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.

With Veterans Day approaching, the intersection of politics and Iraq veterans is cropping up.

This week a chapter of Iraq Veterans Against the War was denied permission to march in a Veterans Day Parade in Long Beach, Calif., on the grounds that they don’t reflect the spirit of the parade. Here the organization’s take on the dispute. Here’s a story from the Long Beach Press Telegram.

Ashwin Madia

And yesterday, I received two press releases that sounded the alarm about politicians playing politics with Iraq veterans — and which themselves sounded awfully political.

Vets for Freedom lashed out at Congress for failing to pass legislation boosting health care and other benefits for Iraq and Afghanistan war vets. The group is established as a non-partisan organization, but like many other 527-registered groups, its political affiliation is thinly veiled. The left-leaning SourceWatch describes the Vets for Freedom ties to the GOP here.

Closer to home, the Constitution Party of Minnesota issued a release complaining that the two major parties merely use veterans “as political pawns.” It then went on to use the upcoming Veterans Day to announce it was launching a three month campaign to honor veterans, followed by an “election-season kick-off event to be held in February.”

Another interesting factoid to note: although the Iraq war is a burning issue in the presidential campaign, none of the front-running presidential candidates have served in the military, with the notable exception of Sen. John McCain.

In August, Sen. Barack Obama picked up an endorsement from the only Iraq veteran serving in Congress, Rep. Patrick Murphy (D-Pa.).

Steve Sarvi

In Minnesota, two Iraq veterans are running for Congress. Marine Corps veteran Ashwin Madia of Plymouth is running as a Democrat for retiring Rep. Jim Ramstad’s Third District seat. Madia, who was a captain in the Marine Corps., served as a judge advocate in Baghdad.

In the Second District, Steve Sarvi is running as a Democrat against Rep. John Kline, himself a retired Marine. Sarvi, a former mayor of Watertown, served in Iraq for 16 months with the Minnesota National Guard.

Addendum: Moments after I posted this item, I checked my e-mail and found yet another example of cashing in on Veterans Day for political gain. The e-mail was from the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, and it gave failing grades to Republican Sen. Norm Coleman for his votes on veterans’ health care.

In our Minnesota Poll story today — it’s here — reporter Bob von Sternberg notes that the rise in independents is being detected nationwide.

Barack Obama

The New York Times recently pointed to the same trend nationally, and explored what impact it could have in the New Hampshire primary. Like Minnesota, New Hampshire has an open primary, allowing voters to decide as they walk into the polls which party primary they want to vote in. The Times story, here, concluded that it could hurt Hillary Rodham Clinton and John McCain, and benefit Barack Obama.

What impact could independents who lean toward one of the parties have if they decide to attend Minnesota’s Republican and DFL precinct caucuses on Feb. 5? One way to answer that question is to compare the presidential candidate support among only those Minnesota Poll respondents who declared a clear party affiliation, with the support levels when the “leaners” are included.

The conclusion: There’s no discernable difference.

No candidate in either party had more than a 2-point swing in their level of support when comparing party-regulars-only and party-regulars-and-leaners.

On the Republican side, Rudy Giuliani’s lead over John McCain was 28 percent to 24 percent among Republicans, and was 27 percent to 22 percent among Republicans and leaners.

On the Democratic side, Hillary Rodham Clinton’s advantage over Barack Obama shrinks by only one point, from a 49-23 percent gap among Democrats to a 47-22 percent gap among Democrats and leaners.

In other words, the leaners toward each party are small enough in number and they break close enough along the lines of the party regulars that, at least at this point, they don’t seem to affect the overall results for candidate preference.

Do you agree with the thrust of the New York Times story? And what role do you think independents will play in Minnesota and other states as the presidential race unfolds?