We can’t be positive that there’s a cause and effect relationship, but it sure is suspicious; the respected Des Moines Register poll dropped last night showing Obama leading Hillary 28% to 25% in Iowa — which is still within the margin of error. Then this morning, the campaign goes after Obama on two unrelated fronts — his political action committee, and just how long he’s wanted to be president.

First, communications director Howard Wolfson repeated the campaign’s call for Obama to shut down his Hope Fund PAC on CBS Face The Nation this morning, accusing Obama… of “taking in money from lobbyists despite the fact he’d said he doesn’t take money from lobbyists and giving money out to candidates in New Hampshire and Iowa to suport his presidential campaign.”

“There’s a lot that voters don’t know about Barack Obama,” he said

But even better, the Clinton campaign released a response to Obama’s claim in Iowa this morning that “I have not been planning to run for President for however number of years some of the other candidates have been planning for.” That’s a veiled shot at Hillary, about whom it was controversially written this summer that she and her husband had a 20 year-old plan to get her in the White House.

Clinton spokesman Phil Singer says “Senator Obama’s comment today is fundamentally at odds with what his teachers, family, classmates and staff have said about his plans to run for President,” adding, “Senator Obama’s campaign rhetoric is getting in the way of his reality.”

The kicker? In a research document, the campaign cites an AP report that “In kindergarten, Senator Obama wrote an essay titled ‘I Want to Become President.’”

Obama Spokesman Bill Burton writes, “I’m sure tomorrow they’ll attack him for being a flip-flopper because he told his second grade teacher he wanted to be an astronaut.”

Burton says the attacks on Obama are a result of Hillary’s slipping poll numbers.

Check out the full Clinton document on Obama’s desire to be president after the jump, and watch Howard Wolfson below.

SEN. OBAMA REWRITES HISTORY,

CLAIMS HE HASN’T BEEN PLANNING WHITE HOUSE RUN

Today in Iowa, Senator Barack Obama said: “I have not been planning to run for President for however number of years some of the other candidates have been planning for.”

Oh really?

“Senator Obama’s comment today is fundamentally at odds with what his teachers, family, classmates and staff have said about his plans to run for President,” Clinton spokesperson Phil Singer said. “Senator Obama’s campaign rhetoric is getting in the way of his reality.”

Immediately after joining the Senate, Senator Obama started planning run for President. “‘The first order of business for Senator Obama’s team was charting a course for his first two years in the Senate. The game plan was to send Senator Obama into the 2007-2008 election cycle in the strongest form possible’…The final act of the plan was turning up the talk about a potential Presidential bid, which was greatly aided by his positive press and suggestions by pundits that he run for President.” [U.S. News and World Report, 6/19/07 ]

His law school classmates say that Senator Obama has been planning Presidential run for ‘more than a decade.’ [A]ccording to those who know him, he has been talking about the presidency for more than a decade. “It was clear to me from the day I met him that he was thinking about politics,” says Harvard Law School classmate Christine Spurell. [Washington Post, 8/12/07 ]

15 years ago, Senator Obama told his brother-in-law he was planning to run for President. Craig [Robinson] pulled him aside [in 1992] and asked about his plans. “He said, ‘I think I’d like to teach at some point in time, and maybe run for public office,’ recalls Robinson, who assumed Senator Obama meant he’d like to run for city alderman. “He said no — at some point he’d like to run for the U.S. Senate. And then he said, ‘Possibly even run for President at some point.’ And I was like, ‘Okay, but don’t say that to my Aunt Gracie.’ I was protecting him from saying something that might embarrass him.” [Washington Post, 8/12/07 ]

In third grade, Senator Obama wrote an essay titled ‘I Want To Be a President.’ His third grade teacher: Fermina Katarina Sinaga “asked her class to write an essay titled ‘My dream: What I want to be in the future.’ Senator Obama wrote ‘I want to be a President,’ she said.” [The Los Angeles Times, 3/15/07]

In kindergarten, Senator Obama wrote an essay titled ‘I Want to Become President.’ “Iis Darmawan, 63, Senator Obama’s kindergarten teacher, remembers him as an exceptionally tall and curly haired child who quickly picked up the local language and had sharp math skills. He wrote an essay titled, ‘I Want To Become President,’ the teacher said.” [AP, 1/25/07 ]