The influence of independent expenditure groups like PACs and SuperPACs has become a major factor in this year’s presidential election. Consequently, the news that President Obama has decided to encourage donations to the Priorities USA Action SuperPAC is dominating political news today, with handwringing on the left and the right about the President’s prior vocal opposition to outside groups. Philosophically, he’s just taking a page from Ronald Reagan‘s book.

News cycles are so ephemeral and their stories so prolific that writing about Sarah Palin‘s Facebook notes feels like something of an anachronism in 2012. But with the former Alaska governor now taking a stand in this presidential race in defense of Newt Gingrich, her attack on the Republican establishment that made her their candidate in 2008 today brings the Tea Party back into the mix of an election from which they have appeared largely absent, at least much more than anyone could have expected after the 2010 midterms.

The folks at Morning Joe took a trip down memory lane Thursday, looking back at Newt Gingrich‘s views on Ronald Reagan — particularly how they haven’t always been as rosy and laudatory as Gingrich characterizes them today.

New York Times‘ political blogger Nate Silver crunched the numbers and found that Republican hopeful Newt Gingrich has mentioned Ronald Reagan a whopping 55 times during the GOP presidential debates — more than any of the other candidates combined.

Fox News’s Eric Bolling responded to MSNBC contributor Meghan McCain comments on The Tonight Show comparing herself to Ronald Reagan by lambasting her as “one of the dumbest people on MSNBC.” “In the steam train of conventional wisdom, she is the caboose,” Greg Gutfeld exclaimed. “By the time she said it — 100 other people said it.”

Appearing on Wednesday night’s Tonight Show, The Tonight Show, MSNBC contributor Meghan McCain compared herself to US President Ronald Reagan, saying if he had ran today “he would be called a dirty moderate like me, unfortunately.”

GOP presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich spoke with WGIR AM 610 and 96.7 the Wave’s Paul Westcott Monday, offering his reaction to Glenn Beck‘s who recently interviewed Gingrich.

Earlier today, we brought you Ann Coulter‘s flip-flop on flip-flopper Mitt Romney (a Möbius flip of sorts), and in keeping with that snake eating its tail theme, anti-Romney superPACs American Bridge and Priorities USA have teamed up to attack Mitt Romney for attacking Newt Gingrich…whhile simultaneously airing those same attacks. American Bridge put out an ad today that frames Romney’s history of going negative as part of his willingness to say anything to get elected, and as a betrayal of Ronald Reagan‘s 11th Commandment.

When I first read that the DNC had released another ad beating the dead horse that is the “Mitt-flopping” narrative, my first thought was that they really need to call the guy who made this ad, which breaks fresh ground in the campaign against Mitt Romney. Then, I caught a bit of the ad on Hardball, and was shocked to see the ad make cheap use of an old Ronald Reagan clip. I was even more shocked to learn that I’m apparently the only one who cares.

In the merry-go-round of GOP presidential politics, is it about to be Newt Gingrich‘s time to take a turn as a frontrunner? Recent polls suggest that he’s on the way up, currently in a respectable third place behind an embattled Herman Cain and a tepidly-supported Mitt Romney. Perhaps more importantly, Gingrich is escalating his use of over-the-top rhetoric that will get him more attention, as he did this weekend when he likened President Obama to convicted Ponzi schemer Bernie Madoff.

Rep. Ron Paul is guaranteed to deliver an offbeat comment or drag in a topic no one else on the stage will during almost any Republican debate, but this time around, he knocked the wind out of the sails of his colleagues by taking a swipe at the most venerated figure in his party. Yes, Rep. Paul asked his colleagues to condemn President Ronald Reagan for exchanging arms for hostages in Iran during his tenure. Naturally, he mostly got crickets as a response.

Right-wing radio giant Rush Limbaugh claimed, on his radio show today, that President Obama “plagiarized” a column that Rush had written in 1988 during a portion of his speech before the United Nations general assembly today. Limbaugh accused the President of cribbing the line “Peace does not mean the absence of war” from him “verbatim.”

As is so often the case, though, Rush is horribly, horribly wrong. Obama’s actual quote, though, hews closely to a source that may (or may not) surprise his supporters.

Now that the GOP race has been framed as Mitt Romney vs. Rick Perry, the media has been comparing both candidates’ records, past accomplishments, and current popularity within the Republican party. To that extent, Bill Kristol predicted today that if the Republican race is a relatively “normal” one, Perry will be the GOP nominee.

Speaker John Boehner‘s public refusal to allow President Obama to address a joint session of Congress Wednesday has touched off a media maelstrom that the White House has decried publicly (while privately fueling it), and the mainstream media has cast Boehner’s actions as a sign of Obama administration dysfunction. That narrative is aided by an emerging myth, that then-House Speaker Tip O’Neill once “Boehnered” Ronald Reagan, so Boehner’s insult to the presidency was no big deal.

Texas governor Rick Perry has finally tossed his ten gallon hat into the presidential ring, and his campaign has gotten plenty of tongues wagging over whether America is ready for another George W. Bush. Many of those already making the comparison will see much of the 43rd President in Perry’s new ad, but the dark clouds over America, billowing Midwestern fields and cowboy imagery is a lot more Ronald Reagan than pre-presidential Bush.

President Obama‘s approval ratings may have fallen in the latest Gallup poll, but National Journal‘s Beth Reinhard and Brian McGill say Obama should hang on to hope. “Another president who suffered a recession early in his first term also had, at the same point in his first term, an approval rating hovering in the low 40 percent range — and President Reagan went on to win a landslide reelection victory the following year,” Reinhard and McGill write, warning that GOP excitement over the president’s weakness may be premature. “First of all, the approval ratings for Congress and the tea party are falling further faster. (Obama may want to take a cue from Harry Truman, who famously ran against the “Do-Nothing Congress.’’)”

With just days to go before the Aug. 2 “hard deadline” to raise the debt ceiling, President Obama addressed the nation Monday night, after earlier throwing his support behind the latest compromise plan from Sen. Harry Reid. A much cooler-headed President once again framed the issue of debt and deficit reduction in terms of shared sacrifice, quoted Ronald Reagan‘s call for a fair approach, and called on Americans to contact their representatives and demand compromise.

Liberal radio and TV host Thom Hartmann has been engaged in a bit of a feud with Glenn Beck’s The Blaze website over comments Hartmann made on his cable show The Big Picture. A few weeks ago, Hartmann suggested that President Obama retaliate against GOP opposition to raising the debt ceiling by having Tim Geithner [...]

Former Utah Governor and U.S. Ambassador to China Jon Huntsman officially announced his presidential candidacy in Liberty State Park, New Jersey this morning, the same place Ronald Reagan kicked off his 1980 presidential campaign. As he stood outside to make his candidacy official, Huntsman credited the late president, saying “I stand in his shadow.” Most [...]

Mitt Romney, who has been battling for airtime with 2012 presidential maybe-hopefuls much more rambunctious and gaffe-prone than he, it’s about time he got into the “outrageous statements” game. Try as he might, he may have succeeded at a recent dinner. Speaking to Americans for Prosperity, Romney suggested we “hang” President Obama, before realizing there was a very necessary “metaphorically” missing from that sentence.

American intervention in the Libyan conflict appears to have many on all parts of the political spectrum feeling slightly queasy– after all, it is the nation’s third military front in the Middle East. But while some on the left are disappointed with President Obama’s decision to send military force there, Rachel Maddow argues that his talks with other nations and attempts to keep the Arab world at the forefront of the struggle are a sign he intends to keep his campaign promises.

While many who were hoping to see international action taken to stop Muammar Gaddafi‘s attempt to retake the rebel stronghold of Benghazi in Libya were satisfied today by the UN’s no-fly zone resolution, Sean Hannity called too little, too late on President Obama, arguing that Republicans would have acted much faster to stop the attack. But he hit a dead end on his argument when panelist Kirsten Powers noted that it was Republicans, namely George Bush, that normalized relations with Gaddafi to begin with.

Yes, twenty-four hours is a lot of time to fill, and examples of infotainment “synergy,” both egregious and less so, are commonplace these days, but that doesn’t mean we have to like it. On MSNBC this morning, the news broke that NBC’s The Event is returning Monday night, with a two hour episode! Star Blair Underwood was on hand to give MSNBC viewers the scoop on how he modeled his President Martinez after Barack Obama, Ronald Reagan, and others, and claimed that his character doesn’t have any “birther issues.”

Chris Matthews had an immediate reaction to President Obama’s statement on the ongoing unrest in Libya and it was not positive. Even liberal commentators Howard Fineman and David Corn agreed that Obama’s statement was weak, and since Libya is no Egypt, Obama will have to talk tougher in the future.

Megyn Kelly interviewed Michael Reagan earlier today on Fox News and when the subject turned to Reagan’s father being selected by Americans in a Gallup poll as their favorite president, the disappointed reaction of Chris Matthews was discussed. Kelly concluded Matthews “didn’t seem too happy” with the result and Reagan was ready for retaliation.