The Federal Election Commission (FEC) is singing a different tune: If you want to be a sharp-dressed candidate, you better pay for the threads yourself.

The FEC, in a ruling Thursday, determined that four congressional candidates "appear to have violated" a federal election rule barring the use of campaign funds to purchase clothing. But because all of the candidates had reimbursed their campaign treasuries for the expenditures, the cases were closed without further action taken.

The ruling came in response to a complaint filed last December by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW), a political watchdog group.

For the second time in five days, a Republican hopeful for a major 2010 Senate race had to scramble to deflate a rumor that he is dropping out.

The latest incident, which erupted Wednesday, put Florida's Marco Rubio into damage control mode. National Journal's CongressDaily in Washington, D.C., wrote that Rubio appeared to be preparing to quit the 2010 Republican Senate primary contest, in which he is the leading conservative opponent to front-running centrist Gov. Charlie Crist.

But she also has an undergraduate degree in mathematics, earned a Ph.D. in clinical psychology and taught psychology at the community college level for 20 years.

Hmmm..... a psychologist who also knows how to add AND subtract.

But even with Monday's decision by state GOP Chairman Andy McKenna to step aside, it may be a while before it's clear whether Kirk will be able to completely avoid serious primary competition -- from a candidate backed by conservatives who are not thrilled with Kirk's record as one of the more centrist Republicans in the House.

The Senate contest in Illinois, which has the earliest 2010 primary of any state, will in fact be an indicator of how "pragmatic" the party's conservative base is willing to be in an effort to regain some of the massive amount of ground the party lost in the past two election cycles -- particularly in states such as Illinois, that have been trending strongly Democratic.

Serving out the full term as governor to which you were elected and sworn into under your state's constitution used to be known as responsibility to the citizens who elected you.

But leave it to Sarah Palin to redefine serving out your full term as "going with the flow."

In fact, Palin's exact words - when she made her startling announcement on Friday that she is quitting just two and a half years into her four-year term - were, "Only dead fish go with the flow." This was wisdom that Palin said she'd acquired during the days she and her husband spent in commercial fishing up there in Alaska.

That applies both to liberals who would like to see him unsheath the rhetorical sledgehammer he often applied to conservative icons such as George W. Bush, Rush Limbaugh and Anne Coulter, and to conservatives who envision Franken reverting to shtick and embarrassing the Democrats in Washington and back in Minnesota.

The clue here is the very sober demeanor that Franken projected virtually throughout his Senate campaign, his first bid for public office after many years of backing liberal causes.

The subject line reads, "Toomey Commends Reps. Altmire, Carney, Holden, and Dahlkemper on Cap-and-Trade Vote." Those named are Democrats! Specifically, the four Pennsylvania House Democrats who joined 40 other members of their party Friday in voting against a sweeping bill that would cap industrial emissions link to global warming and mandate increased use of alternative energy sources, among other provisions.

The measure -- described by most Democrats as necessary to prevent environmental catastrophe and put the nation on the road to energy independence, and portrayed by most Republicans as a massive "energy tax" -- squeaked through by a 219-212 vote.

The Governator -- as "Terminator" movie star Schwarzenegger once dubbed himself -- has discovered during his relatively short political career that it's lot easier to save the world as a cinematic action hero than it is to break legislative gridlock in Sacramento.

The ongoing stalemate in the closely divided New York state Senate -- with each major party arguing it is in charge -- has been aptly described as a "circus" by a number of Albany watchers. But it ultimately will be just a sideshow to the political carnival that the state will host next year.

We at CQ Politics are preparing our first House race ratings for the 2010 elections, and our early take shows nine of the state's 29 congressional districts have competitive races in store. That figure of nine is matched only by California, which has a total of 53 House seats, or 24 more than New York.

Since the Democrats have built a daunting 26-3 lead over the Republicans in the state's House delegation, it's a no-brainer that most of the seats in play are held by the majority party. And most of those are held by junior members whose takeovers of formerly Republican seats over the past two cycles held the Democrats to their current state of dominance.

Sure, it took him a week, during which he initially denied that his joke was at all inappropriate. But at least the world might get a reprieve now after Letterman bone-headedly handed conservatives a gift-wrapped opportunity to rail about how Palin, the 2008 Republican vice presidential nominee, was a victim of liberal media bias.

In the aftermath of this dust-up, how about this as a simple rule for comedians: Politicians are fair game. Their kids aren't.

The Republicans who consider themselves possible contenders for their party's 2012 presidential nomination may have their eyes fixed on the political horizon. But they probably should be watching their backs, too.

This was brought to mind by comments that Louisiana Democratic Sen. Mary L. Landrieu made on national TV about Bobby Jindal -- her home state's governor -- who, at age 38, is widely regarded as one of the Republican Party's rising stars and a possible 2012 prospect.

Landrieu, appearing on C-SPAN's "American Morning", said, "Well, if he would stay home in Louisiana a little more and focus on being governor that would be wonderful."

During an appearance Tuesday on Comedy Central's The Daily Show with Jon Stewart to plug his book, "Crash Proof: How to Profit From the Coming Economic Collapse," Schiff revealed that he is "potentially considering" running as a Republican against vulnerable Connecticut Democratic Sen. Christopher J. Dodd -- the Senate Banking Committee chairman whose ties to the financial industry are causing him political headaches as he prepares to run for a sixth Senate term.

But if he were to run, Schiff would be asking Connecticut residents to do something he claims he doesn't make a habit. Namely voting.

It not likely that the Washington Examiner, a D.C. daily tabloid with a strongly conservative editorial page, means any harm to Bob McDonnell, the Republican nominee for governor of Virginia and former state Attorney General.

But one line in its e-mail news alert Tuesday night on the Democratic primary for governor -- won by state Sen. Creigh Deeds -- is one that could raise some eyebrows among the paper's readers in the populous, politically crucial, and increasingly Democratic-leaning northern Virginia suburbs of Washington, D.C.

"McDonnell is a conservative with strong ties to religious broadcaster Pat Robertson," wrote the Examiner.

There is nothing at all untrue about this. McDonnell, who grew up in the northern Virginia suburbs of Washington, D.C., received his law degree from Regent University, located in Virginia Beach and initially founded by Robertson as an adjunct of his Christian Broadcasting Network.

McAuliffe had spent most of his adult life as a major support player in national Democratic politics, a mover, shaker and big-time campaign money-raker. He was best known for his longtime alliance with President Bill Clinton -- at whose behest McAuliffe was installed in 2001 as Democratic National Committee chairman, a position he held for four years - and Hillary Rodham Clinton, now secretary of State, whose campaign for the 2008 Democratic presidential nomination was chaired by McAuliffe.

McAuliffe's positions, and his extroverted personality, earned him frequent invitations to appear on television news shows.

But all this, according to nearly complete returns Tuesday night, mattered to fewer than 85,000 Virginians -- or a bit more than 26 percent out of more than 300,000 who participated in the low-turnout, three-candidate primary for governor won by state Sen. Creigh Deeds.

The Minnesota Independent reports that Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele, during an appearance at the College Republicans' national convention was reaching for a better metaphor to describe today's Republican Party than "big tent." And what Steele came up with was... a hat.

Yes, a hat.