Good Wednesday morning. As happens every year, the day after the anniversary of Roe v. Wade, Capitol Hill remains littered with protest signs. Here's the rest of what Washington is watching today:

-- The House takes up flood insurance, a measure to curb crime rates among the mentally ill and the Death in Custody Reporting Act, along with an all-important resolution honoring the UCLA women's water polo team for winning the NCAA Division I (there are more than one water polo divisions?) championship. The Senate continues considering a bill promoting Native American health.

-- Arthur Branch will not be president. In a statement yesterday, Fred Thompson said he hopes he made his party and his country better with his run, but in the end, he's abandoning his campaign after a disappointing third-place finish in South Carolina. He becomes the first major candidate to drop out, and the question becomes: Who benefits? Thompson is close with John McCain, though close only counts in horse shoes and hand grenades without a formal endorsement.

-- Thompson fans, who make up a little over 8% of the field in Florida, are gun rights advocates and those most concerned with homeland security, Politico writes, or self-identified very conservative and evangelical voters, per The Fix. Supporters looking for a strong leader would naturally flow to Rudy Giuliani, while evangelicals and conservatives seem destined for Mitt Romney or Mike Huckabee. While Thompson's departure would seem to favor his old friend McCain, it looks likely that the former candidate will have to step in to make sure his supporters know that as well.

-- Read those two postmortems on Thompson's campaign and the story that filters through is one of disappointment and extreme frustration on the part of key advisers. Every Thompson fan we know, as well, was frustrated by the lackluster performance of a candidate they thought would have been a good president. But once again, the unfortunate rule that everyone wants to ignore worms its way into the discussion: When running for president, follow a traditional route. It works, that's why it's tradition. Running a campaign based on Fox News and days of radio interviews is not going to win you votes in the modern primary process. Now, as Carl Cameron reports, Thompson has been reduced to openly running for vice president.

-- First, there were multiple Huckabooms. Then, the win in Iowa gave him Huckmentum enough to charter the Huckaplane. Now, it looks like Mike Huckabee is Mike Huckabroke. Several aides are not being paid, while campaign chair Ed Rollins admits that others have quit, as Jonathan Martin and others report. The campaign looks like it's spiraling out of control, when just two weeks ago it was riding high. If Huckabee exits the race, blame money problems and one entirely questionable strategic decision: Why did Huckabee spend time and money in Michigan (and even, to some extent, in New Hampshire) where there were fewer evangelicals to take advantage of and where McCain and Romney had big leads already? Skipping Michigan in favor of South Carolina and Florida might have aided the campaign more in the end.

-- One storyline we just can't figure out: After months of Giuliani or McCain leading the GOP field, and even with Romney's early-state strategy, it was assumed that evangelical voters didn't have much of a voice in the Republican process. Huckabee's and Thompson's respective rises in the polls made some wonder: Had evangelicals taken over the Republican race? With both down and, if Huckabee runs out of money, out, evangelicals will again be faced with the Mormon, the Arizonan who hates talking about faith and the thrice-divorced Catholic New Yorker. After giving business Republicans a scare, it looks like evangelicals will once again be marginalized in the primary process.

-- Every day, it seems, the rumors become more pronounced and more overt, and every day Team Obama is a little more scared by tales of their candidate's secret Muslim religion. Barack Obama's campaign is not waiting around hoping for people's better judgment to sink in, though; they are actively and quickly responding to every rumor that comes up. Obama's camp sent out an email yesterday from John Kerry warning of swiftboat-style attacks, while the candidate sat down with CBN's David Brody for an extended look at faith.

-- Nonetheless, the Clark County (Washington) Republican Party saw fit to post an extended biography of Obama that included a reference to him being Muslim, as Washington State blogger Jon DeVore points out in a screen shot. The statements have since been taken down, replaced with an apology for the factual errors. Two things to consider: First, if the rumors are reaching Democratic primary voters and making them think twice, what does that say about Obama's electability in the general? Second, what do the rumors say to Muslims in the U.S.? That their religion is enough to prevent them from becoming president? Those, along with Mormon questions Romney has had to face, just go to show the American electorate still has some racist and religionist tendencies that have to be addressed.

-- Elsewhere on the Democratic trail, with Hillary Clinton in California and Arizona yesterday and Pennsylvania, New Jersey and New York today, the Democratic front-runner is clearly looking beyond South Carolina to the crucial February 5 primaries, Washington Post reports. California, New York, New Jersey and Arkansas have been her main focuses since she lost Iowa, while strategists say Obama is more likely to win Georgia and Alabama if he takes South Carolina, as well as six states that hold caucuses that day, in Colorado, Kansas, Minnesota, North Dakota, Alaska and Idaho.

-- Both candidates are doing their best to penetrate their rival's home states -- Clinton in downstate Illinois and Obama in certain African American-heavy districts in New York -- and the strategies give just a hint of the complex math to come. Clinton has already started running ads in California, New Mexico, Arizona, Oklahoma, Missouri, Connecticut and Massachusetts, Ben Smith reports, while rumors of someone buying up a $2.7 million Super Bowl ad abound. Oh, that's why they needed $100 million.

-- Endorsements Of The Day: The same Washington Post story from above hints Kansas Governor Kathleen Sebelius is preparing to endorse Obama -- she's a little busy working on the Democratic response to the State of the Union, though -- while the senator won backing from The State, one of South Carolina's top newspapers, in editions running this morning. And further sealing McCain's military credentials, he's won support from the last guy to win a war in Iraq -- Norman Schwarzkopf. Endorsements don't mean a lot, but these three could have decisive impacts among "New Democrats," South Carolinians and Florida's military and retired communities, respectively.

-- Today On The Trail: Clinton begins in Philadelphia before holding two rallies with Sen. Bob Menendez in Hackensack and North Bergen. Obama heads to Rock Hill, Sumter and Dillon for a mix of town halls and rallies, while Edwards holds events playing up his Palmetto roots in Bennettsville, Lancaster and Gaffney. Republican Giuliani rallies in Estero before meeting supporters in Naples, while McCain has an economic round table in Orlando. Huckabee rallies in Fort Lauderdale, and Romney stops in Sarasota and Tampa.