I’ve been saying for some time that the day after Obama’s election, all sorts of policy and personality battles would unfold around him.

There is a strong chance that Lawrence Summers is going to be returned to the post of Secretary of the Treasury. If so, he’s pulling a “Donald Rumsfeld” who served as Secretary of Defense twice — the first stint under Gerald Ford and then of course under George W. Bush.

An Unhappy Squeaker: Democrat Al Franken trails incumbent Senator Norm Coleman in the Minnesota Senate race by 477 votes. A Happy Squeaker: Democrat Jeff Merkley now seems to be the winner in Oregon’s Senate race that was not called until last night.

WNYC’s Brian Lehrer and I are about to do a cool live show — video and audio — through Skype. Check it out.

Right now, I’m going to be chatting, as I do every week, with Sydney’s ABC 702 morning show anchor Deborah Cameron. At 6 pm EST or thereabouts, I’ll be in an in-studio chat with the so very excellent Rachel Maddow on Air America Radio.

Bill Kristol says that he was off on a conservatives-only cruise to Alaska to see glaciers and icebergs when he discovered the high sizzle Murkowski-slayer Sarah Palin.

Many in the movement left are having a heart attack that the first major move of President-elect Barack Obama is the appointment of Congressman Rahm Emanuel as White House Chief of Staff. Emanuel has accepted. I preferred Senator Tom Daschle for the job.

According to the latest vote results from CNN, Norm Coleman’s lead over Al Franken in the initial vote tally has now shrunk to 314 votes. Under state law, there will be an automatic recount.

(Interior of San Francisco City Hall where many gay — and straight — marriages are conducted) I knew Caroline Leonetti Ahmanson quite well when I lived in Los Angeles and frequently drove her home from parties to her swank penthouse apartments in the Beverly Wilshire Hotel. She was the stepmother of Howard F. Ahmanson Jr….