Vice President Cheney will be on Larry King tonight.

How many Bancrofts does it take to give Rupert Murdoch the Wall Street Journal? Thirty-two percent apparently.

Chief Justice John Roberts was released from the hospital earlier today.

Rudy Giuliani unveiled his health care proposal today that he says will give individuals, not the government, control of their health care.

Also, Giuliani responded to the Vanity Fair article on his wife, Judith.

Fred Thompson announced that he raised nearly $3.5 million in June. Rick Klein thinks it's a bad sign. But Mark Tapscott tells Fred-Heads not to worry.

However, it's almost guaranteed Thompson will lose Chicago Republicans once they found out that Peyton Manning gave $2,300.

Does Barack Obama plagiarize John Edwards in his new ad? Or did David Axelrod just plagiarize himself?

Mitt Romney released a new immigration ad in Iowa today.

ARG is out with a new round of '08 polls in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina. All surveys were conducted July 26-30. Headlines on the Democratic side: Obama has moved into a tie with Clinton in New Hampshire and surged ahead of her in South Carolina, while Richardson is up and Edwards is down in Iowa. Headlines on the Republican side: Giuliani is up across the board, edging ahead of Romney in Iowa and New Hampshire, McCain is down big in New Hampshire and South Carolina but bumps up in Iowa, while Fred is up big in South Carolina but not in the other two states. Results follow:

Iowa
Democrats
Clinton 30 (-2 vs. last poll in June)
Edwards 21 (-8)
Obama 15 (+2)
Richardson 13 (+8)
Undecided 15 (+1)

Republicans
Giuliani 22 (+4 vs. last poll in June)
Romney 21 (-4)
McCain 17 (+4)
F. Thompson 13 (-1)
Gingrich 4 (-1)
Undecided 15 (+1)

New Hampshire
Democrats
Obama 31 (+6 vs. last poll in June)
Clinton 31 (-3)
Edwards 14 (+3)
Richardson 7 (+1)
Undecided 13 (+2)

Republicans
Giuliani 27 (+8 vs. last poll in June)
Romney 26 (-1)
F. Thompson 13 (+3)
McCain 10 (-11)
Undecided 13 (-1)

South Carolina
Democrats
Obama 33 (+12 vs. last poll in June)
Clinton 29 (-8)
Edwards 18 (-4)
Undecided 12 (+1)

Republicans
Giuliani 28 (+6 vs. last poll in June)
F. Thompson 27 (+8)
McCain 10 (-13)
Gingrich 7 (+1)
Romney 7 (-1)
Undecided 13 (-1)

Siena released a new poll for the New York presidential race. Rudy Giuliani's support in the Republican primary all year, though he has a 27-point lead over John McCain.

Republicans
Giuliani 40 (-8 vs. 6/18 - 6/21 poll)
McCain 13 (n/c)
Thompson 11 (n/c)
Gingrich 9 (+5)
Romney 7 (+1)

On the Democratic side, Hillary Clinton is the highest she's been since early April.

Democrats
Clinton 48 (+5 vs. 6/18 - 6/21 poll)
Obama 14 (+3)
Gore 10 (-9)
Edwards 7 (-2)

General Election Match-ups
Clinton 57 - Giuliani 36
Clinton 44 - Giuliani 26 - Bloomberg 22
Clinton 62 - Thompson 28
Obama 56 - Thompson 25
Obama 51 - Giuliani 40

News that Senator Ted Stevens, the Alaska Republican famed for his talent collecting earmarks and his "Incredible Hulk" tie, welcomed FBI and IRS agents into his Girdwood home yesterday is giving his constituents another reason to be less than pleased with Alaska politicians. In recent years, as will be repeated ad nauseum in the coming days, Stevens' son, Ben, and several other state legislators have been caught up in a scandal involving the Veco company. Veco, an oil construction and services company, lost their CEO this year when he pleaded guilty to bribing state officials.

Congressman Don Young, the state's lone member of the lower chamber, is said to be under scrutiny in the Veco matter as well.

Only Sen. Lisa Murkowski seems clear of wrongdoing in this investigation, though she had her own problems when her father appointed her to his old seat once he took over the governor's mansion. It's gotten so bad that the Anchorage Daily News has a sub-header on pages related to the scandal: "More Alaska political corruption stories."

Veco oversaw large renovations of Stevens' home, according to testimony from contractors to a federal grand jury. Stevens maintains he paid for every penny of the renovations out of his own pocket.

Alaska residents were not pleased with Frank Murkowski's nepotism on behalf of his daughter, though they re-elected the appointed Senator by a narrow 9,300 votes, about 3%. Stevens and Young both face voters next year, and Democrats are enthusiastic about the possibility of knocking off one or both. But the state hasn't elected a Democrat since Tony Knowles' 1998 re-election, and even then he only managed 51% of the vote (though the Republican pulled just 18% in a multi-candidate general election).

Roll Call recently reported that at least seven Alaska Republicans are considering a run for one of the two federal spots, while Democrats are encouraging Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich and former House Minority Leader Ethan Berkowitz to make bids. Yesterday, Alaska Democratic Party Chairman Jake Metcalfe announced he would run against Young.

Active investigations, by this reporter's count, now involve several members of Congress, including Reps. William Jefferson (D-LA), John Doolittle (R-CA) -- who got a primary challenger yesterday -- Rick Renzi (R-AZ), Alan Mollohan (D-WV), Young and Stevens.

"I take the threat of potential terrorism as seriously as the next person, but I cannot imagine an al-Qaida terrorist cell laying in wait along the roadside in Possum Trot or hiding inside the Quilters' Museum in Paducah, waiting to ambush a little known, ineffective junior senator like Jim Bunning."

- Kim Geveden, former campaign manager for Senator Bunning's Democratic opponent in 2004, Dan Mongiardo, blasting Bunning in an op-ed in today's Louisville Courier-Journal for his behavior during the '04 campaign and for reviving claims that he and his wife were physically assaulted by members of Mongiardo's staff at a political event.

Here are a couple of interesting pieces on how the ongoing Obama-Clinton dustup is playing in two key early states.

In Iowa, David Yepsen of the Des Moines Register writes that while Obama and Clinton are trying to one-up each other, the real winners of the battle could be John Edwards, Bill Richardson, or even back-of-the-packers like Joe Biden. Yepsen recalls how in early 2004 Iowa frontrunners Howard Dean and Dick Gephardt bludgeoned each other to death with negative ads in the final days before the caucuses, allowing John Kerry to score a surprise upset and John Edwards to pull off a valuable "better than expected" finish. Yepsen writes:

This time, Edwards is running in first place in Iowa. Clinton and Obama trail. If Clinton and Obama engage in such negativity, they risk making each other radioactive and helping Edwards or one of the others.

As a result of this exchange, Edwards' supporters in Iowa are just reinforced in their belief that their guy is the one who can put together the best package: He can be a bit of a fresh face, bring some experience to the table and best understand their daily trials at the gut level.

If Clinton and Obama want to pick fights, perhaps they ought to pick one with Edwards since, in Iowa at least, he's still the guy to beat.

But perhaps Clinton should avoid picking fights with anybody. For someone like Clinton, who has very high unfavorable ratings, to go around throwing stones at others is just an invitation for them to hit at her many negatives.

Meanwhile, in the St. Petersburg Times, political writer Adam Smith looks at how Barack Obama's stated willingness to meet with Fidel Castro in the first year of his administration is playing with Cuban-Americans in Florida - and it's probably not what you might think:

Still, Florida Obama supporters and other Democrats say they've heard little or no backlash among Hispanic supporters since last week's comment on meeting with leaders of rogue countries.

In South Florida, anything that smacks of softness toward Fidel Castro or Hugo Chavez is politically volatile. So Ricky Arriola, a Cuban-American businessman in Miami who recently changed his party to Democrat to help Obama, immediately worried about the fallout when he heard Obama answer that question in South Carolina.

"But amazingly it's had no impact, there's been no buzz at all," said Arriola, 38. "If he'd said, 'End the embargo,' that would have been different, but the concept that you're willing to meet with some of those folks just isn't that inflammatory."

Hispanic voters make up only about 5 percent of the Democratic primary electorate, compared to as much as 18 percent of the Republican primary electorate and at least 12 percent of all Florida voters. The last Democrat to perform well among heavily Republican Cuban-Americans was Bill Clinton, who won 40 percent of the vote in 1996.

"Being soft on Cuba will not win you a Democratic primary in Florida, but can certainly cost you a general election, as Al Gore learned because of Elian Gonzalez," said Ana Navarro, a Republican consultant in Miami-Dade. "If Obama is the nominee, you can bet that his answer in that debate will be in a commercial for the Republican Party."

Thanks to the wondrous series of tubes that make up the Internet we can now stay up to speed - in real time - with local news reports of the FBI and IRS raiding Senator Ted Stevens' vacation home in Alaska collecting evidence in an ongoing corruption investigation.

All snark aside, this is a serious matter, as is the investigation of Republican Rep. Don "My Money" Young.

For months Fred Thompson has had the good problem of high expectations for his presidential candidacy, but they've come down some after he reported raising $3 million in June, reports The Politico's Mike Allen. The total was less than expected, but then again the period was 26 days long.

However, Republicans have "turned queasy as Thompson has ousted part of his original brain trust and repeatedly delayed his official announcement, which is now planned for shortly after Labor Day, in the first two weeks of September." An anonymous member of the Thompson camp defended the restructuring and money haul by saying Thompson is still "testing-the-waters" and that "he's not a candidate."

Meanwhile, before Rudy Giuliani announces his health care plan today, he grouped the health care plans of John Edwards, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama in with Michael Moore's as policies that would ruin American health care, reports the New York Sun's Russell Berman. The DNC said Giuliani would put the pharmaceutical industry above Americans.

Giuliani didn't stop at health care, but also said Democrats are "falling over each other seeing who can raise taxes faster. It looks like they're going to raise taxes anywhere between 20 to 30 percent," singling out Edwards proposal to double the capital gains tax on people making more than $250,000 annually.

Elsewhere, Mitt Romney's campaign announced that Virginia's Republican lieutenant governor Bill Bolling will be its Virginia chair.

Further south, Rep. James Clyburn (D-SC) said there are three keys to winning the party's primary in the state: momentum, health care and black voters, reports the Washington Post's Chris Cillizza and Dan Balz. Clyburn said the race is currently between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama but added voters will watch results in Iowa and New Hampshire for voting cues. Health care is the dominant issue and one candidates can get around more easily than Iraq, Clyburn said. Finally, Clyburn said if Obama can win or place second in the previous states, he would "sweep" the black vote in South Carolina.

Yesterday Obama went after Clinton (though not by name) saying that experience in Washington becomes experience in peddling conventional wisdom, reports Radio Iowa's O. Kay Henderson. "That's how people end up voting for this war in Iraq was people were not willing to ask difficult questions because the conventional wisdom inside Washington was either this was going to be a cakewalk or it would be political suicide to vote against it," Obama said.

The first thing Obama would do in office is tell the Joint Chiefs of Staff to draft a withdrawal plan for Iraq, but acknowledged "this will be a messy withdrawal. People who say we’ll just pull them out are irresponsible."

Obama blamed inaction on energy and health care policy on the oil and pharmaceutical industries, reports the Chicago Tribune's Rick Pearson. "The reason is because it's not our agenda that's being moved forward in Washington -- it's the agenda of the oil companies, the insurance companies, the drug companies, the special interests who dominate on a day-to-day basis in terms of legislative activity." Obama also said "we're seeing" a "second Gilded Age" in America.

Union leaders, especially those of the AFL-CIO, are "so happy with the Democratic presidential aspirants, though unsure of whom to support, that they are unlikely to endorse any of them before the primaries next year," reports the New York Times' Steven Greenhouse. The AFL-CIO seems to lean toward Edwards but is leery about throwing an endorsement to him before seeing if he can win.

The Politico's Ben Smith writes that Edwards is repeating the GOP model of attacking the press in "fundraising e-mails and high-profile Web videos." He's not alone in attacking the mainstream media: Clinton's campaign has sent a fundraising appeal centered on a Washington Post Style section article about the neckline of Clinton's blouse.

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

After sailing along smoothly for six months, first-term Governor of New York Eliot Spitzer has hit some serious political turbulence. Last week he was captured on video being grilled by Fred Dicker of the New York Post over allegations his aides inappropriately used the state police to collect travel records about Frank Bruno and leak them to the press. Spitzer denies any knowledge of the activity, but nonetheless offered a public apology for the actions of his aides in Sunday's New York Times.

Today, Dicker goes to town again on Spitzer's "dirty tricks" scandal (as does the Post's editorial board), while in an interview with the New York Sun Spitzer rejects as "pointless" a call by NY Senate Republicans to appoint Democratic Attorney General Andrew Cuomo as a special prosecutor to further investigate the allegations.

The flap continues to have legs, and is closing in on a week in the headlines with no sign of abating. Matt Cooper, formally of Time Magazine, writes that Spitzer's handling of the matter has been like a "long slow bleed" and speculates that "Chances are, if you think about it, Spitzer probably knew of his aides's actions."

The public agrees with Cooper, as a new Quinnipiac poll out this morning shows that 53% of respondents in New York believe Governor Spitzer "knew what his aides were doing when they arranged for State Police records of Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno's travels to be leaked to the media." Spitzer's approval rating has dropped 12 points in six weeks, dipping to 48%. (Meanwhile, Andrew Cuomo's job approval has shot up nine points over the same period to 68%).

On the positive side, 56% believe Spitzer has the ability to clean up New York state government, and 58% still consider the governor "honest and trustworthy."

But that last number may suffer, since more than a third of voters (36%) say further investigation is needed and another third (35%) believe that further probing would "prove that Gov. Spitzer did something wrong."

If Spitzer did know about his aides' actions, he should get out in front of the news and admit it before it does even more damage. "What's remarkable," Cooper concludes, "is how many times politicians need to keep learning the lesson of getting the bad news out quickly."

SurveyUSA is out with a new poll on the 2008 Minnesota Senate race showing a mixed bag for first term Republican Norm Coleman. The good news: he still leads all potential challengers. The bad news: his lead over potential DFL opponents has slipped significantly from previous polls and his job approval rating is down to 43%, with 48% now disapproving. Here are the general election match ups:

Coleman (R) 49%
Franken (DFL) 42%
Undecided 9%

Coleman (R) 48%
Ciresi (DFL) 42%
Undecided 11%

Coleman (R) 49%
Cohen (DFL) 37%
Undecided 14%