Political Campaigns

Bill Rosendahl and Flora Gil Krisiloff can spend as much as they want in their campaigns for the Westside seat on the Los Angeles City Council. The limit was lifted after supporters of Rosendahl topped $50,000 in independent spending on his behalf, according to the city Ethics Commission. Rosendahl has received $76,013 in such help and Krisiloff $12,274. Rosendahl supporters include former Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan.

In the last days before Thursday's Iowa caucuses, Mike Huckabee, lacking money and staff, is adopting a freewheeling and inexpensive strategy of asymmetrical political warfare -- inviting reporters to a pheasant hunt, a morning jog and a haircut -- to needle his better-funded, better-organized challenger, Mitt Romney.

It's not just Mike Huckabee's top rival in the Republican race who is responsible for attack ads that have damaged his candidacy in the closing days of the Iowa campaign. Huckabee has been the target of a $550,000 campaign waged by the conservative anti-tax Club for Growth. An Arkansas man who is responsible for a separate low-budget hit vowed Monday to take his anti-Huckabee campaign to South Carolina, which holds its GOP primary Jan. 19.

The top three Democratic presidential candidates have begun focusing intensely on becoming the second choice among supporters of less-popular candidates such as Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. and New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, in a behind-the-scenes battle that could decide the outcome of Thursday's Iowa caucuses.

Barack Obama's campaign for the Democratic presidential nomination might have gained a slight advantage Tuesday with Ohio Rep. Dennis J. Kucinich's recommendation to his supporters to back the Illinois senator if there is insufficient support for Kucinich in individual precincts. While Kucinich's support is slight here, polls show a statistical tie for first among Obama, New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton and former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards.

The downtown hot spot Centro hummed with energy for yet another night this week. Operatives for at least four would-be presidents huddled in separate corners of the glowing dining room. America's top political journalists table-hopped furiously. Everyone counted the hours until the Iowa caucuses. Well, not quite everyone. Dylan, the waiter who's moving to Los Angeles to be a fashion model, just tried to keep the plates of pancetta-wrapped shrimp and limoncello tiramisu coming.

Fred Adams, a retired Drake University history professor, wandered across the street from his house for a neighborhood party the Sunday before Christmas -- 5-8 p.m., food and drinks -- where he spotted Tammy Gentry. "I saw my opportunity," Adams said later, "and I took it." Adams knew Gentry was leaning toward former Sen. John Edwards of North Carolina in Thursday's first-in-the-nation caucuses. But her husband, Brian, was backing Sen.

A presidential election is a conversation about the nation's future, but all Richard Brenner was hearing in Van Nuys were fragments, disconnected bits and pieces. He wanted more. He yearned for a lively discussion, some policy, a vision. While presidential candidates swarmed through early primary and caucus states such as Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina in the nominating process, they often ignored California.

Pay no attention to that third-place finish in Iowa. The real contest starts now. That was the word from Hillary Rodham Clinton after she landed in New Hampshire early Friday and immediately set to work reviving her yearlong presidential campaign. Leading a rally in a chilly airplane hangar in Nashua, and following up with a news conference at a coffee shop here, the New York senator insisted she remained the most formidable candidate.

He is no rock star, but Mike Huckabee took pains to prove otherwise on Friday with his electric-bass rendition of "Twist and Shout" in a New Hampshire rock band. A day after his improbable victory in the Iowa caucuses, Huckabee used his guest stint with the band Mama Kicks to show New Hampshire that he is no typical Republican running for president. The rock 'n' roll rally was a bit of calculated mischief by the former governor of Arkansas.