Good Thursday morning. If you live in Washington and did not have your house crushed by a tree in yesterday's storms, you're luckier than one McCain staffer. Here's what the rest of the city is watching today:

-- The Senate is working around a feud over judicial and other nominations that may have stalled the Lieberman-Warner climate change bill for the year, though the upper chamber did manage to adopt the budget resolution yesterday. The House is also in session for a final day this week. President Bush and congressional leaders will deliver remarks at the groundbreaking ceremony of the U.S. Institute of Peace today on the mall. Later, Bush will meet last year's Major League Soccer champion Houston Dynamo and will sit down with Dutch Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende.

-- Yesterday, we knew for certain the November election will be between Barack Obama and John McCain. Today, we know Hillary Clinton will be out of the race by Saturday. A statement from her office last night: "Senator Clinton will be hosting an event in Washington, DC to thank her supporters and express her support for Senator Obama and party unity. This event will be held on Saturday to accommodate more of Senator Clinton's supporters who want to attend." At the event, per the New York Times, Clinton will officially suspend her campaign and call Obama the Democratic nominee, ending seventeen months of non-stop campaigning and a race that earned more delegates than any previous second-place candidate (Check out the must-read obit from the Washington Post).

-- Meanwhile, the two nominees have each promised to run a different kind of race, and signs indicate that they may actually be serious. Early yesterday, McCain's campaign urged Obama to join him at joint town halls above and beyond the three formally sanctioned debates a commission will put on beginning in late September. Late yesterday, after a conversation between McCain manager Rick Davis and Obama manager David Plouffe, the two campaigns agreed, in spirit, per a statement released by McCain communications director Jill Hazelbaker, to the notion (Jonathan Martin with the full statement). Those town halls have been good for Obama, and they're the reason McCain is the Republican nominee, so both candidates should be at their peak in formats that work well for them.

-- One format in which Obama far exceeds McCain: Fundraising. Through the end of April, Obama had raised approximately three times what his Republican opponent pulled in, as the Los Angeles Times writes today, and all indications are that Obama will skip public financing this Fall in order to spend to his heart's content. Look for this to be Obama's best fundraising month to date -- the amount to beat is $50 million, his February haul -- as supporters re-up their commitment and Clinton backers race to get on board. Obama's team, as if they needed more donors, has already begun seriously courting the major Clinton funders who have thus far been reluctant.

-- McCain isn't in terrible shape, though. For one thing, matching funds will give him an $84.1 million shot in the arm once he officially secures the Republican nomination in early September. That's not an insignificant amount of money, and McCain can count on additional support from the Republican National Committee, which has so far been the only Republican committee to outraise its Democratic counterpart. Through the RNC Victory Committee, McCain will have enough money to level the playing field. And until then, the McCain team is actually getting better at fundraising -- the Arizona Republican raised $20 million in May, the most he's pulled in so far, Bloomberg reports.

-- Contributors who attend McCain fundraisers are being asked to max out to the campaign, though in this sense that phrase should probably be changed to super-max. The checks they give include $2,300 for the campaign, $2,300 for legal and accounting costs, $28,500 for the Victory program at the RNC, and, if you're generous, $10,000 to one of four battleground state parties. Those states show where McCain is playing defense (Once-GOP territory in Colorado and New Mexico) and where he's on the offensive (The Democratic states of Wisconsin and Minnesota). Don't underestimate the importance of the Upper Midwest to McCain's campaign: If he steals states that have reliably voted Democratic for years -- Minnesota hasn't voted Republican since 1972 -- Obama can win Virginia by as wide a margin as he wants, but he simply won't be able to make up those electoral votes.

-- Yesterday, for all intents and purposes the first day of the general election, went to McCain, thanks simply to one man. Tony Rezko, the Chicago developer whose relationship to Obama has caused the Democrat serious heartburn already this year, was convicted of sixteen counts of corruption by a federal jury, the Chicago Tribune writes today. Washington Republicans crowed with delight and held whispered conversations with every reporter who would listen. "I'm saddened by today's verdict," Obama told the paper. "This isn't the Tony Rezko I knew, but now he has been convicted by a jury on multiple charges that once again shine a spotlight on the need for reform." The opposition party will make very sure that it's the Tony Rezko every voter in America knows.

-- Omen Of The Day: New polls from the Pew Research Center and National Public Radio show frightening news for the Republican Party, per this reporter at Politicker. According to Pew, voters between the ages of 18-29 now back Democrats by a huge 58%-33% margin, suggesting Republicans may have lost the next generation of voters. And according to Democratic pollster Stan Greenberg and Republican pollster Glen Bolger, surveying for NPR, it's not just the brand: More Americans back the Democratic arguments on trade, the economy, Iraq and taxes than the Republican arguments -- and they support the Democratic line even more when they don't know which party is pitching the idea. Could the GOP, regardless of McCain's fate this year, be headed back to a permanent minority?

-- Today On The Trail: Obama starts his day in Bristol, Virginia, on the Tennessee border, with a town hall meeting after holding two high-dollar fundraisers last night in New York City. Later, he flies up to the Washington suburbs (technically Bristow, Virginia, if that's not confusing enough) for an evening rally with Governor Tim Kaine, Senator Jim Webb and other special guests at the Nissan Pavillion, a 25,000-seat arena where Tom Petty will play on Sunday. McCain's only event of the day is a speech to newspaper editors and the Florida Press Association in Lake Buena Vista, Florida.