On The HUSTINGS

CLINTON TO TOUT ENDORSEMENT ON MORNING TV

Viewers are likely to see an interview with Senator Clinton this morning no matter what national news program (if any) their television is set to. She is making the rounds of all the major shows today in order to try to capitalize on the endorsement she picked up yesterday from Iowa's largest newspaper, the Des Moines Register.

Aides are counting on publicity about the paper's nod to help her wrestle the momentum in the Democratic presidential race away from Senator Obama of Illinois. All of the leading candidates sought the Register endorsement, which is said to have helped Senator Edwards to a surprise second-place finish in the caucuses in 2004.

"The job requires a president who not only understands the changes needed to move the country forward but also possesses the discipline and skill to navigate the reality of the resistant Washington power structure to get things done," the paper's editorial board said. "That candidate is New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton."

The Register's editors, who picked Senator McCain on the Republican side, said that while Mr. Obama had inspired their imaginations, Mrs. Clinton had inspired their confidence.

RON PAUL TAPS WEB 'MONEY BOMB,' AGAIN

A 24-hour online fund-raiser dubbed a "money bomb" by backers of Rep. Ron Paul detonated impressively yesterday with at least $5 million in donations. Yesterday's haul beat that of a one-day fund-raiser for Mr. Paul held last month, which netted more than $4.3 million. The pair of events pushed the libertarian-Republican presidential candidate's fourth-quarter fundraising tally past $16 million, a sum that could outpace every hopeful in both the Democratic and Republican fields. So far, the financial prowess has not converted to popular support for Mr. Paul, according to national polls. They show about 4% of Republican primary voters backing the Texas congressman.

HUCKABEE DEFENDS BUSH CRITIQUE, NAMES ADVISERS

In an interview, Michael Huckabee said he has no plans to apologize for an article he recently published criticizing President Bush's international dealings as too arrogant and abrasive. "I don't have anything to apologize for," the former Arkansas governor and Republican presidential candidate told CNN yesterday after another hopeful, Mitt Romney, called for such a statement of contrition.

"We do better when we are partners with the entire world standing against the threat of Islamofascism than when we simply say that we're going to do it our way, and if you don't want to do it our way, then we brand you as being with the other side," Mr. Huckabee said.

The preacher said he receives foreign policy advice from a former State Department official who now heads the Council on Foreign Relations, Richard Haass, and a hawkish military analyst in Washington, Frank Gaffney of the Center for Security Policy.

Mr. Huckabee, who is leading in Iowa polls, said he also has "conversations coming up" with a former American ambassador to the United Nations, John Bolton.

ROMNEY PRAISES HEALTH CARE MANDATES

Mr. Romney has returned to a vigorous defense of an individual mandate to buy health insurance, the most disputed element of the overhaul he enacted as governor of Massachusetts. "I think it's a terrific idea," Mr. Romney said yesterday on NBC's "Meet The Press."

A top rival of his for the Republican presidential nomination, Mayor Giuliani, has derided the mandate as a "terrible mistake," and Mr. Romney has pointedly excluded the requirement from his campaign platform, leading to suggestions he was distancing himself from his record. Yesterday, the former governor said he would leave the matter up to the states, but he went on to offer his most unabashed endorsement of a mandate and to express hope that all states would eventually adopt one. "I think you're going to find, when it's all said and done, after all these states that are laboratories of democracy get their chance to try their own plans, that those who follow the path that we pursued will find it's the best path, and we'll end up with a nation that's taken a mandate approach," Mr. Romney said.

In response to a barrage of questions about alleged flip-flops, he owned up only to an about-face on abortion. He also mistakenly asserted that he received the endorsement of the National Rifle Association when he ran for governor.

ENDORSEMENT WATCH

Mrs. Clinton also picked up the official backing yesterday of Bob Kerrey, a former Nebraska senator and governor who now serves as president of the New School.