Barack Obama gives Joe Biden cupcakes the day before the Vice President-elect’s 66th birthday.

CHICAGO (CNN) – The day before Vice President-elect Joe Biden turns 66, President-elect Barack Obama presented his running mate with 12 candlelit cupcakes after their weekly lunch on Wednesday. He also gave Biden Chicago White Sox and Chicago Bears hats as well as a bucket of Garrett's popcorn as presents.

“You’re 12 years old!” Obama told Biden according to a Democratic source.

“Maybe in dog years!” Biden responded, laughing.

Obama and the staff then sang Biden ‘Happy Birthday.’

Rarely did Biden make a stop on the campaign trail and not mention his age. “I want you to know,” he would tell supporters, “there are only four members of the Senate who are senior to me. But the very important thing to know is there are still 39 older than me.”

Huckabee appeared on The Situation Room Monday.

WASHINGTON (CNN) — Former Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee said Wednesday he's not trying to settle old scores with his onetime GOP rival Mitt Romney, despite sharply criticizing the former Massachusetts governor in a new book out earlier this week.

"I didn't dislike him," Huckabee told CNN's Wolf Blitzer in an interview on The Situation Room. "It was a matter of [Romney] taking positions on issues that he had never taken before and at the same time, he was bashing people like me who had been consistent in our own views."

Huckabee's book, released Tuesday, is exceedingly critical of several Republicans he says are partly to blame for the party's across-the-board losses on Election Day, including Romney and Fred Thompson — another former GOP presidential candidate.

In the book, Huckabee specifically takes aim at Romney for shifting positions on key conservative issues shortly before he decided to run for the White House, saying his record was "anything but conservative until he changed the light bulbs in his chandelier in time to run for president."

He also lashes out at Romney for what he said was the former governor's refusal to offer congratulations when Huckabee was the surprise winner of the crucial Iowa caucuses in January. Many political observers say it was that loss that ultimately derailed Romney's bid for the Oval office.

A spokesman for Romney called the comments "petty."

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A recount began Wednesday in the race between Sen. Norm Coleman and his Democratic challenger Al Franken.

MINNEAPOLIS, Minnesota (CNN) — The Senate campaign in Minnesota between incumbent Republican Norm Coleman and Democratic challenger Al Franken was considered to be quite nasty, with attack ads and angry statements by both sides. Now, it seems the recount between the two candidates could be just as ugly.

Two weeks and one day after Election Day, a mandatory recount is underway in the state in the battle for Coleman's seat. Workers at 107 sites across Minnesota Tuesday began counting the more than 2.9 million votes cast in the contest.

Unofficial results put Coleman, a freshman Republican senator, just 215 votes ahead of his Democratic challenger, Al Franken, known across the country from his days on Saturday Night Live and from his years as a talk show host on Air America, the progressive radio network. The slim margin for Coleman, far less than one half of one percent, triggered an automatic recount, the first time there's ever been a recount of a US senate race in Minnesota.

Now election officials are beginning the long process of recounting all of the ballots. They're surrounded by election observers and lawyers from both campaigns, and the media.

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(CNN) – President-elect Barack Obama formally announced the additions of key White House staff members on Wednesday, including the previously expected choice of David Axelrod as Senior Advisor to the President

"I am pleased to announce these new additions to our team, and I'll be relying on their broad and diverse experience in the months ahead as we work to strengthen our economy, reform Washington, and meet the great challenges of our time,"  Obama said.

Axelrod has been a fixture by Obama’s side for years, serving as the chief strategist for Obama’s campaign and as a top adviser during his run for the Senate in 2004.

Obama also announced Greg Craig as White House Counsel, Lisa Brown as Staff Secretary and Chris Lu as Cabinet Secretary.

Palin thanked Ted Stevens for his service to Alaska.

WASHINGTON (CNN) – Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin is congratulating Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich on winning his Senate race against veteran lawmaker Ted Stevens.

“I extend my congratulations to Mark Begich and his family,” Palin said in a statement released by her office Wednesday. “This is a new era for Alaska and I look forward to working with Mark on the many issues that are important to our state. I am confident he will add a compelling new voice to the U.S. Senate.”

"I also thank Senator Ted Stevens for his 40 years of dedicated service to Alaska,” the statement said. “His tireless efforts on behalf of the state he loves have benefited all those who call it home. Todd and I join all Alaskans in gratitude to Sen. Stevens."

Palin wasn’t always so effusive toward Stevens, the longest serving Republican in the Senate. During her vice presidential bid, after Stevens was indicted on seven felony counts, she would not say whether she planned to vote for the senator in his re-election bid.

In October, after Stevens was found guilty of making false statements on his financial disclosure reports, Palin initially said it was “a sad day” for Alaska but did not call for the senator to step down. The next day, in a television appearance with John McCain, Palin went a step further and said Stevens should indeed resign.

On Election Day in her hometown of Wasilla, Palin refused to say if she voted for Stevens.

“I am also exercising my right to privacy, and I don't have to tell anybody who I vote for, nobody does, and that’s really cool about America also,” she told a reporter.

Stevens has conceded defeat.

(CNN) – Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens has conceded defeat to Democratic challenger Mark Begich in the Alaska Senate race.

Stevens, 85, was the longest serving Republican senator in the chamber's history.

“Given the number of ballots that remain to be counted, it is apparent the election has been decided and Mayor Begich has been elected," Stevens said in a statement. “My family and I wish to thank the thousands of Alaskans who stood by us and who supported my re-election. It was a tough fight that would not have been possible without the help of so many Alaskans – people who I am honored to call my friends. I will always remember their thoughts, prayers, and encouragement."

Full statement after the jump

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Sen. John McCain has won the state of Missouri.

(CNN) – It's taken more than two weeks, but we finally have a winner in Missouri.

Fifteen days after Election Day, Republican Sen. John McCain has narrowly edged out President-elect Barack Obama in the state, according to CNN's review of the latest unofficial vote totals from the Missouri Secretary of State. This resolves the final outstanding contest of the 2008 presidential race.

According to the unofficial results, McCain won the state by 3,632 votes . The unofficial count shows McCain with 1,445,812 votes, or 49.4 percent, and Obama with 1,442,180 votes, or 49.3 percent.

With Missouri's 11 electoral votes in Senator McCain's column, the final count is 365 for Obama and 173 for McCain.

McCain's edging out of Obama in Missouri breaks the state's bellwether streak in which Missourians correctly picked the presidential candiate in every election dating back to the 1960 contest. Missouri got it wrong in 1956, voting for the Democratic challenger Adlai Stevenson, who lost the election to President Dwight D. Eisenhower. Before that election, Missouri correctly picked the winner in every race for the White House dating back to 1904.

Al Franken traveled to Washington on Wednesday.

WASHINGTON (CNN) – As Minnesota begins to re-count the nearly three million ballots cast in the state’s tightly-contested Senate battle, the two candidates in the race — Democrat Al Franken and Republican incumbent Norm Coleman — were on Capitol Hill meeting with Senate leaders.

Franken met with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid for about 20 minutes on Wednesday morning in Reid’s office on the second floor of the Capitol building. After the meeting, he told reporters he had briefed the Majority Leader on the mechanics of the recount and said he is "cautiously optimistic" he will win.

"We believe that if they're all counted, we think that we’ll prevail given the sort of history of all this,” Franken said of the recount.

The former comedy writer said he had scheduled meetings at the DSCC, where he will meet with experts who know about setting up transition offices and organizational things along those lines. He said it would "be irresponsible not to start thinking about that stuff before in case we do win."

Franken also said his campaign will continue fundraising while the ballots are being counted to pay for field organization and potential legal costs.

"We anticipate that there will be more litigation," Franken said. Lawsuits have been filed by both campaigns.

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Pres. Bush addressed a meeting of the NRCC in 2007. The GOP group is now headed by Rep. Pete Sessions.

(CNN) – In another sign of the Republican Party’s efforts to regroup after multiple losses on Election Day, the National Republican Congressional Committee is now under new leadership.

Rep. Pete Sessions of Texas is now in charge of GOP efforts to win back a majority in the House of Representatives.

“Today marks a new beginning for the NRCC,” Session said in a statement released after his election Wednesday. “I will build an aggressive, energized, and modernized NRCC by immediately working to strengthen fundraising, implement strategic candidate recruitment, update messaging and technology, and create organizational strength and long-term strategies to secure a Republican Majority.”

Sessions takes over after Rep. Tom Cole of Oklahoma decided not to seek reelection as head of the GOP committee.

WASHINGTON (CNN) — At the Pentagon they call it “burrowing”.

Political appointees– typically low level — are scrambling to hold onto their positions in the next administration by getting their job description changed from “political” to “career civil service”.

Political appointees serve at the pleasure of president, while career civil servants are hired on merit, and are supposed to be non-ideologues who serve any administration.

There have been accusations leveled at the White House that the appointees of doing so to further the Bush administration agenda, which the White House denies. But here in the halls of the Pentagon they see another motive. Already there’s some grousing from long-time Pentagon staffers who see relative newcomers angling to keep their plum jobs.

“It’s a lot of 20-something who have jobs where they get someone coffee”, harps one veteran of several transitions.

“I know two people in political jobs who are bragging they will be staying,” the staffer told CNN on condition of anonymity.

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Join the conversation on Jack's blog.

President-elect Barack Obama won the White House on a message of change. Fifty-three percent of Americans said they wanted something new and different in Washington. Well, Obama is certainly new and different, but the same cannot be said for some of his early appointments. It’s like that song title, “Everything Old Is New Again.”

As Obama prepares to take over, he’s asking a bunch of former Clinton Administration members to come on board.

To read more and contribute to the Cafferty File discussion click here

Fmr. Pres. Bill Clinton has agreed to several concessions in Hillary Clinton’s vetting for Secretary of State.

(CNN) –- A major obstacle in Hillary Clinton’s path to becoming President-elect Barack Obama’s secretary of state may be out of the way, as former President Bill Clinton has made several concessions to help move his wife’s vetting process along.

A source familiar with the discussions between Sen. Clinton and the president-elect confirms to CNN that the former president will release the names of several major donors to the Clinton Foundation as well as submitting future foundation activities and paid speeches to a strict ethics review.

In addition, the former president is offering to step down from his day-to-day responsibilities at the foundation and inform the State Department of his speaking schedule and any new sources of income.

President Clinton’s international and financial dealings with his foundation and presidential library have been a sticking point with an Obama camp worried that Sen. Clinton’s position in the cabinet could create a potential conflict of interest as the country’s top diplomat.

Sources tell CNN Tom Daschle is Obama's choice for Secretary of Health and Human Services.

CHICAGO (CNN) — Three sources close to the transition and in a position to know tell CNN that former Sen. Tom Daschle is President-elect Barack Obama's choice to be Secretary of Health and Human Services and the former Senate Majority Leader has indicated he wants the job.

Most significantly, Daschle negotiated that he will also serve as the White House health "czar" — or point person — so that he will report directly to the incoming President. The significance is this guarantees that by wearing two hats Daschle, and not White House staffers, will be writing the health care plan that Obama submits to Congress next year.

The sources said the precise timing of the announcement has not been worked out, but Daschle is likely to officially join the Obama transition team as the lead adviser on health issues in the next few weeks. An Obama transition official had no comment.

Daschle is billed as a "special public policy advisor" in the Washington office of the lobbying firm Alston Bird, though he is technically not a federally registered lobbyist. But his wife, Linda Daschle, is a registered lobbyist at the powerful firm Baker Donelson, which does have some health clients.

There are some new faces at the Pentagon.

WASHINGTON (CNN) — Just when we thought it would be hard to tell the faceless bureaucrats in the Obama transition office from other the 24,000 faceless bureaucrats who already work in this building, the Pentagon Pass office made it simple.

The new arrivals have been issued “Purple” badges, which make then stick out like a sore thumb.

Most pentagon badges are white. Contractors get pink.

And the press badges are blue.

Perhaps that will help the purple badge people know to shut up when they see someone with a blue badge.

The transition team –we’ve been told — is under strict order not to talk to news reporters.

Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens has lost a close election to Democratic challenger Mark Begich, the mayor of Anchorage.

WASHINGTON (CNN) – Sen. Ted Stevens turned 85-years-old Tuesday, but his slice of birthday cake was served with a side of bitter. The one-time powerful lawmaker lost re-election to Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich.

He now heads home to Alaska, and quite possibly prison. Stevens was convicted last month on seven federal corruption charges for filing false statements on his Senate ethics forms.

It has been a hard fall for the one time chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee. Stevens was once one of the most influential lawmakers on Capitol Hill, if not in the nation’s capital. As oil poured south from the Alaska pipeline – “Uncle Ted” as he is affectionately known in his adopted home state – made sure federal dollars flowed north. His diligence in sending what some critics describe as pork dollars helped to build the infrastructure of modern-day Alaska, which won statehood in 1959.

On Tuesday, Stevens expressed his frustration to reporters including my colleague Ted Barrett about the toll this ordeal has taken on him.

“I wouldn’t wish what I’m going through on anyone, my worst enemy,” Stevens told reporters in the Capitol. He went on to complain that he has not “had a night’s sleep in almost four months.”

And it has been a lonely four months for the veteran senator, who saw his Republican colleagues distance themselves from him. This did change Wednesday morning as National Republican Senatorial Committee Chairman John Ensign opened his political briefing by stating that Democrats would have at least 58 seats in the new Congress.

Now, Democrats are just two seats away from a filibuster-proof majority with unresolved races in Georgia and Minnesota determining what will happen.

It was a bittersweet loss for Ensign. Stevens’ troubles added to a long list of Republican ethical woes in the past few years that have helped tarnish the GOP brand. But had Stevens won, Ensign predicted the Alaska senator would have been expelled by his Senate colleagues thus creating a special election. Under this scenario, Ensign predicted that Republicans would have held onto the seat and limiting Democratic gains by at least one.

As of early Wednesday afternoon, Stevens had not conceded the race and Ensign said that he would leave that up to him. But as far as Senate Republicans are concerned they have moved on and now are solely focused on winning Georgia and Minnesota – two contests critical to helping the GOP stage a strong defense against Democratic policies and President-elect Barack Obama’s agenda.

What will happen to Stevens is still unknown. He has yet to be sentenced and his fate now lies in the hands of outgoing President George Bush — who could pardon the one-time Capitol Hill titan and spare him prison time.

Watch Wednesday's episode of CNN=Politics Daily, The Best Political Podcast from The Best Political Team.

(CNN) – A top enemy of the United States has weighed in on the next president.

In the latest episode of CNN=Politics Daily, Pentagon Correspondent Barbara Starr reports on a message that surfaced Wednesday that is purportedly from Ayman al-Zawahiri, al Qaeda’s second-in-command. The message insults President-elect Barack Obama using a derogatory term for African-Americans.

White House Correspondent Ed Henry reports from Chicago with the latest on the reaction from the Obama camp.

State Department Correspondent Zain Verjee also takes a look at how former President Bill Clinton’s business deals, speaking engagements, and views on foreign policy issues might impact his wife’s diplomatic work should she ultimately be named the next secretary of state.

Finally, watch Chief National Correspondent John King and several other familiar faces from CNN as they take part in The Daily Show’s spoof of CNN’s Magic Wall.

Click here to subscribe to CNN=Politics Daily.

Boehner won reelection for House Minority Leader.

(CNN) — House Republicans reelected Rep. John Boehner of Ohio as their party's leader in the chamber Wednesday, winning a second term over challenger and California Rep. Dan Lungren.

House Republicans also voted Virginia Rep. Eric Cantor for the No. 2 leadership post, House minority whip, and Indiana Rep. Mike Pence for the No. 3 slot, chairman of the Republican conference. They are succeeding Reps. Roy Blunt and Adam Putnam who voluntarily stepped down from the posts.

Watch Romney on CNN's American Morning

(CNN) — Former Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, the son of a former auto executive with deep ties to Detroit, told CNN Wednesday the U.S. government should not bailout the country's big three automakers.

"The U.S. auto industry right now is uncompetitive. It has high labor cost, health care costs and legacy costs, retiree costs. Enormous burdens for idle workers. Real estate costs. Massive burdens that make it uncompetitive and to pay it to stay in business would mean down the road more and more loss of market share," said Romney, who as a presidential candidate pledged to save auto jobs in Detroit — comments that may have helped propel him to victory in that state's primary.

"What needs to be done before there's any help to support these companies is to get them structured properly so they can be competitive and viable," Romney also said. "We won't let these companies go away. We won't have the industry disappear. We want to make sure to take advantage of the opportunity right now to get them restructured properly so they can be viable long term."

Romney's comments echo a New York Times op-ed he wrote for the paper's Wednesday edition, titled "Let Detroit Go Bankrupt."

In the op-ed, Romney says U.S. car-makers must negotiate new labor agreements to match the lower wages and benefits of foreign competitors. He also advocates recruiting new management from unrelated companies and investing in innovative technologies.

"The best way to save jobs in the Detroit auto industry and to grow jobs is to get these companies to the proper scale so they will be able to be competitive long term, creating more jobs and build a highly competitive U.S. Auto industry," Romney told CNN Wednesday morning.

Romney's father, George Romney, is credited with turning around the American Motor Company in the 1950's.

ABOARD THE CNN EXPRESS

MICHAEL GOTTSCHALK/AFP/Getty Images

CHICAGO, Illinois (CNN)– As Barack Obama marks time here and frets about the sinking economy before his move to the White House, he faces a peculiar and striking dilemma on the financial front:

The one segment of American business that is booming is the Barack Obama business.

Everything with his face or his name on it is flying off retail shelves. But he can’t take advantage of it– a president is not permitted to profit personally from the sale of his own image.

Yet a case can be made that, were Obama to take his name and likeness and sign their licensing rights over to U.S. industries that are in deep trouble, he might be able to save those corporations.

A joke, of course.

Sort of.

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Bill Clinton is campaigning in Georgia Wednesday.

(CNN) – Jim Martin gets some major league help today in his runoff election battle against freshman Republican senator from Georgia, Saxby Chambliss.  And the surrogate stumping with Martin today is Bill Clinton — about as big a name as you can get.

The former President will join Martin, a former Democratic Georgia state lawmaker, at a campaign event in Atlanta.

Martin and Chambliss face off in the runoff election on December 2 for the U.S. Senate seat Chambliss won six years ago. Chambliss won a plurality of the vote two weeks ago on Election Day, but Georgia state law calls for the winner to grab 50 percent plus one vote. Due to the inclusion of a third party candidate, Chambliss fell just shy of that threshold, forcing a runoff contest.

Former President Clinton is the first big name Democrat to campaign in person with Martin, although President-elect Obama has sent resources and workers from his presidential campaign to Georgia to help out. Clinton carried Georgia in 1992 in his first presidential election victory. He won re-election as President in 1996 but lost Georgia that year.

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