Good Wednesday morning. After yesterday's voting in Mississippi, the long dry spell has officially begun. Mark the days on the wall, there are going to be a lot of them. Here's what Washington is watching this morning:

-- Both the Senate and the House consider their chamber's version of budget resolutions. A Senate Armed Services subcommittee investigates readiness of the armed forces in a closed meeting, while the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs panel takes up a bill on recovery from Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. In the House, the Judiciary Committee takes up several immigration bills that could be hot topics.

-- Barack Obama won Mississippi's primaries last night, bagging seventeen of the state's 33 delegates, according to the latest RCP Democratic Delegate Count. With 99% reporting, Obama scored a big 61%-37% win, though one with overtones that neither candidate is going to welcome: Clinton won the white vote by a 70%-26% margin, while Obama took African American voters by a 92%-8% score. November is a long ways away, and at some point someone is going to have to start thinking about some kind of reconciliation. Otherwise, the demographic that leaves the convention with their candidate on the sidelines -- African Americans or older white women, both keys to the Democratic coalition -- may just stay home and kill the party's best chances at a win since 1932.

-- In hopes of bringing some order to the chaos, Florida Democrats are prepared to submit plans to the DNC by Thursday at the earliest, McClatchy's Lesley Clark writes. After undergoing a thirty-day public comment period, ballots would be mailed out in mid-April and due back sometime in late May or early June, with ballots counted by an independent accounting firm. The plan still needs to undergo scrutiny from the presidential campaigns and the state party executive committee, and the party still needs to come up with the estimated $10 million it will cost. The long process is nowhere near over, but it's closer than it was yesterday.

-- How's this for subtle: "I think any Republican leader in this country would be honored to be asked to serve as the vice presidential nominee, myself included," Mitt Romney told Fox's Sean Hannity yesterday. In his first post-campaign interview, Romney denied there were hard feelings between himself and John McCain, instead praising the Arizonan as the right man for the job. Given that the Bush family seems more content with Romney on the ticket in the number two spot, does he think openly campaigning for a pick is the way to go? On the other hand, maybe the Bush family blessing is exactly what Romney doesn't need.

-- In more McCain news, the campaign plans to decentralize its operations, sources tell Marc Ambinder. The details call for ten regional campaign managers that will essentially operate separate campaigns, empowered with broad authority to hire and fire. As McCain builds a national organization -- his numbers are still below 100 people, Ambinder writes -- the aides hired by several state parties will eventually be overseen by the regional managers, who will have seats in senior staff meetings. The plan, the campaign hopes, will allow more flexibility in handling field and press operations, though the message will still come from the camp's Arlington headquarters.

-- As expected, Indianapolis city-county councilor Andre Carson won a special election last night to replace his late grandmother, Julia, in the U.S. House. Also as expected, the race ended in a narrow 54%-43% finish, and Carson's Republican opponent, State Rep. Jon Elrod, has refused to resign, the Indianapolis Star reports. The district, which should be heavily and safely Democratic, has been trending more Republican in recent years, and Carson now faces two major problems. The non-knockout blow means Elrod can, and probably will, be back, and Carson himself may face trouble, even as an incumbent, in the state's May 6 primary, when turnout, thanks to the presidential primary held the same day, will be much higher.

-- President Bush will address a fundraising dinner held for the National Republican Congressional Committee in Washington tonight, and while he pulled in more than $10 million in commitments and checks for Republican governors last month, the goal tonight is just $7.5 million. But after a disappointing special election on Saturday, when the party lost former Speaker Dennis Hastert's seat in Illinois, and after not really competing in Indiana, the NRCC is reportedly having trouble meeting even that diminished goal. Financial woes are bad eight months away from an election, but NRCC chair Tom Cole has always said the money will be there. How bad can things get for Republicans if the money isn't there?

-- Smart Move Of The Day: McCain campaign chief Rick Davis responded to three moments of off-message distraction in the last few weeks with a broadly distributed memo urging surrogates and supporters to keep to campaign talking points, Jonathan Martin reports. "Overheated rhetoric and personal attacks on our opponents distract from the big differences between John McCain's vision for the future of our nation and the Democrats," Davis wrote, and though he did not single out those who have used Barack Obama's middle name as an attack, the thrust is clear. Instead, Davis asks that supporters stick to McCain-centric talking points, hitting on the GOP nominee's biography and history. Given how quickly race and gender explode in the media, Davis is probably onto a wise point.

-- Today On The Trail: Obama is back in Chicago where his campaign will hold a press conference with retired Admirals and Generals. Clinton left Pennsylvania for Washington last night, where today she will address the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce and the National Newspaper Publishers Association Presidential Forum. Meanwhile, John McCain must feel at home as he holds a town hall meeting in Exeter, New Hampshire before meeting with the press.