Eric Krol reports that Bill Foster, multimillionaire physician and political neophyte, will enter the race on the Democratic side to replace Dennis Hastert in Illinois' 14th Congresssional District.

Foster joins Democratic State Rep. Linda Chapa LaVia, attorney Jotham Stein, and Jonathan Laesch, the former Naval intelligence officer who scored 40% of the vote against Hastert last November.

Quinnipiac is out with a new poll in Pennsylvania:

Democrats
Clinton 33 (-3 vs. last poll)
Gore 16 (+2)
Obama 13 (-1)
Edwards 11 (-2)
Biden 3 (+1)
Richardson 3 (+1)
Undecided 16 (nc)

Republicans
Giuliani 28 (-1 vs. last poll)
McCain 11 (-6)
F. Thompson 10 (+4)
Romney 9 (+4)
Gingrich 8 (-2)
Undecided 23 (+2)

Head-to-Head Matchups
Clinton 43 - Giuliani 47
Clinton 45 - McCain 43
Clinton 50 - F. Thompson 36

Obama 40 - Giuliani 45
Obama 41 - McCain 42
Obama 47 - F. Thompson 32

Gore 45 - Giuliani 44
Gore 44 - McCain 44
Gore 50 - F. Thompson 35

Favorable/Unfavorable Ratings
Giuliani 53/28 (+25)
Obama 44/19 (+25)
Edwards 45/26 (+19)
McCain 44/28 (+16)
F. Thompson 25/11 (+14)
Gore 52/40 (+12)
Clinton 50/44 (+6)
Romney 20/17 (+3)

Other notable numbers: Bush's job approval is at 29%, approval for his handling of Iraq is 26%. Sixty percent said going to war with Iraq it was the "wrong thing" to do, 34% feel it was the "right thing."

Chris Dodd is unveiling his new plan for Iraq in a live stream on Firedoglake.

Rudy to Fred: Welcome.

McCain challenges Giuliani and Romney on immigration.

Ben Smith reports Joe Biden will have the stage almost all to himself at the FOX News/CBC debate, since Bill Richardson and Chris Dodd have announced they won't attend. Kucinich and Gravel are the only other candidates scheduled to be there.

Hillary set to refill the coffers in a big way on Monday in NYC.

ABC News has a preview of Elizabeth Edwards' interview with People.

Romney: military needs more troops.

Bush seeks to double AIDS money to $30 billion over 5 years. In other news, Bush will meet Putin on July 1-2.

Incidentally, since Blake put up his post this morning, Giuliani has shed about a point in the Intrade political futures market (from 26.7 to 25.9) and Thompson has picked up another two points, putting him at 25.0, with Romney holding steady at 23.0.

To put the latest moves into a broader context, here's how each candidate has fared in the political futures market over the last month:

Rudy Giuliani:

Rudy's been on the slide since the first GOP debate at the Reagan Library on May 3, followed by the subsequent revelations about his contributions to Planned Parenthood. He recovered some ground after a strong debate performance in South Carolina on May 15 (capped off by his exchange with Ron Paul), but has been unable to sustain that momentum in the ensuing couple of weeks.

Fred Thompson:

Thompson had been bumping along in the mid-teens since the end of April until the middle of May. That was right around the time he launched his video response to Michael Moore which rang up hundreds of thousands of views over the following few days.

Mitt Romney:

Romney started picking up steam in the middle of the month, beginning with a Zogby poll on the 16th showing him surging to a small lead in Iowa, followed by his even more impressive 12-point lead in the Iowa Poll released on the 20th.

John McCain:

You can pretty clearly pinpoint the beginning of McCain's rather precipitous decline in the futures market to May 18, which was the day he stood with Ted Kennedy at a press conference to announce a grand bargain had been struck on immigration. It's been all downhill since.

Newt Gingrich:

Gingrich caused a mini-stir on May 14 when he told Diane Sawyer on Good Morning America there was a "great possibility" he would run for president. Since then he's reverted to his standard range between 2.5-3.0.

Joe Biden wants to know: "What is it you're willing to do to free us from the Axis of Oil and these outrageous oil companies who are sucking us dry?"

Forbes.com has launched a new feature to track the '08 candidates.

Today's big news is hardly news at all: Fred Thompson is running for president, which means two groups of people are very excited today: Conservatives and that unfortunate sub-strata of society known as political junkies.

First, the particulars: He'll be forming the pre-pre-campaign committee known by its proper term, the "testing the waters" committee -- which precedes the "exploratory" committee, which comes before the actual campaign itself -- near June 4 or so, reports the Politico's Mike Allen.

As for the official announcement, NRO's Jim Geraghty is saying that Allen's reporting of July 4 is wrong.

According to Geraghty's source, "There will be no July 4 announcement ... There was some discussion of a June 4 beginning of fundraising; that's the date checks will be collected. I suspect that's where there was some confusion."

If true, this is the wiser move for Thompson. A July 4 announcement would probably have rung a bit too haughty -- even for the supposed Reagan Reborn candidate. Moreover, the way Thompson's been running his stealth campaign so far -- slow and steady -- made Allen's July 4 date seem out of character. It also would have been extremely ... what's the word ... cheesy.

Allen also reports that Thompson could skip the Ames, Iowa, straw poll on Aug. 11, which, if Rudy Giuliani also takes a pass, could make the heretofore all-important straw poll somewhat meaningless.

But now that the "Fred has landed," as one Thompson adviser put it to Allen, let's consider the polls:

Nationally, Thompson hasn't much budged from his low-to-mid-teens placement, essentially putting him in a tie with Mitt Romney. Here is today's RCP Average:

Giuliani 26
McCain 18.2
Romney 10
Thompson 10
Gingrich 7.4

On the other hand, the political futures markets tell a slightly different story. Here are Intrade's numbers:

Giuliani 26.7
Romney 23
Thompson 23
McCain 17.5
Gingrich 2.5

These numbers shouldn't be confused with polling numbers. However, as a gauge of the candidates' strengths, Intrade's numbers are a useful indicator of not only support, but also enthusiasm and expectations.

In the RCP Average for Iowa:

Romney 20.2
McCain 19
Giuliani 18.6
Thompson 8.5
Gingrich 6.3

In the RCP Average for New Hampshire:

Romney 30
McCain 23.7
Giuliani 21
Thompson 6.7

In the RCP Average for South Carolina:

McCain 24
Giuliani 20
Thompson 13.3
Gingrich 11.7
Romney 9

Finally, in the RCP Average for Florida:

Giuliani 29.8
McCain 16.3
Thompson 13.5
Romney 12
Gingrich 7.7

So clearly Thompson has his work cut out for him, although any candidate who comes this late to the game would surely take his numbers in a second.

Hillary Clinton's line yesterday that it's "time to reject the idea of an 'on your own' society and to replace it with shared responsibility for shared prosperity," a "we're all in it together"' society isn't new. In fact, it may not even be hers.

A year ago Howard Fineman had dinner with Bill Clinton's campaign strategist James Carville, who "doesn't speak for the Clintons, but he speaks to the Clintons." During their chat, Carville previewed two messages that have since become part of Hillary Clinton's campaign rhetoric.

First, sacrifice for the common good:

"Every man for himself" is the last order of a weak, failed commander. "All hands on deck" is the order of a successful commander. What we need is what I call "progressive patriotism." Everybody pitches in, all hands on deck, not for the idea of "sacrifice," but for survival. Why do you get to drive that SUV all the time with no consequences? Well, you don't. And what if we raise the Social Security retirement age by a few more months -- and faster? Isn't that worth it to save the system?"

Clinton hasn't talked about raising the retirement age but did call for higher taxes and requiring oil companies to invest in alternative energy.

Second, Carville talked populism:

A lot of people in the party think we ought to take a more populist line. Look at the giant checks the oil company executives get; then look at what's happening to average workers.

Clinton did exactly that, saying that the economy is growing, but mostly for corporations, not the households -- "trickle-down economics, but without the trickle," she called it.

Barack Obama offered up his plan for health care yesterday in Iowa, where he said the political climate is more hospitable to a broad, universal-coverage plan than it was in the early 1990s when the Clinton administration tried, reports the Washington Post's Anne Kornblut and Perry Bacon, Jr.

The plan could cost more than $50 billion, paid in part by increasing taxes on those who make more than $250,000 per year and reversing the Bush tax cuts. Key to the plan would be the requirement that almost all employers "offer insurance to workers or face a tax penalty, an idea that many businesses abhor and that is also" in John Edwards' proposal. "This employer mandate drove much of the opposition to the Clinton plan in 1994." The Obama plan doesn't include a "popular idea from both Democrats and Republicans who work on health-care issues:" an individual mandate that requires Americans to buy health insurance and was featured as part of the Massachusetts health care plan pushed by Mitt Romney last year. The Clinton and Edwards campaigns criticized Obama's campaign for not being truly universal.

For both Clinton and Obama, making health care more affordable is the "tale of two villains:" drugmakers for Obama and insurers for Clinton, writes Bloomberg's Aliza Marcus. Obama wants the government to "negotiate drug price-discounts for Medicare ... spur wider use of cheaper generic copies of pharmaceuticals and allow Americans to buy lower-priced medicines from Europe and Canada." Clinton plans to bar insurers from "cherry picking" who they sign up and prevent them from charging "higher rates to those in ill health."

As Obama unfolded his health plan, Clinton talked up her economic plan yesterday in New Hampshire, reports the New York Sun's Russell Bermann. Clinton drew the most attention for saying that it's "time to reject the idea of an 'on your own' society and to replace it with shared responsibility for shared prosperity. I prefer a 'we're all in it together' society." However, she did detail some planks of her economic policy: let the Bush tax cuts expire for those making more than $200,000, "scrap subsidies for oil and gas companies, and require large oil companies to invest in alternative energy or pay into a national research fund." Clinton wants "greater scrutiny of the salaries of chief executive" and is pushing to make sure companies cannot "defer taxes on profits they earn overseas" to halt outsourcing.

Clinton said, "It's not as if America hasn't been successful economically these past years. But the measure of success doesn't relate to what's happening in households across our country, because, while productivity and corporate profits are up, the fruits of that success just haven't reached many of our families. It's like trickle-down economics, but without the trickle."

On the campaign trail Clinton got major endorsements out West. First, Los Angeles mayor Antonio Villaraigosa endorsed Clinton after being courted by the senator and her husband, reports the New York Times' Patrick Healy. Villaraigosa has a "network of supporters as mayor of the nation's second-largest city and as a former speaker of the State Assembly, and he is widely seen as a rising star in the party and a national spokesman on Hispanic concerns like immigration and education."

In Nevada, Clinton scored the endorsements of the last Democratic governor and 34 black leaders, including Robert Fowler, pastor of a 9,000-member Baptist church in Las Vegas. Fowler said he chose Clinton because of experience and "political savvy." Folwer said, "I believe that Sen. Obama has a day, I just don't believe that this is the day, personally."

Meanwhile, The Politico's Mike Allen reports Fred Thompson will announce his bid for president over the July 4 weekend and has already formed a committee to raise money and pay some staffers. Thompson's policy team remains under wraps.

Get these and today's other elections stories at RCP's Politics and Elections page.

Hillary Clinton told a New Hampshire crowd today she prefers a "we're all in it together society" as opposed to the "on your own society" of the Bush administration. Clinton also said as president she'll scrap corporate tax breaks and put CEO salaries under public scrutiny.

Giuliani heckled at event, sets record for length of handshake.

Hillary wins the Villaraigosa sweepstakes, as expected.

President Bush tells Congress not to kill the immigration bill, urging them to show leadership by solving this problem once and for all. (Video | Full Transcript of Remarks)

John Fund says Bill Richardson isn't ready for prime time.

Romney: I won't take a salary as president.

Obama lays out plan for universal healthcare. Edwards campaign responds. Full text of Obama's address.

Alaska and Georgia move up their primaries to become part of Super Duper Tuesday on Feb. 5.