While Professor Hewitt does the heavy lifting this weekend and reads the as-yet-unfinished comprehensive immigration reform bill that some Senators are so excited about, I will dabble in the banal. Like polls! Rich, juicy, nutritious polls.

The Des Moines Register has taken Iowa’s pulse, and Mitt Romney is leading among Republicans. By a lot. Mitt is pulling 30%; immigration reform architect John McCain checks in at second with 18%. One small oddity about this poll besides its outlier numbers. For reasons left unexplained by the Register, its pollster didn’t include Fred Thompson.

Oh, and bad news for conservative pundit Andrew Sullivan who only four days ago said about Rob Paul, “The Internet polls show real support for him. Fox News' own internet poll placed him a close second, with 25 percent of the votes from Fox News viewers. We have a real phenomenon here.” The “real phenomenon” remains locked in the basement registering 0% support.

On the Democratic side, John Edwards remains in first place, exactly where he’s been the entire election season. The big news on the Democratic side is non-Silk Pony related; Bill Richardson has moved into double digits and taken firm command of the second tier. Richardson now joins Romney as the only candidate who can accurately say that his general polling trend is demonstrably upwards. Given the lack of experience of the top tier Democratic contenders, there may be room for someone with a heftier résumé to elbow his way into contention. If anyone’s going to do it, it will probably be Richardson.

Oh, and one other poll result worth talking about. The Rasmussen numbers on the president’s approval have dipped to 34%, his lowest ever in the Rasmussen poll. Whatever could account for the president plummeting this week of all weeks? We’ll discuss the answer later in the day.

Compliments? Complaints? Contact me at Soxblog@aol.com.