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.

Iran is becoming a central issue in the Democratic presidential race. It was a key point of contention in the Democratic debate earlier this week, and now Barack Obama is making it a key focus — giving a long interview with the New York Times on the issue.

Barack Obama

Obama is stressing the importance of talking to Iran without preconditions, insisting on behavior change — as opposed to regime change — and using both carrots and sticks to encourage that change in behavior.

Hillary Rodham Clinton, meanwhile, was the only Democratic presidential candidate to vote for a resolution declaring the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps a terrorist organization. John Edwards, in Tuesday’s debate, called it a document that read as if it were written by the neocons.

“I mean, has anybody read this thing? I mean, it literally gave Bush and Cheney exactly what they wanted,” he said.

Here are several links for additional reading.

On Thursday Clinton was among 30 senators who sent a letter to President Bush stating that he did not have authority to initiate military action against Iran. The Huffington Post pointed out that Obama did not sign the letter. A couple hours later, Obama went a step further, introducing a resolution to the same effect. Here’s the story on Politically Connected. And here’s the Huffington Post’s report and here’s The Swamp’s report.

Here’s the NYT story about their interview with Obama. And here’s the transcript of the interview.

Last week, Clinton attacked Obama for attacking her over the Iran vote. In an e-mail she sent to Iowans, Clinton said that in 2006 Obama advocated the very position he’s now criticizing. The NYT’s Caucus wrote about this flap and reprinted Clinton’s e-mail.

What do you make of this clash between Clinton and Obama over Iran? Was Clinton right to vote for the resolution declaring the Guards a terrorist group? Do you agree with Obama’s approach to Iran. And how will the fracture over this issue affect the battle for the Democratic nomination?

Last night’s Democratic presidential candidates debate may prove to be a turning point in the nomination contest.

Hillary Rodham Clinton was the target of an unrelenting attack from the right and left — from John Edwards, standing to her right, and from Barack Obama, standing to her left. The reviews on Clinton’s performance are not kind, and they raise new doubts about how firm her grasp is on the front-runner status.

John Edwards makes a point about Hillary Rodham Clinton during Tuesday’s debate

Without a doubt, John Edwards was more aggressive than Barack Obama in the tag-team attack on Clinton, and it seems to have paid off. Readers of the Daily Kos, voting in an online poll, are giving the win to Edwards by a 3 to 2 margin over Obama (3,077 votes to 1,943 votes out of about 9,000 cast). Clinton falls into third place with about 1,500 votes.

Des Moines Register columnist David Yepsen writes: “Former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards emerged as the evening’s most effective and articulate challenger to Clinton, who did not acquit herself well and turned in an uneven, sometimes waffling performance.”

Roger Simon at Politico says the debate revealed something not seen before: “When Hillary Clinton has a bad night, she really has a bad night.”

The debate moderators, Tim Russert and Brian Williams, directed their toughest questions at Clinton, asking her to explain inconsistencies in statements she’s given in recent weeks and months.

The Drudge Report says that a Clinton insider blames the mess on NBC’s Tim Russert, saying he was belligerent.

The Informed Voters blog provides a video recap of the highlights of the debate.

Unless anyone wants to argue that Clinton came out ahead last night, here are the questions: How much damage was done to her? Was Russert belligerent, or was he simply trying, in a direct but professional manner, to get Clinton to answer the questions? Finally, was Edwards the big winner from last night?