Poll dump from ARG today:

Iowa
Republicans
McCain 25 (-1 versus last poll taken 4/27-4/30)
Giuliani 23 (+4)
Romney 16 (+2)
Gingrich 8 (nc)
F. Thompson 6 (-7)
Undecided 10 (-3)

Romney's lead in the RCP Average for Iowa is now down to 1.2%.

Democrats
Clinton 31 (+8 versus last poll taken 4/27-4/30)
Edwards 25 (-2)
Obama 11 (-8)
Richardson 9 (+3)
Undecided 14 (-2)

Edwards' lead in the RCP Avg for Iowa is now +3.0%.

New Hampshire
Republicans
McCain 30 (+1 versus last poll taken 4/26-4/29)
Romney 23 (-1)
Giuliani 21 (+4)
Gingrich 4 (nc)
F. Thompson 3 (-4)
Undecided 16 (+2)

Romney now leads in the RCP Avg for New Hampshire by 6.3%.

Democrats
Clinton 34 (-3 versus last poll taken 4/26-4/29)
Edwards 18 (-8)
Obama 15 (+1)
Richardson 9 (+6)
Undecided 14 (-1)

Clinton leads by 12.3% in the new RCP Avg for New Hampshire.

South Carolina
Republicans
McCain 32 (-4 versus last poll taken 4/26-4/29)
Giuliani 23 (nc)
F. Thompson 13 (+3)
Romney 10 (+4)
Gingrich 6 (nc)
Undecided 11 (-1)

McCain maintains a 4.0% lead in the RCP Avg for South Carolina.

Democrats
Clinton 34 (-2 versus last poll taken 4/26-4/29)
Edwards 30 (+12)
Obama 18 (-6)
Undecided 11 (-2)

Clinton leads by 5.8% in the RCP Avg for South Carolina.

Mitt Romney ran into some religious bigotry in New Hampshire today from a self-described liberal:

"I'm one person who will not vote for a Mormon," Al Michaud of Dover shouted at Romney when the former Massachusetts governor approached him inside Harvey's Bakery. Romney was kicking off the second of two day's worth of campaign visits in the lead primary state.

Romney kept smiling as he asked, "Can I shake your hand anyway?"

Michaud replied, "No."

Michaud later told reporters he was not "a right-winger," alluding to some evangelical Christians who have compared Romney's faith to a cult. Instead, Michaud stated he was "a liberal."

He said he planned to vote for Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., should she win the Democratic presidential nomination.

The issue of Romney's faith hasn't prevented him from rising to the top of the field in Iowa and New Hampshire, though it does appear to be holding him down in South Carolina.

On Sunday, Lee Bandy of The State looked at why, "for some strange reason, Romney has fallen short in his struggle to rise above single digits in South Carolina." Bandy continues:

It's not that the former Massachusetts governor hasn't tried. He has done plenty. He has spent considerable time and money in the state, building a network of political activists and politicians.

But what has it gotten him?

A low rating in S.C. polls.

Why?

There is concern among S.C. social conservatives because Romney is from liberal Massachusetts. Others fear his switcheroo on social issues, adopting conservative stances, is nothing but political window dressing. And then there are the evangelicals - a third of the GOP primary vote - some of whom consider his Mormon faith a cult.

Romney's candidacy seems to be stuck in neutral.

Romney's camp insists their candidate's poor showing in South Carolina is due to the fact that people don't know him yet, which may be true to a certain degree but doesn't explain away the disparity with his rise in the other early primary states.

Remember, no Republican has ever won the nomination without carrying the Palmetto State. Maybe that streak will be broken this year, but to the extent there is some trepidation among South Carolina primary voters over Romney's Mormonism, you can expect it will become an issue. Especially if Romney wins Iowa and/or New Hampshire, the whispering campaigns against McCain in 2000 may look like child's play compared to next January.

Maybe, reports the American Spectator. The Oklahoma Republican had been mulling a run earlier this year but apparently backed out due to the crowded field.

"He's not bound to any timetable or any fundraising imperative," says a longtime adviser to Coburn, who has spoken with him. "What's important for him is that there is no other true, Reagan conservative in the race, and he thinks he can fill that void."

If your name is Fred Thompson, Newt Gingrich or Al Gore, there's both room and time for another candidate to jump in. However, every one of those unannounced candidates has in his own way been running a stealth campaign for several months now. Gore and Thompson have carved out the "savior" niche while Gingrich seems to be waiting for the GOP field to winnow a bit before beginning his conservative "dark horse" run sometime in the fall.

Where does that leave Coburn? In honor of the 30th anniversary of the original Star Wars, "in a galaxy far, far away."

However, this is interesting: "Coburn is believed to have the backing of several low-profile members of the so called 'Swift Boaters,' men who financed the ads that doomed the presidential aspirations of Sen. John Kerry." On the other hand, "low-profile" members probably means not John O'Neill or Jerome Corsi, who wrote the book, "Unfit for Command," and were the public face of the Swifties back in 2004.

UPDATE: Maybe not, says the Politico's Jonathan Martin, who spoke to a Coburn spokesman earlier today.

"He has no intention of running for president," the spokesman said, adding the whole thing came from "rumor planting by powerful donors who want to see a wholesale shake-up in the GOP."

Apparently this is what "powerful" GOP donors do to pass the time.

Rasmussen released his GOP numbers today showing Mitt Romney edging ahead of John McCain:

Republicans
Giuliani 25
Romney 16
McCain 15
Thompson 12
Gingrich 9

Giuliani has a +7.8 point lead in the RCP Average.

Mitt Romney is in an unfamiliar spot: front runner, specifically in Iowa where recent polls show him leading his Republican rivals, writes the Boston Globe's James Pindell and Scott Helman. Romney's early success is due in "large part to his aggressive and well-organized campaign operation" in the state. Most prominent is Romney's organizational advantage, built by years of "courting key party players, doling out campaign cash to county GOP groups and local candidates." These strengths will be needed for the Aug. 11 Ames straw poll that will "set the course of the race here for the rest of the year."

Romney is helped in Iowa by some weakness from his rivals: John McCain skipped the state entirely in 2000 and his recent "championing of immigration reform has cost him conservative support," though he does have significant organization. Rudy Giuliani has nine Iowa staff members and hasn't decided whether to participate in the Ames poll.

Giuliani is the "most socially liberal Republican presidential candidate in more than a generation," but so far he's winning the support of social conservatives, writes The Politico's David Paul Kuhn. An analysis from the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life finds that 44 percent of social conservatives believe Giuliani has the "best chance" of becoming president. About 19 percent of them say McCain "comes closest" to their position on abortion but fewer believe he has the best chance of becoming president. "These calculations about electability are helping propel Giuliani over McCain among social conservatives."

The New York Times' Michael Powell writes that Giuliani, who has softened his campaign style, is now a disciplined candidate who stays on message and often flashes a smile. The New York Sun's Jill Gardiner reports the former mayor is fundraising in his hometown today but avoiding Manhattan to show that his supporters "aren't just fat cats," said former Giuliani speechwriter Fred Siegel.

Greenwich, Conn., has "joined New York, Los Angeles and Silicon Valley as must stops on the presidential fund-raising tour," reports the New York Times' Alison Leigh Cowan. The area is home to a booming hedge-fund industry. Filings for the first quarter reveal more than $1 million given from Greenwich ZIP codes, roughly two-fifths of the entire total those same areas gave for the 2004 presidential race. An additional $1 million is believed to have been raised since then. "In one notable break with the past, Greenwich money is increasingly going to Democrats, a reflection of national trends."

In Iowa today Barack Obama will unveil his health care plan that would guarantee coverage for all Americans by the end of his first term as president, reports the Des Moines Register's Jason Clayworth. Obama has declined to offer details but said prevention and better management of chronic illness can save billions.

Get these and today's other elections stories at RCP's Politics and Elections page.

CU President Hank Brown has written a letter recommending the firing of Ward Churchill.

You may recognize Army Sgt. Bryan Anderson from the January cover of Esquire Magazine:

Yesterday he threw out the first pitch at Wrigley Field:

(Photo: Tom Cruze, Chicago Sun-Times)

For what it's worth, here are the results of a poll of 1,010 adults from May 6-27 conducted by the Scripps Survey Research Center at Ohio University. Respondents were asked a series of questions about what they believe most Americans "will accept" or "will not accept" in a president. I've sorted the results in descending order:

Most Americans Will Accept
A white president who has adopted a black child = 84%
A wealthy president = 76%
A president who's lived in Washington, D.C., for more than 20 years = 74%
A president who smoked pot when young = 69%
A president who currently smokes cigarettes = 66%
A black president = 55%
A woman president = 52%
A president who voted for the Iraq war while in Congress = 52%
A pro-choice president = 49%
A president who has been married three times = 46%
A mormon president = 39%
A president who takes office at the age of 72 = 36%
A president who tried cocaine when young = 34%
A president who has very little government experience = 34%

I don't know that it's wise to make too many assumptions about these results. That said, if you glance down the list Barack Obama would seem be the one facing the most significant hurdles, two of which have nothing to do with the color of his skin.

Hard to believe, but true:

Vandals burned dozens of small American flags that decorated veterans' graves for Memorial Day and replaced many of them with hand-drawn swastikas, authorities said Monday.

Charred flag tatters were found still attached to 33 small flag standards at Woodlawn Cemetery, while 46 of the standards were found empty Sunday, authorities said.

Sheets of paper bearing swastikas drawn with what appeared to be red and black felt-tipped pens had been taped to 14 of the vandalized flag standards, Sheriff Bill Cumming said.

Members of the American Legion on this island in the San Juan Islands replaced the burned flags with new ones Sunday afternoon.

The vandals repeated their actions on Memorial Day after a guard left at dawn, replacing 33 of the small flags with more hand-drawn swastikas, the sheriff's office said.

The campaigns are sending dueling press releases about the Iraq supplemental vote, with McCain first to fire:

"This vote may win favor with MoveOn and liberal primary voters, but it's the equivalent of waving a white flag to al Qaeda."

Then Mitt Romney:

At a time when the men and women of our military fighting terrorism around the globe needed them most, Senators Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama cast a vote that singularly defines their lack of leadership and serves as a glaring example of an unrealistic and inexperienced worldview on national security that is regrettably shared by too many of their fellow Capitol Hill Democrats.

Now Barack Obama has returned fire:

"Governor Romney and Senator McCain clearly believe the course we are on in Iraq is working, but I do not. And if there ever was a reflection of that it's the fact that Senator McCain required a flack jacket, ten armored Humvees, two Apache attack helicopters, and 100 soldiers with rifles by his side to stroll through a market in Baghdad just a few weeks ago."

"Governor Romney and Senator McCain are still supporting a war that has cost us thousands of lives, made us less safe in the world, and resulted in a resurgence of al-Qaeda. It is time to end this war so that we can redeploy our forces to focus on the terrorists who attacked us on 9/11 and all those who plan to do us harm."

TOM ADDS: McCain reloads, and fires at Obama again:

"While Senator Obama's two years in the U.S. Senate certainly entitle him to vote against funding our troops, my service and experience combined with conversations with military leaders on the ground in Iraq lead me to believe that we must give this new strategy a chance to succeed because the consequences of failure would be catastrophic to our nation's security.

"By the way, Senator Obama, it's a 'flak' jacket, not a 'flack' jacket."

Ouch.