WASHINGTON – Sen. John McCain, whose presidential bid was snuffed out two weeks ago by President-elect Barack Obama, is setting up a political action committee as a first step in running for a fifth term in the Senate.

A McCain spokesperson says the 72-year-old senator decided with his senior advisers Tuesday night to set up the fundraising PAC.

The spokesperson spoke anonymously because the decision had not yet been made public. McCain’s term ends in 2010.

WASHINGTON – The red-and-blue Senate trolley rolled up to the Capitol basement Tuesday, a lone senator in the front seat checking a piece of paper before slipping it back into his jacket pocket.

Welcome back, Sen. McCain, someone called out.

“Thank you, good to see ya,” came the well-practiced reply as he stepped to the ground.

Then, a more familiar greeting from another senator who had been riding in back.

“John, wait up,” called Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., clapping a big hand on John McCain’s shoulder. The pair conferred quietly as they rode up an escalator toward lunch with their colleagues.

Two failed presidential nominees, minus Secret Service detail or much suspense about their futures, back to the Senate – same as it ever was.

Explicitly or not, Kerry’s backslap marked McCain’s induction into an unofficial bipartisan caucus of would-be commanders in chief who fell short of the big prize and landed, humbled somewhat, back where they started.
   
As Kerry and other one-time presidential hopefuls know, a seat in the Senate is a comfy consolation. Aides screen your calls, Senate pages bring lunch and at least 17 colleagues now serving know what it’s like to take steps toward White House bids, only to be turned back.

Among them, only Kerry has walked as far down that road as McCain. Kerry captured the Democratic presidential nomination in 2004, lost the general election and returned to Washington stripped of all that had come with it. He blended back into the Senate as chairman of the Small Business Committee.

McCain’s pivot back to life as a senator was abrupt.
 
Only 24 hours earlier, the Republican had been seated awkwardly next to his former Democratic rival in Chicago, looking out again from a bubble of presidential-level security, surrounded by trappings of a life that might have been his.

Now, the hubbub belonged only to President-elect Barack Obama, who defeated Arizona Sen. McCain two weeks earlier in an Electoral College landslide and had invited his vanquished opponent to a bury-the-hatchet meeting. The flashbulbs went off like strobes and media outlets beamed the news around the world.
 
Back in the clubby Senate, hatchets are presumed buried unless stated otherwise.

Kerry long boasted about his close friendship with McCain, calling it one of the joys of his Senate career. The two decorated Navy combat veterans of the Vietnam War struck up a friendship discussing their war experiences during an overnight flight to the Middle East in 1991.
 
They grew closer as members of a committee that looked into the fate of prisoners of war in Vietnam, as McCain had been. When tempers flared at hearings, Kerry would calm McCain with a supportive pat on the arm.

And when McCain visited the Hanoi prison where he had been held, Kerry was alongside.
  
McCain, meanwhile, balked at campaigning against his friend during Kerry’s tough re-election fight in 1996.

And famously, Kerry in 2004 toyed with the idea of naming McCain his vice presidential running mate on what some considered a bipartisan dream ticket.

That’s when their relationship hit rough terrain. Their campaigns squabbled about who had issued the invitation and what was said. And McCain denounced ads by the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth that assailed Kerry’s military record, but refused to let his image or words be used in rebuttal spots.

During this year’s election, Kerry emerged as one of McCain’s harshest critics, rapping his friend as a flip-flopper on tax cuts and a cheerleader for President George W. Bush.

An early Kerry e-mail to 3 million people lashed McCain’s “stunning failure of leadership” and ripped his campaign for “indefensible scare tactics, outrageous attacks and reprehensible campaign strategies.”
   
But Kerry mostly criticized McCain’s campaign – seldom his friend personally.

“He’s lurching from one issue to another, from one place to another,” Kerry said in a telephone interview earlier this year. “He’s talked about having a steady hand on the tiller, but he’s had anything but a steady hand.”

That sounds harsh, but it’s the type of thing often regarded in the Senate as a necessary evil of campaigning that’s mostly for show. Kerry, noted his critics, was interested in a Cabinet post in the Obama administration all along.

By the look of the two senators on Tuesday, any strain appears to have eased.

But McCain is still in transition.

He bolted the GOP lunch and headed for the elevators back to the trolley. Standing nearby was a clutch of perhaps a dozen reporters and photographers with their backs to McCain, interviewing Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont.

Two photographers fired off a few frames, but none of the writers budged when the senator from Arizona slipped silently by them and into the elevator, alone.

If you want some perspective on just how remarkable Barack Obama’s victory in North Carolina was, consider this: in mid-January PPP surveyed 12 potential match ups for President between Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, and Obama on the Democratic side and Rudy Giuliani, Mike Huckabee, John McCain, and Mitt Romney on the Republican side.

CHICAGO – The bitter general election campaign behind them, President-elect Barack Obama and Republican Sen. John McCain met Monday to discuss ways to reduce government waste, promote bipartisanship and find other ways to improve government.

The two former rivals met in Obama’s transition headquarters in Chicago. Obama said before the meeting that he and McCain planned “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.”

Obama and McCain sat together for a brief picture-taking moment with reporters, along with Rahm Emanuel, Obama’s incoming White House chief of staff, and South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham, McCain’s close friend. Obama and McCain were heard briefly discussing football, and Obama cracked that “the national press is tame compared to the Chicago press.”

When asked if he planned to help the Obama administration, McCain replied, “Obviously.”

After the meeting, Obama and McCain issued a joint statement saying: “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,” it said. “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.”

Obama and McCain clashed bitterly during the fall campaign over taxes, the Iraq War, and ways to fix the ailing economy. Things got ugly at times, with McCain running ads comparing Obama to celebrities Britney Spears and Paris Hilton and raising questions about his rival’s distant relationship with a 1960s-era radical, William Ayers.

Obama’s campaign, meanwhile, labeled the 72-year old McCain “erratic” and ran a campaign ad falsely suggesting that McCain and Rush Limbaugh shared similar anti-immigration views. McCain delivered a gracious concession speech on Election Night, paying tribute to Obama’s historic ascendancy as the nation’s first black president. The two agreed that night to meet after the election when McCain called Obama to concede defeat.

RALEIGH, N.C. – Provisional ballots are doing little to change the final margin of North Carolina’s presidential race.

Republican presidential candidate John McCain gained 310 extra votes as counties tallied some 17,500 provisional ballots Friday.

But he still trails President-elect Barack Obama by some 12,804 votes.

There are still about three dozen counties who haven’t reported results. Friday was the day counties were to canvass their provisional ballots and provide numbers to the State Board of Elections.

The Associated Press declared Obama the winner last week after determining there weren’t enough provisional ballots to change the outcome. Obama did not need North Carolina’s 15 electoral votes to win the White House.

LOS ANGELES – John McCain said Tuesday that Sarah Palin did not damage his presidential bid, and he dismissed as typical campaign sniping anonymous criticism aimed at her following their crushing defeat.

“I’m so proud of her and I’m very grateful she agreed to run with me. She inspired people, she still does,” McCain told Jay Leno during an “Tonight Show” interview taped for broadcast Tuesday night. “I couldn’t be happier with Sarah Palin.”

Asked by Leno about griping about Palin from unidentified McCain operatives in the days following the election, the Arizona senator said, “These things happen in campaigns.

“I think I have at least a thousand, quote, top advisers,” he scoffed. “A top adviser said? I’ve never even heard of … a top adviser or high-ranking Republican official.”

However, McCain never directly addressed the embarrassing controversy over Palin’s expensive campaign wardrobe purchased by the Republican National Committee, or statements by unidentified McCain aides who have reportedly said she was not prepared on foreign policy. The Alaska governor has said in interviews she did not ask for, or want, the $150,000-plus wardrobe for her and her family.

He disputed that a different vice presidential pick would have changed the outcome against Democrats Barack Obama and Joe Biden.

At campaign rallies, “The people were very excited and inspired by her. That’s what really mattered, I think,” McCain said.

“She’s a great reformer.”

McCain’s appearance at Leno’s Burbank studio was scheduled to coincide with Veterans Day. It was the former naval aviator’s 14th appearance on “The Tonight Show” but his first TV interview as a vanquished presidential candidate.

At least in presidential politics, Florida is purple again after looking reddish for the past decade – but that doesn’t guarantee Florida Democrats any resurgence in state-level elections.

John McCain’s loss, ironically, reopens the national political scene for Gov. Charlie Crist.

Many Crist supporters and allies were angry when he wasn’t chosen as McCain’s running mate. With McCain off the stage, they think Crist can be among the contenders for national leadership of the party.

That’s some of the political fallout from Tuesday’s election, in which Obama became the first Democrat to win the state’s 27 electoral votes since 1996.

His Florida win, proving a Democrat can win here statewide, may embolden Democrats to challenge Republicans in such contests as the coming 2010 governor and U.S. Senate races.

Alex Sink of Tampa, the state’s chief financial officer, could be among them. She is considered a leading future electoral prospect for the Democrats.

But Obama’s victory doesn’t mean the Florida Democratic Party has suddenly acquired the muscle and organizational skill of its rival.

“This was an Obama victory created out of whole cloth by the Obama campaign,” said Alan Katz of Tallahassee, one of Obama’s earliest Florida supporters. The state party, Katz said, must be revamped before it can duplicate such an effort.

GOP Remains Unfazed
Republicans contend the Obama win shows no underlying change in the political leaning of the state, which they say is Republican.

In a recent memo on Republican talking points sent to party activists, party spokeswoman Erin VanSickle said the overall election results “bode very well for the future in Florida,” noting that the Obama campaign outspent McCain heavily.

“If you look at Congressional races, State House and Senate, and Constitutional Amendments, Florida Republicans had a good night” on Tuesday, she said. “The 2008 election results are simply not indicative of a huge change in the electorate in Florida.”

Still, the Obama campaign will leave behind benefits for state Democrats.

“A lot of volunteers got brought into the process by the president-elect, but once people start getting involved, a lot of them tend to stay involved,” said state party spokesman Eric Jotkoff. “We know the people who were involved, and we can go to them again in the future.”

Research indicates that many of the thousands of new voters Obama recruited are likely to remain loyal Democrats, said University of South Florida political scientist Susan MacManus.

“You’re excited as a first-time voter, especially if you volunteer, and if your candidate wins you’re even more excited,” she said. “That locks you in to that party for most of your life, if not all your life.”

Obama’s win, however, won’t give Democrats much help in building the middle tier of politics – the state legislative and congressional offices – that prepares officeholders for the bigger races.

“On a statewide level Florida is winnable” for a Democrat, said Dan Gelber of Miami Beach, a former state representative elected Tuesday to the state Senate.

But Gelber, who is also considered a potential statewide candidate, pointed out that few legislative or congressional seats changed hands Tuesday despite the Obama win, and said that is partly because the districts for those seats were drawn to protect the electoral prospects of the incumbents – mostly Republicans.

“It’s going to be hard to push the current totals much further without a redistricting change,” he said. That can’t come until after the 2010 census, and a district plan would have to be voted on by the Legislature, still GOP-dominated. “We need a Democratic governor who can veto reapportionment plans, or we’re out of luck until 2020,” the next census and redistricting, Gelber said.

Democrats point out that the current districting plan has produced large Republican majorities in the state House, state Senate and congressional delegation, even though Tuesday’s result and the last two presidential elections all showed a relatively evenly divided state.

Sink said in a recent Tribune interview that she will look at the possibility of a U.S. Senate run, particularly if Republican Sen. Mel Martinez decides not to run for re-election in 2010.

Sink has said in the past that she’d rather run for governor but doesn’t want to run against a popular incumbent like Crist.

Races For Money Don’t Wait
Martinez has not said yet whether he will run for re-election, but he has filed a statement of candidacy and is raising money. He has raised about $1.7 million in this two-year election cycle and had about $1.2 million in his campaign fund as of Sept. 30.

Sink will have to decide soon if she is to raise the money and mount a competitive campaign.

“It’s very encouraging – it shows a good candidate with a good campaign and organization can win statewide,” she said, when asked if Obama’s win will affect her decision.

Crist is certain to run for re-election.

He is also being mentioned repeatedly in the national press and by GOP insiders as among the rising new faces in the party. Two reasons for this: He was on McCain’s short list of running mate choices, giving him national media exposure, and he is governor of the nation’s fourth-largest state, one that’s a must-win state for a GOP presidential candidate.

Obama’s win in Florida makes it more likely that Democrats will put up a credible candidate to run against Crist, MacManus said.

Crist’s job approval ratings remain high, seemingly insulating him from the anti-Republican political climate. However, MacManus said, “He disappointed a lot of Republicans by not being more active in the McCain campaign.”

Jay Leno will be the first to interview Senator John McCain after Tuesday’s election.