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This was in the Hotline today:

Sen. Evan Bayh ended '05 with a whopping $9.5M in his Senate campaign account, according to reports Bayh will file with the FEC.

Campaign account money can be directly transferred into a presidential exploratory account; only a fraction of a Leadership PAC's cash is fungible.

In typical '08 hopeful fashion, Bayh is using his campaign account to accumulate a bankroll for a potential presidential race and is using his PAC to earn chits with Dems across the country.

Bayh's PAC contributed the maximum to NH Gov. John Lynch and NJ Gov. Jon Corzine. It gave $15k to the DSCC, 10K to the NH Dem party, money to the Blackhawk Co. Dem Party in IA and $25K to home-state Dems in Indiana's house. Sens. Bill Nelson and Robert Byrd recieved donations, as did candidates Harold Ford (TN) and Claire McCaskill (MO). House candidate Dave Loebsack recieved $1K from the PAC as did several others. Bayh also contributed to several IA legislative campaigns.

For the year, the Senate account took in more than 3M -- including more than $1.7M in the final quarter. The PAC, which has more than $800K on hand, raised more than $1.5M for the year.

Bayh's chief fundraiser is Nancy Jacobson. His senior advisers include Anita Dunn and Dan Pfeiffer, along with pollster Paul Maslin and ex-Gore CoS Ron Klain.

This is great news for the Senator.