California’s movie-star Governor Arnold Scwharzenegger is throwing his support behind John McCain—giving the Senator his second major endorsement in less than 24 hours.

On Wednesday, former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani dropped out of the race and endorsed McCain. Both Rudy and Ah-nuld accompanied McCain on a tour of a Los Angeles solar technology company Thursday. Afterward, a reporter asked whether the support of the governor and mayor do anything to help the Senator with the conservative wing of the Republican party.
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Gov. Schwarzenegger explained why he decided to endorse McCain, when just days ago he said he was staying out of it.
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The endorsement was McCain’s only public event of the day. That means he spent almost two days in California, and never held a campaign event where he actually met voters face to face. A McCain aide said the only thing the campaign wanted circulated Thursday was the image of the Senator with the governor.

Over the course of the last two days, a slew of polls were released showing Sen. John McCain nearly tied with or now edging out Rudy Giuliani in Feb 5 primary states the former NYC mayor’s campaign had considered guaranteed winners (New York, Connecticut, New Jersey and Delaware.)

Additionally, the  McCain campaign has issued the following press releases in the last two days:

01.23.08         Delaware Leaders Join Supporters Of John McCain
01.22.08         John McCain Announces Connecticut Leadership Team
01.22.08         John McCain 2008 Announces New York Leadership Team
01.22.08         John McCain 2008 Announces New Jersey Leadership Team
01.22.08         Connecticut State Senator Anthony Guglielmo Endorses John McCain For President
01.22.08         John McCain 2008 Announces New Jersey Legislative Endorsements
01.22.08         Senator Alfonse D’Amato Endorses John McCain For President

Message to Rudy:  McCain is ready for battle on your home turf on February 5th.

Maybe it’s because she’s been accused of diminishing the accomplishments of Martin Luther King, or maybe it’s because it was a dreary afternoon in New York, but Sen Hillary Clinton didn’t exactly receive a warm welcome in her home state at a birthday celebration for the civil rights leader (which is technically tomorrow, while the MLK holiday is next week).

Scattered boos peppered the smattering of applause as Sen Clinton walked to the podium to deliver a 20 minute address linking the civil rights struggle to the fight for women’s rights and labor rights; the event, held jointly with a security workers union that has endorsed Sen Clinton, was also aimed at securing better wages and health care benefits for union members.

Clinton mentioned her chief rival for the nomination twice in her speech, both times linking herself to his historic candidacy. “How many of us ever could have dreamed that we would see the day when a woman and an African American are running for the presidency of the United States of America?” she asked.

She also delivered a more artful version of the argument that she so poorly articulated to Major Garrett and which kicked off the whole King controversy — crediting civil rights leaders’ political action, not just their lofty rhetoric, for achieving change. “Both Senator Obama and I know that we are where we are today because of leaders like Dr King,” she said. But, she said, those activists “also voted, and they brought people to the polls and they held leaders accountable for delivering on the promise.”

The crowd interrupted the speech for tepid applause only a handful of times, and rewarded her with more of the same at the end of her remarks. Take a look.

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Money is still pouring into the Obama campaign - despite the candidate’s New Hampshire loss. According to campaign manager David Plouffe, the campaign has raised $500,000 online since midnight. This is in addition to the $8 million the Obama campaign has raised so far this 8-day long year.

The candidate also hit Boston and New York today for a pair of fundraisers - according to Communications Director Robert Gibbs, the campaign had to cut off admission at the high dollar New York event because there were too many interested attendees.

Senator Obama hit February 5th (aka Tsunami Tuesday) state New Jersey today in between his two East Coast fundraisers, where he was greeted by a couple thousand voters inside the gymnasium at Saint Peter’s College in Jersey City. There were long lines of people who were turned away when the gym hit capacity - Obama told the crowd that some 2,000 were not able to get into the door.

The loud crowd treated the second place New Hampshire finisher with a hero’s welcome. Obama made the best of the disappointing loss. “I have to tell you that one of the useful things - and I told this to my staff yesterday - about yesterday was it reminds us that change isn’t easy,” he told the New Jersey crowd. “Change is always met by resistance by the status quo.” A young man in the crowd bellowed out, “Hillary Clinton is the status quo!”

Obama continued, “You know, there are people who are in power who don’t want to give it up. There are folks who are making money on the way things are working right now. It doesn’t make them bad people - it just means they don’t want a change.”