WASHINGTON -- He barely speaks in his own first general-election ad. On the top floor of his Boston campaign headquarters, the most visible poster is one of his dad's. His party's leaders in Congress, the states and the lobbying world don't bow to him, or mention him much, even as they make moves that can't help but define his agenda for him. Arguably the key person in his campaign is Republican kingpin Karl Rove, but Rove doesn't work there.

And this is just the way Mitt Romney and his team like it. Romney is the incidental candidate in an incidental campaign. He's a bland, blunt instrument, but only an instrument, in a wider crusade dedicated to one goal: ousting President Barack Obama and reversing whatever policy victories he has won.

Goofy or creepy when off script, burdened by an ideologically muddled record and a penchant for privacy in his business and religious life, Romney has chosen to focus on everyone but himself and to surrender his campaign to a larger conservative effort.

The question is whether Romney's attempt at political self-abnegation will work. Will voters see him as selfless, shrewd and focused on the unglamorous task at hand? Or will they dismiss him as a weak, evasive figure with contempt for facts and a lot to hide?

So far, the answer isn't clear. Romney's likability and fundraising numbers are up, but he trails in the Electoral College projections. The consensus on the fall race: it's close.

There hasn't been a presidential campaign like Romney's in more than half a century -- since before 1960, when another Bostonian and Harvard graduate, John F. Kennedy, burst onto the scene.

In that year, television transformed politics into a contest between personal narratives and a search for the most convincing communicator. Also that year, presidential campaigns themselves -- the mechanics, the harried advisers, the closed-door dramas of decision-making -- took on Homeric public stature. The party was incidental in this saga; it was all about the Kennedys.

It's not all about Mitt; it's about everything but Mitt. It's not about his Boston campaign apparatus; it's about everything and everyone else surrounding it. As for the party, Mitt is glad to let them lead.

The strategy is reflected in his staff. They are not the kind to quote Tennyson.

Romney's campaign manager, Matt Rhoades, is a publicity-shy ninja of "oppo." If many voters concluded in 2004 that Sen. John Kerry was a French-fried, flip-flopping toff, Rhoades is the reason: He was head of "research" for the Bush-Cheney campaign that year. Stuart Stevens, Romney's top message and advertising man, is known for his penchant for attack spots.

There's no "Making of the President" or even "Game Change" aura here. One reason may be that the indirect godfather of the enterprise isn't on the premises. Karl Rove's influence lies in the accumulation of personal ties and changes in the way presidential campaigns are operated and financed.

Much of the top staff is composed of protégés of "The Architect." Rhoades was Rove's research aide in 2004; Stevens was a key part of the Bush advertising team in 2000 and 2004 under Rove. Romney's close friend and former gubernatorial chief of staff, Beth Myers (who is now in charge of vetting vice presidential candidates), received her start in politics working with Rove in Texas.

As the man behind the super PAC American Crossroads and its affiliate Crossroads GPS, which together are expecting to raise more than $300 million for "independent" spending, Rove may have more impact on Romney than Romney's own campaign. Federal law bars Rove and his Boston friends from talking strategy with each other. But they don't have to. They know each other's thinking and how to read the public signals.

American Crossroads will be the largest Republican-oriented super PAC and one that Rove & Co. hope will draw money and attention away from renegade operations that would drag the party off its economic message and into counterproductive attacks on religion and race.

As for GOP congressional leaders, Romney has long since tied his destiny to theirs, and far more willingly than presidential candidates generally like to do. When Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell engineered a day of votes on draconian GOP budget plans, Romney was happy to stress his own, only slightly less drastic plan.

He signed onto Rep. Paul Ryan's budget in the House early and has repeated his support often. Doing so gave Romney a way to ingratiate himself with conservatives who were and are suspicious of him.

Romney's speeches and interviews rarely produce news or provide much information, and rarely seem designed to do so. His May 12 speech at Liberty University was a chance to deliver a memorable moment of eloquent faith witness. Some evangelicals professed to be pleased by what he said, but it was, in fact, nothing more than an anodyne, risk-free homily on the value of service, with one line tucked in about his belief in man-woman marriage.

When he has to answer unscripted questions, the results have been so problematic so often that he now is determined to fade into the woodwork as quickly as possible. Asked to defend an earlier comment about President Obama's relationship with the controversial Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Romney tried to erase himself from view. "I'm not familiar precisely with exactly what I said," Romney said, "but I stand by what I said, whatever it was." In other words, he is incidental to his own history.

Anti-tax lobbyist Grover Norquist depicts the Romney presidency -- if there is one -- as a kind of figurehead monarchy in which the real power will lie with Congress, and within Congress, the power will lie with tax-cutting conservatives such as Norquist.

"All we have to do is replace Obama," Norquist said in February. "We are not auditioning for Fearless Leader. We don't need a president to tell us in what direction to go. We know what direction to go. We want the Ryan budget. We just need a president to sign this stuff."

If Romney objected to this view of his role, he didn't say so. And why would he object? In Norquist's view, the identity of the person who isn't Obama is incidental. And that seems to be Romney's point.

Craig Melvin, MSNBC
Politico's Manu Raju appeared on MSNBC this afternoon to talk with guest host Craig Melvin about a possible racial element behind five black members of Congress being targeted in an ethics investigation. MSNBC's Melvin seemed caught up with the racial aspect in the case."Are black lawmakers being unfairly targeted for ethics investigations in Congress?" he asked Raju.

Michael Barone, DC Examiner
Last week, I wrote about the standings in the presidential race and said it looked like a long, hard slog through about a dozen clearly identified target states, much like the contests in 2000 and 2004. Call it the 2000/2004 long, hard slog scenario.But I said there were other possible scenarios. I can think of three.The 1964/1972 scenario: Challenger disqualifies himself. Barry Goldwater and George McGovern were idealistic, intelligent senators who took positions on issues that made them unacceptable to most voters in years favorable to incumbents.This could happen to Mitt Romney this year....

Naomi Schaefer Riley, WSJ
Recently, the Chronicle of Higher Education published a cover story called "Black Studies: 'Swaggering Into the Future,'" in which the reporter described how "young black-studies scholars . . . are less consumed than their predecessors with the need to validate the field or explain why they are pursuing doctorates in their discipline." The "5 Up-and-Coming Ph.D. Candidates" described in the piece's sidebar "are rewriting the history of race." While the article suggested some are skeptical of black studies as a discipline, the reporter...

Former basketball star Charles Barkley weighed in on the presidential race during an NBA broadcast on Sunday night, saying that Democrats would "beat" presumptive Republican nominee Mitt Romney "like a drum in November."

Romney, who was at the playoff game between the Boston Celtics and the Atlanta Hawks with his wife Ann, was shown mingling with the crowd at Boston's TD Garden during a broadcast on TNT.

"We're going to beat you like a drum in November," Barkley said as the camera cut to the former Massachusetts governor. "Don't take it personally. You seem like a nice guy, but you're going down, bro."

Barkley, an analyst for TNT's NBA coverage who famously switched his allegiance from the Republican to Democratic party, is no stranger to political commentary. In December, he slammed the GOP presidential field, calling the potential nominees "idiots" who unfairly criticize President Obama.

He has also considered getting involved in politics himself. In 1995, while still affiliated with the Republican party, Barkley weighed a potential run for governor in Alabama, his home state. While that run never materialized, he surfaced the idea again in 2010 -- that time as a Democrat.

However, in an interview with the New Republic in 2008, Barkley claimed to be apolitical.

"I do not use words like liberal or conservative," he said. "You can ask me a question and I will give you an answer. Those are words rich people on television use to divide and conquer. I am pro-choice. And if gay people want to get married, that is none of my business."

According to the Associated Press, the Romneys and longtime friend Bob White sat about 12 rows back at mid-court.

RACINE, Wis. -- Al Trossen feels like a wanted man. The former Teamster voted for embattled Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker in 2010 but isn't sure who to support in the state's historic recall election next month.

"There's so much bashing on both sides," the 71-year-old retired truck driver said. "How does a person know what to believe?"

A few days before a Democratic primary that will decide who will take on the Republican Walker, and four weeks until the general election, it's not easy to find undecided voters like Trossen. One recent poll put the percentage of undecided voters in the low single digits.

But that tiny group will be the focus of extraordinary attention now in a fiercely fought campaign that has become a national battle over worker rights. With the race a virtual toss-up, the rival forces – which include the national Democratic and Republican parties, powerful conservative interest groups and organized labor – must hone their closing arguments for people who so far have been unmoved by months of impassioned appeals.

"I don't think there's a huge persuadable universe out there in this campaign," Republican strategist Mark Graul said. With the undecided amounting to perhaps 2 to 4 percent, said Sachin Chheda, a Democratic strategist, "The challenge on both sides is to get people motivated to vote."

Most Wisconsin voters already love or hate Walker. Tens of thousands of protesters swarmed the Capitol for three weeks last year after he made his push to end most public employees bargaining rights to help address the state's budget problems. Recall organizers were easily able to gather nearly a million signatures supporting his removal, but Walker's supporters also flooded his campaign with more than $25 million.

The campaigns and special interests have spent about $40 million on a political blitz that has penetrated every household.

But voters who are still wavering include some who approved of Walker's cuts to state spending but who found his tactics too confrontational. They also include Democrats who sympathize with state workers but think Walker earned the right to serve his entire term. Some say they're still trying to figure out whether Wisconsin's economy is better or worse off with Walker.

"I want to find out the truth. Have we created more jobs?" said Trossen, among the voters interviewed between the southeastern Wisconsin city of Racine and the Madison-area community of Sun Prairie. Walker credits his conservative, business-friendly policies for helping reduce the state's unemployment rate to 6.8 percent, the lowest since 2008. However, federal reports also show Wisconsin lost more jobs in the past year than did any other state.

Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett, who lost to Walker by five percentage points in the 2010 election, is expected to win the chance in Tuesday's Democratic primary to face Walker in the June 5 general election. Polls show him leading former Dane County Executive Kathleen Falk, who has received heavy union backing; Secretary of State Doug La Follette; and state Sen. Kathleen Vinehout.

Sun Prairie resident Cathy Fleury, 50, voted for Barrett in 2010 but is torn over whether he would be an improvement over Walker. She dislikes Walker's tough tactics but says Democrats haven't offered any new ideas for the state's fiscal condition.

"If nothing changes, if nobody comes up with a new platform or any genuine new ideas to make a change, it'll be like a flip of a coin" on Election Day, she said.

Jim Morelli, 52, a safety representative at the Wisconsin utility We Energies, said he intends to listen to what the candidates say about creating jobs and improving the economy. Though he's inclined to let Walker finish his term, "I'm sure there's something they could say to change my mind," he said, referring to Walker's opponents.

The state elections board predicts a voter turnout of 30 percent to 35 percent, or between 1.3 million and 1.5 million people, for Tuesday's primary, which would be the highest for a partisan Wisconsin primary in 60 years. Turnout is also expected to be high in June, and the race now appears to be roughly even.

The candidates are relying on attack ads to sway or motivate voters. TV and Internet ads for Barrett and Falk accuse the governor of cutting funding for education and failing to create the 250,000 jobs he promised in the 2010 campaign. Ads on behalf of Walker portray Barrett as the mayor of a failing city with a poor economy and Falk as a poor fiscal manager.

Undecided voters interviewed stressed that party ties don't matter at this point.

Wendy Hanson of Marshal, about 20 miles northeast of Madison, voted for Walker in 2010 but later signed a recall petition against him. She said she was turned off by his "dictatorial" style, but neither is she impressed by what she sees as a lackluster crop of Democrats. She said no candidates have given her a reason to vote for them.

"The way this is right now it's going to be the way I feel on Election Day, unless something comes out of the box to sway me," the 50-year-old said. "I don't know what that would be."

___

Richmond reported from Sun Prairie, Wis. Ramde can be reached at dramde(at)ap.org.

Chuck Todd, MSNBC

LAS VEGAS -- Former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson is campaigning to win the White House as a Libertarian after receiving scant attention in the Republican presidential race.

Johnson easily became the party's presidential nominee at the Libertarian national convention in Las Vegas on Saturday. He hopes to appeal to voters fed up with the traditional two-party system this November.

Johnson was a longshot candidate for the Republican presidential nomination when he announced in December that he would instead pursue the Libertarian ticket.

He won 74 percent of the vote on the first ballot in Las Vegas, an unusual showing of support. In 2008, Libertarian delegates needed six rounds of voting to pick a presidential nominee.

Johnson supports legalized marijuana, low taxes and immigration reform.

He was elected New Mexico's governor in 1994.

INDIANAPOLIS -- Republican Richard Lugar has shown through a lengthy Senate career that he can broker compromises on international and domestic issues, and avoid the acrimony that often brings Washington to a halt.

It's those qualities that may end up costing the former Rhodes Scholar and Indianapolis mayor the seat he first won in 1976.

Lugar, one of the longest-serving senators, is facing perhaps his toughest GOP challenger ever in tea party-backed state Treasurer Richard Mourdock, who hopes to end the incumbent's 36-year Capitol Hill career with a victory in Tuesday's primary.

Mourdock has spent months arguing that Lugar is not conservative enough for the right-leaning state, and he hopes to benefit from the split between the party's establishment and conservative wings. The challenger, aided by outside groups, also has tried to make the anti-incumbent argument, portraying Lugar as nothing more than a Washington insider.

"When Dick Lugar moved to Washington, he left behind his conservative Hoosier values," Mourdock said in a recent ad.

The attacks have taken a toll. Public polls show a close race, though internal surveys by several Republicans show Mourdock with a slight edge.

Lugar, 80, has "had his turn," said Judy Young of Brooklyn.

Lugar and his supporters have tried to turn his Washington career into an asset by arguing that his deep relationships in the capital make him best positioned to represent Indiana Republicans.

"I'm not for Dick Lugar for what he's done, but for what he can do," Gov. Mitch Daniels said in a recent campaign ad. "Our point of view gets heard and has a better chance to win out with Dick Lugar."

If Lugar loses, the seat probably will become a top target of national Democrats hoping to retain a narrow Senate majority. The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee said President Barack Obama's campaign and independent groups would be expected to rally behind U.S. Rep. Joe Donnelly.

That's less likely if Lugar, who's seen as a strong general election candidate because of his bipartisan record, prevails Tuesday.

Friends and foes alike say while Lugar had the backing of much of the state's establishment, including Daniels, he was slow to recognize the threat that Mourdock posed. They point to warning signs nationally from the 2010 primaries that severely divided the GOP. Tea party-supported candidates beat incumbents such as Sen. Bob Bennett, R-Utah, and establishment hopefuls in primaries in Colorado, Delaware and elsewhere.

Lugar has given critics fodder to assail him as out of touch with Indiana and Midwestern values.

He sold his Indianapolis home in 1977, and Democrats are now using that against him. Democrats and tea partyers mocked the fact that he lived in McLean, Va., near Washington, and raised the residency issue with Indiana authorities. Lugar briefly was ruled ineligible to vote in Indiana and later was forced to change his voter registration to his family farm in Indianapolis.

He also had to pay the Senate for more than $14,000 spent on hotel stays for weekend visits to Indiana.

One Mourdock supporter, 49-year-old Alan Horton of Mooresville, asked, "How does a man who doesn't live in this state vote for himself?" Many others have the same question.

Lugar hasn't done much to woo the tea party. In fact, he blamed the tea party for keeping the Senate in Democratic hands after the 2010 elections by nominating candidates who were too conservative to win general elections in a few critical states.

He also struggled to find a message that would appeal to the tea party-infused Indiana GOP.

Initially, he focused on Obama, blaming him for not supporting construction of a Canada-to-Texas oil pipeline. Later, he turned his sights on Mourdock, attacking him as "untrustworthy" in a series of negative ads. Lugar's campaign spent at least $2.5 million on advertising to answer Mourdock's charges and cut him down. Republicans say that effort backfired because the attacks undercut Lugar's reputation as a statesman.

"Personally he's just not mean, but his campaign has been so mean that once Mourdock became quasi-credible and people listened to him, the negatives began backfiring," said former U.S. Rep. Mark Souder, who is neutral in the race.

Lugar acknowledges hiccups but insists he's pleased with his campaign's effort.

"Obviously you can always think back over things that could have been done better," Lugar said. "You never have 100 percent."

Mourdock, a former geologist and two-term treasurer, spent more than $2 million to press his message. He got help from the anti-tax Club for Growth, which has spent about $1.7 million assailing Lugar.

He has been a fixture in GOP circles for some time but had struggled to win an election until his 2006 run for treasurer. That office catapulted him into the national spotlight when he challenged the Chrysler bankruptcy in a case that reached the U.S. Supreme Court, and endeared him to tea party activists looking for a change.

He may be rewarded Tuesday.

___

Jonathan Tobin, Commentary
Race is the original sin of American history. To deny its influence on our society is as futile as it is illogical. Nevertheless, the attempt to cast President Obama’s re-election campaign as the focus of a racial backlash seems to be more about obfuscating the issues that are animating the vast majority of voters than providing any insight into public opinion.

This week, Newt Gingrich announced that he'd be dropping out of the presidential race next week -- thoughtfully softening the blow to America by giving us all time to come to terms with it. And President Obama slow jammed the news with Jimmy Fallon -- a move that was way, way cooler than his much slower moves to address the student debt crisis affecting millions of college students and grads, including many who went door-to-door and to the polls for him in '08 and helped get him elected. And two weeks before Mother's Day, I want to invite you to join the community initiative to send Mother's Day wishes to Trayvon Martin's mom, Sybrina Fulton. Beyond the political and racial issues surrounding this case, it's important to remember that this is, first and foremost, about a mother who has lost her child and will be facing her first Mother's Day without him. Learn more about it on HuffPost BlackVoices.

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WASHINGTON — Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney added to his big lead in the race for convention delegates Tuesday with a five-state sweep of Republican presidential primaries.

Romney won at least 95 delegates when he won primaries in New York, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Delaware and Pennsylvania.

A total of 209 delegates were at stake, though the status of Pennsylvania's 59 delegates probably won't be known for several days because delegates were elected directly on the ballot and they were not identified by which candidate they support.

Romney had a total of 793 delegates – just 351 shy of the 1,144 delegates it will take to win the Republican nomination to run against President Barack Obama in November. With former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum out of the race, Romney could collect the needed delegates by the end of May.

The other two Republican candidates still in the race, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and Texas Rep. Ron Paul, were far behind. Gingrich had 137 delegates and Paul had 79.

___

New York

Delegates at stake: 92

Romney: 42

Paul: 0

Gingrich: 0

Remaining: 50

___

Delaware

Delegates at stake: 17

Romney: 17

Paul: 0

Gingrich: 0

___

Connecticut

Delegates at stake: 25

Romney: 25

Paul: 0

Gingrich: 0

___

Rhode Island

Delegates at stake: 16

Romney: 11

Paul: 4

Gingrich: 0

Remaining: 1

___

Pennsylvania

Delegates at stake: 59

Remaining: 59

Matt Viser, Boston Globe
WASHINGTON - New Hampshire offers a mere four electoral votes. But President Obama and Mitt Romney are fiercely pursuing the hearts and minds of the Granite State's notoriously finicky electorate in a race that could come down to the wire in November.New Hampshire is seen as one of about 14 swing states in this election, and the only one in New England. Obama visited the state twice in the last five months; Michelle Obama was in Concord last month, and Vice President Joe Biden has been to the state three times this year.

Steve Holland, Reuters
In picking a vice presidential running mate, Republican Mitt Romney wants to avoid the Sarah Palin syndrome.Then-Republican nominee John McCain shook up the 2008 race with his dramatic choice of the relatively unknown Palin, but the problems she faced during the campaign will be on the minds of Romney and his vice presidential search team.

Tavernise & Zeleny, NY Times
President Obama, speaking with unemployed workers in job training programs in Elyria, Ohio. ELYRIA, Ohio — The battle for Ohio is on, but for many voters here choosing between President Obama and Mitt Romney is like trying to decide between liver and brussels sprouts — a selection they would rather not have to make. A one-stop destination for the latest political news "” from The Times and other top sources. Plus opinion, polls, campaign data and video.President Obama, in Ohio on Wednesday, joked about needing a football helmet for the race. ...

PHOENIX — Voters in southern Arizona's 8th Congressional District on Tuesday night chose Republican Jesse Kelly to face former Gabrielle Giffords aide Ron Barber in a special election to replace the wounded ex-congresswoman.

Kelly had about 38 percent of the vote and the margin was enough for The Associated Press to declare him the winner in the race. He beat three other GOP candidates – state Sen. Frank Antenori, retired U.S. Air Force pilot and political newcomer Martha McSally, and Tucson businessman and longtime sports broadcaster Dave Sitton.

Antenori and McSally both conceded before final results were available.

Giffords tapped Barber as her preferred replacement, and he drew strong financial support and no challengers in the Democratic primary.

Kelly is a businessman and tea party favorite who nearly unseated Giffords in 2010.

Barber and Kelly will face off in the special general election on June 12. That winner will hold the seat until Giffords' term expires at the end of 2012. The race for the full term for the renumbered District 2 kicks off with an August primary.

Giffords resigned from her seat on Jan. 25, slightly more than a year after she was shot at a constituent meet-and-greet in Tucson. Six people were killed and 13 others were wounded including Barber and Giffords.

The 8th District spans parts of Tucson and its suburbs, some of Pinal and Santa Cruz counties and all of Cochise County.

All four Republicans in the race embraced strong conservative issues like enhanced border security before immigration reform, repeal of federal health care legislation and cuts to the size of federal government and of federal regulations. That may be an issue for Kelly since Barber embraces Giffords' moderate Democratic positions, which can be a draw to the independents who decide the general elections in the district.

The 8th District has nearly 425,000 registered voters with 159,000 Republicans, 134,000 Democrats and 128,000 independents.

WASHINGTON -- Immigrants and minorities who live near the U.S. northern border are fearful of Customs and Border Protection agents, accusing them of racial profiling, according to a report released Tuesday.

"We're really used to hearing about this stuff on the southern border," said Ada Williams Prince, policy director for One America, an anti-racial profiling organization that released the report with the University of Washington Center for Human Rights. "[Washington] is where they filmed the "Twilight" movies. It's all beautiful, but in reality you're talking about communities that have been harassed ... and are living under this climate of fear."

The report, based on interviews with more than 100 men and women who live within the border protection area on northern Washington, found many Latinos and Arab-Americans were afraid to call 911, even to report crime, because they said they did not want to attract government attention.

In some cases, One America found that border protection responded to medical emergencies calls or served as translators for local police, then inquired about immigration status. The study also found some immigrants were stopped based only on the color of their skin, according to One America.

A spokesperson for border protection said the agency "strictly prohibits profiling on the basis of race or religion" and follows the Department of Justice's "Guidance Regarding the Use of Race by Federal Law Enforcement Agencies."

The agency has been questioned about racial profiling before. The New York University School of Law advocacy group Families for Freedom and the New York Civil Liberties Union released a report in November 2011, raising concerns about racial profiling by border protection in transportation raids.

Border protection rapidly expanded over the past decade, from 340 agents along the U.S.-Canada border in the 2001 fiscal year to 2,069 in the 2010 fiscal year. But on Tuesday, One America urged the government to stop growing its northern presence until questions of racial profiling are addressed.

Immigrant rights groups have raised similar concerns with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which often works in concert with border protection. One of ICE's key enforcement programs, Secure Communities, disproportionately nets Latinos, according to a report from Berkeley Law School.

Retired Sacramento, Calif., police chief Arturo Venegas Jr., said in November that local law enforcement could scare immigrants away from reporting crime by assisting in immigration efforts.

"The immigrant community needs to know that they can work with state and local police to put criminals behind bars and not risk their own deportation," he told House members at a subcommittee hearing on Secure Communities.

Senate Democrats attempted a national conversation on racial profiling, holding a hearing Tuesday. The panelists discussed the February shooting of Trayvon Martin, an unarmed black teenager in Florida, as well as profiling of Muslim Americans and Latinos. Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), who led the hearing, emphasized the need to pass the End Racial Profiling Act, which would require federal agencies to adopt policies aimed at eliminating racial profiling.

"Let's be clear. The vast majority of law enforcement officers perform their jobs honorably and courageously, putting their lives at risk to protect the communities they serve," he said in a speech. "But the inappropriate actions of the few who engage in racial profiling create mistrust and suspicion that hurt all police officers."

Jonathan Tobin, Commentary
The decision by Democrats and their union allies to try and defeat Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker via recall is increasingly looking like a bad bet. The latest poll numbers out of the Badger State show that Walker leads all possible Democratic challengers in the vote that is scheduled for June 5.  The best showing of the four Democrats in the race was from Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett, who trailed Walker 50-45 percent. Walker bests Kathleen Falk by seven points and both Doug La Follette and Kathleen Vinehout by ten points. The Public Policy Polling survey conducted for the Daily Kos...

Ramesh Ponnuru, Bloomberg
Mitt Romney's presidential campaign is obsessed with the women's vote.On the day after Rick Santorum dropped out of the race and removed all doubt Romney would be the nominee, the campaign issued five press releases within three hours on the theme that President Barack Obama's economic record has failed American women: one featuring comments by Romney, four highlighting remarks by female Republican politicians supporting him.

Harry Stein, They'll Call It Racist
They'll Call It RacistA no-brainer. Who else rushes so eagerly to exploit and worsen every inflammatory racial situation going? Who else"”after the notorious Tawana Brawley hoax (in which he falsely accused six white men of raping a 15-year old black girl); and the racial conflagration in Crown Heights, Brooklyn (where a Jew was stabbed to death after he inflamed local blacks by  proclaiming, "If the Jews want to get it on, tell them to pin their yarmulkes back and come over to my house,"); and the Freddy's Fashion Mart tragedy (wherein...

With an iconic name and access to Washington cash, U.S. Rep. Connie Mack looked like the great Republican hope when he entered Florida's U.S. Senate race and posed a serious threat to Democratic incumbent Bill Nelson.

Six months later, however, Mack has proven to be neither a potent statewide candidate nor a shoe-in to win the Republican nomination against his little-known rivals.

This week, North Korea suffered a major embarrassment when its missile test demonstrated how far the country has advanced in producing a weapon of mass dysfunction. On the campaign trail, Rick Santorum announced he was suspending his run for the White House, thereby avoiding what was shaping up to be an embarrassing primary trouncing in his home state. In dropping out of the race, Santorum said, "We were winning in a very different way." You mean by losing? That is very different. In Florida, the man who killed Trayvon Martin was finally arrested and charged with second-degree murder -- yet another example of what is possible when people come together in a social movement to force an unresponsive system to act. And in Massachusetts, the state marked another year of its health care system. Happy 6th birthday, Romneycare! So sorry your father abandoned you. Let's hope your national cousin doesn't get the same shoddy treatment.

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Now that Mitt Romney's general election campaign is breathing air, will he soon be "live, from New York"? The Republican presidential candidate has been asked to host "Saturday Night Live," according to Maureen Dowd's New York Times column, published Saturday evening.

Lorne Michaels, the show’s executive producer, has offered a guest spot to Romney, who is considering it.

If recent seasons of "SNL" are any indication, the current season, the show's 37th, will see three more episodes. None of the remaining guest hosts have been formally announced, as of Saturday evening. If Romney does not host this season, he would not host until the next season's premiere in September, which is only about a month before the 2012 election.

The last time a figure in the world of politics hosted was Donald Trump's episode in 2004. That same season, Al Sharpton performed a guest hosting stint. But the last time a presidential candidate hosted was in the spring of 1996 with GOP hopeful and magazine publisher Steve Forbes, although he ultimately did not get far in the primaries. In the last several election cycles, all presidential candidates, with the exception of John Kerry, have made an appearance on "SNL" during their campaigns, either in the studio or pre-taped.

Of course, in 2008, Tina Fey made a cultural mark by lampooning Republican vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin in opening of the 34th season. As recently dramatized in the HBO movie "Game Change," Fey's impersonation of Palin cemented public opinion of the Alaska governor. (Palin's candidacy was announced in August 2007 while "SNL" was on hiatus.)

Dowd's op-ed column quotes several sources at "SNL," including writer James Downey, who has written the bulk of show's political parodies nearly since the show's beginning, and Seth Meyers, the show's current head writer and "Weekend Update" anchor. Much of Dowd's column is devoted to the show's staff expressing boredom with the likely pairing of Romney and Obama, with Dowd calling it "Tin Man vs. Spock."

Meyers unfavorably compared the 2012 race to the 2008 race, telling Dowd he saw Palin as a "once-in-a-lifetime opportunity" for a comedy writer.

In 2012, the show will have another potentially tricky option to solve: The casting of Mitt Romney. Jason Sudeikis has always portrayed the former Massachusetts governor. But with rumors that Sudeikis will exit the show at the end of this season when his contract expires, it seems likely that another cast member will take over for Romney, such as newcomer Taran Killam. Kristen Wiig, who plays Ann Romney, is also rumored to leave at the same time. However, Downey says that he is "sure they would stick around for the pre-election shows."

Steve Erickson, American Prospect
To anyone so foolish as to have persuaded himself otherwise, the past three weeks have been a reminder that Barack Obama is at best a slight favorite for re-election by a narrow margin.  Rick Santorum’s exit on Wednesday from a Republican primary race that already was settled means that the de facto nominee of the party, former governor Mitt Romney of Massachusetts, has time for damage control that would have been too late three months from now.  The odds are even or better that by June, the United States Supreme Court will overturn the president’s signal...