Good Monday morning. If anyone had any doubt that Winter was on its way, doubt no more. Here in Washington, the old man has definitely arrived. Here's what else the Beltway is watching today:

-- Congress returns to session this week for a lame-duck meeting Democrats hope may lead to a bailout of the auto industry. The language will come from the Senate, but many Republicans are opposed to a bailout, and the White House has signaled its own reluctance, CNNMoney's Chris Isidore writes. Some wonder if General Motors will be able to survive more than eight months without federal money. What happens if GM goes under? The Center for Automotive Research, an industry-affiliated group that backs the bailout, estimates about 2.5 million jobs lost and perhaps hundreds of billions in lost tax revenue.

-- The Senate Banking Committee will hold hearings on automaker bailouts on Tuesday (Ranking Republican Richard Shelby remains the most outspoken opponent of the plan) and the House Financial Services Committee will chat about it Wednesday. And even though Barack Obama supports the measure, he won't be voting for it; in fact, Obama's Senate voting days are over after resigning from the body yesterday and writing a letter to the people of Illinois, published in newspapers across the state including the Sun-Times. Governor Rod Blagojevich has not yet laid out a timetable for naming an Obama successor beyond saying a name will come out by the end of the year.

-- Obama spent the weekend naming a few more top posts in his White House, including Washington power lawyer Greg Craig as counsel and Pete Rouse as a senior adviser, the Washington Post's Michael Fletcher reports. Craig is a former Clinton loyalist who played John McCain in Obama's debate prep this year, while Rouse is a former top aide to Tom Daschle who served as Obama's Senate chief of staff before moving over to the campaign. Jim Messina, the campaign's chief of staff, and Mona Sutphen, a foreign policy expert currently with a business consulting firm located in Washington, will serve as deputy chiefs of staff.

-- No Secretary-level Cabinet positions have yet to be confirmed, though that doesn't mean the Obama team is dragging their heels. Obama advisers are actively vetting Hillary Clinton for Secretary of State, and rumors flying around all weekend claim she is a finalist along with Bill Richardson and Chuck Hagel for the job. But, as the New York Times' Baker and Cooper write, vetting Hillary means vetting Bill Clinton, a process that requires a team of attorneys sifting through information and data that has never been required in public disclosures.

-- Today, the Illinois Democrat will sit down in his transition office in Chicago with John McCain, his erstwhile enemy, as both former presidential candidates pledge to work together to help the country. They each have something to gain, the Wall Street Journal's Weisman and Meckler write. For Obama, it's the opportunity to build his bipartisan credentials, especially among independent voters who still like McCain. McCain can rebuild his national standing as a maverick with independent appeal. It won't matter for a future presidential run, but even longtime senators have legacies to attend. Senator Lindsay Graham and Rep. Rahm Emanuel will also be there.

-- Republicans will have a say in this week's special session, but it may be the last time for a while. The party is still searching for a direction and a purpose two weeks after big electoral defeats, and GOP meetings in Miami and Myrtle Beach late last week sought to answer those questions. The Republican Governors Association showed off some of the party's new talent, while the Myrtle Beach meeting, of prominent Republican National Committeemembers, served as a post-mortem and an argument about the future of the party.

-- One thing many GOP strategists are recognizing is that their party has serious outreach to do among black and Hispanic voters, as the Washington Times' Gary Emerling writes. Obama won a number of swing states in part because of his overwhelming margins among minority voters, and Republicans, facing the prospect of needing similarly huge margins among white voters, are rightly concerned. The real trouble, as activists meeting in Myrtle Beach showed this weekend, is that any move to the middle on immigration, an issue that has caused an especially deep fissure between the GOP and Hispanics, will be greeted by a revolt on the right.

-- Meanwhile, there remain races to call, and this week the long and arduous process of counting more than 2.5 million ballots in Minnesota will commence, the Minneapolis Star-Tribune writes. By Wednesday, volunteers from around the country will begin counting ballots in the state, where Republican Senator Norm Coleman leads by just over 200 votes. Just to infuriate Republicans (Well, okay, and to ease his own possible transition), Democrat Al Franken will be in Washington on Wednesday for meetings with Senate Democratic leaders, though he won't attend freshman orientation. His spokesperson said that would be "presumptuous," per CNN's Chris Welch.

-- Power Play Of The Day: Question Sarah Palin's fitness to lead the Republican Party, now or in four years, and you're likely to get angry looks and a fair amount of derision (That's what Politics Nation got this weekend in Myrtle Beach). But it's not just the media, and don't forget that other Republicans want a shot at the leadership title. Former Speaker Newt Gingrich is the first to cut the Alaska governor down to size. "She's going to be one of 20 or 30 significant players. She's not going to be the de facto leader," Gingrich said this weekend on Face the Nation, per The Hill's Alexander Bolton. Don't forget, Gingrich himself may not be finished with his own political ambitions.