also shows Mitt Romney in freefall, down to 17 percent.

But Strategic Vision (Dec. 16-18), showed Romney doing much better. He had 25 percent, to Huckabee’s 31 percent, and McCain was way back at 8 percent. Strategic Vision also had Fred Thompson at 16 percent, far higher than any other poll had him.

And one poll, Insider Advantage (Dec. 16-17), had Romney in first, by a statistically insignificent 3 points over Huckabee.

Among Democrats, Clinton appears to have made up ground on Sen. Barack Obama. A week ago, Obama held leads of 8 and 9 points over Clinton. Now, the average of the six most recent polls shows the race a tie. Clinton comes in first in three polls (American Research Group, CNN and Rasmussen), with insignificant leads of 2 to 4 points, and Obama lands in first place in the other three (Strategic Vision, Insider Advantage and ABC/Wash Post), with equally insignificant leads of 1 to 4 points.

In New Hampshire, Romney continues to hold the lead, but it’s slipping. Last week, he led in the last four polls by 12-15 points. Now, in the four most recent polls, he holds leads of 3, 4 and 7 points, and the remaining poll (American Research Group) is a tie with McCain.

One thing that hasn’t changed is Huckabee’s support — which is virtually unchanged at about 10 percent.

Among Democrats in New Hampshire, the race remains just as confusing as it was a week ago. Clinton leads in three of the five most recent polls. But in the last two, one was a tie and Obama held a slight edge in the other — just a 2-point lead.

In our story today by political reporter Bob von Sternberg, he notes the miracle of the season: all the candidates have shelved their attack ads and are flooding the airwaves with joyous, holiday-themed and upbeat ads.

If you lament negativity in political ads, enjoy this brief respite. Here, for your viewing pleasure, are the ads brimming with good will.

First the holiday-themed ads.

Here’s John McCain’s ad, called “My Christmas Story,” about a touching gesture an enemy guard made on a Christmas Day when McCain was a P.O.W.

Here’s John Edwards’ ad, in which he says this is “the season of miracles, and faith and love.”

Here’s Mike Huckabee’s ad, with a not-so-subliminal white cross in the background, formed by bookshelves.

In Barack Obama’s ad, titled “Friendship,” his wife and daughters are featured.

Rudy Giuliani mixes a dose of humor into his holiday ad, titled “Same Gift.”

Hillary Rodham Clinton spends billions on Christmas gifts in her ad, titled “Presents.”

Now, the upbeat ones without the strong holiday connection.

Joe Biden’s is called “January Night.”

Mitt Romney’s ad, “Searched,” is a testimonial from a former business partner, who describes how Romney shut down their business and brought all the employees to New York City to search for the partner’s missing daughter.

In his 17 years in Congress, Jim Ramstad has managed to bridge the partisan divide in the House, while still maintaining a steady, consistent political philosophy as a genuine moderate.

Put another way, he’s not known as a flip-flopper.

So what to make of Ramstad’s wavering over whether to retire from Congress?

Jim Ramstad and his wife, Kathryn, in September, as the congressman announced his plan to retire

He surprised everyone with an announcement in September that he would not seek reelection in 2008.

Here’s what he said that day:

“After 17 years of getting on a plane every Monday and coming back every Friday, I’m burned out. I’m tired. I still have a passion for policy and a passion for politics, but I want to be home.”

It’s been clear for some time that Republican leaders were disappointed in Ramstad’s decision, because it would be a safe seat if he runs again, and it might fall into Democratic hands if he doesn’t. At the very least, Ramstad’s retirement would require the GOP to spend a lot of money and time to try to protect the seat, at a time when they’ve got lots of other vulnerable seats.

But can Ramstad really reverse course? Will the apparently emerging spin — that he wants to see the mental health parity bill passed first — be seen as anything more than a fig leaf over the arm-twisting (or water-boarding) that’s he being subjected to?

If he does run, will that about-face sully his hard-earned reputation?

And if he does decide to run, can he withstand the Democratic attacks that will incessantly replay: “I’m burned out. I’m tired…I want to be home”?

We’ve seen plenty of politicians renege on pledges to step down after x-number of terms, including Ramstad’s friend Paul Wellstone. But how many have run again after saying they were sick of the job?

How about this strategy? He runs on a campaign of being a “green representative” — forgoing the fuel-wasting flights to Washington and telecommuting, instead.

What do you make of this situation? What should Ramstad do? And can he win if he does run again?

If you paid a higher-than-usual price for a Christmas tree this year, here’s a possible explanation: there’s been a run on them by presidential candidates looking for backdrops for their holiday TV ads.

In previous posts, I linked to Mike Huckabee’s and John Edwards’ ads. Here are two more featuring tannenbaums and candidates (Barack Obama and Rudy Giuliani), plus a Hillary Rodham Clinton ad featuring lots of Christmas wrapping paper, but no tree.

Here’s the Obama ad, titled “Friendship.”

Here’s the Giuliani ad, titled “Same Gift.”

Here’s the Clinton ad, titled “Presents.”

Yesterday, I pointed out the Mike Huckabee ad wishing viewers a Merry Christmas, and I noted the controversy around it.

Here’s another new holiday ad, this one from John Edwards, which he posted on You Tube a couple of hours ago.

He doesn’t utter the word Christmas, and there’s no bright white cross in the background, as is the case in Huckabee’s ad.

But the message is unmistakable. There’s a Christmas tree, but no symbols of other faiths. And he talks about this being “the season of miracles, and faith and love.”

Watch the ad, and tell us what you think about it, especially as it compares with Huckabee’s.

If you need proof that immigration has become one of the chief issues in the presidential campaign in Iowa, just look at Mitt Romney’s new ad.

When he decided he needed to stick a spoke in the wheels of Mike Huckabee’s fast-charging campaign, Romney put up an ad attacking Huckabee’s record on immigration.

The immigration issue is rising in the polls and is cropping up more and more on the campaign trail, as voters seek answers from the candidates. And that has prompted a number of news organizations to explore the issue in the last week or so.

In this story published Sunday, the Baltimore Sun described the issue as a prairie fire turned “inferno, with potentially explosive impact on the 2008 election.”

Already, it has become the defining issue in the battle between Mitt Romney and Mike Huckabee for first place in Iowa’s Jan. 3 presidential caucuses. But while immigration is drawing attention as a Republican issue - driven by attack and response ads on TV - it’s not solely a concern of Republican voters.

Immigration is also a worry for a significant, and possibly growing, number of Democrats and independents, too.

That’s a change from October, when a University of Iowa Hawkeye Poll of likely caucus-goers found that only 2.4 percent of Democrats picked immigration as the single most important issue. Compare that with the Iraq war at 34.9 percent and health care at 23.2 percent.

Republicans cited immigration much more often, but it was still only the fourth most mentioned issue. Terrorism was the number one issue at 21.9 percent, followed by the economy (15.8), the Iraq War (15.5) and immigration came next at 13.7 percent.

But a Rassmussen Reports poll of 789 likely Republican caucus-goers taken on Dec. 10 found that immigration was the top issue at 24 percent, just ahead of national security at 22 percent.

A story published Tuesday by the Iowa Independent, working collaboratively with the Huffington Post, presented a similar, anecdotal finding: “In a series of phone interviews conducted by Huffington Post’s OffTheBus project, 37 of Iowa’s Republican county chairs were asked to name the issues most important to GOP caucus-goers this year. Almost universally, immigration and social issues were mentioned. Asked about the Iraq War, many county chairs downplayed its significance.”

The Rasmussen poll of Democrats found that 5 percent considered immigration the top issue. That’s twice the level as the Hawkeye Poll, but still tiny compared with the 31 percent who cited the Iraq War.

Still, when a group of Iowans question candidates, they invariably ask what the candidate is going to do to stop illegal immigrants from taking away jobs at meat packing plants, in the construction sector and in other employment categories, according to news reports.

A front-page story last week in the New York Times concluded: “Nearly everyone [of the more than two dozen Iowans] interviewed said that none of the political candidates had arrived at a position on immigration that fully satisfied them. In real life, they said, the issues surrounding immigration, both legal and illegal, were far more complicated than bumper sticker slogans or jabs on a debate stage or even the carefully picked language of campaign policy papers.”

The economy, the Iraq War and terrorism are all issues that could swing wildly in importance between now and Election Day 2008, but immigration seems likely to be a reliable and perhaps unforgiving issue.

To learn more about what the candidates have said and how they’ve voted on immigration, go to the “President” page (here) on Politically Connected. When you click on a candidate’s name, you’ll find immigration as one of the issues below their biographical information.

Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee is creating a lot of buzz, not all of it positive, with a new ad wishing everyone a Merry Christmas.

Some critics are saying he’s interjecting religion into politics.

Huckabee replies: “If we are so politically correct in this country that a person can’t say enough of the nonsense with the political attack ads could we pause for a few days and say Merry Christmas to each other then we’re really, really in trouble as a country.”

As you watch the ad, notice the bookshelf in the background creating a white cross. (How can you miss it?)

See for yourself, and then tell us what you think.