M.J. Rosenberg: Because of his race, Obama offers the possibility of believing again.

Guess there’s not much argument that O’Reilly shoved Obama staffer Marvin Nicholson:

Speaking later on Fox News, O’Reilly said he tried to “gently remove” the Obama staffer so his camera could get a shot of the Illinois senator.

“We’re sorry we had to have that little confrontation,” O’Reilly added, “but no one on this earth is going to block a shot on The O’Reilly Factor. It is not going to happen.”

The recriminations begin within the Clinton campaign:

Specifically, those inside the campaign and outside advisers fault Penn for failing to see the Iowa defeat coming. They say he was assuring Clinton and her allies right up until the caucuses that they would win it. Says one: “He did not predict in any way, shape or form the tidal wave we saw.” In particular, he had assured them that Clinton’s support among women would carry her through. Yet she managed to win only 30% of the women’s vote, while 35% of them went for Obama.

A modest rise in Iowa turnout from traditional levels — say by about 20,000 or 30,000 — might have been easy to write off as merely the result of superior tactics on the part of the well-funded Obama operation. But the fact that voters flooded the caucuses, and that Obama swept just about every demographic group, speaks to something larger that is going on in the electorate, Clinton strategists now acknowledge.

New CNN poll: Obama and Hillary all tied up in New Hampshire–33% apiece.

A lot is going to happen over the next three days. But perhaps one really good thing can come out of it: driving Mark Penn out of Democratic politics once and for all. I really don’t know how he keeps his hooks in his clients, particularly Hillary. And he’s taking a lot of richly, richly deserved grief for his late in the day trash-talking about that very accurate Des Moines Register poll.

So deserved. And for so much.

Here at TPM we’re getting ready for live-blogging tonight’s debates. But I wanted to let you know how much your updates help us at a time like this. I just heard from one reader whose son is up in New Hampshire volunteering for one of the Democratic candidates. She gave some great detail about what the volunteers are hearing as they call former New Hampshire supporters of now-dropped-out candidates (Biden and Dodd). Others have sent in pictures and video from rallies. So many people — either on the ground in New Hampshire or in contact with those who are, or connected in some other way — have some hand in this battle that is unfolding. And your tips and reports and photographs and video help us pull it all together for the big picture. So please, keep it coming. We read it all. And we could not do without it. So let us know what you’re hearing and seeing.

Hillary drops a new New Hampshire mailer on Obama’s abortion record.

Late Update: Reed Hundt says he doesn’t think it’s going to work.

7:20 PM … Mittmentum!

7:25 … I was hoping we’d get to each of the candidates scholarship on Muslim radicalism.

7:29 PM … Good words there from Rudy about the Muslim religion and Muslims, but completely belied by his recent scary Muslims ad.

7:37 PM … Sigh. That must have been fun for Mitt. Charlie Gibson had to be honest that Mitt’s flipflopping goes without saying.

That’s what we need — more Americans buying health care outside of big risk pools.

A TPM Reader makes an interesting point: “Didn’t Giuliani open a dangerous door when he said that he returned that million dollar cheque to that Saudi prince, when his security consultancy firm did business with Qatar which was overseen by Qatar’s Minister of the Interior, Abdullah bin Khalifah Al Thani who apparently has ties to various terrorist groups?”

7:51 PM … This really is the heart of Republican thinking on health care these days: ordinary folks aren’t being thrifty enough and taking the cost into account enough when they decide whether to get that MRI the doctor ordered.

Romney’s actually the only guy up there who has any policy on health care, any experience dealing with the actual issue. But he’s not making that case very well. Especially against a stuffed shirt like Thompson.

8:00 PM … Mitt: “Doing the work of the Free Market.” For Mitt, that’s like “Doing the Lord’s Work.”

I was a little distracted during some of the first hour of the debate. Because of some site technical stuff. But my general impression was that it was basically a wash. McCain was decent. Romney was okay. Huckabee was decent rattling off his Huck jargon. Seemed basically like a wash to me and thus not really that clear who achieved what in terms of the vote on Tuesday.

I’ve been hearing McCain saying he’d ‘learned his lesson’ on immigration last year. And it had a real George Wallace sound to it. But listening to his statement now, it doesn’t sound like he’s changed that much. Good for him: but I think that’s going to remain a real albatross around his neck in the coming weeks.