“Add GOP presidential candidates to the list of Republicans who aren't thrilled by House Speaker John Boehner's plan to raise the debt limit,” USA Today writes, adding, “Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann said Tuesday that Boehner's approach is ‘wrong.’ … Ex-Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney praised Boehner, but not the plan. Spokeswoman Andrea Saul told Politico yesterday that Romney ‘applauds’ Boehner for ‘standing firm against raising taxes when our nation can least afford them.’ Former Utah governor Jon Huntsman was the first GOP presidential candidate to come out with a statement Monday supporting Boehner. He called it a ‘good first step.’” Pawlenty was firmly against.

A new Gallup poll of the GOP field shows Rick Perry surging to second place in the GOP field behind Mitt Romney. It’s Romney 17%, Perry 15%, Sarah Palin 12%, Bachmann and Rudy Giuliani 11%, Ron Paul 8%, Herman Cain and Newt Gingrich 3%, Pawlenty, Huntsman, and Rick Santorum 2%.

BACHMANN: The latest hit against Bachmann is that she spent $5,000 on hair and makeup in the early weeks of her presidential campaign.

(But honest question here: From calling her “flaky” to migraines to hair and makeup, why are opponents focusing on these stories rather than her actual statements, policy plans, and qualifications?)

“Like many members of Congress, Rep. Michele Bachmann has been a fierce critic of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, blaming the government-backed loan programs for excesses that helped create the financial meltdown in 2008. And like millions of other home purchasers, Bachmann took out a home loan in 2008 that offered lower costs to the borrower through one of the federally subsidized programs, according to mortgage experts who reviewed her loan documents,” the Washington Post reports. “Just a few weeks before Bachmann called for dismantling the programs during a House Financial Services Committee hearing, she and her husband signed for a $417,000 home loan to help finance their move to a 5,200-square-foot golf-course home, public records show. Experts who examined the loan documents for The Washington Post say that they are confident the loan was backed by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac.”

CAIN: “The Daily Caller has learned that Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain will host a roundtable discussion with American Muslim leaders within the next seven days. … The announcement comes in the wake of several statements by Cain in recent months that seemed to paint the former Godfather’s Pizza CEO as hostile to Muslims.”

Cain was supposed to be on The Colbert Report tomorrow night, but canceled.

HUNTSMAN: In an appearance on CBS this morning, Huntsman blamed his campaign's lagging performance on "the dog days of August," NBC’s Jo Ling Kent reports. "If the election were next month, I guess that'd be cause for concern."  He also said "it's going to take a little while" to get his campaign's message out there. And he noted his campaign has "terrific presence" in early primary states. This comes after Huntsman hired 21 paid staffers in New Hampshire this week.

The Boston Globe: “Republican presidential candidate Jon Huntsman blasted President Obama’s political posturing on the debt ceiling and targeted rival Mitt Romney’s record during a quick trip to the Granite State yesterday.” More: “Of Obama’s prime-time Monday night speech on increasing the amount the federal government can borrow, Huntsman said there was ‘too much politics.’” And on Romney, he said, “We’re talking about our economic records, which are very clear — number one job creation in the state in America versus number 47. All of this when the most important issue around 2012 is gonna be creating jobs and expanding our economic viability. I think those records are material, and I think they’re going to be of great interest to the American people.”

PAUL: “Representative Ron Paul has a message for the ardent followers who read his books with a highlighter and donate to his fund-raising ‘money bombs’ on the Internet: Winning the Iowa Straw Poll next month would ‘rock the establishment,’” the New York Times reports.

PAWLENTY: “Tim Pawlenty continued to defend himself Tuesday against criticisms leveled by Republican rival Michele Bachmann over the weekend,” the Des Moines Register writes. But the Register quotes one Iowan, who questioned Pawlenty over it and “wasn’t buying Pawlenty’s explanation for a 2006 audio clip in which the former Minnesota governor praises a mandate for individuals to buy health insurance.”

Pawlenty also came out against Boehner’s plan, saying it didn’t cut enough. He said in a statement, per the New York Times: “The debt limit is a line in the sand where Republicans can force the tough decisions to fix our nation’s finances, and taxpayers cannot afford for us to back down now. I am for the plan that will cut spending, cap it and pass a balanced-budget amendment, but unfortunately this latest bill does not accomplish that.”

ROMNEY: Former Ohio Sen. and Gov. George Voinovich will endorse Mitt Romney for president, Romney's campaign confirmed to NBC’s Garrett Haake last night. The endorsement was first reported by the Columbus Dispatch.

At a fundraiser in Virginia, Mitt Romney took the unusual step of outlining his vice-presidential short list – Virginia Gov. Bob “McDonnell, Governor Christie of New Jersey and Marco Rubio of Florida,” Romney said, according to Bearing Drift, a conservative Virginia blog.

Politico: “A source familiar with the event confirms that Romney mentioned McDonnell, Christie and Rubio as possible vice presidential prospects, noting that he was speaking in general terms and naming them as obvious candidates for the GOP ticket, rather than revealing his own personal short list.”

SANTORUM: He appeared to take a shot at Rick Perry yesterday in Des Moines, saying, per the Des Moines Register: “I am not, as some in this race have said, OK with New York doing what they’re doing. What New York did was wrong. I will oppose it and I will go to New York, if necessary, and help overturn it.” He also took a protectionist tone when a reporter from ABC pointed out that his campaign T-shirts were “Made in the Dominican Republic”: “It’s tragic that so many products in this country are made outside of this country. And what we have to do is create a different dynamic. I think my policies are very clear that we have to go out and make setting up a business in this country productive.”

INDIANA: A Club for Growth poll showed incumbent Sen. Richard Lugar (R-IN) trailing 34%-32% in a GOP primary matchup with state Treasurer Richard Mourdock.

MASSACHUSETTS: “Elizabeth Warren's tenure as the face of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) will come to a close at the end of the month,” The Hill reports. “The Treasury Department announced Tuesday that Warren will return to her work as a professor at Harvard Law School beginning Aug. 1… Meanwhile, speculation continues to swirl that Warren could mount a campaign to replace Sen. Scott Brown (R-Mass.) as senator in 2012. Senate Democrats have courted Warren for the job, but so far she has merely said she will think about the proposition.”

From msnbc.com's Tom Curry: 
Here are some of the “known unknowns” in the competing deficit reduction plan being offered by House Speaker John Boehner, set for a vote in that chamber tomorrow.

On Monday night President Barack Obama endorsed the competing proposal by Senate Majority Leader Harry and on Tuesday he had the White House issue a “Statement of Administration Policy” Tuesday indicating he would veto the Boehner plan if Congress passes it.

How many House Republicans will vote for Boehner’s proposal? And how many Democrats will vote for it?
It’s too soon for a vote tally, but some GOP fiscal conservatives are opposing it.

“I am confident as of this morning that there are not 218 Republicans in support of the plan,” said Rep. Jim Jordan, R- Ohio, the head the Republican Study Committee, a caucus of 175 GOP House conservatives, on Tuesday.

A prominent House GOP freshman, Rep. Joe Walsh of Illinois, said on MSNBC Tuesday he’d vote against Boehner’s plan.

But less TV-friendly GOP members have yet to be heard from, and many may not be until the roll call vote.

There are 240 Republicans in the House; with two vacancies, Boehner would need 217 votes to pass his bill. He and the GOP whip team will be working to persuade members that the plan is the only way for Republicans to get significant spending cuts signed into law, or at least the best vehicle to strengthen their hand in any eleventh-hour bargaining with Obama.

As for Democrats, there might be a handful from Republican-leaning districts who’ll end up voting for the plan, but they’re likely to lie low until the vote.

Which outside groups and power brokers have announced opposition to the Boehner proposal and which have come out for it?
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the powerful business lobbying group which helped Republicans win their House majority in 2010, issued a statement Tuesday urging House members to vote for Boehner’s plan. “This legislation is critical. Default on debt obligations is not an acceptable option. The time for Congress to act is now,” the chamber’s chief political strategist Bruce Josten wrote to House members.

Anti-tax crusader Grover Norquist of Americans for Tax Reform also gave his backing to the plan.

Against the plan are the fiscally hawkish Club for Growth, which helped elect several GOP House members and senators in 2010 – which said Boehner’s plan “cuts almost nothing immediately” and  “caps only discretionary spending.”

In the Senate, Lindsey Graham, R- S.C., said he opposed the Boehner plan because it would cut too little. “If the Boehner plan worked perfectly, it would only reduce spending by $3 trillion,” he said. “During that same timeframe the United States will add at least another $6-7 trillion in new debt.”

Also opposed are liberal-leaning groups such as the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, which said Boehner’s plan would require “draconian” cuts in spending on programs for low-income people and those over age 65.

How would the Boehner plan enforce its $1.2 trillion in proposed cuts to discretionary (non-entitlement) spending?
It would enforce the spending limit through what’s called “sequestration,” automatic across-the-board reductions. The mechanism would be similar to that used, with some success, in the 1985 Gramm-Rudman-Hollings law.

Under the Boehner plan, what’s the job of the new ‘super committee’ on cutting other spending, such as on entitlement programs such as Medicare? And who’ll pick its members?
Boehner’s bill says the new Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction would have the goal of reducing deficits by $1.8 trillion between 2012 and 2021 (on top of the $1.2 trillion in cuts to discretionary spending).

The committee would be comprised of 12 members appointed by the majority and minority leaders of the Senate, and the Speaker and minority leader of the House, with each appointing three members. The committee would be required to report a plan by Nov. 23, 2011 so that Congress would vote on it by Dec. 23, 2011. The plan would be debated and voted on under special expedited rules.

How will the super-committee’s jurisdiction overlap with that of the committees – such as the Senate Finance Committee – which have authority over programs such as Social Security and Medicare?
From the text of the bill and the GOP leadership’s explanation of it, that’s not clear.

The bill says the new committee’s job would be “to provide recommendations and legislative language,” but it seems that the existing committees, such as the Senate Finance Committee would still retain the power to decide exactly how to reduce spending and to attempt to reach the $1.8 trillion target for cuts in mandatory spending.

Boehner is setting goals, not telling the Congress how to reach those goals.

One of the biggest surprises since Republicans took control of the House of Representatives is how Darrell Issa, as chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, has largely stayed out of the front-page headlines.

Now comes this: The Washington Times reports that Issa will conduct a series of hearings aimed at a 2012-related video President Obama shot from the White House, as well as the president's White House meeting in March with big donors. (First Read wrote about the video and the March meeting last month.)

Strikingly, Issa suggests to the Washington Times that the hearings won't amount to more than "good theater," and he equates them to a baseball pitcher throwing "chin music" at a batter to brush him away from the plate. Issa's reasoning: His committee can't enforce campaign law.

In the interview with The Times, Mr. Issa acknowledged that his committee's role in enforcing campaign law is limited.

"At the end of the day, the president's not going to be impeached over either of those two offenses," Mr. Issa said. But he said he would seek to hold the president's team accountable "by White House people testifying."

He likened his investigation to a probe conducted by the committee's previous chair, Rep. Henry Waxman, California Democrat, who investigated the use of RNC e-mail accounts by 88 White House officials under Mr. Bush.

"It'll be good theater," Mr. Issa said. "The Democrats will make the claim that somehow we were wrong. And we'll remind them that this isn't much different than what Waxman looked at. And then it will end. The sad truth is, the most we can do on our committee is the equivalent of a pitcher who gets tired of a batter crowding the plate. Our hearings can maybe brush him [the president] back a little."

The wealth gap between whites and blacks in America is wider than it has been in a generation, but it doesn’t seem to be hurting President Obama politically.

Whites now have 20 times the net worth of blacks and 18 times that of Hispanics, as compared to a ratio of 7 to 1 from whites to both groups in 1995, when the U.S.’s economic expansion boosted many underprivileged groups to the middle class, according to an analysis of Census data released Tuesday by the Pew Research Center. That’s the widest gap in 27 years, since U.S. government began recording the wealth gap between whites and minorities.

In terms of total decrease in net worth, Hispanics have been affected most adversely, with a decrease of 66% from 2005 to 2009. The net worth of black families decreased 53% in the same period, as compared to a 16% drop for whites.

Analysts of the data report that the white-minority gap can be partially explained by the fact that whites have invested more in stocks and corporate savings, while younger Hispanics and African-Americans have invested more in homes, and therefore have seen significant losses. With an exceedingly stalled housing market, this wealth gap may widen even further.

"The findings are a reminder, if one was needed, of what a large share of blacks and Hispanics live on the economic margins," said Paul Taylor, director of Pew Social & Demographic Trends. "When the economy tanked, they're the groups that took the heaviest blows."

These studies emerge in the midst of the debt ceiling debate, in which Obama and congressional leaders must arrive at a decision to cut deficits and raise the debt ceiling or run the risk of seeing the U.S. default on its financial obligations -- all by the deadline of August 2^nd. Last week, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) met with Obama and urged him to avoid making cuts to housing assistance or safety net programs, claiming such cuts would disproportionately hurt minorities. It remains to be seen if this plea, and the study presented by the Pew Research Center, will have an impact on the August 2^nd decision.

Still, despite these data and Republicans, like Michele Bachmann and Mitt Romney pointing out how minorities have been adversely affected in this economy, blacks and Hispanics appear firmly in Obama’s corner. In the latest NBC News-Wall Street Journal poll, released last week, the president’s overall job approval was split with 47% approving and 48% disapproving. But those numbers spiked among Hispanics and African Americans. Hispanics approved 56%-39%, and blacks were an even stronger 88%-7%.

Those numbers have held pretty steady since the president took office. Provided they remain that way, that support could give Obama a measure of insulation in next year’s election that might not be enjoyed by other presidents in a similar economy.

Willamette Week

Rep. David Wu wearing a tiger costume that was sent to staffers, who became alarmed about his mental health. The photo is an Oct. 2, 2010 file photo provided by the Willamette Week newspaper to the Associated Press.

AP reports and NBC'S Frank Thorp confirms: "Democratic Rep. David Wu of Oregon has announced that he is resigning from Congress."

*** UPDATE *** This comes after it was revealed this past weekend that the troubled congressman had been accused by a teenage girl of an unwanted sexual encounter. Wu's behavior has been erratic and alarmed some staffers when he sent them a photo of himself in a mascot-like tiger suit.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi had called for an ethics investigation into Wu.

*** UPDATE 2 *** Here's Wu's statement, per NBC's Thorp:

It has been the greatest privilege of my life to be a United States Congressman. Rare is the nation in which an immigrant child can become a national political figure. I thank God and my parents for the privilege of being an American.

Now, however, the time has come to hand on the privilege of high office. I cannot care for my family the way I wish while serving in Congress and fighting these very serious allegations.

The wellbeing of my children must come before anything else. With great sadness, I therefore intend to resign effective upon the resolution of the debt-ceiling crisis. This is the right decision for my family, the institution of the House, and my colleagues.

It is also the only correct decision to avoid any distraction from the important work at hand in Washington. I intend to go forward with new resolve and love of family, the State of Oregon, and our nation.

After President Obama last night called on the public to contact their members of Congress to urge a compromise on the debt-ceiling debate, according to an email sent out to House staff, House phones are receiving a much higher volume of calls than normal and are "near capacity." As a result, external callers are occasionally getting busy signals.

See email below:

From: Call Center
Sent: Tuesday, July 26, 2011 09:57 AM
To: System Administrators, All
Subject: System Alert - House Telephone Circuits Near Capacity

Due to the high volume of external calls, House telephone circuits serving 202-225-XXXX phone numbers are near capacity resulting in outside callers occasionally getting busy signals. Outbound calls are unaffected.

During this time offices may wish to provide district office staff and key contacts with an alternate 202-226-XXXX extension, if available, until call volumes subside.

If you have any questions, please contact the CAO Technology Call Center at 5-6002 or 1-800-HIR-USER.

The C word … Obama and Boehner were speaking to two different audiences … What Obama left out – a veto threat … Can Boehner get to 217? What can pass both chambers? … Huntsman to draw contrasts at Dartmouth, but don’t expect too much red meat … Christie talks education and, curiously, he still can’t seem to compliment the GOP field.

*** Obama and compromise: Nothing better epitomizes the current debt standoff -- as well as the uncertainty of reaching any kind of deal -- than last night’s back-to-back primetime addresses by President Obama and House Speaker John Boehner. The president spoke in the present tense as if the idea of a "grand bargain" was still possible (watch Obama's speech). Boehner spoke in the past tense regarding the "grand bargain" (watch Boehner's speech). Both speeches seemed more about framing the "blame game" not necessarily for "default," but for who lost the big deal. The thrust of Obama’s speech, especially at the end, was about compromise. “We have tried to live by the words that Jefferson once wrote: ‘Every man cannot have his way in all things -- without this mutual disposition, we are disjointed individuals, but not a society,’” Obama said. “History is scattered with the stories of those who held fast to rigid ideologies and refused to listen to those who disagreed. But those are not the Americans we remember. We remember the Americans who put country above self, and set personal grievances aside for the greater good.”

*** Boehner and my way or the highway: But if Obama’s was about compromise, Boehner’s was anything but. He urged the passage of the House legislation he has introduced (which would raise the debt ceiling in two stages). “If the president signs it, the ‘crisis’ atmosphere he has created will simply disappear. The debt limit will be raised.  Spending will be cut by more than one trillion dollars, and a serious, bipartisan committee of the Congress will begin the hard but necessary work of dealing with the tough challenges our nation faces.” Our recent NBC/WSJ poll summed up these two divergent views: Large majorities of Democrats and independents said they wanted their leaders to compromise, while a majority of Republicans said they wanted GOP leaders to hold their ground. Thus the current impasse. The president was speaking to those independents last night with talk of fairness, quoting Ronald Reagan (and citing a bipartisan list of presidents) and this line: “The American people may have voted for divided government, but they didn’t vote for a dysfunctional government.” Boehner, though, was speaking to Republicans. It's one of the main differences between this standoff and the Clinton-Gingrich standoff in '95. During the '95 shutdown fight, both parties were trying to win over independents, speaking to the same group of voters. That is NOT the case with this standoff.

*** Flashback to December: Boehner's known this since he became speaker that he doesn't have a power base in the House that will let him compromise. In fact, this impasse was foreshadowed in Boehner’s “60 Minutes” interview in December:

J. BOEHNER: We have to govern. That's what we were elected to do.
STAHL (on camera): But governing means a -- compromising.
J. BOEHNER: It means working together. It means find...
STAHL: It also means compromising.
J. BOEHNER: It means finding common ground.
STAHL: OK, is that compromising?
J. BOEHNER: I made clear I am not going to compromise on -- on my principles, nor am I going to compromise...
STAHL: What are you saying?
J. BOEHNER: ... the will of the American people.
STAHL: And you're saying I want common ground, but I'm not going to compromise. I don't understand that. I really don't.
J. BOEHNER: When you say the -- when you say the word "compromise"...
STAHL: Yeah?
J. BOEHNER: ... a lot of Americans look up and go, "Uh-oh, they're going to sell me out." And so finding common ground I think makes more sense.

*** Obama didn’t say “veto”: Yet when you don’t compromise, you often get the other side to move closer and closer to your position, as we’re currently seeing in this debt-ceiling fight. And in his speech last night, Obama never said he’d veto Boehner’s legislation if it gets to his desk. As Major Garrett writes in National Journal: “If Republican leaders were sifting through Obama's speech for one word it was ‘veto.’ Its absence gives Obama, Boehner, and the Senate room to maneuver if, as now appears likely, Boehner's bill squeaks through the House and arrives in the Senate as a viable, though less-than-optimal, alternative to default.” The fact is this: whatever gets through Congress, the president will sign. The president is not going to own default by vetoing anything so close to Aug. 2. But, what can get through both chambers?

*** Can Boehner get 217? But it's an open question if Boehner's legislation can get 217 House votes for passage, especially when members of his own party -- like Utah Rep. Jason Chaffetz and Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan -- are opposing it. "The fact that it doesn't really push the envelope on a balanced budget amendment, doesn't send it to the states, that makes it very difficult for a guy like me to support raising the debt ceiling to such high and new levels," Chaffetz said in an interview yesterday, per NBC's Frank Thorp, "I just, I have a very difficult time with that." Chaffetz also opposes the legislation's creation of a committee to deal with entitlements and taxes. "We have a bipartisan commission; it's called the United States Congress -- the House and the Senate," he said, "We're supposed to be doing our jobs, we don't need a commission." Some GOP leadership aides believe the president's speech last night actually helped them convince some skeptical Republican members whose instinct is to vote against ANY deal to consider helping Boehner on this bill. Still, they will have very little help from Democrats on this round of voting. One of the sweeteners the leadership is including in the Boehner plan is another vote on a Balanced-Budget Amendment, but what form of the BBA? One that includes a super-majority for taxes (which then has ZERO chance in the Senate) or a clean one that has a chance in the Senate but then is harder for some House GOP conservatives to support?

*** Does the base like its steak medium-well? At his speech (and Q-and-A) at a Dartmouth lecture series today, expect that, Jon Huntsman, with a new campaign manager on board, will continue to try and draw a sharper contrast between his record as governor of Utah, the president’s, and that of other GOP opponents (like, say, Mitt Romney). BUT don’t expect too much red meat. The aim of the former China ambassador’s speech, according to the Boston Globe, is to “address key US foreign policy priorities, including the US-China relationship.” Huntsman is staking a good deal of his campaign on New Hampshire, where he has hired “nearly two dozen paid staffers,” AP reports. It could “end up being the largest paid GOP primary operation in state history,” AP writes. He’s going to need a concerted effort there, because Huntsman has barely registered in the polls and Romney has sizable leads in the polls. Beginning last week, he started to take a tougher tone, but he needs to start breaking through -- and soon.

*** On the 2012 trail: Pawlenty and Santorum make several campaign stops in Iowa… Huntsman, in New Hampshire, speaks at Dartmouth Lecture Series… And Gingrich conducts a series of radio interviews.

*** Christie talks education in Iowa: By the way, the Des Moines Register wraps Chris Christie’s day in Iowa yesterday. “New Jersey residents are spending tens of thousands of dollars per student each year yet are seeing failing results in key parts of their state, Gov. Chris Christie told Iowa educators Monday… The nation can find unity in the goal to invest in education, but the bigger question is how to best spend the money to get results, Christie said. He encouraged Iowans to embrace such options as school choice. ‘Everyone in New Jersey and I suspect everyone in Iowa wants to invest in our children's future, so let's put a stop to it, the hyperbole about who likes and dislikes public education,’ Christie said.” Notably, Christie was more conciliatory to this group of educators than he is back home in New Jersey, the L.A. Times points out. And he said he wasn’t sure if he will endorse anyone and that “no candidate to date has excited him enough to do it,” the L.A. Times writes. "To get there I have to feel that way about one of the people offering themselves for president," Christie said. "If that moment comes, I certainly won't keep it a secret." That’s pretty telling. We’ll stop wondering if Christie is still thinking about running in 2012, when he stops lamenting the field and starts complimenting it.

***Tuesday’s “The Daily Rundown” line-up: Sen. John Thune (R-SD) and White House Communications Director Dan Pfeiffer react to last night’s dueling speeches… Charlie Cook and Stu Rothenberg map out how Republicans could retake the Senate majority and which races Democrats are counting on to thwart that… NBC’s Luke Russert, AP’s Liz Sidoti and the Washington Post’s Chris Cillizza break down debt dealings and 2012 headlines, including the latest in Pawlenty v. Bachmann.

*** Tuesday’s “Andrea Mitchell Reports” lineup: Meanwhile, Andrea Mitchell interviews GOP Sen. Bob Corker, Dem Rep. John Larson and Obama budget director Jack Lew for her shows, which begins airing at 1:00 pm ET.

Countdown to Wisconsin recall general for GOP senators: 14 days
Countdown to Iowa GOP straw poll: 18 days
Countdown to Wisconsin recall general for Dem senators: 21 days
Countdown to NV-2 and NY-9 special elections: 49 days
Countdown to Election Day 2011: 105 days
Countdown to the Iowa caucuses: 195 days
* Note: When the IA caucuses take place depends on whether other states move up

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The New York Times: "It was a day of legislative chess moves, back-to-back party caucuses and closed-door meetings that ended with a nationally televised presidential address and a rebuttal by the House speaker, John A. Boehner. Their separate speeches reflected that the two sides are farther apart than ever — just a week ago, the two men were in private negotiations on a 'grand bargain' of spending cuts and additional revenue, what Mr. Obama called 'a balanced approach.'"

Bloomberg News: “President Barack Obama warned of a ‘deep economic crisis’ without a compromise to avert an Aug. 2 U.S. default as he dueled Republican House Speaker John Boehner in back-to-back speeches on increasing the debt limit.”

“President Barack Obama and House Speaker John Boehner squared off on national television Monday night, back-to-back appearances driven by the debt debate and underscoring Washington’s high-stakes political gamble with default— only seven days away,” Politico adds.

And Roll Call also picks up the theme: “President Barack Obama and Speaker John Boehner held dueling addresses to the nation Monday night, sparring over who is to blame for the stalemate in Washington ahead of next week’s deadline for raising the debt ceiling.”

As does The Hill: “President Obama and House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) clashed in dueling prime-time speeches as Obama warned against Boehner’s proposal for a short-term increase in the debt ceiling.”

The Boston Globe: “President Obama, reminding lawmakers ‘the whole world is watching,’ exhorted them last night to break through partisan bickering and pass a comprehensive budget deal that protects Americans from the pain of a government default in one week. … A hint of how lawmakers will respond is expected to come as soon as tomorrow. Speaker John Boehner plans to hold a vote in the Republican-controlled House on his two-step approach that would cut spending by $1.2 trillion and allow the government to keep borrowing money for another seven or eight months.” And: “Obama targeted conservative Republicans in the House, blaming them for blocking a balanced deal he and Boehner had been working on…. In an attempt to isolate the Republicans backed by the Tea Party movement, Obama made an unusual appeal: Americans who agree with him should call and pressure their local lawmaker.”

(Here’s the Globe’s breakdown of the competing plans and AP’s timeline.)

AP notes that Obama is skipping several reelection fundraisers because of the debt-ceiling crisis.

The Boston Globe’s editorial page agrees with President Obama (and Sen. Chuck Schumer, who has been making the case for a while) that the Tea Party is to blame: “Too many mainstream conservatives, fearing the appearance of disarray in the GOP caucus, have been unwilling to take on the Tea Party extremists. Those who are keeping quiet now - or pointing fingers at Democrats to create the false appearance that both sides were equally unwilling to compromise - may have miscalculated. Voters cannot forget the damage done by this back-bench attempt to impose an ideology that most Americans reject. And voters should demand accountability not just from the Tea Party, but from those who enabled its utterly irresponsible actions.”

Political Wire: “A new Washington Post-ABC News poll finds ‘roughly as many people blame Republican policies for the poor economy as they do Obama. But 65% disapprove of the GOP's handling of jobs, compared to 52% for the president.’”

“The wealth gap between whites and minorities has grown to its widest level in a quarter-century,” AP writes of a Pew study. “The recession and uneven recovery have erased decades of minority gains, leaving whites on average with 20 times the net worth of blacks and 18 times that of Hispanics, according to an analysis of new census data. … It offers the most direct government evidence yet of the disparity between predominantly younger minorities whose main asset is their home and older whites who are more likely to have 401(k) retirement accounts or other stock holdings.”

No politics for Michelle Obama after her and her husband leave the White House. “ ‘The answer is N-O. Period, dot,’ Mrs. Obama said in an interview with AARP The Magazine, on whose cover she will appear for its September/October edition,” per The Hill. “ ‘I think one reason Jill [Biden] and I are comfortable and happy is that we’re doing what speaks to us,’ the first lady said. ‘And what I’ve learned as a woman growing up, getting older, is you’ve got to know who you are. And a politician — it’s never been who I was or wanted to be.’”

Roll Call says it all comes down to this: “For House Republicans, the debt ceiling debate has come down to a simple question: Do they trust Speaker John Boehner?”

The fallback? “Senate Republicans on Monday dismissed a new budget proposal from Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) that would exchange $2.7 trillion in spending cuts for an extension of the debt ceiling through 2013, but Democrats hope they can prove that their offering is the only viable option by week’s end,” Roll Call writes.

“House Speaker John Boehner often attacks the spendthrift ways of Washington,” Bloomberg writes. “ ‘In Washington, more spending and more debt is business as usual,’ the Republican leader from Ohio said in a televised address yesterday amid debate over the U.S. debt. ‘I’ve got news for Washington -- those days are over.’ Yet the speaker, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell all voted for major drivers of the nation’s debt during the past decade: Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the 2001 and 2003 Bush tax cuts and Medicare prescription drug benefits. They also voted for the Troubled Asset Relief Program, or TARP, that rescued financial institutions and the auto industry.”

“Since January, House Speaker John Boehner has raised $6.6 million for his campaign committee, six times more than the Ohio Republican received during the same period two years ago when he was the chamber’s minority leader,” Bloomberg writes. “Three of the five biggest sources of Boehner’s campaign cash this year are employees of three Wall Street investment houses, a shift from the 2010 election cycle, when such contributors were not ranked among his top 10 donors.”

And then there’s this… a government shutdown looms this fall, Roll Call notes. “All of Washington’s attention might be focused on the debt ceiling debate, but even if Congress averts a catastrophic default by Aug. 2, another partisan brawl over a government shutdown could be just around the corner. In fact, Members of Congress say they are already bracing for it.”

Why Washington is lame. Just don’t go there, dude… Per The Hill, Rep. Billy Long (R-Mo.) tweeted: “No one could reach #AmyWinehouse before it was too late. Can anyone reach Washington before it's too late? Both addicted - same fate???”

BACHMANN: “Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) has missed nearly 40 percent of votes in the House since she formally launched her presidential campaign,” The Hill writes. “Bachmann’s absentee rate, which is significantly higher than the two other House members running for president, could be used by her GOP opponents on the campaign trail.” (But neither of those House members – Ron Paul and Thaddeus McCotter are considered front runners. Bachmann has been spending a lot of time in Iowa campaigning, and it’s par for the course for presidential candidates to miss a higher number of votes than when they’re not running.)

GINGRICH: Regrets, he had a few… “Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) said Tuesday that he regrets making a commercial with Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) on the need to address climate change,” The Hill writes. He even claims it was “misconstrued.” "I was trying to make a point that we shouldn't be afraid to have a debate with the left, even on the environment," Gingrich said on WGIR radio of the 30-second television commercial. "Obviously it was misconstrued, and it's probably one of those things I wouldn't do again." Uh, in the ad Gingrich said that the "country must take action to address climate change." And in January he “mean exactly what [he] said in that commercial.” OK…

He also claims President Obama is trying to “blackmail the whole country.”

PALIN: Who didn’t see this coming? Palin’s movie tanked in the second week, per Reuters (via GOP12): “Despite increasing its play dates by 40%, ticket sales were down 63% compared with last weekend's take. And in a sign that the distributor, Arc Entertainment, doesn't think it's likely to rebound, the film will be available on pay-per-view, September 1.”

PERRY: Politico's Martin looks at the likely campaign-in-waiting. “As it increasingly appears likely the Texas governor will launch a White House bid, Perry’s ramp-up has become eerily reminiscent of the front porch strategy then-Gov. George W. Bush employed in 1999 at the governor’s mansion ahead of his own presidential run – but at an accelerated pace. This week alone, Perry is meeting in the Texas capital with a group of elected officials from Arkansas, then with another later in the week from Tennessee and Georgia. He’s also hosting a group of national donors. Next week, he’s set to sit down with a different set of bundlers. ‘So many people want to do these, we’ve had to add additional dates,’ said Dave Carney, Perry’s top strategist.

“Texas Gov. Rick Perry has the potential to shake up the Republican presidential contest and would enter the race as a probable national frontrunner. But just two years ago, Perry couldn't even count on the Lone Star State to grant him another term as governor,” Roll Call writes, adding, “The governor sowed the seeds of his eventual rise beginning in 2005, Texas Republicans say, when he was viewed as acting decisively to help the Gulf Coast recover from Hurricane Katrina. In 2008, as he managed the aftermath of Hurricane Ike, which blew through Houston and greater southeast Texas, Perry's leadership stood in stark contrast to what many Texans had witnessed in Louisiana, GOP operatives say. But it is President Barack Obama, the man Perry would face in the 2012 general election should he win the Republican nod — and the subsequent rise of the tea party — who is credited more than anything else with shaping the governor's recent political stardom.”

In addition to his comments that he’s OK with New York passing a gay-marriage law, GOP 12 digs up a quote from Perry on the Daily Show in November 2010, when he said, "[If] you want to go somewhere where you can smoke medicinal weed, then you ought to be able to do that." (The Perry scrutiny is picking up…)

ARKANSAS: Rep. Mike Ross (D-AR) is not seeking reelection.

MASSACHUSETTS: “In the state where gerrymandering was born, no amount of creative district drawing will ensure all 10 Massachusetts Democrats return to the House in January 2013,” Roll Call writes.

MISSOURI: “Rep. Todd Akin apparently has personal assets far beyond what he has previously revealed on his annual financial disclosure forms.Last week, the Missouri Republican amended nearly a decade’s worth of personal financial disclosure forms, reporting assets for 2010 worth a minimum of $355,000, more than 10 times what he had reported in May,” Roll Call writes. “Akin, who is challenging Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) in 2012, told House ethics officials in a letter last week that he has partial ownership of two pieces of property in an affluent St. Louis suburb and a third in East Dennis, Mass.”

OREGON: “House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) formally asked the House Ethics Committee on Monday to investigate allegations of sexual impropriety against Rep. David Wu (D-Ore.), who has refused to step down despite calls for his resignation,” the New York Post writes.

With the debt-ceiling clock ticking, the White House just announced that President Obama will deliver an address to the nation at 9:00 pm ET tonight. He'll give it from the East Room.

White House Press Secretary Jay Carney tweeted:

POTUS to address nation, 9 pm tonight, re stalemate over avoiding default and the best approach to cutting deficits. Watch @ wh.gov/live.

On the Senate floor moments ago, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said President Obama was presented with a bipartisan proposal to raise the debt ceiling -- agreed upon by Democratic leaders Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi -- but the president "rejected it out of hand."

Senate Reid's office says this is false: There were staff discussions but no "agreement."

What McConnell said:

The responsible path forward was clear to everyone - a plan that avoided default and required additional savings before any further increase in the debt ceiling. Leaders from both parties and both houses agreed that this was the right path forward legislatively - the only thing to do at that point was to present this bipartisan solution to the president. And what was the president's response? Well, unfortunately, to demand the largest single debt limit increase in history...

There's absolutely no economic justification for insisting on a debt limit increase that brings us through the next election. It's not the beginning of a fiscal year, it's not the beginning of a calendar year, based on his own words its hard to conclude that this request has anything to do with anything other than the president's re-election.

"This weekend we offered the President a bipartisan proposal to avoid default so we could have the time we need to put together a serious plan for getting our house in order and he rejected it out of hand.

*** UPDATE *** Meanwhile, the White House appears to have embraced Reid's one-step $2.7 trillion plan. Per a statement by White House Press Secretary Jay Carney:

All the cuts put forward in this approach were previously agreed to by both parties through the process led by the vice president.  Sen. Reid’s plan also reduces the deficit more than enough to meet the contrived dollar-for-dollar criteria called for by House Republicans, and, most importantly, it removes the cloud of a possible default from our economy through 2012. The plan would make a meaningful down payment in addressing our fiscal challenge, and we could continue to work together to build on it with a balanced approach to deficit reduction that includes additional spending reforms and closing tax loopholes for corporations, millionaires and billionaires. 

Sen. Reid’s plan is a reasonable approach that should receive the support of both parties, and we hope the House Republicans will agree to this plan so that America can avoid defaulting on our obligations for the first time in our history. The ball is in their court.

The man charged with rounding up Republican votes in the House said he expects that whatever debt-ceiling plan initially makes its way through that chamber will include some kind of balanced budget amendment -- or a plan to implement one soon.

“I think it will have some form,” House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) told Chuck Todd on MSNBC's "Daily Rundown."

“Maybe it has a balanced budget amendment right now, maybe it has some vote in the near future,” McCarthy added.

The House majority whip said that Friday’s 51-46 party-line Senate vote to not move forward on the House-approved “Cut, Cap and Balance” bill doesn’t mean it’s over for that approach right now.

“It did not get rejected; it got tabled,” he said.

Asked what happens if the Democratic-controlled Senate strips out a balanced budget amendment in a final debt deal bill, McCarthy responded, “If the Senate dislikes our bill, then tell us what they’re for.”

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

First Read has confirmed that six-term Arkansas Congressman Mike Ross (D) will not seek re-election next year, according to a Democratic source.

Ross is reportedly eyeing a gubernatorial bid in 2014.

Ross' congressional seat won't be easy for Democrats to hold next year. Obama won just 39% of the vote in the district in '08.

An Obama campaign official confirms reports that the president has been forced to cancel several upcoming fundraisers, so that he can continue to focus on raising the debt ceiling.

Obama had been scheduled to attend two DNC events tonight in Washington, DC. Instead, Vice President Biden will attend tonight's fundraiser at the St. Regis Hotel.

On Wednesday Aug. 3, the president had been schedule to travel to Chicago for fundraisers as part of his 50th birthday celebration.

The Obama campaign official says that if debt negotiations are still ongoing, the president will not travel to Chicago for those events.

In addition, an upcoming presidential West Coast swing for campaign events in California and Washington State has been put on hold, the official confirms.

Another week of finger-pointing, posturing, and politics?... Boehner to introduce his $3 trillion two-step plan at 2:00 pm ET ($1.2 trillion in cuts for a temporary debt-ceiling extension, following by a bipartisan committee to come up with $1.8 trillion in revenue and entitlement changes for another debt-ceiling increase)… Reid to counter with his $2.7 trillion one-step plan (it extends the debt ceiling through 2012, contains $2.7 trillion in cuts, and has no revenues increases or entitlement changes)… Bachmann vs. Pawlenty: The Ames Battle begins… The Tea Party and gay marriage… Summer of speculation: Christie heads to Iowa… And Wu-oah: A defiant David Wu won’t resign immediately.

*** Finger-pointing, posturing, and politics: We are now a little more than a week out until the Aug. 2 deadline, but all sides in the ongoing debt-ceiling fight are still pointing the finger at each other, posturing, and accusing the other side of playing politics. (That was supposed to be last week’s activity, but this week, too?) The White House is shaking its finger at Speaker John Boehner and the House Republicans for wanting a short-term debt-ceiling fix. The outline of that House GOP plan, which Boehner plans to unveil around 2:00 pm ET -- $1.2 trillion in cuts for a six- to nine-month debt-ceiling extension, followed by a bipartisan committee to come up with $1.8 trillion in revenue and entitlement changes for another debt-ceiling increase. But the White House says that approach can’t pass the Senate. "So [Boehner] would be choosing to make a political statement," a White House source tells us, adding: "Remember, Boehner and Cantor argued for months against a short-term deal.”

*** Boehner’s $3 trillion two-step: Senate Republicans, meanwhile, say that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid was working with Boehner and Senate Minority Leader McConnell on that two-step fix (and yes, that's the spin war between the two parties now --"short term" is what Dems will use to describe this idea, and "two-step process" is what GOP will use to describe it). "The speaker, Sen. Reid, and Sen. McConnell all agreed on the general framework of a two-part plan,” a Republican source emails First Read. “A short-term increase (with cuts greater than the increase), combined with a committee to find long-term savings before the rest of the increase would be considered. Sen. Reid took the bipartisan plan to the White House and the president said no." But Senate Democrats argue that storyline is incorrect, NBC’s Libby Leist reports. "Republicans are wrong. It’s true that our staffs continued to talk yesterday, but we never backed off our opposition to a short-term increase, and they never stopped insisting on one. And that's why talks fell apart.”

*** Can Republicans go it alone in the House? The interesting gamble Boehner is making with his two-step plan is this: He's counting on passing this in the House with Republicans only. For months, however, the House GOP leadership has quietly argued they need Democratic votes to a get plan passed in the House. But the purpose of the conference call yesterday with the House Republican conference was Boehner trying to talk as many of the rank-and-file to sign on with his plan as possible. The House GOP leadership knows if they can't pass Boehner's plan WITHOUT Democratic votes, the lose a lot of leverage. How big is the unofficial Bachmann caucus inside the GOP conference? Remember, she's against any debt ceiling raise. And this plan will not have a balanced budget amendment attached to it. Don't assume Boehner has the 217 Republican votes for his plan. If he does, it gives his plan a better chance.

*** Reid’s $2.7 trillion one-step: As we noted yesterday, Reid is now preparing to move his own compromise legislation -- which extends the debt ceiling through 2012, contains $2.7 trillion in cuts, and has no revenues increases or entitlement changes. NBC’s Leist says that Reid may introduce this legislation as early as today. But House Republicans dismiss the Reid approach. “You ought to call it the unicorn and dragons plan,” a House GOP source tells us. Why? Because, as the Washington Post writes, part of that $2.7 trillion in savings is assuming the end of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. “[P]eople familiar with the months-long search for a debt-reduction compromise said that hitting such a large target without raising taxes or cutting entitlement programs would probably require Reid to rely heavily on savings from ending the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan — a figure budget analysts said could easily amount to more than $1 trillion over the next decade.”

*** But remember: Republicans started this fight: All of this finger-pointing, posturing, and politics -- with the U.S.’s credit rating at stake -- have generated a considerable disgust at Washington, at both Democrats and Republicans. But it is important to note that Republicans started this fight by tying deficit reduction to the debt ceiling (when many of these same Republicans have voted for clean debt-ceiling hikes in the past). The president and his party have indicated their willingness to pay the ransom -- with some concessions -- but Republicans won’t accept it. The irony to all this is that Republicans have won the larger argument they started; they just haven't figured out how to declare victory. What seems to upset many Republicans is how the president (using the bully pulpit) got to the right of them on deficit reduction. Of course, now both parties have a lot on the line, the president doesn't want to look like he can't lead, even a broken Washington, and the Republicans want to prove they can govern. 

*** Bachmann vs. Pawlenty: The Ames Battle begins: It’s less than 20 days until the Ames Straw Poll, and things are beginning to heat up in the Hawkeye State. Over the weekend, Team Bachmann took a swipe at Pawlenty after he once again knocked her experience in an interview on FOX. This back-and-forth comes as both Bachmann and Pawlenty have been airing TV ads in the run-up to Ames. By the way, there will be nine names on the straw-poll ballot, the Des Moines Register reported over the weekend. The nine include the six who bought tent space for the straw poll (Bachmann, Cain, McCotter, Pawlenty, Paul, and Santorum), as well as three others (Gingrich, Huntsman, and Romney). Per the Des Moines Register, “[T]he Republican Party of Iowa’s state central committee decided today not to include two well-known candidates who are merely flirting with a bid: Rick Perry and Sarah Palin.”

*** The Tea Party and gay marriage: With the Tea Party now playing such an influential role within the Republican Party, gay marriage has become a fascinating issue. Why? Because the Tea Party’s libertarian streak and focus on the 10^th Amendment conflicts with the GOP/evangelical opposition to gay marriage. After all, if you believe in states’ rights, then New York has as much right to pass legislation legalizing gay marriage as another state has the right to opt out of the federal health-care law. On Friday, Texas Gov. Rick Perry made the classic libertarian/10^th Amendment case on New York’s gay-marriage law. "That is their call. If you believe in the 10th Amendment, stay out of their business,” he said. But Rick Santorum fired off this Tweet: “So Gov Perry, if a state wanted to allow polygamy or if they chose to deny heterosexuals the right to marry, would that be OK too?” Well, a libertarian would say yes, or reply that the government has no business in things like marriage.

*** On the 2012 trail: Bachmann is in Iowa, holding a rally in Manchester and a town hall in Maquoketa… Gingrich… Gingrich campaigns in New Hampshire… Paul stumps in Iowa, hitting Ames and Cedar Rapids… And Pawlenty remains in Iowa, too, making stops in Davenport and Muscatine.

*** Summer of Speculation: Christie heads to Iowa: And guess who’s also in Iowa today: New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who speaks at the Iowa Education Summit in Des Moines at 5:30 pm ET. Christie’s appearance in the Hawkeye State comes after dozens of big name GOP donors -- including Home Depot co-founder Ken Langone – tried to convince him to run last week. As Politico wrote, Christie repeated to the donors that he’s not running in 2012, citing his wife (“She’s not enthused”), his children (“Missing my kids growing up is a big deal to me”), and his concern about leaving halfway through his first term (“The people trusted me, and I feel like I owe that trust and faith some fidelity”).

*** Wu-oah: It’s very easy to see that this story is MUCH worse than the Anthony Weiner one, but so far it’s sticking closely to the Weiner script. The Oregonian: “Defiant and dug in, [Democratic] Rep. David Wu said late Sunday that he would not resign, declaring instead that he will complete his term and then retire from Congress in 2012. The surprising decision came one day after senior Democratic leaders urged the seven-term Democrat to resign quickly after reports that he was accused of an unwanted and aggressive sexual encounter with a young woman last November.” After  Wu said he wouldn’t resign, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi called for the Ethics Committee to look into the allegations. Wu’s Democratic primary opponent has already raised a considerable amount of money. One key different between Wu and Weiner, as one Democratic source tells us: Weiner, at the end of the day, was more rational to deal with…

*** Monday’s “The Daily Rundown” line-up: House Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) on debt deliberations… Ex-Sen John Breaux (D-LA) joins AEI’s Norm Ornstein to discuss Ornstein’s assessment that this is the worst Congress ever… The Washington Post’s Dan Balz, Politico’s Jonathan Martin and the Center for American Progress’ Jennifer Palmieri break down the latest chapter in Pawlenty vs. Bachmann.

Countdown to Wisconsin recall general for GOP senators: 15 days
Countdown to Iowa GOP straw poll: 19 days
Countdown to Wisconsin recall general for Dem senators: 22 days
Countdown to NV-2 and NY-9 special elections: 50 days
Countdown to Election Day 2011: 106 days
Countdown to the Iowa caucuses: 196 days
* Note: When the IA caucuses take place depends on whether other states move up

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“The House speaker, John A. Boehner, and the Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, were preparing separate backup plans to raise the nation’s debt ceiling on Sunday after they and the White House were unable to form a bipartisan plan that would end an increasingly grim standoff over the federal budget,” the New York Times writes. “The dueling plans emerged after Mr. Boehner walked away from negotiations with the White House on Friday, leading to a frustrating weekend of talks in heat-scorched Washington. The leaders of both parties variously negotiated together over the phone, talked separately, conferred with their caucuses and tried to plot an end to the debt crisis that would assure the capital markets around the world that America would meet its debt obligations.”

The sticking points with Reid’s plan: It gets part of its savings by assuming the end of the Afghanistan and Iraq wars. The Washington Post: "[P]eople familiar with the months-long search for a debt-reduction compromise said that hitting such a large target without raising taxes or cutting entitlement programs would probably require Reid to rely heavily on savings from ending the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan — a figure budget analysts said could easily amount to more than $1 trillion over the next decade. Counting money not spent on wars that the nation is already planning to end is widely viewed as a budget gimmick, and House GOP leaders have been reluctant to include it as savings.”

More: “But it has a political advantage because it was included in the budget blueprint House Republicans adopted this spring. And Democratic sources said the option may look more attractive as the clock ticks down to Aug. 2, when Treasury officials say they will run out of money to pay all of the government’s bills.”

How the market is viewing all of this: “U.S. stock futures dropped while gold hit a record high on Monday, as President Barack Obama and Congress failed to reach a deal to allow an increase in the nation's debt ceiling, raising worries that the U.S. might default on its sovereign debt,” the Wall Street Journal says.

Elizabeth Drew in the New York Review of Books: “Someday people will look back and wonder, What were they thinking? Why, in the midst of a stalled recovery, with the economy fragile and job creation slowing to a trickle, did the nation’s leaders decide that the thing to do—in order to raise the debt limit, normally a routine matter—was to spend less money, making job creation all the more difficult? Many experts on the economy believe that the President has it backward: that focusing on growth and jobs is more urgent in the near term than cutting the deficit, even if such expenditures require borrowing. But that would go against Obama’s new self-portrait as a fiscally responsible centrist.”

Politico’s Martin: “Six months before votes are cast here, Iowa Republicans say that none of the current or potential hopefuls has cornered the market. Anyone can win here—the contest remains in such a state of flux that candidates as divergent as Mitt Romney and Michele Bachmann could finish on top… If anything, the Iowa Republican contest of 2012 bears an uncanny resemblance to the 2004 Democratic contest here, with multiple candidates competing for different slices of the party vote and uncertainty likely to hang over the race well after the first frost has emerged on the corn stalks.”

BACHMANN: Over the weekend, Bachmann’s campaign fired back at Pawlenty’s charge that she lacks experience, Politico writes. Per a statement, "Governor Pawlenty said in 2006, 'The era of small government is over... the government has to be more proactive and more aggressive.' That's the same philosophy that, under President Obama... When I was fighting against the unconstitutional individual mandate in healthcare, Governor Pawlenty was praising it. I have fought against irresponsible spending while Governor Pawlenty was leaving a multi-billion-dollar budget mess in Minnesota. I fought cap-and-trade. Governor Pawlenty backed cap-and-trade when he was Governor of Minnesota and put Minnesota into the multi-state Midwest Greenhouse Gas Reduction Accord.”

Pawlenty spokesman Alex Conant responds: "Congresswoman Bachmann has her facts wrong. The truth is that there is very little difference between Gov. Pawlenty and Congresswoman Bachmann on their issue positions.  The difference is that when Governor Pawlenty was scoring conservative victories to cut spending, pass market-based health care reform, and transform a supreme court from liberal to conservative, and was elected twice in a very blue state, Congresswoman Bachmann was giving speeches and offering failed amendments, all while struggling mightily to hold onto the most Republican house seat in the state.” 

More from Conant: “In order to beat Barack Obama, Republicans need someone who can unite conservatives with a proven track record of winning conservative results and tough elections -- that's Governor Pawlenty. The governor looks forward to discussing these issues eye-to-eye with voters in town halls across Iowa next week."

PERRY: Texas Monthly's Burka offers "Yankee" political reporters eight things they ought to know about Texas Gov. Rick Perry, if he runs for president.

The New York Times: "Rick Perry is not yet in the race for president, but don’t tell the the people collecting e-mail addresses alongside tables for other, declared candidates at a gun-rights rally [in Searsboro, IA] on Saturday."

ROMNEY: The Washington Post looks at Romney’s stealth campaign in Iowa. “At this time four years ago, Mitt Romney was everywhere in Iowa. He popped up at ice cream stands. His glossy likeness landed in mailboxes. His sons drove a Winnebago they bought on eBay (the "Mitt Mobile") to all 99 counties. And at Romney headquarters in Urbandale, two dozen paid staffers and an army of volunteers toiled in a space as sprawling as a supermarket. This time, it's Tim Pawlenty with the RV and campaign ads and shock troops. That big Urbandale headquarters? The former Minnesota governor has the lease now.”  

“If it doesn't seem like Romney's playing to win there, that's by design. The former Massachusetts governor, widely considered the national front-runner for the GOP's 2012 presidential nomination, is waging a stealth campaign in the nation's first caucus state.”

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is preparing to move legislation on his own in the Senate without the support of House Speaker John Boehner, a senior Democratic aide tells NBC News. This would set up dueling legislation between the Senate and the House -- if Boehner follows through on his threat to move alone in the House.

The aide says it’s possible Reid will bring a bill to the floor that would include $2.4 trillion in cuts and raise the debt ceiling through 2013. It may include elements of the so-called Reid-McConnell fall back plan, which gives President Obama the authority to raise the debt ceiling and establishes a congressional committee to look at entitlements and revenues. This would also be a two-step process, but the debt ceiling would not be used as a enforcement mechanism hanging over the committee looking at cuts to entitlements and revenues.

White House Chief of Staff Bill Daley hinted at all of this on "Meet the Press" this morning:

There is a process that Sen. Reid and Sen. McConnell in the Senate have talked about. And that would be a super committee that would be charged with trying to address the deficit over a very short period. Okay? And Sen. McConnell's plan, which he put forward about 10 days, two weeks ago, would then have a process by which the president would come to the Congress, ask for authorization to extend the debt ceiling, show what cuts he would make. The Congress would have the opportunity to vote up or down, and then move on."

Sen. McConnell has a plan where the president would come to the Congress, give his list of cuts, they could vote approval or disapproval on that proposal in order to get the extension of the debt ceiling. But it would not be this sword being held over the American people's heads, once again.

The aide described Harry Reid as "furious" last night after he left the meeting in Boehner's office. He said Reid went in with a range of proposals for a two-step process that didn't use the debt ceiling as a trigger in Round 2. There was no compromise.

What's not clear is where Mitch McConnell stands in all of this. He is laying low.

His spokesman put out a statement last night that said this: "There is bipartisan agreement on the need to prevent a default but given the unprecedented size of the debt ceiling increase the president is requesting, this is not an easy process."

Reid will likely be talking with McConnell this afternoon, the aide said.

 As always, Stay tuned.

Tea Party freshman Rep. Allen West (R-FL) stirred up Democrats with his angry “you are not a lady” email to DNC Chair and Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL). But another Democrat has taken heat as a result of West’s words -- and under a false assumption. 

On the House floor Tuesday in a speech that prompted the tangle with Wasserman Schultz,  West called out Rep. Peter Welch (D-VT), claiming Welch had mistaken him for Rep. Tim Scott (R-SC). West and Scott are the only African American Republicans in the House, and they're both freshman.  

Rep. Welch’s office says West got it all wrong, and West concedes that too. His office calls it a misunderstanding. 

Here’s what happened: Welch was wrapping up his own speech, looked in West’s direction, and said: “I see the gentleman from South Carolina.”  West was the next speaker and began by chiding Welch:

"I do need to correct my colleague from Vermont, I'm not from South Carolina, I'm from Florida but that's OK. I'm the guy with hair." Scott has a shaved head.

Aides say the comment left the false impression that Welch was insensitive and mistaken. The Vermont Democrat’s office even received calls accusing him of being racist. His office says Welch was actually referring to South Carolina GOP Rep. Mick Mulvaney, who was seated behind West.

In fact, Welch's office says the context backs that up. “Rep. Welch was alluding to an amendment offered by Rep. Mulvaney to identify wasteful spending in the Pentagon budget as an example of how Democrats and Republicans can work together,” Welch spokesman Scott Coriell tells NBC News.

In addition, aides say Welch and West had appeared together on FOX, making it implausible that Welch would mistake his colleague. But Welch did not correct West publicly, and left the racially tinged charge unanswered. Welch later went directly to West and explained.

West’s office says “there are no hard feelings,” and that the two congressmen were “joking about the misunderstanding,” according to West spokeswoman Angela Sachitano.  

But the Florida congressman’s assumption put Welch in a tough spot. His office said, "The misunderstanding was unfortunate.”

Here's a sampling of the reactions -- from the left, right and middle -- to last night's news that House Speaker John Boehner walked away from negotiations with the Obama White House to achieve the so-called "Grand Bargain."

Andrew Sullivan:

The Republican refusal to countenance any way to raise revenues to tackle the massive debt incurred largely on their watch and from a recession which started under Obama's predecessor makes one thing clear. They are not a political party in government; they are a radical faction that refuses to participate meaningfully in the give and take the Founders firmly believed should be at the center of American government. They are not conservatives in this sense. They are anarchists.

Center-right commentator David Frum:

There’s blame for all in the debt talk breakdown. The president walked away from Simpson-Bowles, declined to present plans to reach long-term budget balance, etc. etc. etc. But in the argy-bargy, keep this in mind: the debt problem has become a debt crisis for one reason only: because Republicans put the threat of debt default on the table. That never needed to happen. House Republicans could have kept the debt ceiling issue wholly separate from the budget cut issue. Instead, Republicans put the gun on the table. They raised the menace of deliberate default in a way it has not been raised before.

The Weekly Standard's Jay Cost:

Watching Obama's press conference..., I was reminded of Jimmy Carter's malaise speech. The two presidents offered decidedly different tones -- Carter as the preacher/therapist and Obama as the frustrated school marm -- but both were indicative of the same development.  Carter and Obama had failed to accomplish their core campaign promise, and were left pointing fingers to explain their failure.

The Washington Post's Ezra Klein:

[Y]ou can’t get a deal unless you can get the votes. And what’s been clear for some time is Speaker John Boehner cannot get the votes. If you need more evidence, look at the letter Boehner sent his caucus, which is more about pretending that he supports Cut, Cap and Balance -- an absurd and unpassable policy that includes a constitutional amendment making tax increases nearly impossible and capping spending at levels not seen since 1957 -- than it is about informing them as to what’s happened in the negotiations. It’s as if the president walked away from the table and sent out a letter saying that Boehner wouldn’t agree to single-payer health care, and so the negotiations are over.

According to a senior White House official, President Obama on Thursday night was prepared to tell House Speaker John Boehner that in order to get support from congressional Democrats, he needed additional revenue -- $400 billion -- beyond he revenues that were being discussed.

The two men did not actually speak, but that was the White House message to the speaker's office.

The White House official says the president didn't hear back from the speaker, because Boehner didn't return the call.

The official adds the president's offer would have included flexibility over the number. "If you can't get to 400, let's talk," was Obama's message, the official says. 

But, the official argues, both sides had already been going back and forth on revenues, cuts, and triggers -- refuting Boehner's charge that the president "moved the goal posts."

So that's the White House's perspective. Here's Boehner's: "Under the framework, a CEILING was offered by the White House that would generate $800 billion in new revenue over 10 years. This would be done through comprehensive tax reform that would clear out deductions, credits, and loopholes in the system – and spur economic growth," a Boehner official tells reporters. 

"After the Gang of Six plan came out, the White House moved the goal posts and insisted on $400 billion more in higher taxes –- a 50% increase in revenue –- and wanted that to be the FLOOR instead of the ceiling," the official adds. 

After House Speaker John Boehner announced that he was once again walking away from talks with the White House, President Obama criticized House Republicans for being unwilling to compromise to tackle the nation's deficits and debt.

"What can you say yes to?" Obama asked. "Where is the leadership? How serious are you about debt and deficits?"

Making a rare Friday evening appearance at the White House briefing room, the president told reporters what the White House had put on the table: $1 trillion in discretionary spending cuts over 10 years and $650 billion in cuts to entitlement programs. In return, Obama said he was asking for $1.2 trillion in additional revenues (through tax reform).

"This was an extraordinarily fair deal," Obama said. "If it was unbalanced, it was unbalanced in the direction of not enough revenue."

"I was willing to take a lot of heat from my party," he added. "It is hard to understand why Speaker Boehner would walk away from this deal."

Obama announced that he has called for House and Senate leaders to convene at the White House at 11:00 am ET tomorrow to discuss how to proceed to raise the debt ceiling by Aug. 2. "They are going to have to explain to me how we're going to avoid default."

Right before the president spoke, Boehner issued a letter to House members, explaining why he walked away from the talks. "The president is emphatic that taxes have to be raised. As a former small businessman, I know tax increases destroy jobs," he said.  "The president is adamant that we cannot make fundamental changes to our entitlement programs. As the father of two daughters, I know these programs won’t be there for their generation unless significant action is taken now."

Boehner added, "For these reasons, I have decided to end discussions with the White House and begin conversations with the leaders of the Senate in an effort to find a path forward."

This was the third time House Republican leaders had walked away from debt talks with the White House. First, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor walked away from earlier negotiations with Vice President Biden. Then, a couple of weeks ago, Boehner called Obama to announce he was discontinuing talks.  

*** UPDATE *** Boehner just addressed reporters, saying that "No one wants to default" and that he's searching for a path forward. He added that he walked away from the talks because 1) "they insisted on raising taxes," and 2) "they refused to get serious about cutting spending."