The President’s reelection campaign has been raising money at a record clip, but as campaign manager Jim Messina has been warning for months, recent FEC filings show that despite a hefty advantage over his Republican rivals’ campaigns, outside Republican groups have been pouring enough cash into the race to dwarf the campaigns’ spending. Republican SuperPACs have raised north of $90 million, while Democratic outside groups have only raised $19 million.

So, despite his previous objections to the influence of outside money in elections, President Obama has decided to encourage donors to give to Priorities USA, the SuperPAC started by former White House staffers Bill Burton and Sean Sweeney, and to make certain administration and campaign officials available to speak at Priorities fundraisers.

A spokesman for the RNC was predictably quick to criticize the decision:

The Republican National Committee sharply criticized the decision. A spokesman, Joe Pounder, declared: “Yet again, Barack Obama has proven he will literally do anything to win an election, including changing positions on the type of campaign spending he called nothing short of ‘a threat to our democracy.”

There are even some Democrats who are apparently “confused” by the move, but the President’s position hasn’t changed. Believing in a level playing field doesn’t mean you’re obligated to kneel on an uneven one. Just as late President Ronald Reagan refused to unilaterally disarm the United States even though he wanted to see nuclear weapons “banished from the face of this Earth,” President Obama has decided not to unilaterally disarm in the face of an ominous nuclear fundraising arsenal, despite his desire to wipe them out.

Ironically, the success or failure of this move sets up a sort of Catch 22 for the President. According to The New York Times, some Democratic fundraisers see the SuperPAC money gap as a function of Wall Street’s anger at the President’s attempts to rein them in, which could mean that even with his blessing, the 1% might continue to shovel their cash in only one direction:

But major donors to Mr. Obama said in interviews that they were not sure the Democratic super PAC’s lackluster fund-raising was due entirely to the president’s public misgivings about outside spending. One longtime, high-dollar Democratic fund-raiser said it was also partly a result of Wall Street’s anger at Mr. Obama’s statements and policies concerning bank regulation, some of which have sent former Obama donors and fund-raisers to the Republicans.

Whether you think President Obama has done enough to rein in Wall Street, he clearly has less to offer them than the Republicans do. The only thing he can offer them is the possibility that he might win. In the past, moneyed interests had to hedge their bets a little, but with the ability to spend without limit, there’s little incentive to do so.

RELATED: Newt Gingrich And Mitt Romney Slug It Out In Heated Immigration Argument

Host Steve Doocy highlighted the fact that Gov. Romney hasn’t exactly bragged about his Mexican roots before. “The other night when I saw you at one of the debates in Florida,” Doocy said, “you mentioned for the first time in my memory, where you were talking about that anti-immigrant allegation by Newt Gingrich. You were talking about how your father was born in Mexico. It’s the first time I’d heard you say that. Is that helping you with the Latino community in Florida?”

Romney replied “You know, I wish I could claim that I’m Hispanic…”

That’s a bit of a weird thing to say, but let’s hear him out. Does he admire the rich cultural heritage, the strong current of faith, the diverse culinary tradition? Romney continued “…and it would help me with the Latino community here in Florida and around the country, but my dad was born of American parents living in Mexico.”

Oh, right, he didn’t say he wished he was Hispanic, just that he wishes he could claim it.

RELATED: Mitt Romney And Rick Perry Get Into Illegal Immigration Slapfight

Romney went on to say that his father “was Anglo at the time and yet, I’m very proud of the fact that he came to this country at a critical time, was helped to get on his feet by folks in this country, and he and his dad went around America, started a construction business, ultimately my dad went off and ran a car company. It’s an amazing land, of course, people coming from all over the world seeking opportunity.”

The sentiment alone is such a naked pander that even an eloquent unspooling of it would have done little to mask it, but when you’re pandering to a group, you don’t just come out and say you’re doing that. What if Newt Gingrich said “I wish I could claim to be a woman, because I am getting killed in the gyno-American vote!”

RELATED: Brain Bleach Alert: Viral Attack Video Shows Newt Gingrich As ‘Kim Kardashian Of The GOP’

Gov. Romney has a habit of this kind of Murphy’s Law-guided honesty, from his explanation that he fired undocumented landscapers because “I’m running for office, for Pete’s sake!” to his revealingly casual $10,000 proposition to Rick Perry at another debate, to his recent interview with conservative radio host Laura Ingraham. In that Obama Campaign ad-ready chat, Romney told Ingraham that “Of course (the economy is) getting better,” and when asked if “Obama is making the economy better, but vote for me” is a tough argument, Romney responded “Do you have a better one, Laura? It just happens to be the truth.”

While Gov. Romney’s honesty might not be all that refreshing to Republican primary voters, it’s like a York Peppermint Patty to the President’s reelection team.

Here’s the video, from Fox News:

RELATED: CNN Confirms They Asked Mitt Romney’s Campaign To Pull Anti-Rick Perry Ad

O’Brien’s main problem seemed to be that so many debates have squeezed all of the substance out of the race, leaving only a handful of soundbyte moments to show for them. “At some point it feels like the conversation is all about these high drama moments and people can say what — it’s about managing the impact of the moment of the debate…”

“I think what the debates have shown us, we have gotten to see these candidates consistently and in different lights,” Martin said. “Think about it…if we didn’t have 19 debates, trust me, Rick Perry would still be in this race, still be high in the polls. It was all based on what was happening on paper. The debates have exposed people for what they are.”

Conservative CNN analyst Will Cain agreed. “The more sunlight you shine on this process, the better,” he said.

Soledad O’Brien has a point, but it applies to the broader political media, as well. Since the 2008 election, interest in political media has been at gold rush levels, and the need to feed that eternal (yet microscopic) news cycle has led to an emphasis on superficial drama over substance.

The tradeoff is that many more people are engaged in politics, particularly with these hella entertaining debates. That’s a fair trade, if you ask me, because there are still plenty of places for wonks to get a fix, and plenty of opportunities for a smart commentator to slip some nutrition into the media junk food diet.

I agree with Martin and Cain, the debates have provided a valuable public service to voters, acting as a crucible for Perry and Michele Bachmann, whose campaign demise can be traced to her HPV vaccine debate crazy talk. They have also proven problematic for sometime frontrunner Mitt Romney.

More than that, though, the proliferation of debates has served to ameliorate, to some degree, the influence of money on this race. The merits of voters’ judgments are debatable, but strong debate performances by Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum have helped them succeed far beyond what their respective war chests might indicate (especially Santorum).

Martin also made the point that the media types clucking at the quality of these debates bear much of the blame. “It’s on the people who are sponsoring these debates to ask the real questions,” he said. “You should have questions tonight about foreclosures. You should have questions tonight about real foreign policy. It’s on us. We can’t play the game and say it’s somebody else.”

Roland should be careful what he wishes for, though. If turning down the sizzle means turning off a significant portion of the debate audience, I’m not sure that’s a worthwhile trade. Getting people to turn off Dancing With The Stars and turn on a presidential debate is a win, in my book.

Here’s the clip, from CNN:

Here’s the clip:

Now, on its own merits, this video could be seen as an attempt to make the world view the Chinese military as a bunch of unhinged super-badasses, but for me, the real takeaway is that Chinese grenade technology appears to have just now caught up with Dick Dastardly. As Atlanticwire points out, the details of this video haven’t really been authenticated, either. For all we know, they could be passing around an Applebee’s Fajita Skillet, and ducking a remotely-triggered explosion.

Still, it’s good, clean fun, and it does serve as a handy metaphor for the 2012 presidential race. The soldiers are, of course, the candidates in the GOP field, and the grenade is their party’s nomination. While they’ve all had a chance to hold it for a second (except Jon Huntsman), one of them will eventually be thrown into the pit of the general election, and President Obama’s billion dollar incumbent campaign machine. Ka-boom!

I know that seems like wishful gloating from a liberal (and the President’s reelection is far from certain), but most conservatives would concede that this is a weak field of candidates. The reason for that is that so many better-qualified candidates (Mitch Daniels, Chris Christie, Jeb Bush) decided to wait this one out, rather than face the prospect of unseating a popular (at least personally) incumbent with a war chest the size of Fort Knox.

In fact, if I had the $10,000, I would bet it with Mitt Romney that Gov. Chris Christie doesn’t end up his VP nominee. That’ll be the surest sign nobody thinks he can beat President Obama, because a Vice President Christie would be well teed-up for a 2020 run, but a 2012 loss will be a liability in 2016.

RELATED: Chris Christie Says Mitt Romney Should Release Tax Returns Now

Moderator John King started out by noting that former Speaker Newt Gingrich posted his 2010 tax return during the debate, and Rep. Ron Paul joked that he was too embarrassed by his lowly income to release his.

“Governor romney, when will we see yours?” King asked.

Romney launched into a long, hemming and hawing response that ended up where Romney already was: releasing his tax returns in April. “When my taxes are complete for this year,” Romney replied. And i know if i’m the nominee, the President’s going to want to insist that I show what my income was this last year and so forth. when they’re completed this year in April, I’ll release my returns in April, and probably for other years as well.”

Although Romney blamed his reluctance on President Obama, King pointed out that the question had been raised by “ some of your rivals up here. Governor Perry made that point as well before he left the race. Why not show the people of South Carolina, before this election, see last year’s return?”

Romney’s answer was reminiscent of his “I’m running for office, for Pete’s sake.”

“Because I want to make sure that I beat President Obama,” Romney replied, adding “Every time we release things drip by drip, the Democrats go out with another array of abeing attacks. I’ll put these out at one time so we have one discussion of all of this. I obviously pay all full taxes. I’m honest in my dealings with people. People understand that. My taxes are carefully managed. I pay a lot of taxes. I’ve been very successful.” ”

At this point, some jeering could be heard, as Romney concluded, “When I have our taxes ready for this year, I’ll release them.”

After moving on to Rick Santorum (whose taxes are on his computer at home), King came back to Romney to ask him if he would follow his father’s example, and release 12 years worth of returns.

“Maybe.” Romney said, with an uncomfortable laugh. “I don’t know how many years I’ll release. I’ll take a look at what our documents are.”

His response was met with loud jeers from the crowd. Romney is wrong on this. His old tax returns will continue to be a death of a thousand cuts, and he ought to take Chris Christie’s advice, and put them out now.

Here’s the clip, from CNN:

RELATED: Mitt Romney Cops To Tax Rate ‘Closer To 15%’ And ‘Not Very Much’ From Speaking Fees

According to ABC News’ Brian Ross, Romney holds up to $8 million in investments in the Cayman Islands, and while Romney’s campaign says he derived no tax advantage from those investments (likely a true statement, since Romney’s tax returns will tell the tale soon enough), the funds he invests in help other investors avoid paying US taxes:

Romney campaign officials and those at Bain Capital tell ABC News that the purpose of setting up those accounts in the Cayman Islands is to help attract money from foreign investors, and that the accounts provide no tax advantage to American investors like Romney. Romney, the campaign said, has paid all U.S. taxes on income derived from those investments.

“The tax consequences to the Romneys are the very same whether the fund is domiciled here or another country,” a campaign official said in response to questions. “Gov. and Mrs. Romney have money invested in funds that the trustee has determined to be attractive investment opportunities, and those funds are domiciled wherever the fund sponsors happen to organize the funds.”

…Tax experts agree that Romney remains subject to American taxes. But they say the offshore accounts have provided him — and Bain — with other potential financial benefits, such as higher management fees and greater foreign interest, all at the expense of the U.S. Treasury. Rebecca J. Wilkins, a tax policy expert with Citizens for Tax Justice, said the federal government loses an estimated $100 billion a year because of tax havens.

This revelation plays right into the anti-Romney narrative that he’s an out-of-touch zillionaire who cares less about American jobs than he does about adding to his own wealth, and unless this is just the tip of some much larger iceberg, he would be well-served to get those tax returns out now. The trickling out of stories like this will be the death of a thousand cuts for Romney’s candidacy.

RELATED: Chris Christie Says Mitt Romney Should Release Tax Returns Now

The Cayman story is just part of a wave of terrible news for the Romney campaign today. The announcement that Romney actually lost the Iowa Caucuses is probably too late to help Rick Santorum all that much, but it drastically undercuts Romney’s electability/inevitability argument. Rick Perry‘s exit from the race, and anticipated endorsement of Newt Gingrich, is also a major blow to Romney’s lead in South Carolina.

The only hopeful sign for Romney is the promise of that bombshell Marianne Gingrich interview, which could damage Romney’s chief rival going into the primary. You can bet his campaign will be tuned in, fingers crossed.

Here’s Nightline’s report on Romney’s Cayman investments, from ABC:

The ad also features a typewriter noise, which, as weird as it is, lends Huckabee’s brief defense of Romney some extra gravity. ““It’s surprising to see these attacks coming from fellow Republicans,” Huckabee says, as the typewriter taps out the words onscreen, which may or may not be a dig at Bain acquisition Ampad.

In case the typewriter noises weren’t enough, the spot concludes with the serious-voiced narrator repeating Huckabee’s declaration for emphasis: “You’d Expect Obama To Attack Free Enterprise – But Not Fellow Republicans.”

Here’s the web ad, entitled “Huckabee”:

Aside from the silliness of Huckabee’s well-worn premise (criticizing Bain isn’t “attacking free enterprise” any more than criticizing the Hindenburg is an attack on air travel), the amusing thing about this spot is that in 2008, Mitt Romney attacked Mike Huckabee with a relish that earned him loud complaints from the candidate, and harsh criticism from the political media. In December, anti-Romney superPACs American Bridge and Priorities USA released a web ad heavily featuring Huckabee’s complaints that “Mitt Romney is running a very desperate and, frankly, a dishonest campaign,” and “the attacks by the Romney campaign have gotten really kind of out of bounds for good politics, particularly within the Republican Party, totally violating Reagan’s 11th commandment.”

Using Huckabee to defend himself against attack ads, then, seems a little bit cruel, like making the guy you just fired carry your briefcase to the car for you.

Here’s the American Bridge spot from December:

“Remarks as prepared for delivery” are typically made available to reporters shortly before political speeches, and are often used in place of transcripts in early reporting, precisely because the speakers normally deviate very little from them. When there is a significant deviation, it can be enlightening.

In the case of Mitt Romney’s victory speech, the candidate hewed closely to the prepared remarks, adding some repetitive phrases for emphasis and a little bit of color about his family at the top of the speech, but aside from these, his only deviation was to change one line. Instead of saying that President Obama “wants to turn America into a European-style entitlement society,” he said “He wants to turn America into a European-style social welfare state.”

Here’s a clip of that portion of the speech, followed by the same passage from the prepared remarks released by the campaign:

This election is a choice between two very different destinies.

President Obama wants to “fundamentally transform” America. We want to restore America to the founding principles that made this country great.

He wants to turn America into a European-style entitlement society. We want to ensure that we remain a free and prosperous land of opportunity.

This President takes his inspiration from the capitals of Europe; we look to the cities and small towns of America.

It’s a small but significant change. It means that at the very last minute, someone (either Romney or an adviser) decided to insert that specific phrase into the speech, in hopes of gaining some kind of advantage. There are two distinct possibilities here, and they’re not mutually exclusive.

The first is that this was a Frank Luntz-style language rebranding, that Romney or an adviser felt that “entitlement society” might be a more popular phrase than they thought.

The other is that “welfare state,” while passing the Luntz test, also evokes the same sort of class-baiting “welfare queen” rhetoric that has recently begun to rear its ugly head again in remarks by Newt Gingrich about black people and food stamps, and janitorial servitude for poor urban children. In his speech, he accused the President of engaging in the “politics of envy,” but this conscious pivot arguably demonstrates a reliance on the tried and true politics of race- and class-based resentment.

Here’s a link to Romney’s full speech, as delivered, so you can compare it to the prepared remarks below:(via email from the Romney Press Shop)

Thank you, New Hampshire! Tonight, we made history!

This state has always been a special place for our family. Ann and I made a home here and we’ve filled it with great memories of our children and grandchildren. And this Granite State moment is one we will always remember.

Tonight, we celebrate. Tomorrow, we go back to work.

We remember when Barack Obama came to New Hampshire four years ago.

He promised to bring people together.

He promised to change the broken system in Washington.

He promised to improve our nation.

Those were the days of lofty promises made by a hopeful candidate. Today, we are faced with the disappointing record of a failed President. The last three years have held a lot of change, but they haven’t offered much hope.

The middle class has been crushed. Nearly 24 million of our fellow Americans are still out of work, struggling to find work, or have just stopped looking. The median income has dropped 10% in four years. Soldiers returning from the front lines are waiting in unemployment lines. Our debt is too high and our opportunities too few.

And this President wakes up every morning, looks out across America and is proud to announce, “It could be worse.”

It could be worse? Is that what it means to be an American? It could be worse?

Of course not.

What defines us as Americans is our unwavering conviction that we know it must be better.

That conviction guides our campaign. It has rallied millions of Americans in every corner of this country to our cause.

Over the last six months, I’ve listened to anxious voices in town meetings and visited with students and soldiers. In break rooms and living rooms, I’ve heard stories of families getting by on less, of carefully planned retirements now replaced by jobs at minimum wage. But even now, amidst the worst economy since the Great Depression, I’ve rarely heard a refrain of hopelessness.

Americans know that our future is brighter and better than these troubled times. We still believe in the hope, the promise, and the dream of America. We still believe in that shining city on a hill.

We know that the future of this country is better than 8 or 9% unemployment.

It is better than $15 trillion in debt.

It is better than the misguided policies and broken promises of the last three years – and the failed leadership of one man.

The President has run out of ideas. Now, he’s running out of excuses. And tonight, we are asking the good people of South Carolina to join the citizens of New Hampshire and make 2012 the year he runs out of time.

President Obama wants to put free enterprise on trial. In the last few days, we have seen some desperate Republicans join forces with him. This is such a mistake for our Party and for our nation. This country already has a leader who divides us with the bitter politics of envy. We must offer an alternative vision. I stand ready to lead us down a different path, where we are lifted up by our desire to succeed, not dragged down by a resentment of success. In these difficult times, we cannot abandon the core values that define us as unique — We are One Nation, Under God.

Make no mistake, in this campaign, I will offer the American ideals of economic freedom a clear and unapologetic defense.

Our campaign is about more than replacing a President; it is about saving the soul of America. This election is a choice between two very different destinies.

President Obama wants to “fundamentally transform” America. We want to restore America to the founding principles that made this country great.

He wants to turn America into a European-style entitlement society. We want to ensure that we remain a free and prosperous land of opportunity.

This President takes his inspiration from the capitals of Europe; we look to the cities and small towns of America.

This President puts his faith in government. We put our faith in the American people.

He is making the federal government bigger, burdensome, and bloated. I will make it simpler, smaller, and smarter.

He raised the national debt. I will cut, cap, and balance the budget.

He enacted job-killing regulations; I’ll eliminate them.

He lost our AAA credit rating; I’ll restore it.

He passed Obamacare; I’ll repeal it.

When it comes to the economy, my highest priority as President will be worrying about your job, not saving my own.

Internationally, President Obama has adopted an appeasement strategy. He believes America’s role as leader in the world is a thing of the past. I believe a strong America must – and will – lead the future.

He doesn’t see the need for overwhelming American military superiority. I will insist on a military so powerful no one would think of challenging it.

He chastises friends like Israel; I’ll stand with our friends.

He apologizes for America; I will never apologize for the greatest nation in the history of the Earth.

Our plans protect freedom and opportunity, and our blueprint is the Constitution of the United States.

The path I lay out is not one paved with ever increasing government checks and cradle-to-grave assurances that government will always be the solution. If this election is a bidding war for who can promise more benefits, then I’m not your President. You have that President today.

But if you want to make this election about restoring American greatness, then I hope you will join us.

If you believe the disappointments of the last few years are a detour, not our destiny, then I am asking for your vote.

I’m asking each of you to remember how special it is to be an American.

I want you to remember what it was like to be hopeful and excited about the future, not to dread each new headline.

I want you to remember when you spent more time dreaming about where to send your kids to college than wondering how to make it to the next paycheck.

I want you to remember when you weren’t afraid to look at your retirement savings or the price at the pump.

I want you to remember when our White House reflected the best of who we are, not the worst of what Europe has become.

That America is still out there. We still believe in that America.

We still believe in the America that is a land of opportunity and a beacon of freedom. We believe in the America that challenges each of us to be better and bigger than ourselves.

This election, let’s fight for the America we love. We believe in America.

Thank you. God bless you. And God bless the United States of America.

Romey’s take will solidify his case that he’s the best candidate to take on President Obama, and also figures to attract even more donors. It’s like in high school, where people often end up partying, not with the coolest kid, but with the kid whose parents have the biggest liquor cabinet.

Rick Perry’s campaign hasn’t released their Q4 figures yet, but it’s a safe bet he won’t get anywhere near Romney’s total, or even fellow Texan Rep. Ron Paul, who turned in an impressive $13 million take. According to former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, his campaign is expected to report fourth quarter donations of “almost $10 million.”

The Obama campaign, meanwhile, is likely to continue its fundraising dominance, which has so far outpaced all  of the Republican challengers’ totals combined. Before you go all David and Goliath, though, keep in mind that the President won’t just be up against the eventual Republican nominee’s campaign, but will be deluged by the kind of negative ad SuperPAC dollars that took such a heavy toll on Newt Gingrich.

Behind Romney’s numbers, though, there’s reason for concern. Romney’s campaign also reported $19 million cash on hand, which means they’ve spent about $37 million so far. For that price, Mitt Romney eked out an eight-vote margin in Iowa over Rick Santorum, who spent about $20 per vote to Romney’s $160 or so. He also won New Hampshire convincingly, but in a state where he maintains a residence, and whose neighbor Romney was Governor of, challengers Ron Paul and Jon Huntsman surged to strong finishes. If he manages to fend off a surging Rick Santorum in South Carolina, Romney could put the whole thing away, but a close finish by Santorum, and a sustained offensive by Ron Paul, could still make this a long primary for Romney.

Here’s the full text of the Romney campaign’s announcement:(via email)

ROMNEY RAISES $24 MILLION IN THE FOURTH QUARTER

$56 Million Total Raised In 2011, $19 Million Cash On Hand

Boston, MA – Today, Romney for President announced it has raised more than $56 million so far in the primary. The campaign will report raising $24 million for the fourth quarter. This total represents only primary contributions as the campaign did not raise general election funds. The campaign has over $19 million cash on hand. Mitt Romney did not make a personal loan or contribution.

Romney for President National Finance Chairman Spencer Zwick said, “Mitt Romney’s growing financial support is representative of the growing momentum for our campaign. In order to defeat President Obama in November, we will need this continued strong showing of support. Mitt Romney, the campaign, and his supporters will continue the hard work of reaching out to supporters and spreading Mitt Romney’s pro-growth message to get our country on the right track again.”

FAST FACTS About Romney For President’s Fourth Quarter Fundraising:

· Total Amount Raised In Primary Contributions For The Year: $56 Million

· Amount Raised In Primary Contributions In The Fourth Quarter: $24 Million

· Amount Raised In Primary Contributions In The Third Quarter: $14 Million

· Amount Raised In Primary Contributions In The Second Quarter: $18 Million
· Cash On Hand: $19 Million

· Contributions Received From All 50 States And Washington, D.C.

· No General Election Money Collected

· Mitt Romney Did Not Make A Personal Loan Or Contribution

The remark has drawn fire from many, but an oppo memo from Priorities USA Action‘s Bill Burton really brings the absurdity of Mitt’s alleged anxiety into stark relief.

Romney has stumbled repeatedly in his attempts to relate to the 99%, joking once that he’s “unemployed,” and flogging his penchant for Subway sammies and coach air travel. On Sunday, he told the crowd that he understands life on the economic edge:

The New York Times pressed Romney for examples of when he almost got the ax, and he couldn’t provide any. Here’s what Romney told The Times‘ Caucus blog:

“I think people imagine that I came in at the top of Bain & Company, the consulting firm, or the Boston Consulting Group — I started at the bottom,” Mr. Romney said. “I came out of school and I got an entry level position like the other people that were freshly-minted M.B.A.s, and like anybody that starts at the bottom of an enterprise, you wonder, when you don’t do so well, whether you’re going to be able to hang onto your job and you wonder if the enterprise gets in trouble, you know, will you be one of those that’s laid off. That’s what’s happening around the country to a lot of people today, and it breaks your heart to see people lose their jobs. Like everybody else, everybody in the private sector knows that there’s some prospect that you might lose your job.”

Former Obama spokesman Bill Burton, though, points out that Romney has actually enjoyed a kind of security that most of us will never know:

Unlike small business owners who take great risk to put themselves on the line, Mitt Romney was guaranteed millions of dollars no matter the outcome of his Wall Street buyout enterprise.  Romney’s absurd rhetoric is inconsistent with the facts surrounding his own situation and insensitive to the thousands of American who lost their jobs so Romney could extract millions for himself.

Burton’s statement is supported by an oppo memo that details how Romney was guaranteed his old job back should he fail as head of Bain, and how Romney even asked Bill Bain to come up with a cover story if that happened.

Here’s the full memo from Priorities USA:

Gingrich: Hard for Free Enterprisers to Justify Romney’s Looting. At a press conference this weekend Gingrich said, “Those of us who believe in free markets and those of us who believe that, in fact, the whole goals of investment is entrepreneurship and job creation, would find it pretty hard to justify rich people figuring out clever, legal ways to loot out a company.” [Bloomberg News, 1/9/12]

Romney Claimed He Often Worried About Being Fired. “I know what it’s like to worry whether you’re gonna get fired,” Romney told a rally. “There were a couple of times I wondered whether I was going to get a pink slip.” He didn’t offer specifics. [Boston Globe, 1/8/12]

Romney Was Guaranteed Old Job With Raises If He Failed at Bain and Co. According to the Boston Globe, when Romney was offered the job as head of Bain and Co., he hesitated because of the professional risk. According to the Globe, “Romney explained that he didn’t want to risk his position, earnings, and reputation on an experiment in investing. The offer was appealing, Romney recalled in a recent interview, but he wasn’t going to make such a decision in a “light or flippant manner.” So Bain sweetened the offer. He guaranteed that if the experiment failed, Romney would get his old job and salary back, plus any raises handed out during his absence.”” [Boston Globe, 6/26/07]

Bain Agreed to Create False Cover Story for Romney if He Failed. According to the Boston Globe, “Romney had one more concern: the impact on his reputation should he prove unable to do the job. In the end, Bain agreed to craft a cover story if necessary, promising to bring Romney back to the consulting firm and explain Romney’s return as a matter of his being more valuable to Bain as a consultant. “So,” Bain says, “there was no professional or financial risk.”” [Boston Globe, 6/26/07]

Bachmann opened her press conference with some of her trademark historical perspective, telling reporters that the Pilgrams had been involved in “watch(ing) over our Republic,” then referenced her work in not defeating Obamacare, which she described as a threat to the survival of the Republic. Bachmann said that people all over America agreed with her that President Obama’s “socialist policies” must be stopped (one of four mentions of “socialism” in her speech, and 14 references to “Obama” or “Obamacare”), a statement that was somewhat contradicted by her next announcement.

“Last night, the people of Iowa spoke with a very clear voice,” Bachmann said, “so I have decided to stand aside.”

Bachmann also urged supporters to “rally around” the eventual GOP nominee.

Bachmann’s exit from the race is emblemmatic of the whiplash-inducing nature of this year’s Republican presidential primary race. Bachmann received just 5% of the Iowa Caucus vote, after she won the Ames Iowa Straw Poll in August with 28%.

While Perry and Bachmann only account for around 13% of the vote in national polls, their exit from the race boosts Santorum’s chances to actually win the nomination, which could help him wick some votes away from Newt Gingrich, who was previously seen as the most viable anti-Romney candidate. It’s probably too late for Santorum to win in New Hampshire, but a strong surge there could attract votes for him in South Carolina and Florida, and attract much-needed campaign cash.

Here’s the video of Bachmann’s announcement via Fox News:

The exchange was heated, but brief, as co-anchor Rachel Maddow comically saved the day with the cheery declatarion, “Look! It’s Rick Perry!”

Rev. Al Sharpton began by observing that, rather than heading into New Hampshire with a focus on President Obama, Mitt Romney now “has got to run against Santorum, and the longer that narrative plays, the better it is for the President.”

Sizing up the danger that Santorum presents to Romney, Schultz said “I’ve seen him on the stump. He does talk about manufacturing. He talks about repatriating money coming back into the United States. Zero percent when it comes to corporate tax. I mean, he does have a manufacturing plan, which is going to play well in New Hampshire.”

“That is not a manufacturing plan,” O’Donnell cut in. “That is a big corporate tax break that produces absolutely…”

“That is his pitch, Lawrence,” Schultz replied. “I’ve seen it. I was there.”

After a few more seconds of heated back-and-forth, just when it started to get good, The Rachel Maddow Show‘s Rachel Maddow cut through the tension by cheerily exclaiming, “Look! It’s Rick Perry!”

The segment resembled nothing so much as a heated Thanksgiving dinner that ends with mom piping up “Who wants pie?!?”

To many liberals, it may seem as if Schultz is getting carried away with Rick Santorum, whom he has compared favorably with President Obama, and whose retail politicking earned raves from Schultz last week. Santorum is so despised by liberals that they tend to dismiss him, as Maddow does, but if you’re going to cover a Republican primary, you can’t think like a liberal. The things that make Santorum repugnant to liberals are the very keys to his success in GOP primaries, particularly Iowa.

Schultz’s point, I believe, wasn’t about the merits of Santorum’s plan, but about the appeal of manufacturing rhetoric, while O’Donnell was having a different conversation entirely. The plan calls for tax-free repatriation of profits, as long as the funds are used to purchase manufacturing equipment. Santorum says this will spur manufacturing, but critics say it’s just a giveaway to corporations that will be used for purchases they were going to make anyway.

Ed’s assessment of Santorum’s retail skills is dead-on, and he’s right about how Santorum’s plan will play with voters, but it is also necessary to go over the substance of the issue. I’d have been interested to see if Schultz would have done that, had O’Donnell given him the chance. It’s also worth considering whether O’Donnell jumped all over Schultz out of anti-Santorum zeal, or because of some sour-grapey unresolved resentment over Schultz’s takeover of O’Donnell’s 8pm time slot. Maybe it was a bit of each.

Here’s the clip, from MSNBC:

Maybe this is a precursor to his new health care plan, in which he simply considers anyone who has gotten sick to still be healthy.

Here’s what Romney said:

“Well, I want to make sure we have a safety net to care for those that are poor, but I want to get those who are poor into the middle class.

“My ambition is to make sure that we start creating jobs again in this country and that we have rising median incomes, as opposed to the 10% decline we’ve seen in the last four years.

“To get people back into work, get higher incomes, and let people have a middle-income life standard they had in the past. That’s the whole effort that I’m involved in.

“Somebody who’s fallen from the middle class to poverty, in my opinion is still middle class.”

Washington Monthly‘s Steve Benen is similarly confused by Romney’s declaration:

Putting aside the fact that it’s fundamentally dishonest to blame President Obama for falling median wages during the Bush era, I’m just not sure what Romney means when he defines “middle class.” As he sees it, even if someone falls into poverty, he or she is still middle class? In what universe does that make sense?

In the one reflected in Newt Gingrich‘s space mirror?

Seriously, though, I think Gingrich might actually hold the key to Romney’s seemingly random bit of nonsense. Romney, in my view, is trying to draw a bright line between good, hard-working people who are down on their luck, and the lazy, criminal poors who have only themselves to blame. In this economy, it’s hard to demonize the poor when so much of your base is sliding into poverty, so this bit of non-logic seems designed to allow that.

Here’s the clip, from MSNBC’s Morning Joe:

RELATED: Rick Santorum Accuses Bill O’Reilly Of Refusing To Interview Him Because He ‘Wasn’t Worthy’

O’Reilly had two candidates at the fore of his “Talking Points Memo” segment today, the first, of course, Santorum. He noted the comments Santorum had made and did not directly attack him for them, explaining that “we tend to avoid campaign segments unless there’s a media controversy” and that Santorum had been polling abysmally for most of the race. But now that he was a serious contender for the Iowa caucus victory, “we have invited Rick Santorum to appear on Wednesday.” O’Reilly also added that “we did do an extensive interview with him on the radio in November.”

O’Reilly then turned to the other potential victory in Iowa tomorrow, Rep. Ron Paul, and threw some water on the hot claims that Rep. Paul could take the nomination, not the least because Rep. Paul, in O’Reilly’s eyes, was a Congressional failure. “He has spent 23 years in Congress and only one of his proposed bills have been signed into law,” O’Reilly argued, adding that “Mr. Paul has sponsored 620 pieces of legislation.” While he did not blame Rep. Paul supporters for their opinion of the government, he did not think the candidate would be “nominated by the Republican Party simply because President Obama would beat Mr. Paul by a colossal margin– hello, Barry Goldwater.”

The segment via Fox News below:

According to reports, Santorum said ”I don’t want to make black people’s lives better by giving them somebody else’s money. I want to give them the opportunity to go out and earn the money and provide for themselves and their families.”

The comment was first reported by NPR’s Ted Robbins, who added, “Santorum did not elaborate on why he singled out blacks who rely on federal assistance. The voters here didn’t seem to care.”

We tracked down a clip of Santorum’s comment, from Wichita, KS CBS affiliate KWCH, in which the anchor appears to be reading at least some copy from the NPR report, but the clip doesn’t include the question that prompted Santorum’s response. We reached out to the Santorum campaign for a transcript of the event, but they have not responded as yet. The anchor reports the comment as one that “some say is racist,” and in this clip, it sounds like he’s just invoking the plight of black people out of thin air, which, to a crowd of voters in “too white” Iowa, would smack of the “welfare queen” race-baiting outgrowth of the Republican Southern Strategy. Here’s that clip, from Kansas CBS affiliate KWCH:

A review of a clearer version of the video, however, casts serious doubt on whether Santorum actually said “black people’s lives.”

CBS News has posted a cleaner version of Santorum’s remarks, and it seems as though Santorum did not actually say “black people’s lives,” but rather, that he stumbled in mid-sentence with a verbal tic that sounded like that.

“I don’t want to make…mmbligh…people’s lives better” is what it sounds like to me, although CBS News also transcribes it as “”make black people’s lives better by giving them somebody else’s money.”

Given the preceding context, in which he talks about the government trying to get more Iowans enrolled in Medicaid, the former explanation makes much more sense than the latter.

The Santorum campaign has still not returned our request for comment.

Here’s the CBS clip. The viewer can judge, but even as an LGBT-friendly liberal, I’m inclined to give Santorum the benefit of the doubt here:

Hayes points out that Gingrich enabled the same kind of “voter fraud,” or, as it’s called when white people do it, “a mistake.”

On Wednesday, Gingrich said that the reason he didn’t qualify for the Virginia ballot was that 1,500 of the 11,100 signatures his campaign turned in were fraudulent, leaving him short of the 10,000 needed.

As Hayes points out, Gingrich was a vocal critic of the now-defunct Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now (ACORN), whom he (falsely) accused the group of “adding such notables as Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck to the voter rolls,” and even compared with Hamas (I’m not kidding).

Now, Gingrich blithely admits to engaging in nearly identical behavior, paying people to obtain signatures, and turning in a large number of fraudulent ones.

While Hayes is to be congratulated for calling Gingrich out, it’s important to note that Gingrich’s behavior was arguably worse than what ACORN was accused of. First of all, the “voter fraud” that ACORN was accused of didn’t actually result in Mickey Mouse or Donald Duck being “added to the voter rolls.”

In fact, ACORN was required, by law, to submit each and every voter registration that they gathered, no matter what, but unlike Gingrich, ACORN reviewed and flagged tens of thousands of dodgy applications to make it easier for registrars to weed out the likes of Mickey and Donald. Although it’s a popular talking point, this type of “fraud” doesn’t result in any fraudulent votes being cast.

Another distinguishing feature between ACORN and Gingrich is that, flagged applications notwithstanding, ACORN had a much better ratio of valid registrations to fraudulent ones than Gingrich. 13% of Gingrich’s signatures were bogus, while ACORN’s error rate was around 1.5%, according to Project Vote. Most of the ACORN applications that were rejected were duplicates, not fraudulent ones.

The biggest difference, though, is that ACORN was registering voters in heavily minority communities, registering the kinds of people that Newt Gingrich wants to fire and replace with poor little inner-city nine year-olds. Registering those people is a heinous crime. Fraudulently getting Newt Gingrich on the Virginia primary ballot, apparently, is just a “mistake.”

I can live with the latter assessment. It’s electing Gingrich that would be a crime.

Here’s the clip, from The Rachel Maddow Show:

For more on this, see The Brad Blog‘s Brad Friedman, who also notes that Gingrich was worse than ACORN. Get your pimp suit on, James O’Keefe, we’ve got a job for you!

Sen. Santorum has come on strong in Iowa polls this week, and in a volatile Republican field, is well within striking distance of the lead. His surge is particularly well-timed, with scant days to go before the Iowa caucuses, and lots of social conservative support up for grabs. It’s that harshly-expressed social conservatism, though, that makes Santorum a primo bogeyman to the left, which is what made Schultz’s interview with, and assessment of, Santorum so impressive.

Conservatives could be forgiven an eyeroll when Schultz told his audience, “You know my political persuasion, but I bring this story to you tonight completely objective from Iowa,” but his assessment of Santorum was dead-on. “On the stump, Rick Santorum is impressive,” Schultz said. “He is well versed, schooled up, and very strong in his conviction.”

Schultz even went so far as to say, of Santorum, that “there are few on the stump who do a better job of retail politics.”

He followed up his qualified praise of Santorum by conducting a good, fair interview with the candidate, and in his trademark nightly poll, asked viewers if they thought “the other Rick” could pull off an upset in Iowa (they didn’t, but Santorum fared better than most Ed Show poll answers).

Even more surprising, perhaps, is the fact that I agree 100% with Schultz. Although I would sooner vote for a roll of Bounty™, the things I dislike about Santorum should actually help him with conservatives, and he has several key advantages over his chief rivals for the powerful social conservative vote in Iowa. Unlike Rick Perry, Santorum has been an unsung success at this year’s GOP debates, often making sense when others don’t, and making the most of his limited screen time.

In their zeal to dismiss Santorum as a joke, many liberals miss his appeal as a conservative candidate. To people who don’t mind a gay-hostile, vehemently anti-choice candidate, Santorum possesses an essential likability that his rivals lack. I interviewed Santorum in February (where, again, he surprisingly agreed to be interviewed by a volcanically flaming liberal), and there were two things that struck me about him, that set him apart from the other candidates I’ve met. First of all, I was a little bit annoyed that I liked the guy, but more than that, I believed what he was telling me. Santorum doesn’t speak in canned talking points.

Santorum’s biggest obstacle is the fact that he has no shot to beat Barack Obama, but that’s not such a problem in Iowa. Given the seismic shifts this race has already seen, I wouldn’t count Santorum out.

Here’s the clip, from MSNBC’s The Ed Show:

However you feel about the Ron Paul newsletter controversy, this was a remarkable several minutes of television on a network that poses itself as the straight-shooting last bastion of straight news on cable. During the interview, Gingrich blasted Ron Paul over the decades-old newsletters, and Blitzer kinda just let him. He failed to correct Gingrich when he said Paul “still hasn’t disowned” the newsletters, and again when Gingrich said Paul “wrote in his newsletter that the world trade center bombing in 1993 might have been a CIA plot,” which Ron Paul denies.

More glaringly, Blitzer never asks Gingrich to explain the fact that just this morning, his own campaign denied that Gingrich had written a 2006 newsletter praising Romneycare. Blitzer obviously knew about that newsletter because he asked about it elsewhere in the interview, but he never called Gingrich on the denial.

Then, in a panel discussion following the clip, former Bush speechwriter David Frum and Democratic strategist Jonathan Prince tore into Ron Paul with varying degrees of glee. Frum launched a salvo of whoppers by saying that Paul wouldn’t get the nomination because “the Republican Party is a party of strong national defense. It is an antiracist party. A party of inclusion. It’s a party that does stand for decent social safety net…”

Let’s forget, for a moment, Newt Gingrich’s own history of race-baiting (not an isolated case in Gingrich’s party), or the GOP’s (and Gingrich’s) funny ideas about inclusion, or their attempts to destroy social safety nets like Medicare and Social Security. Throughout this, and Prince’s more focused accusation that Ron Paul “was racist by design,” with “malice and knowledge aforethought,” Blitzer never steps in to say something like, “In fairness to Ron Paul, he denies writing those newsletters, and has been apologizing for them for years.”

You might not expect that kind of refereeing on a more opinion-oriented show like some of MSNBC’s or Fox News’ primetime shows, but given the heft of these attacks, Blitzer seemed remiss. That impression is only magnified by his characterization of Gingrich’s attacks. “It took guts, I think you’ll agree,” Blitzer told his panelists, “for Newt Gingrich to come out as strongly and as adamantly against Ron Paul as he just did.”

I don’t know the truth about the newsletter controversy. Ron Paul has consistently expressed regret over what he says was a mistake, and in the years I’ve been covering him, nothing I’ve seen or heard from him would lead me to believe that the ideas in those newsletters reflect his beliefs. Having said that, part of making up for a regrettable mistake is facing the music for as long as it plays. If people still have questions about it, Paul owes them answers, just as surely as he is owed the chance to give those answers. It is a fair issue to discuss, but it isn’t fair to discuss it without noting Paul’s longstanding defense.

Here’s the clip, from CNN’s The Situation Room:

The Gingrich campaign, in addition to claiming that Newt Notes weren’t written by (their) Newt (hmmm, sounds familiar), defended the newsletter’s praise of Romneycare by pointing out that it was also critical of the measure, but that criticism was really not about the mandate. Their biggest problem with it was that it prevented insurers from profiting off of poorer customers by selling them junk insurance that doesn’t cover anything, but satisfies the mandate requirement.

What’s really embarrassing about this, though, is the fact that the Newt Note contains a quote that’s nearly identical to one that the Gingrich campaign tries to hang Mitt Romney with in an oppo memo that was just released last night. “Everybody in our state has to have health insurance. We`re not going to have free riders…And that’s a model which I think has some merit more generally,” the memo quotes Romney, from a June 2006 interview with PBS. Now, it looks like Romney may have, in fact, been quoting Gingrich (or some other Newt). Here’s the portion of the newsletter that relates to Romneycare:(emphasis mine)

Newt Notes

The most exciting development of the past few weeks is what has been happening up in Massachusetts. The health bill that Governor Romney signed into law this month has tremendous potential to effect major change in the American health system.

We agree entirely with Governor Romney and Massachusetts legislators that our goal should be 100% insurance coverage for all Americans. Individuals without coverage often do not receive quality medical attention on par with those who do have insurance. We also believe strongly that personal responsibility is vital to creating a 21st Century Intelligent Health System. Individuals who can afford to purchase health insurance and simply choose not to place an unnecessary burden on a system that is on the verge of collapse; these free-riders undermine the entire health system by placing the onus of responsibility on taxpayers.

The Romney plan attempts to bring everyone into the system. The individual mandate requires those who earn enough to afford insurance to purchase coverage, and subsidies will be made available to those individuals who cannot afford insurance on their own. We agree strongly with this principle, but the details are crucial when it comes to the structure of this plan. Under the new bill, Massachusetts residents earning more than 300% of the federal poverty level (approximately $30,000 for an individual) will not be eligible for any subsidies. State House officials had originally promised that there would be new plans available at about $200 a month, but industry experts are now predicting that the cheapest plan will likely cost at least $325 a month. This estimate totals about $4000 per year, or about 1/5 of a $30,000 annual take-home income.

While in theory the plan should be affordable if the whole state contributes to the cost, the reality is that Massachusetts has an exhaustive list of health coverage regulations prohibiting insurers from offering more basic, pared-down policies with higher deductibles. (This is yet another reminder that America must establish a cross-state insurance market that gives individuals the freedom to shop for insurance plans in states other than their own.)

In our estimation, Massachusetts residents earning little more than $30,000 a year are in jeopardy of being priced out of the system. In the event that this occurs, Governor Romney will be in grave danger of repeating the mistakes of his predecessor, Mike Dukakis, whose 1988 health plan was hailed as a save-all but eventually collapsed when poorly-devised payment structures created a malaise of unfulfilled promises. We propose that a more realistic approach might be to limit the mandate to those individuals earning upwards of $54,000 per year.

While the Commonwealth’s plan will naturally endure tremendous scrutiny from those who assert that the law will not work as intended, Massachusetts leaders are to be commended for this bipartisan proposal to tackle the enormous challenge of finding real solutions for creating a sustainable health system. I hope that Massachusetts’ initiative to provide affordable, quality health insurance for all continues to ignite even more debate around the subject of how to best address our nation’s uninsured crisis and the critical problems within the health system at large.

Just to be clear: the problem Gingrich has with Romney’s plan is not the mandate, but rather, the cutoff for exemption from it, and even that objection stems only from the fact that state regulations prevent insurers from selling junk insurance to satisfy the mandate. The Gingrich campaign is spinning the newsletter as a critique of Romneycare, but that simply isn’t true; it’s a glowing endorsement, hampered only by the effectiveness of Massachusetts’ existing insurance regs.

Still, if voters are desperate for a candidate who truly, sincerely, deep-down opposes the individual mandate, there’s always this guy. I hear he’s running for president, too.

I put “attack” in scare-quotes because the memo barely qualifies as such. It’s simply a cobbling-together of various Mitt Romney quotes that portray him as a moderate who’s willing to compromise. The campaign’s statement strikes me as a rather fair, above-the-belt assessment of Romney. From Politico:

“Can we trust a Massachusetts Moderate to enact a conservative agenda?” says Gingrich communications director Joe DeSantis. “Our campaign might have plenty of things to say about that, but the best response certainly comes from Mitt Romney himself: ‘I think people recognize that I am not a partisan Republican. That I’m someone who is moderate, and that my views are progressive.’”

While the use of that 2002 “progressive” quote may seem unfair, it will be just that image that Romney will be pivoting back to should he win the GOP nod, and the rest of the quotes from the memo (heavily weighted to Romney’s 1994 US Senate campaign) reinforce the very narrative that the Romney campaign will deploy in a campaign to win the barely-interested (or so-called “independent”) voters who really decide elections. They’re obviously designed to hurt Romney with Republican base voters, but the worst of these, his prior statements about a woman’s right to choose, shouldn’t move the needle in any meaningful way. Romney has a fairly plausible explanation for his “evolution” on the subject. It is worth noting, though, that supposed intellectual Gingrich deployed an attack which contains a medical treatment that’s not only made-up, it’s also a scientific paradox:(emphasis mine)

Romney’s Chief Legal Counsel at the end of his term, Mark Nielsen, was on record as pro-abortion (as a candidate for Congress in 2000), and saw to it that Catholic Hospitals were forced to give “morning-after” abortion pills – clearly misinterpreting a new statute and ignoring constitutional religious freedom protections.

There are also a few quotes that reference Romney’s individual health care mandate, but those cut Gingrich at least as deeply, and they missed the best one (in which Romney explicitly endorses a national mandate).

What’s really telling, though, are the rest of the quotes that Team Gingrich pulls:

“We’ll plug corporate tax loopholes so companies will pay their fair share.”

(Source: http://www.stateline.org/live/details/speech?contentId=16175)

This is an odd choice, because it not only seems to appeal to independent voters, but even Tea Party conservatives, who pay lip service to closing loopholes while they “broaden the tax base” (translation: squeeze the poor).

“We first have to get a budget in balance before we may have substantial tax cuts.”

(Source: Harvard Crimson, October 21, 1994)

Again, while conservatives are supposed to have a knee-jerk positive reaction to tax cuts, the emphasis in this quote is on a balanced budget, which appeals to conservatives and independents.

Romney’s primary argument for the nomination is his “electability,” which rests on his appeal to “independents” who see, in Romney, a guy who agrees with them, at least on any given Sunday. To the less engaged voter, Romney the “moderate” probably represents a chance to break the gridlock that turns them off. That’s the problem: they pay enough attention to vote, but not enough attention to know that gridlock is better than letting a GOP congress run roughshod over a squishy GOP president, or giving them a zealot like Gingrich as an ally.

Conversely, Gingrich is hoping that the conservative base would rather nominate a guy who can’t win over a guy who might win, and whose moderate views won’t make a damn bit of difference with a Republican-controlled Congress.

RELATED: President Obama Calls Out Speaker Boehner For Blocking Payroll Tax Cut Extension

For weeks, President Obama has been calling Republicans out for their double-talk on tax cuts, and recent polls show it may be having an impact on his approval ratings. When Republicans wouldn’t agree to a one-year extension of the tax cut, the Senate reached a bipartisan deal that extended it for two months, preventing a tax hike, while allowing both sides time to negotiate a longer extension. On Tuesday, House Republicans rejected the deal, demanding a conference committee with the Senate to negotiate a yearlong extension.

President Obama called them out yesterday, telling reporters at a White House briefing that “the House Republicans say they don’t dispute the need for a payroll tax cut.  What they’re really trying to do, what they’re holding out for, is to wring concessions from Democrats on issues that have nothing to do with the payroll tax cut — issues where the parties fundamentally disagree.”

RELATED: Goldie Taylor ‘Sick And Damn Tired’ Of Republicans Failing To Extend Payroll Tax Cut

Now, the Wall Street Journal has weighed in, in an editorial entitled “The GOP’s Payroll Tax Fiasco,” that explains just how badly Republicans have blown the politics on this issue:

If Republicans didn’t want to extend the payroll tax cut on the merits, then they should have put together a strategy and the arguments for defeating it and explained why.

But if they knew they would eventually pass it, as most of them surely believed, then they had one of two choices. Either pass it quickly and at least take some political credit for it.

Or agree on a strategy to get something in return for passing it, which would mean focusing on a couple of popular policies that would put Mr. Obama and Democrats on the political spot. They finally did that last week by attaching a provision that requires Mr. Obama to make a decision on the Keystone XL pipeline within 60 days, and the President grumbled but has agreed to sign it.

But now Republicans are drowning out that victory in the sounds of their circular firing squad. Already four GOP Senators have rejected the House position, and the political rout will only get worse.

The prescription, says the WSJ, is for Republicans to “cut their losses and find a way to extend the payroll holiday quickly.”

There’s just one problem with that plan, and with WSJ‘s analysis: it assumes a modicum of good faith among the House Republicans who are revolting (or is that “House Republicans, who are revolting?”). Speaker Boehner and the sane members of the House realize that they have to pass the payroll tax cut extension, if only because nearly everyone agrees that failure to do so will harm the economy.

But for some Republicans, the prospect of a worsening economy during an election year may hold some appeal. For those who see the US economy as a pile of chips in a poker game, it’s a bet that voters will blame the President more than they blame Congress. Unfortunately, 160 million Americans are the ones who are “all in.”

“Just because I am no longer pursuing the position,” Cain said, “I have not abandoned the mission. And the mission is to defeat President Barack Obama.”

RELATED: Candy Cain: Herman Cain’s Christmas Video Will Give You A Toothache

Cain added that he hadn’t endorsed anyone in the GOP field yet because he cares about keeping the Conservatives and Republicans “inspired.”

“Are Republicans not inspired?” Banderas asked.

“They will get very uninspired very quick,” Cain said. “That’s why John McCain didn’t do very well in the last election.”

Cain also touched on the current gridlock in Congress, and pointed out the disconnect between D.C. and the rest of the American people.

Watch a clip of the interview below, courtesy of FoxNews.com:

RELATED: No ‘Aye’ Of Newt: Christine O’Donnell Endorses Mitt Romney

While the knee-jerk reaction to O’Donnell’s endorsement of Romney was mockery, I actually did think her nod might be a little bit helpful with social conservatives and Tea Partiers. Heck, maybe it was helping…until she opened her mouth.

After O’Donnell named consistency as a trait that she admired in Mitt Romney, American Morning’s Carol Costello challenged that premise. “Some people say that Mitt Romney isn’t the most consistent candidate,” Costello said, “because he’s changed his mind about big, important issues over the years.”

“That’s one of the things that I like about him,” O’Donnell replied, right before causing simultaneous forehead slaps all over Romney campaign headquarters. “because he’s been consistent since he changed his mind.”

It was about as artful as a retrospective of colorblind finger-painters, but in context, O’Donnell did manage to nail the spin that Romney hopes will appeal to general election voters. “I think that he’s humble enough to say, ‘I don’t always have the right answers,’” O’Donnell continued. “And he’s open to other viewpoints, and if it doesn’t betray his core convictions, he’ll make the necessary changes.”

One man’s flip-flopper is another man’s open-minded, independent thinker, and it is because so-called “independents” (the people who don’t pay attention, but control every election by insisting upon voting anyway) are susceptible to this spin that Romney’s liberal opponents began to shift away from the flip-flop attack weeks ago.

Later in the interview, though, when confronted with Romney’s political problem with the individual health care mandate, O’Donnell watered down what was already a pretty weak endorsement cocktail. “If you want to — or tea party members. if you want to get behind Michele Bachmann, get behind Rick Santorum, Ron Paul instead of Romney, okay, I can understand that,” O’Donnell said. “But not Newt Gingrich, and I’m really hoping that my endorsement will cause people to give him a second look.”

Based on this interview, I don’t know about a second look, but it’s good for at least a few double-takes.

Here’s the clip, from CNN’s American Morning:

While cutting an ad in which your opponent praises you is superficially clever, it’s a bit self-defeating when you think about it for a second. If your premise is that your opponent has poor judgment, why should voters find that opponent’s judgment sound just because he’s praising you?

RELATED: Newt Gingrich Creates Devastating Democratic Attack Ad Fodder With Anti-Romney Bain Capital Rant

Romney’s ad, entitled “Praise,” makes use of an eight-second clip from Gingrich’s 2010 speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference, and pads out the 30-second spot by playing it twice. Frankly, when you consider how long Newt Gingrich has been around, it would be a surprise if there were any national Republican figures he hadn’t said eight seconds worth of nice about.

In that speech, Gingrich used Romney to take a shot at President Obama, saying, “I know that Governor Romney made a powerful case here and, frankly, Governor Romney in his business career created more jobs than the entire Obama Cabinet combined, so he could actually talk about it.”

The ad begins with that quote, then flashes to the following graphics. See if you can figure out which one has to do with the jobs created during Romney’s business career:

“CONSERVATIVE BUSINESSMAN FOR OVER 25 YEARS”

“SAVED 2002 WINTER OLYMPICS”

“ELIMINATED MASSACHUSETTS $3 BILLION DEFICIT”

“AND WHAT DOES NEWT GINGRICH HAVE TO SAY ABOUT MITT ROMNEY’S RECORD?”

Cue a replay of Gingrich, in uncomfortable close-up now, saying “I know that Governor Romney made a powerful case here and, frankly, Governor Romney in his business career created more jobs than the entire Obama Cabinet combined, so he could actually talk about it.”

Yes, we are supposed to take Gingrich’s word for it, because the campaign memo accompanying the ad includes background on everything but that claim. As I’ve written here before, there’s plenty of evidence that Romney profited from layoffs time and again, and absolutely no clear evidence that Romney created more jobs than he lost, or how many. Conspicuously, his own ad doesn’t even try to make that case. Also telling is the very fact that measuring his jobs performance is so difficult, illustrating the degree to which human beings with jobs are a non-factor in the way businesses measure “success.

Here’s the ad, from YouTube:

RELATED: Ron Paul Campaign Releases Brutal Newt Gingrich Attack Ad

Politics has become such a cynical business that it hardly seems worth pointing out the fundamental unfairness of the fact that Romney’s ad implies that Gingrich still supports legislative action on climate change. I do so only to highlight the fact that Newt’s reversal on this issue (and many others) is a worse offense than his couch trip with then-Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, but Yuen Woo-Ping-worthy flipper Mitt Romney is in no position to point that out.

While climate change denial may play well with the conservative base, an ad like this runs the risk of making Gingrich more appealing to general election voters, and in the process, making him seem more electable to the Republicans who now support Romney.

The ad itself is overly manipulative, crossing the line where sinister political commercial boilerplate is effective, and leaving it far behind. The crazy-eyed slo-mo of Al Gore at the beginning is a nice touch, but the disorienting cuts and focus effects are overdone, and the faux-American Beauty score is a drag. Ron Paul cut an ad that included this attack, and while it was over the top, it was brutally effective. Romney’s ad is unsubtle in a grinding, look-at-the-seams way that reeks of pandering, and it suffers from the pall of the candidate’s own history of “progressive” lapses.

RELATED: More Archival Video! Watch Mitt Romney Proclaim In 2002 ‘My Views Are Progressive’

Here’s the clip, from YouTube:

RELATED: Who Really Believes That Christine O’Donnell Dabbled in Witchcraft?

The Romney campaign announced the O’Donnell endorsement in an email to reporters relatively late last night, but well short of the witching hour:

Boston, MA – Mitt Romney today announced the support of conservative activist Christine O’Donnell.

“Christine has been a leader in the conservative movement for many years,” said Mitt Romney. “Christine recognizes that excessive government threatens us now and threatens future generations, and I am pleased to have her on my team.”

Announcing her support, Christine O’Donnell said, “For me, this endorsement comes down to trust. I am endorsing Governor Romney because I trust him to do the right thing. He has the strength of conviction to do the right thing regardless of opposition. America needs a president who is not a Washington Insider. America needs a president who hasn’t been playing the game for the last three decades. America needs a president who can turn our economy around, put Americans back to work, and will lead with stability, integrity and the values that we hold dear. I am confident Mitt Romney will be that president.”

Background On Christine O’Donnell:

Christine O’Donnell Has Been A Leader In The Conservative Movement For Many Years. O’Donnell has been an advocate for various conservative causes and campaigns during this time. In 2010, she was the Republican nominee for U.S. Senate in Delaware.

RELATED: Christine O’Donnell’s New Campaign Ad: “I’m Not A Witch… I Am You”

O’Donnell, you may recall, became a huge media star during her run for US Senator from Delaware when Bill Maher, host of HBO’s Real Time, began promoting clips of her 1990s appearances on his Politically Incorrect, the most famous of which showed O’Donnell claiming to have dabbled in witchcraft. That clip prompted O’Donnell to produce the first campaign ad in which the candidate denied being a witch, at least since the 1692 Salem city council race. She lost her Senate bid by 17 points, and slowly faded from the limelight. She was last seen scolding Joe Scarborough for referring to his longtime friend and colleague Sen. Tom Coburn as “Tom.”

Now, O’Donnell is riding to Mitt Romney’s rescue, as his candidacy languishes on the bubble of the top tier in Iowa, and while it is tempting to make jokes, Christine O’Donnell’s endorsement might actually do some good. While O’Donnell is something of a media punchline, and a joke to many political observers, she has some pull with two groups that Romney needs to sway: religious conservatives and Tea Partiers. The effect of endorsements is always debatable, but such as they are, this one’s a net positive for Romney.

She should also be able to deliver key demographics like “guys named Darren” and “potion industry workers.”

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Coulter began her argument by noting that the importance of this election is that the “treats” in Obamacare have yet to be implemented, such that it can be repealed without anyone losing any benefits from the legislation. “As soon as the treats kick in,” she asserted, “it will never be repealed.” She repeated her belief that Romney (and Rep. Michele Bachmann) were the most conservative candidates left, though didn’t believe Rep. Bachmann’s experience in the House was enough for a presidential run.

Hannity then played Coulter a clip of herself stating that, should Gov. Christie not run, “the candidate is going to be Mitt Romney and we’ll lose” at CPAC 2011 and asked, “what changed?” Coulter argued that her stance at the time was not a total 180º from the one she has now: “I didn’t say ‘I hate Mitt Romney’ and now I love him,” and defended herself by saying her prediction was “a lot better than everybody on MSNBC telling us it’s going to be Pawlenty.” “I now think Obama has a glass jaw,” she explained, and while she sometimes was a pessimist, she didn’t think President Obama’s strengths were as prominent as they were a year ago. She also argued that Romney had “proven ability to win in a state like Massachusetts,” while other candidates like former House Speaker Newt Gingrich were “the worst of both worlds”– the sort of talk that elevates “the image of Republicans being cruel, but you never get the policy.”

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Hannity concluded that he would support Gingrich over President Obama anyway, to which Coulter exclaimed, “I would support Jeffrey Dahmer against Obama!” Given the opportunity to clarify to liberals that she was, of course, kidding, she replied jokingly, “screw them.”

The segment via Fox News below:

There has been some major movement in the Republican Presidential race in Iowa over the last week, with what was a 9 point lead for Newt Gingrich now all the way down to a single point. Gingrich is at 22% to 21% for Paul with Mitt Romney at 16%, Michele Bachmann at 11%, Rick Perry at 9%, Rick Santorum at 8%, Jon Huntsman at 5%, and Gary Johnson at 1%.

…Gingrich has dropped 5 points in the last week and he’s also seen a significant decline in his favorability numbers. Last week he was at +31 (62/31) and he’s now dropped 19 points to +12 (52/40). The attacks on him appear to be taking a heavy toll- his support with Tea Party voters has declined from 35% to 24%.

Paul is also within 8 points of the lead in one New Hampshire poll, just 3 points behind Gingrich.

Gingrich has faced brutal attacks on the issues from Paul that left many observers gasping, plus a vicious ad by a WorldNetDaily contributor that was aimed at social conservatives in Iowa, but which was played and re-played nationally by cable news outlets.

Unlike Gingrich, Ron Paul has the fundraising and organizational apparatus to take him beyond wins in early states, so a victory in Iowa could very well propel him to a brokered convention, or more. Disaffection with Gingrich and Romney has already led conservative pundit Joe Scarborough to say he would consider voting for Paul as an independent. Whether or not Ron Paul is taken seriously has always hinged on the whims of the mainstream media, but results like these make it increasingly difficult to ignore him.

Axelrod & co. didn’t completely snub Romney, telling reporters that the fading former Governor is out of step with an energized Tea Party base, but that he deserves credit for trying. ” He’s done everything but light himself on fire for the last eight weeks trying to win,” Axelrod said.

But he quickly turned his attention to former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who is polling higher than any previous frontrunner this year. The Chicago Sun-Times‘ Lynn Sweet reports:

“Now Newt is back. Last week you all left him for dead at the checkout counter at Tiffany’s and now he’s back, a lion in winter,” Axelrod quipped. “That’s L-I-O-N by the way, I don’t want to stir up any trouble here.”

The Obama team has been tying Gingrich to the Tea Party movement, and Axelrod reinforced this messaging at the briefing.

“In certain ways [Gingrich] fits the role for this, because as we pointed out earlier in the week he is the original tea partier. You know, he brought that kind of politics to Congress in the early 90s, he led three government shut downs in order to try and roll back environmental protection…roll back the Department of Education and education programs, he wanted to cut Medicare, he wanted to give more tax cuts to the wealthy. He was really a forerunner of what we see today.”

Axelrod also noted that Gingrich has a long record that will be scrubbed and scrutinized.

“So the question is, can he sustain this over time?,” Axelrod said.

“I told my colleagues yesterday a bit of homespun wisdom that I got from an alderman in Chicago some years ago when one of his …colleagues wanted to run for higher office and he was really dubious. He said, ‘just remember the higher a monkey climbs on a pole, the more you can see his butt.’ So, you know, the Speaker is very high on the pole right now and we’ll see how people like the view.”

Axelrod’s remarks seem to be aimed more at a general election audience than at the conservative base, for whom shutting down the government and gutting environmental regulations are features, not bugs. Still, the President’s reelection effort has been pretty much unwavering in its attention to Mitt Romney thus far, an obvious indication that he was the candidate they least wanted to face, and felt was most likely to win the nomination. The fact that the Obama campaign feels they have the breathing room to take shots at Newt Gingrich is bad news for Romney.

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Krauthammer began his segment agreeing with Sean Hannity that the President had a “European socialist’ philosophy that was “not native to America… and I don’t think it works.” He disagreed in addition with the “social safety net, or an entitlement state” that the Democrats were building, but believed that “there’s sort of a bedrock sense in America, a common sense understanding of what holds society together” that diminished the President’s ideas as Krauthammer understood them.”

On policies, Hannity argued that “Obama is weaker than all the Republicans,” a premise that Krauthammer agreed with, but not in an electoral sense. “We’re underestimating Obama’s ability to win,” he argued, initially understanding Hannity to mean “weak” in a voter support sense. “If next year is a referendum on Obama, he is done,” Krauthammer assured Hannity, though adding that “if the issue is the character, or the history, or the ideas, or the lapses, or anything about the Republican, to whatever extent it is, that diminishes from the weakness of Obama and the fact that if it’s a referendum on him, he loses.”

He concluded by suggesting that the 2012 presidential election will be the “dirtiest campaign in American history.”

The segment via Fox News below: