Clinton in 2008? Obama to retire?

Political Wire is reporting that Hilary Clinton is beginning to assemble her campaign team for relection.

"Already the leading contender for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2008, New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton has assembled a small, ethnically diverse stable of advisers dominated by women to chart her political course over the next four years," Roll Call reports.

"All of these individuals and their actions are centered in the short term on Clinton's re-election bid in 2006."

I still believe that Evan Bayh is our guy. Hilary is too polarizing to win in November.

Political Wire is also reporting that Ben Nelson was considered for a cabinet position. However, I don't see a Democrat going unless they want to ruin their political career.

Sen. Ben Nelson (D-NE) "rebuffed solicitations by at least two senior Republican senators to switch parties following the November elections at about the same time the White House was courting him to be the next Agriculture secretary," Roll Call reports.

This just in. Treasury Secretary John Snow is going to be replaced.

Sunday, an adviser to the White House privately told the New York Times that "a firm decision had been made to replace Mr Snow as soon as Mr Bush could settle on a successor."

Among those being considered are Card; Gerald Parsky, a wealthy lawyer and venture capitalist who served as an assistant treasury secretary under president Gerald Ford; and former Texas senator Phil Gramm, the Times said.

Secretary Card headed up the Transportation department for Bush's dad.

For some Barack Obama humor, click here now.

"I figure there's nowhere to go from here but down," he said. "So tonight, I'm announcing my retirement from the United States Senate."

In the same self-deprecating vein, he also raised up a mock National Enquirer headline declaring: "Obama's shocking secret. He's Strom Thurmond's Love Child."

He added, "I'm so overexposed that I make Paris Hilton look like a recluse."

Noting that The Boston Globe saw their joint appearance at the dinner as a kickoff for the 2008 presidential election, Romney quipped: "That's ridiculous. That began on Nov. 3."

The governor joked that one potential GOP rival, Sen. John McCain of Arizona, would be too old in 2008, and Vice President Dick Cheney would be ineligible because by then he would have run the country for eight years.

Obama also used the word "ridiculous" in response to speculation that he will run for president in 2008. He mockingly encouraged Romney to "go for it" four years from now.

"I hear that Massachusetts is a great launching pad," he said, referring to Sen. John Kerry's loss this year.

"It's not easy signing autographs and saying no to 2008 a thousand times a day," Obama said. "The president said it was hard work doing that kind of stuff."

He said he and President Bush have a lot in common--they both graduated from Ivy League schools, married above their station and beat Alan Keyes.

The senator-elect teased about his big victory over Keyes, saying that he received 70 percent of the vote statewide "and 102 percent in Chicago. Our voting system is so advanced that the folks in Florida are coming up to study it and see what they can learn."

He said Illinois and Chicago were progressive and ahead of the times. Referring to the fact that House Republicans had passed a rule allowing leaders to stay in their jobs even if indicted, he said, "We had that years ago" in Illinois.

In other news, John Kerry is starting a new leadership PAC and it is going to be headed John Geisser. Read here.

The PAC, which has yet to be named, will be based in Boston and headed by John Giesser, a lawyer and former chief operating officer of the City Year community service program.

Giesser is also a veteran political strategist who assisted Kerry with his 1996 reelection race and served as the number two general election strategist at the Democratic National Committee during the 2000 and 2004 presidential campaigns. He formerly worked at the Dewey Square Group, a Boston political consulting firm, and is a close ally of both Michael Whouley and John Sasso, two veteran strategists who headed the DNC's general election efforts at various points in the 2004 campaign.

More updates to come later.