Daytime TV Goddess Oprah Winfrey may be touring the early primary states this weekend with her chosen candidate, Barack Obama, but Hillary Clinton campaigned on Friday with a woman who’s supported her since birth — her mother, Dorothy Rodham.

Senator Clinton said her mom’s been following the campaign closely on TV — and told the story of the last time her mother had been in Iowa, some 53 years ago when they stayed at a place called the Tall Corn Motel. Hillary recalled that a waitress had recommended it for its swimming pool, saying “we said, my brother and I, said that’s where we want to stay.” Turns out, the pool wasn’t quite olympic sized.

“It was about as big as this stage,” she said. “We thought we’d died and gone to heaven. We thought it was the greatest experience ever.”

Hillary said her mom had asked to join her daughter in the Hawkeye state, but of course, the timing has some strategic advantages as well. Obama is surging among women here, and Oprah’s visit certainly won’t help matters. Showing some mother-daughter bonding might help Hillary’s cause in that key demographic.

A new Iowa survey from Strategic Vision, a Republican polling outfit, seems to confirm the recent pro-Obama trend in the state. The Illinois Senator leads the Democratic pack with 32%, followed by chief rivals Hillary Clinton and John Edwards at 25%. But as with all recent polls here, the numbers are within the margin of error.

Should Hillary be worried? The campaign can’t be happy with the trend lines in the horse race — especially since momentum always plays such a key role in Iowa. They also can’t be happy with the fact that she’s dropping among women, and that voters seem to care less about experience than change. But staffers constantly point out that polls don’t matter here. While that’s partially spin, since aides won’t hesitate to point out a poll that looks good for their candidate, there’s a lot of truth to the assertion.

I asked Opinion Dynamics CEO John Gorman, who runs the Fox News / Opinion Dynamics polls, why it’s so difficult to get a read on the Hawkeye state. “Polling in Iowa is very difficult and of very uncertain quality,” he wrote back. “This results from the following factors:

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Obama held a rally on the campus of Grinnell College Tuesday in Iowa. Grinnell is a private college of about 9,000 students an hour drive from Des Moines. It’s also where Muriel Gallo-Chasanoff, class of ‘10, studies. Gallo-Chasanoff, as identified last month by the Scarlet & Black campus newspaper, is the student who claimed the Clinton campaign provided her with a question to ask the senator at a Newton, Iowa, town hall.

A media flurry ensued and Senator Obama had a good time with the gaffe at some of his town halls. Often when opening up the floor to questions, the senator would note that “these questions have not been prescreened or preselected.”

When Obama came to Grinnell Tuesday night, it was billed as a straight rally, but after he finished his stump speech, the Senator said he had time for three questions before heading to a second rally in Iowa City.

The crowd of mostly students roared when Obama joked that the questions he was about to take were not “prearranged or predetermined.” It wasn’t until some nearby students pointed in Gallo-Chasanoff’s direction that the senator noticed the student standing in the front row of the rally (the campaign insisted Obama did not know she was there beforehand).

After the event when Obama worked the ropeline, he talked to the student for a couple minutes and, according to the New York Times, she told a campaign volunteer she was not ready to sign a supporter card for the senator.

A group of no less than six reporters approached Gallo-Chasanoff following her brief exchange with Obama, but the press-shy student and some of her protective friends lost us in the dark of a cold, Iowa night.

The National Intelligence Estimate revealing that Iran dismantled its nuclear weapons program in 2003 has been the subject of the first 15 minutes of the NPR debate — with Hillary Clinton’s opponents using the new revelation to attack her vote for the Kyl-Lieberman resolution calling on President Bush to designate the Iranian National Guard a terrorist organization.

Senators Biden and Dodd voted against the resolution, while Obama, though he missed the vote, has criticized Hillary for supporting the resolution. And John Edwards has called it part of the rush for war, saying today that “among the Democratic candidates there’s only one who voted for this resolution, and it’s exactly what Bush and Cheney wanted.”

Responding to Edwards’ charges, Clinton said “I understand politics and making outlandish political charges, but this goes too far.”

She points out that many opponents of the Iraq war (including Obama supporter Dick Durbin) voted for the resolution, calling it a vote for aggressive diplomacy.   She also argued that since the vote commanders on the ground have said they’ve seen Iran draw back from its involvement in Iraq — a point that Joe Biden then disputed.

An Edwards operative I spoke to in the hotel bar last night wondered aloud when the negative ads from outside groups would start dropping in Iowa. Well, we have our answer. The first independent attack ad of the cycle is out, and it goes after Hillary Clinton — not from her right, but from her left.

A liberal group called Democratic Courage is behind the spot, which blasts Hillary for backing down in the face of Republican pressure — specifically over her comments that she liked the idea of a $5,000 “baby bond” for every child born in America. The ad, which is set to run in Iowa but is suspiciously absent from the IA airwaves, features a life-size cardboard cut-out of the Senator that gets blown over, presumably by the metaphorical winds of GOP criticism.

(UPDATE: the Clinton campaign points out that, as of now, Democratic Courage hasn’t spent a dime to put this ad on TV in Iowa, DC, or anywhere else. It’s a fairly common trick these days to release a web ad without buying any air time, then using the free media buzz to raise money to actually put the ad on TV. As of right now, no Iowans are actually seeing this attack).

The ad comes as Clinton campaign manager Patti Solis Doyle sent an email to supporters in the early states complaining that dirty tricks like push-polling and misinformation have already begun — so won’t you send us money to help fight them? All the accounts of the attacks are anecdotal, but Obama’s name is mentioned twice in the fundraising appeal.

Watch the DCourage ad here, and read the email after the jump.

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In Clear Lake, IA, the city where the music died, the Clinton hits on Barack Obama just kept on coming. One month to the day before the Iowa caucuses — and in the Surf Ballroom where Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and the Big Bopper played their last concert in 1959 — Hillary bopped Obama on health care (his plan leaves out 15 million Americans), Social Security (he’s repeating Republican talking points by saying it’s in crisis, and would institute a $1 trillion tax hike), and Iran (he failed to show up for that important vote to call the Revolutionary Guard a terrorist group, but later used it to attack her).

But there were some new wrinkles today, including taking Obama to task for voting not “yes” or “no,” but “present” 7 times as a state senator in Illinois on issues like abortion and gun violence.

“A president can’t pick and choose which challenges he or she will face,” she said. “Instead of looking for political cover or taking a pass, we need a president who will take a stand.”

Without mentioning him by name, Hillary also dismissed the Obama argument that her long tenure in Washington makes her ill-equipped to bring about real change — saying “you decide what makes sense – entrust our country to someone who is ready on day one to make the decisions and the changes we need, or to put America in the hands of someone with little national or international experience who started running for president has soon as he arrived in the United States Senate.”

Obama’s campaign responded with a long list of press clippings defending those “present” votes. Obama spokesman Bill Burton released a statement saying “The truth is, Barack Obama doesn’t need lectures in political courage from someone who followed George Bush to war in Iraq, gave him the benefit of the doubt on Iran, supported NAFTA and opposed ethanol until she decided to run for President.”

And asked about the increasing frequency of the attacks, Obama replied, “it’s silly season.”

The campaign is really pushing two new Iowa polls that show her leading, within the margin of error — pointing out that while Obama is responding to her hits on his health care plan by pointing to sinking poll numbers, the two most recent surveys show her ahead.

The AP poll has Hillary topping Obama 31-26, with leads in every demographic. And a new Hawkeye poll from Iowa State University has her up on John Edwards 31% to 24%, with Obama at 20%.

But both polls have some weird features. The AP survey was in the field from Nov 7th to Nov 25th, while the Hawkeye poll was out from the 6th to the 18th — both unusually long date ranges, and long enough ago that they don’t reflect the developments of the last week and a half. The Hawkeye poll, meanwhile, has a margin of error of 6 points, and while it cites interviews with 1,416 registered Iowa voters, it’s likely caucus goers that matter. That number isn’t listed.

The upshot? Iowa is notoriously difficult to poll, and every survey in the last 3 months has shown all top candidates within the margin of error. It’s really just too close to call out here. In fact, the Clinton camp is using that fact to raise money — putting out a fundraising email called “Dead Heat in Iowa” that asks supporters to drum up $1.25 million in the next week.

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Obama has a new website called Hillary Attacks to point out and refute Hillary’s latest jabs on his health care plan and his political action committee (as well as on those Kindergarten essays he wrote expressing his desire to be president).

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Minutes after a Clinton spokesman jokingly threatened to down the press plane if reporters failed to write about the new, positive surveys, the cabin began filling with smoke after landing on an icy runway in Mason City… the same airport where Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and the Big Bopper boarded their ill-fated flight on Feb 3, 1959. Her event, meanwhile, is being held in the Surf Ballroom in Clear Lake — the last concert venue those three ever played.

That spokesman has promised he did not intentionally jinx us, but the national press corps understandably suspicious. We’re supposed to get back on that same plane to fly to Sioux City. Many of us are considering renting a car.

Senator Clinton turned up the heat on Barack Obama on Sunday, saying the race comes down to “courage and convictions” — and blasting Obama’s positions on health care and his Political Action Committee as lacking both.

Hillary came out firing on the health care before she took even a single question at a media availability in Cedar Rapids, accusing Obama of changing his tune on whether his plan covers all Americans depending on the audience. “Yesterday, in the space of a few hours, it went from universal when I wasn’t there, to comprehensive when we were on the same [stage],” she said — a reference to Saturday’s Black/Brown Presidential Forum in Iowa, where Obama seemed to be at great pains not to call his plan “universal.”

“I think the people of Iowa need to know there’s a big difference between our plans,” she said. “But more importantly there’s a big difference between our courage and our convictions, what we believe and what we’re willing to fight for.” Touting her record, Clinton said “the people of Iowa are going to get a chance to chose between someone who talks the talk, and someone who walked the walk.”

On universal care, she said, “Senator Obama got to the brink and blinked,” adding “You’ve got to ask yourself, who’s really committed here? Who’s doing it for political reasons, and who has a lifetime of conviction and commitment?”

But it didn’t stop there. Hillary also attacked Obama for failing to shut down his Hope Fund leadership PAC, spurring allegations that he’d used it to spread money to curry favor with key figures in early primary states — accusing him of hypocrisy. “Its not only that this PAC is still open and operating,” she said. “It’s that, contrary to what we’ve been hearing now for a year, it had lobbyist money, it had PAC money, and they were more than happy to take that money and to use it to try to influence elections, and to create relationships with people while he was running for president.”

And asked whether she was saying this was an issue of character when it comes to Senator Obama, Senator Clinton at first demurred — but then said “it’s beginning to look a lot like that. You know, it really is, where you can’t get a straight answer on health care; where somebody who runs on ethics and not taking money from certain people is found out to have at least skirted if not violated the FEC rules, and to use lobbyist and PAC money to do so.”

Senator Clinton seemed to express something like regret about the frontal assault, saying she’d rather be attacking Republicans and America’s problems. But, she said, “I have been, for months, on the receiving end of rather consistent attacks. Well, now the fun part starts. We’re into the last month, and we’re going to start drawing the contrasts.”

UPDATE: Barack Obama takes issue with Hillary’s assertion that this part of the campaign is “fun.” The campaign released a statement from the Senator saying “this presidential campaign isn’t about attacking people for fun, it’s about solving people’s problems…. Washington insiders might think throwing mud is fun, but the American people are looking for leadership that can unite this country around a common purpose.”

Check out her latest, greatest hits. done

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.

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Senator Clinton devoted much of a speech here in Ankeny, IA, to blasting her chief rival Barack Obama for failing to cover every American under his health care plan. In her harshest criticism yet, Clinton said Obama was betraying Democratic principles by leaving 15 million uncovered, adding “just because it’s controversial or ambitious, doesn’t mean we shouldn’t do it. The time is now.”

“If we don’t move toward universal health care coverage now, if we don’t have an election about it where I stand against whoever the Republicans nominate and let them answer the questions about why they won’t take care of covering every single American, why they want to still be in bed with the health insurance companies, that is an election we will win,” she said. “

But we’ve got to put up a candidate that’s willing to stand for it and fight for it

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Responding to Hillary’s attacks, Obama spokesman Bill Burton released a statement saying, “Another day, another desperate attack.”

“Demonizing anyone who doesn’t share her exact plans on health care is exactly why Hillary Clinton flunked the opportunity she had to pass universal health care in 1993. The truth is, Barack Obama’s universal health care plan makes coverage affordable for every single American, he just doesn’t agree with Hillary’s plan to start by forcing everyone to buy insurance they can’t afford,” he said.

What follows is a “greatest hits” compilation from the event, including her comparison of the fight for universal health care to FDR and LBJ’s battles for Social Security and Medicare — in which she plays the role of the strong, principled president, and Obama is (by implication) not up to the same level. The entire Obama-related portion of her speech is after the jump.

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