ST. PAUL, Minn. -- As a presidential hopeful, Tim Pawlenty won respect among GOP insiders, social conservatives and the tea party movement. Far from the first love of any faction, he quickly washed out as a candidate.

Almost a year after he abandoned his White House bid, Pawlenty's reputation as being suitable but not a standout is actually fueling the speculation that the former Minnesota governor is a serious contender in Republican Mitt Romney's search for a running mate.

Romney is keeping the process tightly under wraps. An announcement could come at any point between now and the Republican convention in late August. It's unclear who the Romney campaign is vetting, though Pawlenty's name comes up frequently in political circles as a prospect. Pawlenty himself isn't giving any clues even as Republicans debate the pros and cons of a Romney-Pawlenty ticket.

To hear these insiders tell it, the earnest Pawlenty might end up satisfying many Republicans without risking the unwelcome distractions that could result from a running mate who is flashier than the nominee, who has close ties to an unpopular past administration or whose background has largely avoided scrutiny.

"He's not a Sarah Palin. He's a Joe Biden type of pick," said Gary Marx, executive director of the conservative Faith and Freedom Coalition, describing Pawlenty as "appealing and acceptable to all branches of the conservative base and the Republican Party as a whole."

Pawlenty, an evangelical, also could help quell any lingering unease about Romney's Mormonism among some conservatives. As the self-made son of a truck driver, his life story could relate more to middle-class voters than that of Romney, the wealthy businessman and son of a former governor.

Campaigning last week for Romney in blue-collar Pittsburgh, Pawlenty weaved a mention of his 1970s boyhood in a struggling meatpacking town to convey his grasp of economic woes on a more personal level.

"I saw the face of unemployment and dislocation from the economy and the effects that has on moms and dads and people and families, neighborhood and community," Pawlenty said in a hushed tone. "I saw it at a real young age, up close and real personal."

During his eight years leading Minnesota, Pawlenty restricted abortions and expanded gun rights. He also stocked his state's judiciary with conservative judges and made frequent use of vetoes and executive budget-cutting powers to curb spending.

His biggest blemish was rather tame – a tobacco surcharge that he insisted be labeled a fee, not a tax. The decision triggered a semantic dispute mirroring the fight over whether President Barack Obama's health insurance mandate is a penalty or a tax.

What Pawlenty lacks is the star power to give Romney's ticket a boost among any key constituency or critical voting bloc. He would also be hard-pressed to swing Minnesota to Republicans for the first time since 1972 – before Pawlenty, 51, was even old enough to vote. His two statewide victories came in races in which he benefited from multiple candidates dividing the vote on the left.

With the presidential race so tight, some GOP leaders want Romney to opt for solid over spectacular, someone who is tested rather than intriguingly new to the national scene.

"He's better prepared than any of these other folks being talked about a lot, in terms of the intellectual and physical rigor of a campaign and the kind of grilling you're going to face," said Bill Lacy, who advised Republican Bob Dole during his presidential campaigns.

When Republicans began lining up last year to challenge Obama, Pawlenty was regarded as a threat to Romney, the presumed front-runner. Pawlenty landed top campaign talent and boasted of his achievements as a Republican who was twice elected to lead a Democratic-leaning state. But he struggled to excite voters and finished a disappointing third in a summer 2011 test vote in Iowa, leading him to quit the race.

Pawlenty soon embraced an industrious role as a go-anywhere, get-tough surrogate for Romney – precisely the tasks often assigned to running mates. Last week he was on a bus in Ohio and Pennsylvania, attacking Obama's record before the president's own bus pulled in for campaign rallies. Before that, he was Romney's emissary to out-of-the-way Republican conventions in California, Michigan, Oklahoma and other spots. And he's scooped ice cream by Ann Romney's side after serving warm-up duties for her husband in New Hampshire.

Campaigning for someone else, Pawlenty has been far more relaxed than when he was on his own. Back then, he tended to come off as bland and rehearsed – especially when stacked against candidates with more flair, such as fellow Minnesota Republican Michele Bachmann.

Like other vice presidential contenders, Pawlenty sidesteps questions about his interest in the No. 2 post. He initially asked to be removed from parlor-game shortlists. Now he says it's an honor to be mentioned, while insisting he's content to help Romney in other ways.

"I am enjoying my time in the private sector and view my role in this presidential campaign as being a key volunteer," Pawlenty told The Associated Press on Wednesday. "So, anything beyond that would be an unexpected development."

Part of the hesitancy stems from 2008, when Pawlenty was a runner-up to Palin as John McCain's vice presidential choice. In his memoir last year, Pawlenty recalled marveling about the fact that he was even being vetted. He said it proved that life was "unpredictable" and "filled with possibilities," and he comically described scurrying to pull together the paper trail covering intimate financial and personal details.

As time wore on, Pawlenty concluded he wouldn't be chosen. He suspected McCain would go with Romney, whose own presidential campaign came up short that year. "I actually talked to Mitt about that at some point later on, and he said he thought it was going to be me," Pawlenty wrote.

This time, friends say, Pawlenty seems content to let the process play out around him rather than sweat over it. Meanwhile, he's charted a lucrative course by joining half a dozen corporate boards. As a director at a software company, for instance, he'll pull down $200,000 in salary and restricted stock shares this year. The other companies include medical technology and natural gas exploration firms; they are privately held and don't report their compensation packages.

Investor Ron Eibensteiner, a former Minnesota Republican Party chairman who serves alongside Pawlenty on a startup company board, said that while Pawlenty is acclimating well to corporate culture, the tug of politics remains naturally strong.

"I would imagine that he is very focused on making a little bit of money because he really doesn't have a lot," Eibensteiner said. "But if a good (political) opportunity arose, would he consider it? Absolutely. He'd be a fool not to."

Hungover from all that celebrating in the wake of the Supreme Court decision on the Affordable Care Act? Well, with the cold light of a new day, hopefully, comes the realization that this little victory doesn't in any way mean that the battle is over when it comes to trying to provide Americans with health care that won't either leave them to die or just kill them with bills.

It took all of about five minutes for the tea partying right to completely lose its collective shit over the high court's ruling and what's important to keep in mind going forward is that -- in keeping with tradition -- Republicans absolutely will not let it stand and will never let it go. Get ready for weeks, months and years of attempts to repeal the ACA outright or clever back-door legislative tricks aimed at whittling away at it piece by piece; the over-the-top, drama queenie rhetoric from the usual Republican mouthpieces all but confirms this.

Take, for example, the words of Breitbart non-journalist Ben Shapiro, who tweeted that the Supreme Court's decision not to strike down a measure that attempts to guarantee affordable health care for millions of people represents, literally, "the end of America as we know it." Or maybe Representative Todd Akin of Missouri, who calls the ACA a "crushing blow to freedom." Or former Michigan GOP spokesman Matt Davis, who fired off an e-mail, wondering aloud if "armed rebellion" was now justified in the wake of the ruling. Or libertarian Christ child Rand Paul, who didn't even bother disagreeing with the decision but instead went right to dismissing it as unconstitutional, regardless of what the highest court in the land had to say.

It was Paul's reaction that was both especially irksome and not the least bit surprising, mostly because it so perfectly summed up the entire right-wing mindset and illustrates where their blind outrage comes from and how it will continue to manifest itself. It's all there: the complete ignorance as to how our government works; the arrogant belief that any reality that challenges conservative demands, be it a decision by the voters or the Supreme Court, can be casually dismissed as illegitimate; the unwavering obstinacy and vow to fight on no matter how many times they're told that they can't have it their way. This is the kind of thinking and behavior we've come to expect from the modern Republican party: From their willingness to hold the entire country hostage in what should have been an entirely routine and apolitical debate over the debt ceiling, to the insane conspiracy theories they concoct or enable to demonize Barack Obama as an impostor whose presidency isn't legally valid, to their insistence in fighting and refighting battles they lost decades ago, today's Republicans simply refuse to take no for an answer.

What's more, their go-to tactic for getting their demands met involves behaving like your average six-year-old: they stick their fingers in their ears, then stomp and scream in the hope that we'll all relent just to get a little peace and quiet, that we'll ultimately value our sanity more than our political ideals.

This is what we have to look forward to in the health care battle -- and yes, it's still a battle. We may have won a skirmish, but for hardline conservatives the larger war remains and will always be waged. This fight isn't over for them. It will never be. Not until they're satisfied on this issue and every other one and until they're given back complete control of our government. This is simply the way the Republicans are these days. Give them what they want and no one gets hurt. A complete refusal to accept any way other than their own -- anyone other than themselves -- as legitimate. Screw the will of the people, the good of the country, or the rule of law -- none of that can even be present when the GOP isn't in charge or isn't getting what it wants.

The only hope for progress is to be as ruthless, relentless and cunning as they are. Because they're not going to give up on this or anything else they petulantly demand.

This fight is just starting for them. As they say, an elephant never forgets.

Cross-posted at The Daily Banter

OKLAHOMA CITY -- Navy pilot Jim Bridenstine has defeated five-term incumbent John Sullivan to capture the Republican nomination in Oklahoma's 1st Congressional District.

Bridenstine, who had tea party backing, is a political newcomer who ran a campaign that attempted to paint Sullivan as a career politician who had grown out of touch with working-class Oklahomans. He also criticized Sullivan for missing votes; the incumbent missed votes in 2009 while being treated for alcoholism.

Both men squabbled over Sullivan's voting record, who held the more important job in the private sector and which one would be the most conservative candidate for the job.

Bridenstine will now face small business owner John Olson, a Democrat, and Independent Craig Allen, an airline pilot. They'll both be on the 1st District ballot in November.

WASHINGTON -- They shrug at President Barack Obama and Republican challenger Mitt Romney. They're in no hurry to decide which one to support in the White House race. And they'll have a big say in determining who wins the White House.

One-quarter of U.S. voters are persuadable, according to an Associated Press-GfK poll, and both Obama and Romney will spend the next four months trying to convince these fickle, hard-to-reach individuals that only he has what it takes to fix an ailing nation.

It's a delicate task. These voters also hate pandering.

"I don't believe in nothing they say," says Carol Barber of Iceland, Ky., among the 27 percent of the electorate that hasn't determined whom to back or that doesn't have a strong preference about a candidate.

Like many uncommitted voters, the 66-year-old Barber isn't really paying attention to politics these days. She's largely focused on her husband, who just had a liver transplant, and the fact that she had to refinance her home to pay much of his health bill. "I just can't concentrate on it now," she says before adding, "If there were somebody running who knows what it's like to struggle, that would be different."

John Robinson, a 49-year-old general contractor from Santa Cruz, Calif., is paying a bit more attention, but is just as turned off by both candidates.

"I'm just bitter about everybody. They just keep talking and wavering," said Robinson, a conservative who backed the GOP nominee in 2008, Arizona Sen. John McCain, but is undecided between Obama and Romney. "There's nothing I can really say that's appealing about either one of them."

To be sure, many of the 1-in-4 voters who today say they are uncommitted will settle on a candidate by Election Day, Nov. 6.

Until then, Obama and Romney will spend huge amounts of time and money trying to win their votes, especially in the most competitive states that tend to swing between Republicans and Democrats each presidential election. Obama and Romney face the same hurdle, winning over wavering voters without alienating core supporters they need to canvass neighborhoods and staff telephone banks this fall to help make sure their backers actually vote.

"It presents an interesting challenge to the campaigns," said Steve McMahon, a founding partner in Purple Strategies, a bipartisan crisis management firm. "Moving to the middle means winning these voters, but it also means creating problems with your base."

Obama has sought to straddle both the left and the middle by announcing policies that expand access to contraception and allow immigrants brought illegally to the United States as children to be exempted from deportation and granted work permits if they applied.

Both issues are popular with his core supporters and centrist voters. The president also is promoting a list of what he says are bipartisan measures that would help homeowners, veterans, teachers and police officers, and he accuses Republicans of causing gridlock by refusing to act on them. It's a pitch intended for independent-minded voters frustrated by inaction in Washington.

Romney has broadened his tea party-infused message from the GOP primary and softened his tone as he looks to attract voters from across the political spectrum.

He abandoned the harsh immigration rhetoric on Thursday when he pledged to address illegal immigration "in a civil but resolute manner" while outlining plans to overhaul the green card system for immigrants with families and end immigration caps for their spouses and minor children. In doing so, he risked inflaming conservatives who make up the base of the Republican Party.

Overall, the poll found that among registered voters, 47 percent say they will vote for the president and 44 percent for Romney, a difference that is not statistically significant.

Those totals include soft support, though, meaning people who lean toward a candidate as well as those who said they could change their minds before November. The poll showed that these persuadable voters are equally apt to lean toward Obama, Romney, or neither, with about one-third of them in each camp.

The survey also showed that these voters are more likely than others to say they distrust both Romney and Obama on the major issues. They are far more likely to think the outcome of the election won't make a big difference on the economy, unemployment, the federal budget deficit or health care.

Party politics and wedge issues have dubious weight with this group. The poll found more independents fall into this category than partisans. The partisans who are persuadable are more likely to be in the ideological middle than either liberal Democrats or conservative Republicans. Seventeen percent of persuadables say they consider themselves supporters of the tea party.

The poll also found that demographically, they are more likely to be members of Generation X (between the ages of 30 and 49) than other registered voters. Many, 71 percent, have not graduated college. They are a bit more likely to have lower incomes than all registered voters. Fifty-two percent of persuadables have incomes below $50,000, compared with 44 percent of all voters.

On other characteristics – gender, religious preference and race – they're split similarly to other registered voters.

The Associated Press-GfK Poll was conducted June 14-18, 2012 by GfK Roper Public Affairs and Corporate Communications. It involved landline and cellphone interviews with 1,007 adults nationwide, including 878 registered voters and 228 persuadable voters. Results for the full sample have a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 4.0 percentage points. For registered voters it is 4.2 points and for persuadable voters it's plus or minus 8.3 points.

___

Associated Press writer Philip Elliott and AP News Survey Specialist Dennis Junius contributed to this report.

___

Online:

The Montana Republican Party showcased a bullet-ridden outhouse described as the "Obama Presidential Library" at their state convention over the weekend.

Delegates took pictures with the outhouse, which featured what was described as a "fake birth certificate" for Obama in an effort to showcase the birther movement, The Missoulian reported. State Republican Chairman Will Deschamps dismissed the outhouse, which also made sexual references to First Lady Michelle Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, as a "sideshow."

“It’s not something I’m going to agonize over,” Deschamps told The Missoulian. “Some of that stuff is not real good taste. We do have a president of the United States, and we have to honor that.”

The convention heard from former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who used his keynote speech to showcase his opposition to Obama's recent immigration policy changes, the Helena Independent Record reported. Gingrich also used the speech to call on Mitt Romney to announce plans to make income taxes voluntary, along with having the Environmental Protection Agency utilize economics in their regulatory decisions.

KAJ18 reported that Rep. Denny Rehberg, the GOP nominee against Sen. Jon Tester (D), used his convention speech to highlight economic issues. The convention was used to confirm the nominations of Rehberg and GOP gubernatorial candidate Rick Hill, who is facing off against Democrat Steve Bullock in an open seat race.

The Montana convention display comes a week after a Tea Party leader in north central Arkansas made a racist joke during a 500-person rally in Mountain Home. Inge Marler, a steering committee member of the Ozark Tea Party, was forced out of the position last week after press reports about her remarks surfaced, according to Ozark Tea Party founder Richard Caster.

That didn't take long. No sooner had President Barack Obama announced his decision to suspend deportations of peaceful DREAMers than Republicans responded with calls for his impeachment. The President acted within his executive and prosecutorial discretion and the Republicans know it. But they have to admit that to their fervent followers. Will they choose to DREAM or impeach?

The Obama administration announcement itself is a courageous and common sense move toward immigration reform. For years there has been bipartisan consensus that children of illegal immigrants who have come here through no fault of their own, worked hard and played by the rules deserve a fair shot at education or military service. Today the president acted as chief executive law enforcement officer to prioritize deportations by putting violent criminals first and otherwise law-abiding children last - a decision well within Barack Obama's executive and prosecutorial discretion. As a former sex assault and child abuse prosecutor, I want the violent criminals especially those who kill rape or assault children deported first, and believe most Americans would agree with that law enforcement priority. Deciding to allow temporary status for immigrants is also within the president's discretion and happens on a case by case basis in every jurisdiction. What changed today was the sweeping scope of those decisions.

Of course there can be disagreement on the policy - but that doesn't make the policy illegal. However, well before the president spoke in the Rose Garden, the backlash began. I was on radio with Geraldo Rivera defending President Obama to a caller wanting to impeach him for helping DREAMAct kids. OK, I thought, maybe this is a one-off. But I took to Twitter and a simple search revealed that a vast number of self-identified Republicans, Tea Party activists, and/or Romney supporters were calling for impeachment. Not Congressional action to undo the decision or to pass their own version of immigration reform - but Congressional action to impeach the President of the United States for refusing to deport the noncitizen children of illegal immigrants.

The blogoshpere was replete with calls for impeachment over President Obama's "illegal" action. Then one by one GOP lawmakers and Romney supporters came out with statements calling the president's decision "illegal" - a dogwhistle to the impeachment crowd. Whether this immigration reaction was as coordinated as the Republicans' "defeat all things Obama" inauguration night dinner plot http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/25/robert-draper-anti-obama-campaign_n_1452899.html or merely coincidence we don't yet know, but what we do know is that this fight comes down to what makes a person an American.

One self described "conservative tea party anti establishment gun nut" tweeted me this: "If you're here illegally, you aren't an American, got that?" Actually, I don't get that. I agree with President Obama who said "these are young people who study in our schools, they play in our neighborhoods, they're friends with our kids, they pledge allegiance to our flag. They are Americans in their heart, in their minds, in every single way but one: on paper. They were brought to this country by their parents, sometimes even as infants, and often have no idea that they're undocumented until they apply for a job or a driver's license or a college scholarship."

The President provided a clear choice - he is with the DREAmers. I'm not sure where Mitt Romney stands or how many positions he will take on. In this campaign he supported "self-deportation" during the debates and had two positions today - his advisors saying the president's move was "illegal" (that dog whistle word again) and then the governor's own written Marco Rubio-esque statement acknowledgement that something must be done but this prevents Congress from passing a law to do it. (Actually, it doesn't, because Congress could bring up the DREAM Act on Monday). Letting DREAMers stay - under Rubio's plan or Obama's is the opposite of self-deportation, so it will be interesting to see whether the conservative media that heckled the president for keeping his word will do to Romney for breaking his word.

The same Romney supporters who oppose the DREAMers, who want to amend the 14th amendment to take out "so-called "anchor babies" are now urging impeachment - not mere electoral defeat - of the president. This is another step down the road of illegitimacy from the birthers who claimed he should not be elected to the heckler who thought he shouldn't be able to speak in his own White House to the impeachers who don't want to wait for an election to resolve their differences with President Obama. This devolution is a danger to immigrants who should not be scapegoated for American's economic challenges. We need to be creating jobs and ladders of opportunity for all Americans, not dividing by race or national origin. We need to connect with millions of Americans who support helping kids who are here illegally through no fault of their own get a chance to work hard play by the rules and get a fair shot. We must stand up for the president against the calls for his impeachment and press the press to ask Romney whether he agrees with his supporters that the president committed an impeachable offense or whether he disagrees.

What do you believe? Whose side are you on? It is time to take a stand, as the president did today, about who is an American. It is time to choose: DREAM or impeach?

A Tea Party-backed candidate in Arizona, Ron Gould, is riding a wave of local media attention after releasing an ad in which he literally shoots a copy of the health care reform law, vowing to take it out if he's elected to Congress.

The ad features men fondling guns and includes appearances from Gould's sons, Ron Jr. and Robert Gould. But Robert does not carry a weapon in the ad, and for good reason: In January, he was sentenced to 90 days in jail after a felony theft conviction, which makes it illegal for him to possess firearms.

Gun rights and gun violence have a deep resonance in Arizona. On Tuesday, voters will go to the polls in a special election to fill the seat of Gabrielle Giffords, who resigned from Congress a year after she was shot in the head at a constituent event. (Gould is running in a different, heavily Republican district.)

Patrick Gerhart, Gould's campaign manager, said that the campaign made sure to keep Gould's felonious son away from the weapons. "His son Robert was not around any of those shots. His son Ronnie was in those shots," Gerhart noted accurately.

He said that both sons were in the ad to emphasize the family-run nature of Gould's air conditioning business.

Robert, 23, was convicted of stealing stuff from his father-in-law and pawning it.

Ron Gould, an Arizona state senator, has pushed for new gun laws that would allow weapons on college campuses and in public buildings.

Watch the ad here or enjoy our helpfully annotated version above.

Tom Hayden, The Nation
The triumph of Scott Walker and the Tea Party Republicans in Wisconsin is heartbreaking for the many thousands who devoted over a year of their lives to one of the most inspired social movements of the current century.

On, Wisconsin! Or so it was meant to be with a union-led recall in the home state of Robert "Fighting Bob" La Follette Sr., the populist governor and senator who once shaped the cry for anti-corporate social justice in this nation. After La Follette there was the Wisconsinite William Proxmire, the great conscience of the U.S. Senate, followed by the equally impressive Russ Feingold, who, despite being exactly correct in warning of the consequences of unfettered banking greed, was turned out by Wisconsin voters in 2010. Perhaps if the original McCain-Feingold legislation -- gutted by the Supreme Court -- was still the law of the land on campaign finance, the Democrats and their union base would have survived Tuesday's election.

Certainly that is the excuse provided by what remains of the liberal media, which point to the lopsided advantage in funding for Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker and to the high court's Citizens United ruling in seeking reasons for this "billionaire's victory" over "people power." But the larger truth is that the spirit of populism has been perverted by the Republican tea party right and that Democrats are left defending government bureaucracy while remaining incapable of responding to America's widespread economic pain.

At a time when so many are worried about obtaining or holding on to work, it's difficult to rally around the guaranteed job security and high pensions of some privileged government employees. Not all public workers fit into this category, to be sure. But nonpublic workers who must struggle with the vagaries of private employment have seen more than enough examples of government employee unions, the last stronghold of organized labor, exercising their power to ensure what appears to be outsized compensation for their members.

Of course this argument is a red herring. The budget crises of state and municipal governments were not brought on by excessive pay to firemen, cops and other civil servants, but rather by a banking meltdown that has enriched those who engineered it. Housing values, and the local taxes dependent on them, are down because of financial shenanigans that wrapped mortgages into collateralized debt obligations, and that is the root cause of government red ink. But the job security and pensions of government employees make terribly convenient scapegoats at a time when so many Americans are lining up at food banks.

The electorate in Wisconsin, and San Diego and San Jose, Calif., that voted Tuesday against public employee unions were not expressing a rational response to the crisis, but rather a tantrum stoked by the lavishly financed demagogues of the right. The voters bought their story because the opportunism of the Democratic Party leadership has left progressives without a believable alternative to the tea party's narrative. Indeed, job creation became a bigger issue than collective bargaining in the Wisconsin race, and the dismal national unemployment figures that came out just days before the election didn't hurt the Republicans' cause.

By refusing to campaign in the state before Tuesday's vote, President Obama proved he has no heart for engaging in a real debate about the sources of our economic crisis. As Bloomberg News reported in an editorial titled "All Eyes on Wisconsin, Except Obama's," the president made two fundraising stops within 50 miles of the Wisconsin border last Friday, but studiously avoided entering the state he easily carried in the 2008 election. Instead of visiting, Obama tweeted: "It's Election Day in Wisconsin tomorrow, and I'm standing by Tom Barrett. He'd make an outstanding governor. -bo." Not a word of support for the unions that so slavishly support the president and spent millions propping up Barrett.

"Bo" emerged with his popularity intact, according to exit polls, and he will do better in November than Barrett did this week, despite media attempts to treat the Wisconsin election as an omen of things to come.

Few Midwestern independents and moderates will fault Obama for saving the American automobile industry from extinction, if Mitt Romney plays that weak card in campaigning against the president. Nor will the president lack for funds to finance his message. Democrats who made such a big deal about the money from the superrich that poured into Wisconsin were frequently reminded on Internet comments pages that Obama raised more money from the well-heeled than did John McCain in the last election. And to paraphrase those old Smith Barney commercials, Obama got Wall Street's money the old-fashioned way. He earned it.

That cannot be said of the unqualified support Obama has received from organized labor and the working people it attempts to represent. He has failed both at every turn.

WASHINGTON -- Former President Bill Clinton made fun of Rep. Allen West (R-Fla.) Monday night for saying that dozens of House Democrats are members of the Communist party.

During a campaign event in New York City, Clinton praised President Barack Obama for stabilizing the economy and for health care reform, and noted that Obama has "had to get all this done with a House of Representatives that had one of the tea party members claim that 78 to 81 members of the Democratic caucus were members of the Communist party." Clinton was referring to West, who declared in April that all members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus are communists.

Clinton lamented that "neither the Republican nominee nor other Republican leaders rebuked [West] for saying that," according to a White House pool report. He also wondered aloud how West's claims could even be true, given that it's 2012.

"This is not the 1950s!" Clinton said. "At least Joe McCarthy could skate on the premise that there were still one or two living communists walking around. Nobody’s seen a communist in over a decade!"

Clinton also got in a shot at Donald Trump, who last week tried to reignite the false debate about Obama's birth certificate.

Obama has been successful in racking up accomplishments "while people as recently as last week were still saying he wasn’t born in America," Clinton said.

Below, more of West's "greatest" hits:

With a little more than a week to go until Wisconsin's gubernatorial recall election, a national tea party group on Monday released a TV ad in which the son of President Ronald Reagan invokes the memory of his father while giving his strong support to Gov. Scott Walker.

Sarah Palin, who recently endorsed Texas senate candidate Ted Cruz in a competitive GOP primary, has started to make robocalls for the Tea Party-backed challenger -- and, reportedly, some of those calls are going out in the wrong state.

According to the Topeka Capital-Journal's Tim Carpenter, Palin's recorded calls have been dispatched in Kansas. While the call begins with a cheerful "Hello, Texas!" greeting from Palin, Carpenter reported Sunday that he had received the message while at his office at the Topeka newspaper, hundreds of miles from the Lone Star State's border.

The call, excerpted in the above video, highlights Cruz's Tea Party affiliation and commitment to conservatism.

Palin endorsed Cruz, the former Texas Solicitor General, earlier this month. HuffPost reported:

"We’re proud to join conservatives in Texas and throughout the nation in supporting your campaign to become the next senator from the Lone Star State," Palin wrote in response to a letter from Cruz, according to his campaign. “Your conservative principles, passionate defense of our Constitution and our free market system come at a time when these cornerstones of our freedom and prosperity are under attack. Our shared goal isn’t just to change the majority in control of the Senate, but to assure principled conservatives like you are there to fight for us.”

Cruz, who also won endorsements from Ron and Rand Paul, said he was honored to have Palin's support, calling her an inspiration to conservatives nationwide.

The former Alaska governor's support of Cruz is the latest in a string of endorsements she has made in tough Republican primaries. Palin made a similar statement of support for Nebraska's Deb Fischer, who won the GOP nomination to the surprise of many last week.

Texas' primary is on Tuesday, May 29. The crowded GOP nomination field includes frontrunner Lt. Governor David Dewhurst and former Dallas mayor Tom Leppert. Cruz and his competitors are vying to succeed Kay Bailey Hutchinson, the Republican senator who announced plans to retire last year.

Michael Tomasky, The Daily Beast
At first blush, it looked so deftly orchestrated on Tuesday"”Mitt Romney giving his blistering "prairie fire" speech on the debt, and John Boehner telling Pete Peterson and crowd that he relishes forcing another debt-ceiling showdown. The old one-two. Dominated the headlines. The speeches appeared to reflect a shift in focus to debts and deficits. But is this really where Romney wants to go? And in the company of Boehner? What's next, an ethnic sensitivity speech at Mel Gibson's place? Chip Somodevilla / Getty ImagesFirst of all, Romney's...

Hackers managed to seize the reins of a Tea Party PAC's website this week, replacing existing material with a variety of offensive messages, before it appeared to be taken offline altogether.

According to TechEye.net, users of the popular 4chan community gained access to administrator privileges for the website of the Independence Hall Tea Party PAC at some point on Thursday after guessing the website's password, which was reportedly "p9ssw0rd."

TechEye reports that the website at one point "flashed a vertical row of animated gifs of an animal appearing to rub its genitals, before redirecting to a Facebook user called 'Dillon Tilly.'" According to the New Times Broward-Palm Beach, the hackers also posted racist and anti-semitic messages, as well as child pornography for a period of time.

Beyond the digital vandalism, TechEye also notes that hackers had obtained and released a full list of the PAC's private donors.

At the time of publishing, the website appeared to be down entirely.

Independence Hall Tea Party PAC is a small organization covering Delaware, New Jersey and Pennsylvania that has endorsed GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney. It's unlikely to be a huge financial help for the Republican frontrunner, however, considering it has only raised around $300 in the 2012 election cycle.

PAC President Don Adams tells the New Times that he's now planning legal action.

"I really don't know if I want to make a comment about it," Adams said. "We're an all-volunteer organization, and our goal is to try to limit government, lower taxes and promote free enterprise. And if that's such an awful thing, there's obviously something wrong."

Click over to the New Times Broward-Palm Beach for screenshots of the various stages of hacker havoc, most of which are not safe for work.

Sean Sullivan, National Journal
The tea party, an unsteady movement that was beginning to resemble a wayward ship in 2012, found its north star in Indiana on Tuesday night. State Treasurer Richard Mourdock defeated six-term Sen. Richard Lugar in the Republican primary, a victory owing to the incumbent's inept campaign, the outside groups that lashed him on the air, and a story about his out-of-state residency that would not go away. But well before those issues got a foothold, a grassroots-driven, local movement to unseat Lugar was well under way.

E.J. Dionne, Washington Post
WASHINGTON -- We know there are coffee lovers and tea lovers, as well as lovers of baseball, football, art, literature, music and cars. But many years ago, Father Richard John Neuhaus, a hero to conservatives who earlier was a guide to religious radicals, identified a category to which I proudly belong: He said there were lovers of opinions.I do love opinions -- those I agree with, certainly, but often enough, even some I disagree with. Having grown up in a politically diverse extended family that spent a great deal of time arguing (fiercely but mostly amiably) about the world, I have always...

Believe that, as President, Mitt Romney would revert to his days as a "Massachusetts Moderate?" Think again.

Every bit of evidence indicates that if he were President, the Far Right would lead Romney around by a ring in his nose.

Just last week, we saw it clearly on display. It didn't take but two weeks for the Far Right to force the Romney campaign to sever its ties with openly gay Richard Grinnell, who it had hired as its foreign policy spokesman. The campaign itself argued that it had begged Grinnell to stay. But right wing talk show host Brian Fischer of the American Family Association, who had led the drive to force Grinnell's resignation, declared it a major victory.

On his radio show, Fischer bragged that Romney had learned his lesson and would never again hire a gay or lesbian in a major campaign role. And you certainly didn't see Romney contesting that assessment.

Instead we've seen Romney lined up shoulder to shoulder on TV with Tea Party icon Michelle Bachmann, and Virginia Governor Robert McDonnell - a potential Romney VP pick and a champion of "trans-vaginal ultrasounds."

The reason why there is not a chance that Romney will ever reinvent himself once again as a "moderate" is that he wasn't really a "moderate" in the first place. He's always practiced one version or the other of ultra right wing, "let Wall Street run wild" Romney economics. And he's never given one thought to firing workers, cutting pensions, loading companies with debt and bleeding them dry of millions of dollars.

But you can't really say that he is a committed believer in any economic principle or political value. Mitt Romney is committed to one thing and one thing alone - his own success. He has shown he has no core values whatsoever.

That's why it wasn't hard at all for Romney to shed his "moderate" past positions on issues like abortion rights, contraception, gay rights and immigration and to become what he himself calls a "severe conservative."

Why will he remain a "severe conservative" if he is elected President? Because people who have no core values have no backbone. You won't find Mitt Romney taking a stand against the dyed-in-the-wool ideologues that dominate the Republican caucus in Congress.

Those Republican ideologues may be way out of the mainstream, but they definitely have core values. Some of them were so committed to those values that they were willing to take our country to the brink of bankruptcy last year due to their unwillingness to give an inch of compromise.

The plain fact is that people with no core values never stand up to people who have core values. The fact is that Mitt Romney has the backbone of a jelly fish and that is precisely why the first time the ultra right wing pulls his chain and demands that he heel, he will fall right into line.

Even if he decided he wanted to challenge the right wing agenda propounded by the committed minions of the Tea Party, in a confrontation he would fold in an instant. When you have no core values, it's always much easier to go along with the demands of passionate, committed true-believers than it is to stand your ground.

And the Far Right knows this is true. Last week, right wing icon Grover Norquist was very clear. He said he was not looking for Presidential leadership from Romney. He believes that the leadership of the Republican Party will continue to come from right wing Republicans in Congress. All he asked of a President, he added, was enough digits on his hand to hold a pen to sign the bills embodying Congress' right wing agenda.

Watch how Romney behaves when he delivers the commencement speech at far right Liberty University on May 12th. Liberty University was founded by the late Moral Majority leader Jerry Falwell. Now it's run by his son, Jerry Falwell, Jr.

After the 9/11 attacks, Falwell Sr. said that "abortionists," "feminists," and "the gays and the lesbians" helped cause the September 11th attacks. According to CNN, "On the broadcast of the Christian television program 'The 700 Club,' Falwell made the following statement: 'I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People For the American Way, all of them who have tried to secularize America. I point the finger in their face and say 'you helped this happen.'"

Until recently, Liberty University banned inter-racial marriages between its students. Today it requires parental permission.

As recently as 2010, Liberty University Law School withdrew as a co-sponsor of the Conservative Political Action Conference in protest after the conference allowed the homosexual group GOProud to co-sponsor the event.

When Romney speaks at Liberty University will he speak out against that kind of intolerance? Or, true to form, will he instead worship at the altar of ultra-right wing ideology and say just what the leadership of Liberty University wants to hear? I might be wrong, but I'll bet that not one critical word escapes his lips.

Romney's unwillingness to challenge the far right does not pertain solely to the social conservative right. It also goes for economic right wingers like Grover Norquist, who want to return America to the bad old days of more Bush-like tax cuts for the wealthy, and the deregulation of Wall Street that did such damage to the middle class and led to the Great Recession that cost 8 million jobs.

And it also goes for the Neo-Con foreign policy right. Seventy percent of the 40 individuals identified by the Romney campaign as its foreign policy advisers served in the Bush administration and were responsible for the catastrophic Neo-Con foreign policy.

No, in exchange for the Republican nomination, Romney has sold his soul to the extreme right. He has willingly walked into the right wing inner sanctum, and even if he wanted to, he doesn't have the backbone to escape.

Robert Creamer is a long-time political organizer and strategist, and author of the book: Stand Up Straight: How Progressives Can Win, available on Amazon.com. He is a partner in Democracy Partners and a Senior Strategist for Americans United for Change. Follow him on Twitter @rbcreamer.

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.

___

Embattled Indiana Republican Sen. Dick Lugar has fallen behind his Tea Party challenger in a new poll that finds the veteran legislator in danger of losing after 36 years in office.

The Howey/DePauw Indiana Battleground Poll released Friday puts Lugar a stunning 10 points behind state Treasurer Richard Mourdock, trailing 38 percent to 48 percent.

Voters go to the polls Tuesday.

Lugar has been one of Indiana's most popular political figures for decades, and had a reputation as a statesman, running clean, positive campaigns. But with Mourdock riding the Tea Party's enthusiasm and putting Lugar's political life in jeopardy for perhaps the first time, Lugar fired off a string of negative attacks.

They don't appear to have worked, and on Friday Lugar was trying a more positive approach in a new TV ad aimed at getting out the vote and stemming Mourdock's surge.

"America faces serious challenges, but Hoosiers' courage and determination are unbreakable," Lugar says in the spot. "It's this spirit that guides me every day in the Senate."

He goes on to list the conservative agenda points that Mourdock has said he has failed on, arguing that he's worked hard to "overturn Obamacare," to protect "our energy security" and to "destroy and keep from terrorists thousands of rogue nuclear and biological weapons."

Tuesday will tell if the reminder of what Hoosiers liked about Lugar for so many years will be enough.

The Truth-o-Meter says: Mostly False | Ad says stimulus tax credits funded traffic lights in China

Is our stimulus money paying for traffic lights on Chinese streets? A TV ad running in eight states blames President Barack Obama for sending stimulus money overseas while Americans are out of work. "Tell President Obama, American tax dollars should help American taxpayers," the narrator says. Instead, $2.3 billion in tax credits funded jobs in Mexico, Finland and China, the ad claims. Americans for Prosperity, a group dedicated to "educating citizens about economic policy" that works closely with tea party activists and has been funded ...

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Michele Bachmann discussed her endorsement plans in the 2012 presidential race on Thursday, telling CNN's Wolf Blitzer that she would endorse presumptive Republican nominee Mitt Romney soon.

"As the line says in the 'Wizard of Oz,' 'All in good time, my pretty,'" Bachmann said of her coming endorsement. "It will happen."

Bachmann, who dropped out of the race following a poor showing in the Iowa caucuses, also discussed her post-campaign role in the Republican party.

"What I'm doing is working behind the scenes, bringing together all factions of our party," Bachmann said. "Don't forget, when there was the dust-up between Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama, there were 18 million women who had backed Hillary Clinton. They wanted no part of backing Barack Obama. It took time to get them to come over. I'm working behind the scenes to knit together the tea party, the evangelicals, to come together with the conservatives and back our nominee."

The Minnesota congresswoman made similar comments on Mike Huckabee's radio show earlier Thursday. During that interview, she predicted that Romney would listen to conservatives and the tea party.

"We will see an open ear from Mitt Romney," Bachmann said. "So far, he has proved to be a person who listens. That's what we need, a nominee who listens."

Bachmann is the latest prominent Republican to admit that Romney will almost certainly be their nominee, but have hesitated before throwing full support behind him. Rick Santorum, who left the race earlier this month, also stopped short of a full-fledged endorsement of the former Massachusetts governor.

"I will support the nominee of our party," Santorum said during an interview with CNN's Piers Morgan on Tuesday. "If he's the nominee, I'm going to do anything I can to help him win."

Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer defended his remarks on Mitt Romney's Mormon heritage, saying his comment that Romney's father had grown up on a "polygamy commune" was taken the wrong way.

"People are taking this far away from where I was discussing," Schweitzer, a Democrat, said in an interview Monday with CNN. "I was saying that Mitt Romney currently has a problem with Latino voters. And it is ironic that his father had come from Mexico. You could think he could embrace his Latino roots."

Recent polls have shown Mitt Romney trailing President Barack Obama among Hispanic voters. The former Massachusetts governor has moved to increase his appeal to Latinos, including campaign appearances Monday with Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) a Hispanic popular with Tea Pary voters, and reaching out to Hispanic voters in states like Arizona.

Schweitzer told CNN he didn't intend his remarks as an attack on the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

"I didn't say anything about religion," Schweitzer said. "The Mormon religion hasn't accepted polygamy in 120 years. As I said before, Mitt Romney, or his family that I know of, doesn't accept polygamy today."

The governor's original comments came during an interview last week with the Daily Beast. While discussing Romney's difficulty connecting with Hispanic voters, Schweitzer said it was "ironic" because "his family came from a polygamy commune in Mexico."

In that interview, Schweitzer clarified that he was "not alleging by any stretch that Romney is a polygamist and approves of [the] polygamy lifestyle."

Romney quickly responded to the Montana governor's comments.

"My dad's dad was not a polygamist," Romney said in an interview with Fox News. "My dad grew up in a family with a mom and a dad and a few brothers and one sister. They lived in Mexico and lived a very nice life there from what I understand and then when he was 5 or 6 years old there was a revolution in Mexico. They escaped."

Allysia Finley, Wall St. Journal
'You can't beat up on Grandpa. You shouldn't beat up on Grandpa. But still, there comes a time when it's time." So declares Richard Mourdock, the Indiana treasurer who is trying to unseat 80-year-old Sen. Dick Lugar in the May 8 GOP primary.It's hard to find a better symbol of the "Washington establishment" than Mr. Lugar, who has lived in D.C. since he was first sworn into office in 1977. But the avuncular senator is beloved by many Hoosiers"”and for the very reason that tea partiers want to send him home: He's a statesman, not...

Heir apparent GOP nominee Mitt Romney wants to govern a country that he doesn't completely trust with his money, and he represents a religion many in the Religious Right believe isn't Christian. Add in other "put out the fire" challenges including strapping the family pet to the roof of his car for a 12-hour joy ride, and one soon realizes that the Grand Old Party will need to pull out all of the stops if the Party hopes to get Mitt elected in November.

As reported by The Huffington Post and other news outlets, Mitt Romney has a Swiss bank account. Why he has one (or more, for all we know), is a mystery to us Average Janes and Joes. Is it that American banks aren't reliable enough for Mitt, and he feels that his American money is safer in Switzerland? Maybe he just likes the view of the Alps outside of his European bank, or maybe there's a really nice personal Swiss Miss banker who has caught his eye. As a marketer, I certainly wouldn't want to have to defend a "Made in America, Banked in Switzerland" tag line.

Whatever his motivation, Mitt's Swiss account doesn't seem very American. The vast majority of us keep our much smaller sums of money in the U.S. Only the rich can afford hide and seek their cash in places that provide safe haven from our tax laws, protection from U.S. economic instability and/or a run on our banks. One would think that if you're vying for the highest office in the land, you might feel an obligation to support American banking systems, our economy and pay any and all taxes so that our union and its freedoms are protected.

Like most Americans believe (I sincerely hope and pray), honesty and integrity are important to our society's welfare. Unfortunately, our politicians of recent haven't set much of an example for the rest of us. Many take money to speak by special interest groups, wine and dine with lobbyists, become lobbyists themselves and then tell the American people they're in it for us average citizens. And, for reasons that are devoid of any real logic, Americans root for these same politicians like they're cheering for high school football teams on a Friday night in Texas. We say, "I'm a Republican" or "I'm a Democrat" rather than "I'm an American, and I care about health care reform, taxes, unemployment, Social Security" and whatever else you'd like to throw on the heap. Giving political parties our undying gratitude without considering the actions of their politicians simply gives them more power.

Maybe that's why GOP voters can look at Mitt Romney and his off shore accounts and think it's okay he might not trust the very government he wants to run. Maybe that's why Conservative Christians, many of whom firmly believe Mormons are not followers of Christ and therefore the enemy, can support Mitt in the election. He is, after all, a Republican and the Religious Right votes GOP. Even if voting for Mitt means conservative voters have to compromise what they believe in most, their Christian value system. The emotional need to align with a political party far too often trumps personal judgments and beliefs.

To win in November, Mitt Romney will have to hide behind the shield of the Grand Old Party and hope that none of the Religious Righters wake up from their GOP-induced dream state. Mitt will need millions of voters to pull straight Republican tickets, without considering his overseas bank accounts or Mormonism or poor track record with Seamus the dog. It takes courage to stand on principles and fight for issues rather than blindly follow GOPers, Dems, Tea Partiers, Libertarians or the like.

It would be a truly wonderful world if all Americans could stop hiding behind party-constructed political agendas to carefully consider and vote their truths. Choose representatives based on what issues are most important to you personally, and refuse to hand over your vote to a party that doesn't care about you, personally. We are not watching a game of red states vs. blue states on ESPN. We're selecting people to govern our nation.

Does it seem honest and just for a presidential nominee to keep some of his millions in off shore accounts? oes it show faith in our nation or is it an unpatriotic act? If you believe that a certain religion is morally and spiritually wrong, do you think it's wise to put your Jesus aside and elect someone from it to run the country? Every politician seeking any office should be asked questions that are important to voters, and those voters must want to do what's best for a nation rather than simply join the cool kids at the party.

When we start voting our conscious rather than blindly follow behind a donkey or an elephant or a tea bag, we'll become the more perfect union we are meant to be.