McCAIN HEADS TO NEW YORK FOR FUND-RAISER

Senator McCain will be in New York City tomorrow night for a $1,000-a-plate fund-raiser. The event, which will be hosted by a former Republican senator, Alfonse D’Amato, will be held on Fifth Avenue at the Plaza. Mr. McCain raised $12 million in February, far behind Senator Clinton’s $35 million and Senator Obama’s $55 million, making fund-raising a top priority for the presidential contender as he prepares to face off against one or both of them in November. But with Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Obama now locked in a nomination fight that could stretch several more months and cost tens of millions more dollars, the Arizona senator and presumptive Republican nominee has time to narrow the money gap.

TALKS ONGOING ON REVOTE IN FLORIDA AND MICHIGAN

A revote is possible in Florida and Michigan, whose primary delegates will not be seated at the Democratic convention because the states held their contests ahead of the Democratic National Committee’s approved dates. The DNC chairman, Howard Dean, said yesterday on CBS’s “Face the Nation” that a plan in which the two states would send mail-in ballots to all their voters and hold a second vote could solve the problem of what to do with their currently disqualified delegates. Senator Clinton has argued that delegates from the two states, which she won, should be allowed to vote in the convention. But both the Clinton and Obama campaigns have signaled an openness to holding new contests. Officials in each state are trying to find a way to pay for new elections and to fashion a solution that doesn’t leave the losing campaign and its supporters overly bitter, Dr. Dean said. “We can’t have half the Democratic Party walk out thinking there was some deal cooked, and that’s why their person didn’t win,” he said.

DEMOCRAT’S WIN IN ILLINOIS GIVES OBAMA A SUPERDELEGATE

An upset victory by the Democratic candidate in a special election to fill an open congressional seat in Illinois will give Senator Obama an additional superdelegate to the party’s nominating convention. A physicist running for elected office for the first time, Bill Foster, defeated a Republican businessman, James Oberweis, to take the seat vacated by a former House speaker, Dennis Hastert, who retired. The district west of Chicago had been held by Republicans for more than two decades, and Mr. Foster won with the help of Mr. Obama, who appeared in a television ad endorsing him. Mr. Foster, who has endorsed Mr. Obama, will become a superdelegate upon taking his seat in Congress.

CLINTON CITES POSSIBILITY THAT PLEDGED DELEGATES WILL DEFECT

Senator Clinton once again raised the possibility that pledged delegates won through primaries and caucuses could desert Senator Obama and vote for her at the Democratic nominating convention this summer. “Even elected and caucus delegates are not required to stay with whomever they are pledged to,” Mrs. Clinton told Newsweek, explaining why she feels confident despite the fact that she is unlikely to catch Mr. Obama in pledged delegates during the remaining primaries. The Clinton campaign last month promised not to try to swing Mr. Obama’s pledged delegates after a firestorm erupted over speculation that it would. But Mrs. Clinton’s comments come just days after one of her top advisers, Harold Ickes, made a similar point to reporters on a conference call.

‘SNL’ POKES FUN AT CLINTON’S 3.A.M. AD

“Saturday Night Live” took aim at Senator Clinton’s “3 a.m.” advertisement in its latest episode. The show featured a parody of the commercial as a Clinton fantasy in which a newly elected President Obama, played by Fred Armisen, makes a 3 a.m. call to Mrs. Clinton, played by Amy Poehler, for advice on everything from a crisis involving Iran and North Korea to how to use the White House heating system. “I’m Hillary Clinton, and I approve this unfair and deceptive message,” the fictional Mrs. Clinton before the ad.