MANCHESTER, NH -- Good Friday morning. Sixty-six years ago, another country bombed the U.S. Naval Base at Pearl Harbor. Yesterday, Rep. Harry Mitchell wrote a letter to Navy Secretary Donald Winter requesting a new aircraft carrier, on which construction is scheduled to begin in 2012, be christened the USS Arizona, which sank in the Pearl Harbor attack. Here's the rest of what Washington is watching today:

-- The Senate will try to invoke cloture on a comprehensive energy bill passed by the House when it meets this morning. The House is not in session. Vice President Cheney addresses members of the VFW today at the National World War I Museum in Kansas City. Attorney General Michael Mukasey is probably going to have a stressful day: He meets with Senators for a members-only briefing on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act at the Capitol.

-- Senate Democrats running for President -- there are four in all -- will face some very difficult choices in coming weeks. As Senate leaders rush to finish business, they're going to face a number of nail-biting votes, and the first may come this weekend, CNN reports. Republicans have threatened to filibuster the energy bill, and in order for Democrats to achieve the 60 votes necessary to stave off that defeat, they may need Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and Chris Dodd back on the floor. Still, Harry Reid has difficult teeth to pull just a month before the Iowa caucuses. For Republicans, only John McCain is consistently absent from the debate. The absences, which essentially give Republicans a majority in the chamber, could have a big impact as Congress scrambles to finish up for the year.

-- Did something happen yesterday? We must have missed it. Of course we kid. Mitt Romney's big speech in College Station, Texas went over well with most people, though others pointed to flaws. But Michael Gerson, though acknowledging that Romney's situation was very different from John Kennedy's in 1960, praised the "quality and ambition" of the modern-day speech. An interesting contrast: Kennedy's central point was that religion ought to be shelved as a private affair. For Romney, religion belongs in the public domain. The kicker the Romney campaign is framing today: "Kennedy's speech remains a landmark of American rhetoric. But Romney's deserves to be read beside it."

-- The LA Times took a look at some of what they called the "glowing reviews." Still, it concludes, the speech will likely not help the Republican do better among evangelicals. Reaction was mixed among evangelical leaders, with some telling the NYT that there was nothing he could have said and others, like Palmetto Family Council President Oran Smith, called it "a very red-meat conservative speech." Those who attended the speech, including Southern Baptist chief Richard Land, were immediately positive, though James Dobson and Tony Perkins released statements praising the speech but warning that questions had not been completely answered, the Washington Post writes. The Wall Street Journal even found some of the guests who attended the speech, at the campaign's invitation, didn't necessarily want to hear more about Mormonism.

-- View the speech one of three ways: First, Romney harmed his campaign by focusing on Mormonism so late in the game, just a month before Iowa. And by including references to flip-flopping, Romney is choosing to make his closing argument about his two biggest weaknesses. Second, he mentioned Mormonism once and didn't really describe anything about anything; the speech changed absolutely nothing, and was neither a benefit nor a drawback to the campaign. Third, Romney helped his campaign, and significantly. He assuaged some doubts, effectively took the issue off the table for the rest of the campaign, and got to look presidential while doing it. And with the entire Washington press corps watching and writing about him today, Romney effectively gets a crucial win that can right his listing ship.

-- Okay, onto other, non-Romney news. This reporter is beginning to come to a new conclusion about the Democratic race, and it has much to do with women like Clara Oleson, profiled today by the Los Angeles Times. A large segment of women, the paper writes, simply can't stand Hillary Clinton. While blue-collar working women see Clinton as on their side on economic matters, wealthier and better-educated women have been slower to come around. Whether it's just a gut reaction or intellectual disagreement with her positions on issues, or a deeper sense of betrayal of her own gender, Clinton will only win these women over if she is the Democratic nominee. But she'll have to get there without them.

-- A poll out yesterday of 2,000 Latinos holds promise for Democrats and problems for Republicans. 57% of Latinos identified themselves as Democrats, while just 23% said they were Republicans, up significantly from the 21 point gap the same survey found two years ago. What does this all mean? Great news for Democrats in swing states like Arizona, Colorado and Nevada, Don Frederick writes. That's 24 electoral votes Democrats haven't been able to win lately.

-- Democrats, crossing their fingers for a long-shot battle against Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, saw two of their best potential candidates take a pass on running, the Lexington Herald-Leader reports. Auditor Crit Luallen, who just won re-election by a huge margin, has told the DSCC that she won't run, while former Attorney General Greg Stumbo is thinking instead about running for State Representative (huh?). Stumbo won't make an official announcement until after incoming Gov. Steve Beshear is inaugurated next week. Democrats' next target will be Iraq war vet Andrew Horne, who lost the Democratic primary to now-Rep. Jack Yarmuth in Louisville last year.

-- To-Be Trend Of The Day: This is going to change the way many in the political world conduct business. As more people give up their land-lines in favor of cellphones, pollsters are having to rethink a methodology that has been in place for the better part of four decades. How do they reach out to those with cell phones, especially those concerned with the by-the-minute prices? The New York Times reports surveyors are considering reimbursing respondents for minutes used. Meanwhile, another difficulty: The FCC requires callers to physically type in the number of a cell phone they call, which means widely-used autodialers are legally out. How pollsters react to these emerging challenges will determine how accurate polls are in the future.

-- Today On The Trail: Barack Obama is in Chicago preparing for his weekend Oprah swing. Joe Biden is in Ames and Boone, Iowa, while John Edwards participates in an AARP forum in Manchester before heading to a house party in Bedford and town halls in Peterborough and Claremont. Hillary Clinton talks to the press in Washington before heading to Des Moines. Chris Dodd holds a town hall meeting by phone with Air America's Ed Schultz.

-- On the GOP side, John McCain has town halls in Atkinson and Beford, and will hold an event commemorating Pearl Harbor in Hampstead. He'll also stop by his campaign's Nashua headquarters. Mitt Romney holds an event on strengthening the military in Des Moines. Fred Thompson is in Columbus, Ohio, for a meet and greet at GOP headquarters, then heads to Davenport and Des Moines. Rudy Giuliani gives a speech and holds a town hall meeting in Chicago. Mike Huckabee starts off in Charlotte, North Carolina today, before heading to an AARP forum in Bluffton, South Carolina. He finishes the day in North Charleston and North Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.