GOP Sen. Norm Coleman had a good day in today's round of the Minnesota recount, wiping out about two thirds of the gains that Al Franken had made so far in this never-ending roller-coaster of an election.

According to the latest numbers collected by the Star Tribune, Coleman is ahead by 180 votes with 68% of ballots recounted. Last night, Franken had closed the gap to 120 votes with 64% counted, so the recounting of just four percent of the ballots today was very good for Coleman.

There is of course a major caveat here, the same one we noted when Franken made big gains on the first day of this process: Don't put too much stock in a single day or a particular batch of ballots, as the swings that happen here are likely to be random and unpredictable. That said, today obviously wasn't good for Franken, and he better hope the remaining ballots have some good news for him.

Another big unknown here is what the outcome will be of the many challenged ballots, which are not included in the current totals pending review by the state canvass board. There are now almost 2,000 of them, compared to less than 900 just yesterday afternoon. Depending on the nature of those challenges, there could be anything from a huge swing to Franken to a total wash or even a swing to Coleman. And we simply don't know.

Now this is really something. The NRSC and Freedom's Watch are now airing ads in the Georgia Senate runoff accusing Democratic candidate Jim Martin of being against cracking down on people who abuse and prey on children.

The problem: Martin's own daughter was abducted when she was eight years old. Fortunately, she was returned safely. When asked for comment by Election Central, the NRSC declined to comment on this little wrinkle in the story.

Here's the NRSC's ad:

And Freedom's Watch has this ad:

The Martin campaign, as one might expect, is rather revolted by this development.

"Jim Martin has never forgotten the horror of coming face-to-face with violent crime. That's why he spent his career working to protect Georgia's children and families," Martin spokesperson Kate Hansen said in a press release. "Georgians will reject Chambliss' false personal attacks because they know that Jim Martin always stands up to protect Georgia families."

The Martin campaign is firing back with this ad, in which Martin speaks to the camera about the experience of his daughter's abduction:

The ad is not yet on the air; decisions are currently being made about when it will go up. "Saxby will have to wait and see," Martin spokesperson Matt Canter told Election Central.

Obama Calls For Major Public Works Initiative
In his newest Presidential YouTube Address, Barack Obama announced a major policy initiative: A massive public-works program in order to simultaneously update the nation's infrastructure and create what he predicted would be 2.5 million new jobs by January 2011.

"These aren't just steps to pull ourselves out of this immediate crisis; these are the long-term investments in our economic future that have been ignored for far too long," Obama said. "And they represent an early down payment on the type of reform my Administration will bring to Washington - a government that spends wisely, focuses on what works, and puts the public interest ahead of the same special interests that have come to dominate our politics."

No Obama Or Biden Public Events today
Neither Barack Obama nor Joe Biden have any public events scheduled for today.

Franken Gains In Recount, But Still Needs More Swing
With 64% of ballots recounted in Minnesota, GOP Sen. Norm Coleman's lead has been cut from 215 votes down to 120 votes, according to the latest numbers from the Star Tribune -- but Al Franken will need a better pace than that for the remaining 36% of ballots, mostly from Democratic areas, if he is to erase the lead. The other remaining issue is the large number of challenged ballots, over 1,600 of them and climbing, that will ultimately decide this race at the state canvassing board.

Martin Out-Raising Chambliss In Runoff, But Still Lags In Cash On Hand
Democratic Senate candidate Jim Martin, who is in a tough fight against incumbent GOP Senator Saxby Chambliss in the Georgia Senate runoff, out-raised Chambliss from October 16 to November 12 by $2.3 million to Chambliss' $1.9 million. However, Chambliss still has a hefty cash-on-hand advantage of $1.5 million to Martin's $617,000.

Bobby Jindal In Iowa Today
Gov. Bobby Jindal (R-LA) is in Iowa today, a state that often sees potential presidential candidates even this early in the cycle. Jindal will be raising money to aid flood victims, and is then off to give a speech before a key social-conservative activist group, the Iowa Family Policy Center.

Verizon Fires Employees In Obama Security Breach
Verizon Wireless has fired an unspecified number of employees believed to have improperly accessed the records on a personal cell phone belonging to Barack Obama. Luckily for Obama the phone account itself had been inactive for months, and it did not provide any access to e-mails or other secure data.

Obama's Books Top Political Chart
Barack Obama's two books, Dreams From My Father and The Audacity of Hopes, have shot to the top of the New York Times' sales list of political books. Audacity is at number one, followed by Dreams, for sales from October 25 to November 15, and the remainder of the list includes quite a few books about the president-elect.

Ben Smith points out that the statement from Hillary's spokesperson, which says today's reports are "premature," is nonetheless basically confirmation that she and Obama will reach a deal and she'll be his Secretary of State.

In truth, it's hard to read it any other way. Here's the statement from Hillary spokesperson Philippe Reines again:

"We're still in discussions, which are very much on track. Any reports beyond that are premature."

To my knowledge this is the first public statement from Reines or Hillary that directly addresses the actual possibility that she'd take the gig. That makes it significant. And that statement confirms that the talks are "very much on track."

Sure, maybe it's premature to say that they've reached a final deal. But still, consider how far out there the Clintons are on this. Bill's post-presidency has been thoroughly and publicly vetted. Hillary's camp has leaked info about her private deliberations. Her confidants are leaking that she's made a final decision. And now, Hillary's spokesperson has confirmed the advanced nature of the discussions.

It's impossible to imagine that this isn't basically a done deal for both sides and that they're just hashing out the particulars. The reality is that barring something truly seismic, she'll be President Obama's Secretary of State.

Hillary spokesperson Philippe Reines says the reports that Hillary has decided to accept the Secretary of State gig are "premature."

Asked for comment on the stories, Reines emails me this:

"We're still in discussions, which are very much on track. Any reports beyond that are premature."

It's still possible that it's true that she's told confidants that she'll accept the gig and that this statement refers to the question of whether she and Obama have shaken hands on it. But perhaps a bit of caution is in order.

Late Update: Jake Tapper reports that after deciding against taking the gig...

On Thursday, many people in Obama's world reached out to Clinton and convinced her to take the job.

By Thursday night, she had conveyed to President-elect Obama that she was interested in the job. In other words, she essentially accepted his offer.

Details are still being worked out, but everything is on track for Clinton's nomination for the job to be announced after Thanksgiving, along with other members of the Obama national security team.

That would square with the statement from Hillary's spokesperson, as well as the Obama camp's claim that the deal is "on track." She's decided to take the gig, but she and Obama haven't shaken hands on the particulars.

Late Late Update: More here.

Those Cabinet appointments are finally starting to come -- and they're coming fast, too, just at a time when a tumbling economy and uncertain marketplace need to know who they're dealing with.

Barack Obama has reportedly made his picks for two top economic jobs in the Cabinet: Timothy Geithner, the current president of the New York Federal Reserve Bank, will be Secretary of the Treasury; and Bill Richardson will become Secretary of Commerce.

Geithner served in the Treasury Department during the Clinton years, working under Bill's economic brain trust of Robert Rubin and Larry Summers, and has received favorable reviews for his performance at the New York Fed. In short, this is someone who will start off on a much better footing with Wall St. than Henry Paulson currently has right now -- though he'll face big challenge in maintaining any good will he has while he deals with the disastrous problems we're all facing.

Richardson was often spoken about for foreign-policy roles, but the imminent selection of Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State seems to have put him back in a domestic portfolio. His selection will probably also satisfy any agitation from Hispanic interest groups that they be represented in the Cabinet.

Late Update: As for Hillary, a spokesperson for the Senator says reports she's accepted the State gig are "premature."

Hillary will accept the job, reports The New York Times:

Hillary Rodham Clinton has decided to give up her Senate seat and accept the position of secretary of state, making her the public face around the world for the administration of the man who beat her for the Democratic presidential nomination, two confidants said Friday.

Mrs. Clinton came to her decision after additional discussion with President-elect Barack Obama about the nature of her role and his plans for foreign policy, said one of the confidants, who insisted on anonymity to discuss the situation. Mr. Obama's office told reporters Thursday that the nomination is "on track" but this is the first word from the Clinton camp that she has decided...

A second Clinton associate confirmed that her camp believes they have a done deal. Senior Obama advisers said Friday morning that the offer had not been formally accepted and no announcement will be made until after Thanksgiving. But they said they were convinced that the nascent alliance was now ready to be sealed.

More soon.

Has Al Franken cut Norm Coleman's lead down to double digits? That's what the Franken campaign just claimed in a briefing with reporters.

The current estimates from the Star Tribune have Coleman up by about 130 votes, but the Franken campaign claims the true difference is much less than that when you take into account disputed ballots that aren't included right now in the totals but are likely to be resolved pretty easily by the state canvassing board.

Even if a challenged ballot is taken out of the total recount pool for the time being, the Franken campaign thinks it has an idea of what the numbers will eventually look like based on the opinions of the election workers at the individual sites -- and they think the real Coleman lead right now is less than 100 votes, instead of the current common estimate of over 130.

Franken's lead recount lawyer Marc Elias also pointed out that with 51.1% of the ballots recounted so far, the portion that has been counted were from disproportionately Republican areas -- so the remaining votes could end up having even more error-corrections that boost Franken than we've seen already.

Here's another thing that's got some people worried about Secretary of State Hillary: Would she bring her old-guard foreign policy adviser types with her to the State Department, a cadre who are in some ways out of step with the more progressive crew that steered the foreign policy of the Obama campaign?

There seems little doubt that Hillary would try to bring her people abroad. "Successful Secretaries of State bring in their own people," foreign policy expert Larry Korb of the Center for American Progress told me a few minutes ago.

If Hillary does do this, it seems likely that this will discomfit Obama's foreign policy confidants -- some of whom opposed the Iraq War and argue for a clean break from the Dem establishment foreign policy mindset that's held sway for so long. The question would also be whether Obama advisers would find a comfortable home there and how much of a role they could carve out in crafting America's new global posture.

Among the Hillary people you can imagine going with her to the State Department are old-guard types such as Richard Holbrooke, Jamie Rubin, and Michael O'Hanlon. While some of Obama's foreign policy advisers had served under Bill Clinton, Obama had plenty of fresher faces, such as Samantha Power, who during the campaign strongly condemned the Hillary "conventional wisdom" foreign policy mindset that might dominate should she be elected president.

As Spencer Ackerman puts it in a good rundown on the topic, at stake is more than the potential for internal ideological conflict at State:

The dispute is only partly ideological in nature. While the coterie of foreign-policy thinkers around Obama have been more liberal, in an aggregate sense -- on issues like Iraq and negotiations with America's adversaries -- the Obama loyalists question the boldness of the Clintonites. They fear that Obama's apparent embrace of Clinton represents an acquiescence to the conventional Democratic foreign-policy approaches that they once derided as courting disaster.

The question is whether Hillary people at State will muddle what is arguably Obama's overarching foreign policy ambition: Fundamental change in the way national security is discussed in this country and a true and enduring transformation of our own views of what constitutes just and practical uses of our military power abroad. The dynamic bears watching.

Even as the recount in the super-tight Minnesota Senate race grinds on, the GOP has been running a campaign of what the Franken camp claims are massive falsehoods about the vote count -- assertions that have been repeated by multiple news outlets.

Now the Franken campaign has fired back, with Franken's lead recount lawyer Marc Elias producing a detailed, point-by-point rebuttal of all the GOP claims in the Wall St. Journal -- which has been one of the most hostile media outlets on this subject -- responding to the accusations:

• The was nothing unusual about the statewide net shift of several-hundred votes to Franken in the canvassing process -- when county and state spreadsheets are checked for basic data-entry errors made in the heat of Election Night. In fact, Elias notes, recent statewide elections in Minnesota have had shifts that were ten times bigger.

• There was nothing mysterious about Franken gaining over 200 votes in a single town, as the right has alleged -- it was a correction of a typo that only gave Franken 27 votes, when the real number was 273. Elias quotes a county editor saying it would have been nice for if the national media "would have asked before they wrote the story."

Read more »

Since everyone is talking about how leak-prone the Obama operation has suddenly become, it seems worth making the distinction between two types of leaks.

There are strategic leaks, which are approved and designed for a particular purpose by Obama's central command. Then there are the unplanned leaks, which often come from more marginal players -- or even from people being considered for an Obama post -- and are designed to push a particular individual's agenda.

When news leaked late last night that Obama is "on track" to formally offer the Secretary of State gig, that had all the hallmarks of a planned leak. It was a shrewd and carefully crafted message. The "on track" language, which appeared in several news accounts, was deliberate: It doesn't make the offer official, but it does throw the ball back into the Clintons' court at a time when Hillary's people are leaking the notion that she hasn't made up her mind to take the gig.

The leaks that greeted the choice of Rahm Emanuel as White House chief of staff, meanwhile, were unplanned and made a big sloppy mess. This sort of stuff tends to come from opponents of the appointment -- others being considered for the gig, or people internally who oppose it. Or, alternatively, it comes from folks in the potential appointee's universe who've been briefed on his or her deliberations.

Since so many of these people are coming out of Congress, the primary leak spigot is the Hill. If the Obama operation now seems more leaky and its message tougher to control, blame the culture of the Hill for it more than the Obama operation itself.

If some new poll data is to be believed, the Republicans might be in for a long time in the wilderness. Let's take a look at the numbers.

The new Gallup poll shows that the Republican Party as an institution has a 61% unfavorable rating, with only 34% favorable. And the numbers have only gone downhill since the election -- in October they were at 40% favorable and 53% unfavorable.

But it actually gets worse for the GOP from there.

A separate question in the data set showed 59% of Republicans saying the party needs to be more conservative, compared to only 12% who say the party should be less conservative. So not only is the pool of Republican voters shrinking, but the ones who remain are really nuts.

We could be seeing the emergence of a pattern common in democracies, when a ruling party is turned out of power in a landslide: The folks who are left to pick up the pieces are often the most extreme elements, and are in fact the least fit to actually clean things up. The best examples of this are probably the UK Labour Party after they were beaten by Margaret Thatcher in 1979, the Conservative Party after Tony Blair finally ousted them in 1997, and over here the Democrats when they lost in 1980 and then nominated Walter Mondale in 1984.

Hmm, can anyone say Palin/Bachmann in 2012?

Finally! Barack Obama is now personally getting involved in the high-stakes Georgia Senate runoff, where Democratic candidate Jim Martin has an outside shot of knocking off GOP Sen. Saxby Chambliss and getting the Dems that much closer to 60 seats, with this new radio ad:

"I want to thank everybody who turned out and voted for me in November. Together we can get America moving again," Obama says. "But the elections aren't over. In Georgia, there's a runoff on Tuesday, December 2, and I want to urge you to turn out one more time and help elect Jim Martin to the United States Senate."

This runoff is effectively the same as a special election -- held apart from the usual major Election Day, and likely to have much lower turnout. As such, the candidates for the runoff have to accomplish two major tasks: Getting their voters enthusiastic to come out and vote again; and providing the necessary civics lesson to make sure they actually know when to come out. This ad from the new president-elect would seem to accomplish both chores.

Now all Obama has to do is personally campaign in the state.

Bill Vetting Issues Resolved; Obama "On Track" To Name Hillary Secretary Of State
We first reported here yesterday that advisers to the Clintons believe they've satisfied the Obama team's vetting demands and are awaiting a formal offer of the State Department gig from Obama. Now CNN, The Washington Post, the Associated Press and Politico have all confirmed that the vetting issues are resolved and that Obama is "on track" to name Hillary Secretary of State after Thanksgiving.

No Public Events From Obama Or Biden
Barack Obama is holding private transition meetings today in Chicago, while Joe Biden is in Delaware. Neither have any public events scheduled for today.

Report: Obama Could Appoint Retired General As National Security Adviser
Barack Obama is reportedly considering retired Marine Gen. James Jones, a critic of the Bush Administration's handling of Iraq and a former operational commander of NATO, for the position of National Security Adviser. Another possibility is James Steinberg, who served as Deputy National Security Adviser under Bill Clinton.

Verizon: Employees Looked Through Obama's Cell Phone Records
Verizon Wireless has revealed that several unidentified employees improperly accessed the records on Barack Obama's personal cell phone, which Obama had not used for months. If there is any consolation for Obama in this situation, it's that the perpetrators don't appear to have accessed any of his personal e-mails or other data -- the phone in question was simply a standard phone, not a smart phone.

Hillary Still Owes $5.4 Million To Mark Penn
The Associated Press reports that Hillary Clinton is still carrying a debt of $5.4 million to Mark Penn, out of roughly $7.5 million in total obligations. If Hillary were to become Secretary of State, FEC regulations would bar her from personally working to raise money to pay off those debts, though she could appoint an agent to raise money on her behalf and she would have some limited ability to appear at a fundraiser and thank donors.

DC Steps Up Preparations For Inauguration Stampede
The District of Columbia is relaxing regulations and intricately planning out its public transportation in anticipation of a mass crowd coming into town for Barack Obama's inaugural. The District has suspended the requirement for residents to seek a license before renting out their homes, and the city's public transit will be running at rush-hour levels for an unprecedented 15 hours straight.

Palin Pardons Turkey Amidst Slaughter
Check out this video of Sarah Palin doing the ceremonial photo-op of pardoning a turkey before Thanksgiving. As she spoke with local media about how brutal a campaign could be but also how much it's worth it to get out and meet regular people, several turkeys are being graphically slaughtered in the background:

"Certainly we'll probably invite criticism for even doing this, too -- but at least this was fun," Palin says, totally oblivious to what's going on in back of her. This video has that Zucker-Abrahams-Zucker movie motif, of a seemingly serious conversation taking place while an absurd sight gag is occurring in the background.

Advisers to Bill and Hillary Clinton believe they've given the Obama transition team much if not all of the all the information on Bill's post-presidency the Obama team will be asking for, and see the Clinton camp as now being in a holding pattern, waiting on a formal offer of the State Department gig to Hillary from Obama, a source close to the negotiations tells us.

The source adds that it's always possible that more requests for info about Bill could be made, which the Clinton team would willingly furnish if asked, but says that it looks as if the vast majority of the Obama camp's desires have been met. Multiple news outlets have reported that Hillary has not made up her mind whether to take the gig, and the source confirms this.

It's not yet clear whether the next step in the process will be Hillary signaling to Obama that she wants the gig, or whether it will be a formal offer from Obama, the source adds. Still, the fact that the Obama camp appears to have much if not all the info it wants is perhaps a sign that some of the public press around Bill could subside, which would be a source of relief in the Clinton camp and could hasten the resolution of the situation.

Multiple reports this morning said that Bill had agreed to a number of concessions to smooth Hillary's way to the Secretary of State job, including agreeing to disclose the identities of donors to his foundation and to vet future speeches and activities abroad with Obama aides.

Now Clinton advisers believe that they've satisfied the vast majority of the Obama camp's demands, the source says.

Spokespeople for Bill, Hillary and Obama all declined to comment.

We've now learned that Rep. Ed Towns of New York is the favorite to take over the House Oversight Committee chairmanship, as a potential rival has indicated he won't oppose Towns.

This is a sign that the new Dem-controlled government is taking shape in a mostly smooth fashion, sparing the House Dems another brutal internal fight after current Oversight chairman Henry Waxman ousted John Dingell from the Energy and Commerce Committee.

There had been press coverage and rumors that Rep. Elijah Cummings of Maryland might have run against Towns for the now-vacant chairmanship, but it looks like Cummings won't oppose Towns, after all.

"The Congressman has said from the start that he would be honored to serve as OGR Chair, but he respects that his CBC [The Congressional Black Caucus] colleague, Mr. Towns, is next in line," Cummings spokesperson Jennifer Kohl told Election Central.

Another potential Towns rival, Rep. Carolyn Maloney of New York, has also said she would support him if he runs.

So if Towns wants it, it's that much more likely to be his.

This, from the Associated Press, is just fascinating:

More Floridians voted for John McCain than Barack Obama on Election Day, but the Democrat sealed his victory in the state by winning more early and absentee votes.

An Associated Press study of 94 percent of the state's total shows that the Republican beat Obama by almost 5 percentage points on Nov. 4, but Obama trumped McCain by 11 percentage points in early and absentee balloting. Overall, Obama beat McCain 51.4 percent to 48.6 percent in Florida, becoming only the third Democrat in 11 presidential elections to carry the state.

In other words, early and absentee voting put Obama over the top in this key Bush state. Keep in mind that the Obama campaign was very aggressive in pushing supporters to vote early, with Obama or his wife Michelle, or Joe Biden, or other surrogates pushing the message at virtually every rally.

Chalk this up as just another way that the Obama campaign revolutionized modern campaigns -- from now on, no serious presidential campaign will dare not attempt a sophisticated early-voting strategy. And it's yet another reminder, as if you needed one, of just how well-planned and executed the Obama campaign really was.

The Franken team likes their odds. That's the message today from a Franken campaign briefing with reporters, as the Franken team faces the important task of projecting confidence and bolstering the optimism of their own supporters who are working at the recount precincts throughout the state.

Marc Elias, Franken's lead recount lawyer, said that Franken has made gains despite the fact that the recounted areas so far are more Republican than the state as a whole -- which means they could potentially gain even more votes as the count moves into more pro-Franken precincts, though Elias stressed that they aren't making any direct extrapolations or projections.

Elias also criticized the Coleman campaign over their challenges to some of the ballots, which is keeping those votes out of the count pending their final review by the state canvassing board. So far, Coleman's campaign has been challenging more ballots than the Franken camp has.

"We've seen examples of challenges that are clearly non-meritorious, and will not be upheld by the canvass board." If Elias is right about that prediction, Franken could potentially gain even more votes when the board finally takes up those ballots in December.

A very smart analysis from Steve Clemons of the rationale behind the Hillary Secretary of State pick:

The Clinton we have grown accustomed to over the last year is perceived as a spear-carrier for the Madeleine Albright school of values-driven liberal interventionism. Albright proponents argue that in contrast to the reckless efforts of neoconservatives to spread democracy and promote global justice at the end of a gun, Albright got regime change right in the Balkans.

Obama is the guy who wanted to meet the world's most thuggish leaders, who wanted strategic change, and who wanted to avoid the "wrong kind of experience" -- implying Clinton's team was riveted in the past and not ready for the future. Obama strategist David Axelrod went so far as to tie Clinton to some responsibility for Benazir Bhutto's death for not doing more to stop Bush's wars in the Middle East.

Despite all of these differences, hiring Clinton may be a masterstroke of genius that has all the markings of a high-risk, high-reward move with which this political tycoon Obama has grown comfortable...

If Obama wants to change the strategic game on Iran, Israel-Palestine, Syria, Cuba, Russia and other challenges, he will need partners who are perceived as tough, smart, shrewd and even skeptical of the deals he wants to do. Clinton is all of these.

Clinton may be the bad cop to Obama's good cop. Because she is trusted by Pentagon-hugging national security conservatives, she may legitimize his desire to respond to this pivot point in American history with bold strokes rather than incremental ones.

Obama...intends to, in part, be his own secretary of state, focused on re-sculpting America's global social contract and working in partnership with a diverse team of hard-edged policy players like Clinton to make even his rivals do his direct bidding.

This could be a kind of proactive agenda-setting in foreign policy we haven't seen in decades.

It would be the ultimate irony if Obama were able to change national security politics at home, and achieve true transformation of America's posture abroad, in part because of the political cover he got from someone he long derided as captive to the very same foreign policy mindset he's setting out to transform.

Here's another wrinkle to consider in the wake of Henry Waxman's stunning ascent to the chairmanship of the Energy and Commerce Committee.

Congressional insiders point out that Barack Obama, in a little-noticed move a few days ago, appointed as the top White House liason to Congress one Philip Schiliro, who has spent many of his past 25 years on the Hill working for (you guessed it) Waxman.

In the wake of Waxman's victory, this is significant. It means Waxman will be closer to the center of the action and will have a direct line into the White House. Congressional insiders also point out that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is an ally of Waxman -- and hence, of Obama's liason to Congress.

Also, as Harold Meyerson points out, Waxman is perhaps the House's leading legislator on three key issues prioritized by Obama: Universal health care, global warming, and the need for strengthened consumer protections.

All of this presages better relations between the Dem administration and the House than the last Democratic President enjoyed, even while Congress was controlled by Dems. This isn't a terribly surprising prediction, but it's another sign that Obama is extremely well positioned to make big things happen rather quickly once he takes power.

So what exactly is going on in the Minnesota recount, and can Al Franken overcome GOP Sen. Norm Coleman's statistically tiny lead from the initial vote count?

The answer is a definite maybe. Here's why.

Franken got a big boost yesterday when the first wave of recounting cut Coleman's lead from 215 votes down to 174, with over 80% of ballots left to be sorted out. Franken's gains came from ballots that weren't marked well enough for a machine to clearly pick up but were obvious to the human eye (what is also called an "under-vote").

So what's next?

Read more »

This is big, big, big. In a victory for the Democratic left, Rep. Henry Waxman has just successfully ousted Rep. John Dingell from his longtime perch as head of the Energy and Commerce Committee.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi's office confirms to us the vote count in the Democratic Caucus moments ago: Waxman 137 votes, Dingell 122 votes.

The defeat of Dingell is a major victory for environmentalists, removing a key obstacle to real energy reform just as a Democrat with climate change high on his agenda takes the Presidency.

Dingell, who first entered the House way back when Eisenhower was president, had been the head Democrat on this committee ever since 1981. But many of the more liberal members over the years came to view him as too friendly to Michigan's auto industry and hostile to environmentalists -- especially on issues like climate change and carbon limits.

It also shakes up Congress' seniority system and is yet another sign that the political momentum is squarely in the camp of aggressive Dems. Waxman played a lead role in staking out a far more aggressive stance towards the Bush administration than many other more cautious Dems would take.

Waxman used his House Oversight chairmanship to grill the administration over its scandals and incompetence, making him a hero to many Democrats and a viable candidate for change over Dingell.

Now his victory stands as a harbinger of just how much change is coming.

Late Update: More on what Waxman's ascent means here.

There's still more good news this morning suggesting that health care reform is creeping closer to reality:

The health insurance industry said Wednesday that it would support a health care overhaul requiring insurers to accept all customers, regardless of illness or disability. But in return, the industry said, Congress should require all Americans to have coverage.

The proposals, put forward by the insurers' two main trade associations, have the potential to reshape and advance the debate over universal health insurance just as President-elect Barack Obama prepares to take office.

In separate actions, the two trade groups, America's Health Insurance Plans and the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association, announced their support for guaranteed coverage for people with pre-existing medical conditions, in conjunction with an enforceable mandate for individual coverage.

As Steve Benen says, this is important news given the industry's role in killing Hillarycare, and suggests more political momentum for reform heading into 2009.

One other interesting dynamic at play that has reform advocates cheery is that a wide variety of the other interest groups that also moved to sink Hillarycare want reform to succeed this time, for a whole bunch of different reasons.

Late Update: More must-reading on the issue from Ezra Klein and Jonathan Cohn.

The two major papers have dramatically different versions this morning of what's going on behind the scenes between Hillaryland and Camp Obama as they move towards a deal to make her Secretary of State.

The New York Times has the Hillary-as-Lady-Macbeth version:

In their public signals, the Clintons are trying to take the former president's activities off the table as an issue, in their view eliminating any excuses for Mr. Obama not to give Mrs. Clinton the job. Some in the Obama camp are bristling at what they see as strategic leaks by the Clintons aimed at boxing in the president-elect and forcing him to offer the post.

So according to The Times, Hillary wants the job so badly that she's scheming to make it impossible for Obama to not offer her the job. But here's The Washington Post's version of events:

Obama aides said yesterday that it would be difficult for Sen. Clinton to walk away from the secretary of state post. Obama's staff has thoroughly vetted both Clintons with the understanding that, if he should make an official job offer, she would accept.

So according to WaPo, the Obama camp thinks that it would be tough for Hillary to walk away from a deal and indeed that the two camps already have an understanding in place.

The takeaway here is that all the purported accounts of Machiavellian behind-the-scenes scheming really need to be taken with an ocean's worth of salt. More often than not such leaks come from marginal players who have their own agenda and scores to settle.

Certainly it would be pollyanna-ish to imagine that no such strategizing goes on. But the Times account strikes me as somewhat overheated. As Atrios says, the Clintons drive the media insane. What this kind of speculation really shows, I'd argue, is the extent to which reporters are actually under pressure to report on the Clintons exclusively through the "Clintons scheming Lady Macbeth Machiavelli" prism.

Report: Bill Clinton Has Agreed To Major Concessions With Obama Team
Bill Clinton has reportedly agreed with the Obama transition team to disclose the list of donors to his charitable foundation to allow the White House to vet his future overseas trips and speaking engagements, in order to smooth the road to Hillary being nominated for Secretary of State. The potential for a conflict of interest from Bill's foreign dealings has been the major roadblock to a Hillary nomination, and Bill's apparent new agreements could go a long way in fixing the situation.

Obama In Chicago; Biden Celebrating His Birthday In Delaware; Rahm Meeting With GOP On The Hill
Barack Obama is holding private meetings today in Chicago while Joe Biden will spend today -- his birthday -- in Delaware, with neither having any scheduled public events. Meanwhile, Rahm Emanuel is headed to Capitol Hill to meet with House and Senate Republicans, in order to discuss how the new Democratic White House might be able to work together with the GOP minority.

Napolitano Could Be Tapped For Homeland Security
Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano's office is not commenting on the story that she will be picked for Secretary of Homeland Security, and reportedly no formal offer has yet been made, but multiple reports say an offer is likely and that she would accept. Napolitano's résumé does seem to fit the bill: She is a governor from along the Mexican border and previously served as a U.S. Attorney, and on top of that she was an Obama surrogate during a time when his campaign was on the ropes.

NYT: Daschle's Private-Sector Work Could Conflict With Health And Human Services Post
The New York Times points out that Tom Daschle's selection to be Secretary of Health and Human Services could create a conflict with Barack Obama's promises about lobbyist influence, as Daschle has served on the board of the Mayo Clinic and also advised a major legal/lobbying firm: "Although Mr. Daschle's work might not preclude his appointment, it could raise the possibility that the administration could require him to recuse himself from any matter related to either the Mayo Clinic or some of the clients he advised at Alston & Bird -- a potentially broad swath of the health secretary's portfolio."

Kerry Poised To Claim Foreign Relations Chairmanship
John Kerry will reportedly win the chairmanship of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee -- the same committee where he shot to fame when he testified against the Vietnam War over 35 years ago -- as a result of Joe Biden vacating the chair to become vice president. The Boston Globe reports that Kerry is already working on an ambitious agenda for the committee, including oversight of plans to withdraw from Iraq, dealing with nuclear proliferation and the spread of other weapons, and focusing on the fight against terrorists in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Big DC Suburbs County Could Cancel School Day For Inauguration
A school board member in Montgomery County, Maryland (the DC suburbs), has proposed making Inauguration Day a school holiday so that students can watch the historic event that will be Barack Obama's swearing-in. The school superintendent has recommended against it, citing the limited number of allowed snow days on the calendar, but the school board president believes the motion will have majority support when brought up at the meeting in three weeks.

The Minnesota Recount Goes On
Today is the second day of the Minnesota Senate recount, as we find out whether or not Al Franken can overcome GOP Sen. Norm Coleman's paper-thin lead from the original totals. The major thing to keep in mind while watching this story develop is to not get too shaken up by the results as they come in, as there will be numerous small swings going in either direction -- instead, pay attention to the overall pattern.

The first day of the Minnesota recount is behind us, and it's been a good day for Al Franken. GOP Sen. Norm Coleman's lead has been reduced from 215 votes to 174, a decrease of 41 votes, with 18% of the total ballots recounted.

Franken's biggest gains came from the manual count of some precincts in St. Louis County -- part of the Northeastern Minnesota "Iron Range" region that is heavily loyal to the Democrats -- where some ballots were too faintly marked to be picked up by the older optical-scan machines used there. Those St. Louis County precincts alone gave Franken a net gain of 28 votes.

The major caveat here is that we shouldn't put too much stock in the swing from one particular day or one particular batch of ballots. Over the course of the day Coleman's lead shrank, grew and shrank again, and there's no telling what will happen tomorrow and over the next few weeks.

That said, today's swing to Franken should be seen as reason for cautious optimism among Democrats.

Al Franken won a big court victory today, one that could help him significantly in his battle to overcome Norm Coleman's current 215-vote lead in the Minnesota recount.

A judge ruled in favor of the Franken campaign's request that Ramsey County (St. Paul) turn over to Franken all the available information about rejected absentee ballots: Who cast them and why they were rejected, and thus what avenues of correction are available to get them re-admitted. This will enable the Franken campaign to find ballots that were thrown out by clerical errors or ballots that were close legal calls and could potentially be put back in, once the campaign contacts those voters and helps them get their ballots counted.

With thousands and thousands of ballots like these across the state, and the likelihood that the Franken camp can leverage today's decision in order to get the relevant information from all the other counties, Franken could potentially find enough of a swing to be put over the top.

Of course, for every rejected or provisional ballot that the Franken camp is fighting to get re-admitted, there will probably be a lawyer from the Coleman campaign defending the original decision and working to keep those ballots out of the pool. And the Coleman camp can always retaliate by using this decision to find rejected ballots that they think would be good for them.

So we're in for a long few weeks as this recount hashes out.

And so the Alaska Senate race has truly come to an end: Ted Stevens has conceded the election, after Democratic challenger Mark Begich built up a small but nevertheless insurmountable lead in last night's vote count.

Stevens shocked the political world when the ballots counted on Election Night originally showed him winning the race, despite the fact that he'd just been convicted on multiple felony counts in a corruption trial. This sent organized punditry and Capitol Hill into a frenzy wondering how Stevens could have possibly been re-elected -- but it wasn't over yet.

Begich had banked a lead in absentee voters that happened to not be counted yet -- indeed, he quipped during an appearance on the Rachel Maddow TV show last week that his own early ballot had only just been counted the day before. And when those votes were all tallied, Begich was the winner.

Begich is the first Democrat elected to represent deep-red Alaska at the federal level since Mike Gravel was re-elected to his final Senate term in 1974. And Ted Stevens, who in the 1950s was a U.S. Attorney known for fighting crime and busting corruption, is a lame-duck convicted felon, who even if he had won would have faced possible expulsion from the Senate.

As expected, the Obama team announces via press release that David Axelrod -- one of the "architects" of Obama's victory -- is heading to the White House to serve as senior adviser to the President.

Other appointments made official today: Greg Craig will serve as White House Counsel, Lisa Brown will serve as Staff Secretary, and Chris Lu will serve as Cabinet Secretary.

One of Axelrod's primary achievements during the campaign was to help build the Obama narrative of change and the politics of hope, so one imagines that Axelrod will shape big-picture stuff in the White House -- the larger themes and narratives of the Obama Presidency.

The bios of these new staffers after the jump.

Read more »

After an earlier round of hand-wringing about whether President-elect Obama would push off health care reform out of fear of its economic and political costs, some experts and advocates in the field are increasingly optimistic that the incoming president will in fact act decisively and ambitiously to pursue reform in his first year.

These experts point to several very recent rapid-fire developments to justify their hopes, first among them the announcement today that Obama has tapped Tom Daschle as secretary of Health and Human Services.

Richard Kirsch, the national campaign manager for Health Care for America Now, a leading umbrella group of health care advocates, unions and providers, points out that Daschle has repeatedly talked about the imperative of acting fast on health care reform lest Obama's mandate be spent in other areas.

"Daschle has talked for awhile about the need to do this early," Kirsch tells me, recounting that Daschle stressed this in a meeting with him as long as a year ago. Kirsch adds that there are mounting signs that the Obama team "understands that because of the enormity of doing health care, because it's the hardest thing to do, they need their mandate the most for it."

Dem Rep. Pete Stark, a longtime advocate for universal health care, hit a similarly sunny note in a statement today.

Read more »

The folks who know what they're talking about when discussing health care say that the choice of Tom Daschle to head Health and Human Services is hugely significant in two ways.

First, it's a sign that Obama will pursue real, meaningful, ambitious reform; and second, it shows that he's determined to avoid the mistakes that doomed Hillarycare in the 1990s.

Here's Ezra Klein:

This is huge news, and the clearest evidence yet that Obama means to pursue comprehensive health reform. You don't tap the former Senate Majority Leader to run your health care bureaucracy. That's not his skill set. You tap him to get your health care plan through Congress. You tap him because he understands the parliamentary tricks and has a deep knowledge of the ideologies and incentives of the relevant players. You tap him because you understand that health care reform runs through the Senate...

Daschle signals that the Obama administration view health care as a political problem. The key to success is votes. And Daschle is a guy whose last job was lining up votes.

And here's Jonathan Cohn:

Daschle has also thought long and hard about the failures of the 1994 reform effort -- and how to avoid them. He was actually the first person I heard mention the possibility of using the budget reconciliation process this time around. (Under reconciliation rules, it takes only 50 votes to pass something, since there are no filibusters.)...

Like Senator Max Baucus, who has also raised this possibility, Daschle was careful to say that reconciliation should be a fallback option -- something to use only if bipartisan progress became impossible because Republicans were reprising their role from 1994 and refusing to compromise. But he also noted that it was an option Democrats had to keep on the table, in order to make cooperation more likely.

Also, you'd think the Daschle pick should quiet all the pundit speculation that Obama won't be able to afford the cost or political capital to act quickly and decisively on reform. Daschle wouldn't have taken the gig if he didn't think it was a major priority for the new administration.

For more on Daschle's views of health care, see interviews with him here and here.

The Republicans are stepping up their efforts in the heated Georgia Senate runoff, a sign that they may be seriously worried that incumbent GOP Senator Saxby Chambliss could lose to Democratic challenger Jim Martin.

The Republican National Committee has now plowed another $2 million in to the race, giving the money to the NRSC -- an extraordinary sum for an election that is being held in only two weeks.

On top of that, Chambliss is getting help from another major national GOP figure: Rudy Giuliani, who is hosting a big-money fundraiser in Atlanta this Monday. This comes on top of rallies or fundraising help that Chambliss has received from John McCain, Mike Huckabee, Mitt Romney and other major Republicans.

It's hard to overstate just how much is on the line for the GOP in this race. In the wake of Ted Stevens' loss in Alaska becoming official and the Senate Democrats' reconciliation with Joe Lieberman, the Dems are now just two seats short of a filibuster-proof supermajority. If they can pull things off in this race and also in the Minnesota recount then they'll have it right there, though this scenario remains somewhat unlikely at this point.

As a national GOP source told us: "Certainly the stakes rise every time the Dems get closer to 60 seats."

Tom Daschle, who suffered a major downfall when he went from being Senate Democratic Leader to losing his own seat in 2004, is now enjoying a comeback of sorts -- Barack Obama has reportedly tapped Daschle to be his new Secretary of Health and Human Services, and Daschle has accepted.

Daschle became an Obama ally right after Obama's election to the Senate in 2004, with top former Daschle staffers going to work for Obama's Senate office and Daschle himself endorsing Obama for president very early on in 2007.

Politically, Daschle seems to be a safe and non-controversial choice. Another name that was much-discussed for the post was Howard Dean, due to his having been a medical doctor and a governor who took an intense interest in health care. But Dean might have encountered a bit more friction in working with Congress, thanks to his role as DNC chairman and his reputation -- fair or not -- for being a divisive figure.

The Obama transition team is not disputing the stories out this morning reporting that Bill Clinton is helping Hillary's quest for the Secretary of State gig by agreeing to a number of concessions with regard to the vetting of his post-Presidential life.

Among those concessions: Bill has reportedly agreed to release the names of major donors to his charitable foundation, will submit future foundation activity to strict review, and could remove himself from day-to-day responsibility for his foundation.

We asked Obama transition spokesperson Stephanie Cutter for comment, and she didn't knock them down, declining to say anything.

So it looks like it's full speed ahead.

Here's some very good news for those who are hoping that Obama moves quickly and ambitiously on health-care reform:

President-elect Barack Obama's incoming White House chief of staff challenged chief executives and other business leaders Tuesday night to join the new administration in a push for universal health care, saying incremental increases in coverage won't be acceptable.

"When it gets rough out there, a lot of business leaders get out of the car and say, 'We're OK with minor reform.' I'm challenging you today, we're going to have to do big, serious things," Rahm Emanuel said, speaking to The Wall Street Journal's CEO Council, a conference convened to elicit corporate opinion on the challenges facing the new president.

Rahm also promised that the new administration would "throw long and deep" on major issues, health care being only one. While the devil will of course be in the details, the fact that Rahm himself is setting the bar very high for the incoming administration's expected health care reform efforts is welcome.

Late Update: Ben Smith has video of Rahm's speech.

If Hillary doesn't want -- or doesn't get -- the Secretary of State gig, she appears to have another high-profile option open to her that involves a topic with which she has some passing familiarity:

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y), considered a prominent contender to become secretary of State in the Obama administration, was offered an alternative Tuesday -- to be a senior member of the Senate team aiming to overhaul the nation's healthcare system.

Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), who has announced plans to craft sweeping healthcare legislation next year, asked the former presidential contender to head a working group focused on insurance coverage.

Politico reports that this not precisely what Hillary had hoped for on the health insurance front, but it would be a prominent post nonetheless.

Health care, of course, was the domestic issue where Hillary's differences with Barack Obama were most pronounced. But with questions swirling about how prominent a role Kennedy will play in driving reform on Capitol Hill, given his own health, Hillary seems like a logical back-up figure.

Report: McCain To Run For Re-Election In 2010
John McCain will reportedly run for re-election to the Senate in 2010. This could end up being a big race in the coming cycle, after polling from just before the 2008 election showed he could lose against Democratic Gov. Janet Napolitano, though we could potentially see an upswing in McCain's positives now that the negativity of the 2008 race is over.

No Obama Or Biden Events Today
Barack Obama and Joe Biden are in Chicago today, again working in private meetings on the transition. No public events are scheduled.

Hillary Still Deep In Debt
CNN reports that Hillary Clinton is still carrying $7.6 million in debt from her presidential campaign, and that the Obama campaign only succeeded in raising about $800,000 to help her retire her debts. If Hillary were to become Secretary of State, it could become ethically impossible for her to actively raise money to deal with this problem.

Report: Bill Offers To Submit Business Activities To Ethics Reviews
The Wall St. Journal reports that Bill Clinton has offered to submit all of his future business and charitable activities to strict ethics reviews if it will help Hillary become Secretary of State. Bill's dealings with foreign businesses and governments have reportedly become a major roadblock to a potential Hillary nomination, due to the need to avoid conflicts of interest.

Bill Clinton Headed To Georgia For Jim Martin Today
Bill Clinton will be campaigning today in Atlanta for Jim Martin, the Democratic candidate in the high-stakes Senate runoff against Republican incumbent Saxby Chambliss. If the Dems were to pull off an upset win in this one and also win the Minnesota recount, on top of having already won the Alaska race, this would give them an even 60 seats in the U.S. Senate -- enough to overpower any Republican filibusters if all the Democrats were to vote together.

WSJ: Georgia Runoff Reveals Loophole In Fundraising Limits
The Wall St. Journal reports that the national parties are actively taking advantage of the ability to form joint fundraising committees in order to raise extraordinary amounts of money for just one race: The Georgia Senate runoff. These joint committees enable donors to give as much as $65,000, about 29 times the regular legal limits, for just this one election.

The Minnesota Recount Begins Today
Today is the first day of the manual recount of the Senate race in Minnesota, a process that will last for several weeks, following yesterday's preliminary certification of GOP Sen. Norm Coleman's 215-vote lead over Al Franken. That lead as a percentage is only about 0.007%, well within the margin of error of the voting equipment used in this country, and the Franken campaign will also be maneuvering in court and before canvassing boards to get rejected absentee ballots re-admitted.

The Associated Press has projected that GOP Senator and convicted felon Ted Stevens has lost re-election, with the final major batch of absentee ballots giving Democratic challenger Mark Begich an insurmountable lead.

The current vote count: Begich 150,728 votes, Stevens 147,004 votes. Begich's lead of 3,724 votes is greater than the roughly 2,500 outstanding ballots. By percentage, the 1.18% lead is beyond the 0.5% threshold that would have entitled Stevens to a state-funded recount.

Even if every last single outstanding ballot went to Stevens -- an unlikely scenario, to say the least -- he would still lose, and even if they broke for Stevens by a strong margin it would still likely be outside of the state-paid recount threshold.

Begich will be the first Democrat to represent deep-red Alaska at the federal level since Mike Gravel was defeated for re-election to the Senate in 1980. This also brings the Democrats to a total of 58 Senate seats, with the GOP-held Minnesota and Georgia seats still up for grabs.

Late Update: The Anchorage Daily News has now called the race for Begich.

Late Late Update: Here's something to think about, adding insult to injury: Today was Stevens' 85th birthday.

It looks more and more like GOP Senator and convicted felon Ted Stevens is finished.

The latest numbers from Alaska: Democratic challenger Mark Begich 146,286 votes, Stevens 143,912 votes, a Begich lead of 2,374 votes. Begich's lead has more than doubled from the 1,022-vote edge this morning, with the vast majority of the remaining ballots expected to be finished tonight.

As a percentage, Begich leads by a margin of 0.77%, above the 0.5% that would entitle a losing candidate to a state-paid recount.

The Anchorage Daily News says that some valid overseas ballots could still come in after tonight, thanks to the sheer logistical difficulties of delivering mail in this remote state. But it's highly unlikely that those remaining votes would be enough to change the result if Begich's lead holds up tonight.

GOP Senator Saxby Chambliss, who's fighting a high-stakes runoff in Georgia against Democratic candidate Jim Martin, has unveiled a tough new ad strategy -- he's attacking Barack Obama in his latest spot:

"Barack Obama's new taxes would be a disaster, yet Jim Martin supports them," the announcer says.

To the best of our knowledge, this is the first attack ad out there that has gone after Barack Obama since he won the election (not counting Fox News promos).

The thing to remember is that this runoff will be all about driving up turnout among the party base for each side. For his part, Martin has tied himself to Obama in order to gin up enthusiasm among Dem voters who are still celebrating the presidential result, so Chambliss has his own response -- attacking Obama in order to rile up Republican voters who are still angry that Obama won the race.

Get ready -- the recount in the knock-down-drag-out Minnesota race is set to start tomorrow, following this afternoon's certification of GOP Sen. Norm Coleman's lead of only 215 votes over Al Franken.

The hand count could cause quite a few ballots that the optical-scan machines originally listed as having no vote on the Senate race to then be counted as having a vote on a second look. The Franken campaign will also embark on a series of tough but potentially winnable court fights to get rejected absentee ballots re-admitted, alleging clerical and legal errors in the original disqualifications.

Coleman's current lead over Franken is only about 0.007%, which is well within the natural margin of error in even the best election equipment used in this country. So we're in for a long recount that will last for several weeks, as hand counts and legal battles determine whether that lead holds up.

We hear from a Hill source that Hillary was one of the 42 Senators who voted for the resolution condemning Lieberman but allowing him him to stay as Homeland Security chair.

We're still trying to determine who the 13 who voted against Lieberman keeping the chairmanship are. Current tally:

For: Senators Clinton, Kerry, Durbin, Tom Udall, and Cardin.

Against: Senators Leahy and Sanders.

More in a bit.

Jim Martin, the Democratic candidate in the contentious Georgia Senate runoff, is getting a big Democratic name coming into the state for him: Al Gore, who will be going to Georgia on Sunday, a Martin campaign source confirmed to Election Central.

Martin is still the underdog against incumbent GOP Sen. Saxby Chambliss, but this race remains on the table. The runoff election is expected to have very low turnout -- it's effectively the same as a special election in many ways -- and as such will be all about ginning up turnout among the party base.

Bill Clinton is visiting the state tomorrow, and Gore's entrance should make it even clearer just how seriously the national party is taking this race.

Howard Dean says that he's "fine" with the Senate's decision not to kick Joe Lieberman off the Homeland Security committee and suggested that the Senate had acted in accordance with what Barack Obama wanted.

In a phone interview with me just after the vote concluded, I asked Dean if he thought the Senate should keep Lieberman. He said that the Senate had acted "in the spirit of unification, which is what the President-elect wanted."

"He called the shots, and that's fine," Dean said, in an apparent reference to the tone Obama has tried to set in Washington as he prepares to take power.

Dean also said he understood the natural human desire for "revenge," a description that will dismay many of Dean's allies in the liberal blogosphere, who maintain (as do I) that this wasn't solely about retribution.

"I think it's in every human being's heart to get revenge," Dean said, though he didn't say that "revenge" was the only motive driving the anti-Lieberman forces. He added that the time had come to "swallow hard" and "put aside that kind of stuff."

"It's pretty hard to run the country based on, `We're all working together,' if your first act is to strip someone who was your political enemy...of power," Dean said.

Asked if Lieberman should keep the chairmanship given his performance at the post, Dean replied that it was up to the Senate to evaluate the job Lieberman did. "The Senate will do what the Senate does," Dean said. "It's not my place to interfere."

"They asked Senator Obama's opinion and he gave it," Dean said.

Late Update: To clarify, Dean did not say that the only motive driving the anti-Lieberman movement was revenge, and didn't specifically target the liberal blogosphere in his comments. His point about Obama was that Senators took their cues from the President-elect's desire for a tone of "unification." I've edited the above to make that clearer.

Late Late Update: Jane Hamsher also interviewed Dean, and pressed him very hard on the niggling question of whether Lieberman is, you know, qualified for the post that Senate Dems let him keep.

John Kerry and Obama-ally Dick Durbin were among four Democratic Senators in today's closed-door Dem caucus meeting who supported for keeping Joe Lieberman as chair of the Homeland Security committee, a Democratic aide who was briefed on the meeting by a Senator who was there tells us.

The aide also offered these details from the meeting: Thirteen Senators voted against a resolution to condemn Lieberman but to allow him to keep the chairmanship. We don't know the full list yet, and will update when we know more.

Two Senators spoke out in favor of removing him: Patrick Leahy and Bernie Sanders.

Among the Senators who supported Lieberman keeping the chairmanship, according to the source: Kerry, Durbin, Ben Cardin, and Tom Udall.

We couldn't verify that on the record, and we're contacting their offices for confirmation and comment. We'll keep you posted.

Late Update: Senator Cardin's office confirmed that he voted to support the resolution to condemn Lieberman but to allow him to remain as Homeland Security chair. And Dick Durbin's office declined to comment.

Late Late Update: Just to clarify, the 13 Senators who opposed keeping Lieberman as chair voted against the resolution to condemn him but allow him to remain as chair. We've edited the above to reflect that.

Late Late Update: The Associated Press reports that Jeff Merkley, the new Senator-elect from Oregon, was among the 13 Democrats who opposed Lieberman keeping the chairmanship, and spoke out during the meeting.

Late Late Update: The AP has issued a correction -- Merkley apparently didn't oppose Lieberman, after all.

Senator Harry Reid just spoke to reporters after the private caucus meeting with Dems over Joe Lieberman's fate, and he confirmed it: Lieberman will not be stripped of his Homeland Security chairmanship, because the "vast majority" of the Democratic caucus wants him to stay.

"This was not a time for retribution," Reid said, adding that "we're moving forward."

Lieberman was removed from the Environment and Public Works Committee, a largely meaningless punishment since it's a topic (unlike Homeland Security) on which he has no differences with Dems.

Asked about liberal "anger" towards Lieberman, Reid said: "I pretty well understand anger. I would defy anyone to be more angry than I was."

But he added: "If you will look at the problems that we face as a nation, is this a time we walk out of here saying boy did we get even?"

"I feel good about what we did today," Reid said. "We're moving forward."

Lieberman himself, meanwhile, said he was able to keep his slot thanks to Barack Obama, whose recent statement said he held "no grudges" against Lieberman. Lieberman singled out the "appeal by President Obama himself" as a key reason he's staying.

So, Senate Dems will be allowing Lieberman to keep his plum spot despite the fact that he has been deeply awful in that role, and despite the fact that he endorsed efforts by the GOP to imply that Obama is in league with terrorists, suggested that Obama endangered our troops, and said Obama hasn't always put the country first.

Worse, Reid is echoing an argument he knows is false: That this is only about retribution. Reid and his fellow Senators have made the political decision to leave Lieberman in a job that he was a disaster at, rather than make the good governmental decision to remove him for the good of the country.

Late Update: A source briefed on what happened at the meeting tells us that John Kerry and Dick Durbin were among the Senators who supported Lieberman staying as chair.

Late Late Update: Heres' the video of the Senate Dem press conference after the vote:

Barack Obama is set to deliver a surprise speech via video to the bi-partisan Governors Global Climate Summit in Los Angeles this morning.

Obama's team sends out the speech video, which renews Obama's commitment to battling global warming and casts it as an economic and national security issue:

In the speech, which will also be heard by figures from some two dozen foreign countries, Obama repeatedly casts climate change as an issue requiring international cooperation.

"The United States cannot meet this challenge alone," Obama says. Solving this problem will require all of us working together...I look forward to working with all nations to meet this challenge in the coming years."

Obama also sends a message to leaders preparing to gather at the upcoming United Nations Climate Change Conference: "Let me also say a special word to the delegates from around the world who will gather at Poland next month: your work is vital to the planet."

Pretty refreshing to have an adult as incoming president...

There's a bit of reporting out there this morning on reactions -- both within the Clinton and Obama camps and outside them -- to the prospect of Hillary becoming Secretary of State. Here's a quick rundown:

Politico reports that the possibility has "roiled" Obama-land, with unnamed Obama-ites expressing "a sense of ambivalence about giving a top political plum to a woman they spent 18 months hammering as the compromised standard-bearer of an era that deserves to be forgotten."

Meanwhile, on the Clinton camp side, Clinton aides aren't worried about whether Obamaland's vetting of Bill Clinton's post-presidency will survive the vetting, and instead fret that the press fallout risks scuttling her chances, The Huffington Post reports.

Outside the two camps, foreign policy thinkers are noting that the Hillary pick would mean Obama is choosing someone with a foreign policy vision that's markedly different from his own, with one expert arguing that this "would be a very politically mature move" that "would reflect a great deal of self-confidence in his leadership role."

And presidential historian Doris Kearns Goodwin, the author of the Lincoln book "Team of Rivals," suggests that the pick would be similar to Lincoln's choice of political rival William Seward for the same gig in 1861. "The parallel with Hillary is almost eerie," Goodwin says.

My own sense from talking to foreign policy types in touch with Obama's people is that Obamaland thinks Hillary has the requisite global stature for the gig and also is enough of a genuine team player to function well in Obama's cabinet -- a view that's markedly at odds with the "Clintons will undermine Obama from within" type commentary we keep hearing.

The AFL-CIO, which helped prove labor's organizing muscle with its formidable ground game in the battleground states, is now ramping up big time in the high-stakes Georgia runoff, putting in place an operation that it bills as the largest effort the federation has ever taken for what is effectively a special election.

The AFL is dropping this mailer to more than 80,000 homes later this week, a piece that ties GOP incumbent Saxby Chambliss to Bush by asking voters to send Chambliss packing along with the outgoing president (click to enlarge):

AFL shifted field staff from around the country to the state last week and is aiming to recruit in the neighborhood of 10,000 volunteers between now and the voting early next month. AFL is also hoping to drop over half a million pieces of mail in the next couple of weeks and mounting an aggressive door-knocking operation.

The key here is that the election is expected to be low-turnout, so while Dem challenger Jim Martin is clearly the underdog in this race, its conceivable, though not likely, that he could pull it out with a highly successful turnout operation pulling for him.

Today: Senate Dems Vote On Lieberman's Chairmanship
Today is the day when the Senate Democratic Caucus will vote on whether to let Joe Lieberman keep his chairmanship of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee. The Dems are widely expected to let Lieberman keep the chairmanship and instead merely strip him of a minor Environment and Public Works subcommittee chairmanship, despite widespread outrage among grassroots Democrats over Lieberman's attacks against Barack Obama throughout the campaign.

WaPo: Lieberman Getting Rid Of McCain Bumper Sticker
The Washington Post reports that Joe Lieberman is in the process of removing the McCain bumper sticker from his car. On the one hand this is probably a good move going into the Democratic caucus vote on his chairmanship -- but on the other hand, it's only been scratched off halfway.

No Obama Or Biden Public Events Today
Barack Obama and Joe Biden will be holding private meetings in Chicago today, and do not have any public events scheduled.

NYT: Vetting Of Bill Clinton Intensifies
The New York Times reports that the Obama transition team is stepping up its vetting of Bill Clinton's foundation and speaking engagements, and could end up asking him to separate himself from all that work if Hillary is to be appointed to the cabinet. "It's not just what he does or says -- it's the fact that the foundation is involved with foreign countries, some of which might well be in conflict with U.S. policy," said Abner Mikva, an Obama adviser and retired federal judge.

Up To Four Million People Could Attend Inauguration
The Washington Post reports that the federal and D.C. municipal governments are preparing for as many as four million people to try to attend Barack Obama's inauguration in January. Officials are proposing opening up large section of the Mall and setting up extra JumboTrons in order to accommodate the potential massive crowd.

Hoyer: Expanded Dem Majority Won't Turn Left
House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer will tell the National Press Club today that the new Democratic dominance on Capitol Hill will be approached pragmatically, instead of running hard to the left. "For the first time in decades, we are a true national majority party -- and if we want to stay that way, we must govern like one," Hoyer will say, according to prepared remarks.

Poll: GOP Sen. Martinez In Serious Danger
A new Quinnipiac poll finds Sen. Mel Martinez (R-FL) with some pretty lackluster numbers, with only 42% of Florida voters approving of him and 33% disapproving. In a match-up with a generic Democrat for his 2010 re-election campaign, the generic Dem leads with 40% to Martinez's 36% -- an abysmal showing for an incumbent.

When Senate Dems caucus tomorrow, the Democratic leadership is likely to propose that he keep his Homeland Security chairmanship but lose a lesser sub-committee chairmanship instead, according to a source familiar with the situation.

If it happens that way, Senate Dems will be allowing Lieberman to keep his plum spot despite the fact that he has been a disaster at the post, and despite the fact that he endorsed efforts by the GOP to imply that Obama is in league with terrorists, suggested that Obama endangered our troops, and said Obama hasn't always put the country first.

According to the source, the Dem leadership is expected to propose instead that Lieberman be stripped of his chairmanship of a lesser Environment and Public Works subcommittee, a comparatively meaningless punitive action.

The move, which is not unexpected and was reported earlier in Roll Call, comes despite the fact that Lieberman had lost momentum in recent days, with Senators Patrick Leahy, Bernie Sanders and Byron Dorgan all expressing strong opposition to him keeping the chairmanship. Even a Lieberman ally, Senator Tom Carper, said today that Lieberman should face consequences that are not "insignificant."

It remains to be seen whether stripping Lieberman of his environmental committee role will be seen as "significant "by people who think that Lieberman's actions show him to be completely out of sync with the values and ideas of the Democratic Party on some of the most pressing issues facing us.

Many Democrats believe that effort to oust Lieberman from the Homeland Security chairmanship were dealt a death knell last week, when Barack Obama said he held "no grudges" against Lieberman. Though Obama said he wouldn't "referee" the question over the chairmanship, Obama's statement had the practical effect of allowing Lieberman's allies to claim Obama's support and giving cover to those who want to do nothing about Lieberman's transgressions.

This goes without saying at this point, but public interest in the Obama presidency really is extraordinary:

Barack Obama's first television interview as president-elect was a ratings hit for CBS news program "60 Minutes," drawing its highest viewership since 1999, the U.S. network said Monday.

The interview was seen by 24.5 million viewers, according to preliminary estimates from Nielsen Media Research.

That's roughly one-fifth the number who actually voted, for anyone who's keeping score.

Here's a sign that the Al Franken campaign is nervous about the ramifications of going into a recount trailing your opponent, even if there is the potential for pulling ahead later on.

On a conference call just now with reporters, they called for a stop to tomorrow's initial certification of the vote totals, arguing that rejected absentee ballots must be examined first instead of waiting for the automatic recount period.

"We are seeking that the canvass itself not be finalized until there is a determination of whether or not all these ballots have been counted," said Marc Elias, lead recount attorney for the Franken campaign. Elias then added strongly, "I don't think that they have a vote count to certify."

The key here is that the Franken campaign doesn't want Coleman to go into the recount with the official certification of being any kind of winner, even if it's by the barest of margins. That's because the aura of even a questionable Coleman win can color judgements made about individual ballots during the recount -- and could even have an effect on litigation if the recount works out in Franken's favor, and then Coleman tries to challenge the result in court.

Now even one of Joe Lieberman's leading Senate allies appears to be turning on him:

Sen. Tom Carper (D-Del.), a close ally of Sen. Joe Lieberman, said the Connecticut Independent should pay a price for his campaign attacks against President-elect Barack Obama.

"There need to be consequences, and they cannot be insignificant," Carper said in a Monday interview with The Hill.

Carper, however, would not say whether he favors stripping Lieberman of the Homeland Security chairmanship. Still, this is noteworthy, because Carper was one of the few Senators talking to other Senators about Lieberman's fate.

That an ally like Carper is calling for "significant" consequences after talking to his fellow Senators suggests he realizes that there's a depth of anger at Lieberman within the caucus that cannot be mollified without some kind of real action against him. One lingering question is whether Harry Reid will only ask for a vote tomorrow on the chairmanship, or whether he'll also ask for votes on other, lesser punishments or on some kind of compromise.

Meanwhile, Josh Orton makes a key point that's gotten lost in all this debate: The political thing to do here is for Dem Senators to vote for Lieberman to keep the chairmanship, while the good governmental decision is to vote to give him the push.

Barack Obama and John McCain just spoke to the press poll for a few minutes in advance of their scheduled closed-door sit-down today. From the pool report:

Asked about the goal of the meeting, Mr. Obama said, "We're going to have a good conversation about how we can do some work together to fix up the country, and also to offer thanks to Sen. McCain for the outstanding service he's already rendered."

Sen. McCain was asked whether he would help Mr. Obama with his administration, and he responded, "Obviously."

Your pool tried to get the President-elect to answer a question on the auto industry bail out, but was shouted down by the pool sherpas. Mr. Obama finally said with a smile, "You're incorrigible."

Many of you have written in to ask (in horror) whether Obama might offer McCain an administration post, but so far aides to the two are only saying that they're expected to discuss future ways of potentially collaborating on issues like climate change, ethics reform and national service. The meeting is reportedly going to last 90 minutes, so lots of ground is likely to be covered, including (one imagines) various possible GOP cabinet or agency picks.

Meanwhile, First Read argues that we should give McCain a great deal of credit for this meeting, because "convening a meeting like this is easy for the victor, but much more difficult for the loser."

Late Update: Here's the joint statement from Obama and McCain on their meeting:

"At this defining moment in history, we believe that Americans of all parties want and need their leaders to come together and change the bad habits of Washington so that we can solve the common and urgent challenges of our time. It is in this spirit that we had a productive conversation today about the need to launch a new era of reform where we take on government waste and bitter partisanship in Washington in order to restore trust in government, and bring back prosperity and opportunity for every hardworking American family. We hope to work together in the days and months ahead on critical challenges like solving our financial crisis, creating a new energy economy, and protecting our nation's security."

Pundits may be predicting that Barack Obama won't take up health care in his first year, but someone who actually knows what he's talking about on the issue says Obama will push hard to get it done right out of the gate.

Teddy Kennedy just made a visit to Capitol Hill, where MSNBC picked him up live, and Kennedy, whose Health Committee is right in the center of discussions between all the various health care factions, predicted that Obama would act fast.

"Barack has indicated that this would be a prime issue, and I believe that it will be," Kennedy said when asked if he would introduce a universal health care bill. "The president-elect that this is gonna be a priority and I certainly hope it will...I think we've got a good start on it."

Asked if he would like to see Obama sign a bill in his first year, Kennedy answered: "Well, yes. He's stated that."

One lingering question has been how prominent and forceful a role in driving health care reform Kennedy will play, given his illness, and whether other major figures in Congress would emerge as public faces on the issue. Health care experts say Max Baucus' decision to release a health care plan has upped the pressure on Kennedy's operation to produce high-profile results.

Late Update: Here's video...

Jim Martin, the Georgia Democrat who has an outside shot at picking off GOP Sen. Saxby Chambliss in the upcoming runoff election, has a new ad with a very interesting strategy for a red-state Dem: Aggressively tying himself to Barack Obama and attacking the Republican for not supporting the new president-elect.

"No wonder he opposes the Obama economic recovery plan," the announcer says -- in a state that voted 52%-47% for John McCain.

The rub here is that this runoff is similar in many ways to a special election, which is all about mobilizing the base. And Martin sees here an opportunity to capitalize on Obama's honeymoon period in order to get Democratic voters out to the polls for a second time.

Chambliss should still be viewed as the frontrunner, but not by much -- a recent Research 2000 poll has him leading Martin by only 49%-46%. If Martin can effectively leverage economic uncertainties plus the Obama honeymoon into a better base turnout than Chambliss can use right-wing anger at Obama's win, he could very plausibly pull this thing off.

We now have a third Senator stepping up and strongly condemning the idea of Joe Lieberman remaining as Homeland Security chair: Senator Byron Dorgan of North Dakota...

Dorgan hammered Lieberman for his criticism of Barack Obama and his work against several Dem Senate candidates, and asked whether it was okay for the chair of one of the Dems' "significant committees" to have done this.

"The question is, Is that acceptable," Dorgan continued. "And the answer is no." Dorgan's quotes come after Senators Patrick Leahy and Bernie Sanders came out and called on Dems to give Lieberman the push.

Dorgan, however, didn't quite go as far as Leahy and Sanders, leaving the door open to the Dem caucus not voting to strip Lieberman of the chairmanship by saying: "I'll decide and I think our caucus will decide that on Tuesday."

It's unclear what to make of this. If it's not "acceptable" for a senior committee chair to have done what Lieberman did, as Dorgan says, then surely he'll vote to strip Lieberman of the chairmanship if given the opportunity, right?

Still, as of now, it's still not precisely clear what exactly Reid will throw over to his caucus to vote on tomorrow. Last week leadership aides were adamant that the vote would be over his committee chairmanship. But it's now unclear whether Reid will follow through on this specific vote or whether he'll ask the Dem caucus to vote on a compromise or a lesser punishment.

(Via Think Progress)

Bill Clinton is weighing in on the talk that Hillary could end up being appointed Secretary of State, giving her a strong but cautious endorsement.

Speaking yesterday to a business conference in Kuwait, Bill said that both Hillary and himself worked very hard to get Obama elected, but added that they didn't do it with any expectation of a job offer.

"But if she decided -- if he decided to ask her to do it, and they did it together, I think she'd be really great at being Secretary of State," Bill said. "But I have no Earthly idea what is gonna happen."

Bill is obviously walking a tightrope here, in that he wants to talk up Hillary's prospects but can't cross the line into making outright demands that would decrease her chances. And top of that, his own presence is an issue, with the Obama transition team vetting his own dealings with foreign business and governments in order to determine whether there would be any conflicts of interest.

Obama Meeting With McCain Today
Barack Obama will be meeting today with John McCain, scheduled for 12 p.m. ET at the transition headquarters in Chicago. Also in attendance will be McCain ally Sen. Lindsey Graham, and incoming White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel.

Poll: Public Confident In Obama's Cabinet Picks, Most Interested In Treasury
A new CNN poll finds that 77% of Americans are either somewhat confident or very confident that Barack Obama will make the right choices for his yet-to-be-selected cabinet. The poll also finds that 41% say the Secretary of the Treasury position will matter most to the country's future -- a sign of the country's overall economic stress -- followed by Secretary of State at 25%, Secretary of Defense at 24%, and Attorney General at eight percent.

Obama Team Vetting Bill Clinton, Ahead Of Possible Hillary Appointment
The New York Times reports that the Obama team is carefully vetting not just Hillary Clinton, but also Bill Clinton, in order to determine whether his dealings with foreign businesses and governments could create an unavoidable conflict of interest: "Among the known Clinton Foundation donors are the Saudi royal family, the king of Morocco, a foundation linked to the United Arab Emirates, the governments of Kuwait and Qatar, and a tycoon who was the son-in-law of Ukraine's ousted authoritarian president."

Obama Actively Courted Federal Employees Before Election
The Washington Post reports that Barack Obama wrote a series of letters to federal employees in the run-up to the election, at the urging of American Federation of Government Employees John Gage. In the letters, Obama pledged to reverse many Bush Administration policies and to pursue better workforce relations, including better funding for programs and pay for workers.

GOPers Differ Over Whether Party's Prospects Are Bad Or Abysmal
The Politico reports that there is a division of opinion in the Republican Party over whether the GOP's recent defeat was an isolated event or rather the start of more serious long-term problems. Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour and current RNC chairman Mike Duncan argue that things could be a lot worse and that the party is in decent shape overall, while other prominent Republicans like Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty and Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman see serious demographic problems that could render the GOP non-competitive.

Norquist Vows That Calls For Modernization Will Be "Cheerfully Ignored"
Top right-wing activist Grover Norquist is dead-set against calls for the Republican Party to change its message or modernize on issues like global warming. "They will be cheerfully ignored," Norquist told the New York Times.

Eric Cantor: Setting Aside Last Eight Years, GOP Must Become Relevant
Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA), who is widely expected to become the next House Republican whip, said the party has ceased to be relevant to people's everyday lives -- but this appears to be a dodge to avoid the question of the mistakes of the Bush years. "Let's set aside the last eight years, and our falling down in living up to expectations of what we said we were going to do," Cantor told the Washington Times. "It's the relevancy question."

Barack Obama Has Resigned From The Senate
Barack Obama officially resigned his Senate seat today, as he devotes his full time to his White House transition. "But I will never forget, and will forever be grateful, to the men and women of this great state who made my life in public service possible," Obama said in an open letter to the people of Illinois.

No Obama or Biden Public Events Today
Barack Obama and Joe Biden do not have public events scheduled for today.

Obama Announces More Key Staff Appointments
The Obama transition office announced some more top staff appointments: Pete Rouse, who was Obama's Senate chief of staff and was also chief of staff for Tom Daschle before that, will be a White House senior adviser. Mona Stuphen, a top corporate consultant, and Jim Messina, who served as national chief of staff for Obama's presidential campaign and was a long-time Congressional aide, will both be White House deputy chiefs of staff.

Jim Martin Gets Big Dem Name To Campaign For Him: Bill Clinton
Bill Clinton is headed to Georgia on Wednesday, where he'll campaign for Democratic Senate candidate Jim Martin in the runoff election against incumbent GOP Sen. Saxby Chambliss. The Dems are definitely getting serious about this race, which for both sides will be all about turnout and mobilizing the party bases.

Report: Greg Craig Picked To Be White House Counsel
Barack Obama will reportedly appoint Greg Craig, an experienced Washington lawyer who served on Bill Clinton's impeachment defense team and also portrayed John McCain during Obama's debate prep, as the new White House counsel.

NYT: Obama May Have To Give Up E-Mail
The New York Times reports that Barack Obama may have to give up the use of e-mail, an ironic twist for the president elected thanks in part to the Netroots: "In addition to concerns about e-mail security, he faces the Presidential Records Act, which puts his correspondence in the official record and ultimately up for public review, and the threat of subpoenas. A decision has not been made on whether he could become the first e-mailing president, but aides said that seemed doubtful."

Robert Gates Working For Smooth Transition
The Washington Post reports that Secretary of Defense Robert Gates is working closely with the incoming Obama Administration on the transition process, setting up office space for them right near his own office at the Pentagon and canvassing political appointees to find out which ones would like to leave and which would like to stay on. Gates himself, of course, may very well be one of those employees who wishes to stay on for a while, a matter that still remains to be sorted out.

Rudy Considering Bid For New York Governor, Won't Rule Out Another Presidential Run
Rudy Giuliani told reporters in Dubai that he is considering a run for governor of New York in 2010, and wouldn't rule out another presidential campaign. "No one knows whether you'll do something again until you come to the point of: 'Is it possible to do it again? Would you have a chance of winning?'" said Rudy.