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.

A senior adviser to Barack Obama tells us that despite earlier reports, the move to make former Obama campaign communications director Robert Gibbs the White House press secretary is not a done deal yet.

The campaign's spokespeople aren't publicly commenting right now. Yesterday multiple news outlets reported that Rahm Emanuel had accepted a job as White House chief of staff, but at least two outlets were forced to retract that.

Look, it's true that sometimes the major players keep flacks in the dark about what they plan to do as things play out behind-the-scenes. And for all I know, maybe Gibbs has accepted and in the next hour it'll suddenly become official.

But still, let me reiterate: When it comes to all this transition stuff, reader beware.

Some comments yesterday from John McCain will do nothing to stop a rumor that's been going around, that he plans to resign from the Senate in order to campaign for president full time, just as Bob Dole did in 1996.

Asked by the Arizona Republic whether this is true, McCain said that he has no plans to resign "right now," but he was clearly leaving the door open:

"Look, if I have the nomination, then we will decide whether I would remain in the Senate until after I'm elected president, if I'm elected president, or not. And the time to begin that process of thinking is after I have the nomination of the party. But right now, I have no inclination to leave the United States Senate early. So that's my position at this time. But ... if and when I win the nomination, I will then make that decision. But, right now, it is my intention to remain in the United States Senate."

If McCain were to resign, state law dictates that Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano, a Democrat who supports Barack Obama, would have to appoint a fellow Republican to replace McCain.

Incumbent GOP Sen. Jon Kyl's efforts to publicly align himself with fellow Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain should come as no surprise. After all, the popular McCain not only endorsed him, but is also acting as his campaign chairman. Kyl is even known to often to point out that they vote together "86 percent of the time." What is surprising, however, is that Kyl's opponent, Democrat Jim Pederson, is also referencing McCain on a regular basis, highlighting voting discprencies between the two Arizona Republicans. Fred Solop, a political science professor at Northern Arizona University, told the Arizona Daily Star that Pederson is likely using McCain's name to drive a "wedge" between Kyl and Republican voters on issues like illegal immigration.

Incumbent GOP Senator Jon Kyl, currently facing a tough challenge from Democrat Jim Pederson, contradicted his own role in the effort to deepsix Harriet Miers' Supreme Court nomination Monday when he attacked Democrats for "routinely obstructing [judicial] nominations from coming to a vote" in his weekly National Ledger op-ed column. In the piece Kyl claimed that "for more than two hundred years, even the most controversial of presidential judicial nominees had been given the courtesy of a vote" and that Democrats had broken that tradition in recent years. But, as Time wrote in April 2006, Kyl is believed to have "led a behind-the-scenes effort to undermine the nomination" of Miers. As many may remember, Miers withdrew her nomination after weeks of conservative outrage and before the Senate could come to a vote on her.

Dem Senate candidate Jim Pederson -- who's trailing GOP incumbent Jon Kyl by ten points in a new poll -- has just launched his first TV attack ad against Kyl, a statewide buy hammering Kyl as a shill for special interests and spotlighting Kyl's ties to Big Oil and his reliably pro-Bush voting record. The ad, called "Changed," features a photo of a smirking Bush and intones: "Big oil has showered Senator Kyl with big money, and he has returned the favor." To watch the ad, click here.

Yesterday we brought you word that Ohio GOP Senator Mike DeWine is taking a beating from Dems over reports that the pharmaceutical industry is helping fund pro-DeWine ads. Now it turns out that two more Republicans are enjoying the benefits of Big Pharma's ad funding: Senator Jon Kyl and Rep. J.D. Hayworth. As in the case of DeWine, the pharmaceutical industry thinks it's doing GOPers a favor by helping fund their ads -- when in fact it's actually helping their Dem challengers better make the case that their Republican opponents backed the new Medicare drug benefit for seniors as a favor to special interests.

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GOP incumbent Senator Jon Kyl -- who's facing a challenge from Dem Jim Pederson -- equates Mexican immigration with terrorism in his latest TV ad. The whole spot is about terrorism, featuring pictures of terrorists and planes taking off. At one point, the ad's narrator says, "Jon Kyl wrote the law that now allows search and intercept of terrorists like Moussaoui." For about a second during the narration of that line, the screen presents a picture of Kyl standing near what appears to be the Mexican border -- a clear effort by the Kyl campaign to link Mexican immigration with terrorism. Here's the screen grab:

If you run for office in Arizona, tradition dictates that you fill out the Arizona Republic's candidate questionnaires. It's not a bad idea. Voters get to know candidates' positions on the issues, which is kind of useful in deciding who to vote for.

Well, this time some candidates don't appear too eager for voters to know where they stand on things. The top three Republicans running for Jim Kolbe’s (R-08) seat -- Randy Graf, Steve Huffman, and Mike Hellon -- have taken a pass.

Meanwhile, if you want to know where other candidates in Arizona stand -- Who still denies the existence of global warming? Which Republican congressmen are dissatisfied with the Republican-led Congress? Whose immigration plan is based on football? -- then you can find out after the jump.

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Who says voters can't be legally bought?

Over in Arizona, a novel way of juicing up people's interest in politics and getting them to vote has just landed on the November ballot. If you vote, you qualify to win a million bucks. It's that simple.

Nothing if not creative.

Howard Dean was the star of a Democratic rally in Arizona last night at the Tuscon Temple of Music and Art. He predicted that voters would “split Arizona's congressional delegation in half” and elect four Democratic Representatives and one Democratic senator. He stirred up some speculation about his personal favorites when he announced, “And CD 8 will elect a Democratic congresswoman...I mean, congressperson. I’m neutral.” Three women and three men are competing in the Democratic primary for the open seat. Outside, a small group of conservative protestors yelled “Viva Jon Kyl.”

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