Americans are growing more optimistic about the state of the economy and direction of the country, according to a new NBC News-Wall Street Journal poll out Wednesday evening, and President Obama is receiving better grades on his handling of the economy and job as a result.

More people said they believe the economy will get better (37 percent) in the next year rather than worse (17 percent). That’s the highest level in more than a year and a seven-point jump over last month. It also represents a reversal from October, when 32 percent of Americans said they expected the economy to get worse, versus 21 percent who expected improvement.

READ partial results of the NBC News-Wall Street Journal poll

"The calendar says it’s the dead of winter, but for President Obama, these results must feel like the start of spring," said Democratic pollster Peter D. Hart, who conducted this survey with Republican pollster Bill McInturff.

The number of people who said the country is headed in the right direction, 30 percent, remains far lower than the 61 percent of U.S. adults who think it is off on the wrong track.

But the figures represent a change in trajectory; the number of Americans who said the country is on the right track is up eight points from last month, and 13 points from October.

And for the first time in six months, more people approve of the job the president is doing (48 percent) than disapprove (46 percent).

“The psychology about the economic conditions has switched,” Hart said. “The old saying is a rising tide lifts all boats then clearly, this economic optimism has clearly lifted Obama's ratings."

But Congress sees no boost from any emerging sense of optimism. Instead, its 13 percent approval rating remains near historic lows, while 80 percent disapprove of the way lawmakers are doing their job. That’s the same as it was the last time the question was asked in August.

The record low in the history of the poll was 12 percent, set in October 2008, right before that year’s elections.

“The president still has a very long road ahead of him,” Hart said, “but for the first time in a long time, he finds that he has the wind at his back. For the Congress, they are going into a headwind, and there is a need to prove themselves.”

The poll comes on the heels of three straight months of positive economic data, including an unemployment rate that has dropped below 9 percent for the first time in more than two years and job growth that has exceeded expectations.

It serves as a warning to Republican running for president, said McInturff, the Republican pollster.

“Republicans had better bring their A-game to the election in November,” he said, “as today's results are a reminder -- as attitudes about the economy improve, so does President Obama's standing.”

MIAMI -- Backed by an echelon of top Cuban-American endorsers, Mitt Romney laid out his own vision for an aggressive stance towards the Castro regime in Cuba, while laying into President Obama's policies, which he called "appeasement."

"This president has decided ... to give a gift to Castro, to allow remittances to come from the United States to go into Cuba and help the economy of Cuba. He's allowed more traveling into Cuba. Showing that olive branch, if you will," Romney said. "This president does not understand that by helping Castro, he is not helping the people of Cuba he is hurting them; he is not putting forward a policy of freedom, he is accommodating and encouraging a policy of oppression. And if I'm president of the United States, we will return to Helms-Burton and the law, and we will not give Castro any gifts!"

Speaking to members of the US-Cuba Democracy PAC, which lists as its purpose to "promote an unconditional transition in Cuba to democracy, the rule of law and the free market," Romney predicted the quick demise of Fidel Castro, who has ruled Cuba since 1959.

"If I’m fortunate to become the next president of the United States it is my expectation that Fidel Castro will finally be taken off this planet.  I doubt he’ll take any time in the sky he’ll find a nether region to be more to his comfort," Romney said.

"This is a critical time. I think you realize that. We've waited a long, long time for the opportunity that is represented by a new president, and by new leadership, or by old leadership finally kicking the bucket in Cuba," Romney said. "I want to be the American president that is proud to be able to say that I was president at the time that we brought freedom back to the people of Cuba"

And while Romney himself never explained exactly what a Romney administration would do to bring about that freedom, his campaign released a detailed white paper at the close of his speech, outlining ten steps Romney would take -- including rolling back increased remittances and travel permits put in place by President Obama -- to put pressure on the Castro regime.

If he were not so lucky as to have the Castro brothers "kick the bucket" on his watch, Romney boasted of a negotiation background learned in the business world, which he says taught him the skills he would need to negotiate with "tyrants" like Fidel and Raul Castro.

For Romney, who a CNN/Time Magazine poll released today shows leading Newt Gingrich in Florida by only a 2 percent margin, winning the Cuban-American vote in this region of the state could prove crucial. In 2008, he came in third place in Miami Dade county, behind both John McCain and Rudy Giuliani. This cycle, a number of powerful, Cuban-American politicians, including Former Senator Mel Martinez an the Diaz-Balart brothers, who backed McCain in 2008 are supporting Romney instead.

A Univision News poll released Wednesday suggested that Romney has the early advantage among Florida Latinos heading into next Tuesday's GOP primary. Thirty-five percent of Sunshine State Latinos would vote for Romney in the primary, versus 20 percent who would support Gingrich.

CEDAR RAPIDS, IA -- President Obama began his post-State of the Union trip with a stop in Cedar Rapids, Iowa on Wednesday to reinforce his call to bolster American manufacturing. 

The initiative, one of four pillars in the White House's "blueprint for an economy built to last," is just one of the new efforts the president will push in his travels throughout the U.S. this week.

After touring Conveyor Engineering and Manufacturing, a plant of about 65 workers that makes very large screws, the president gave a speech focused on reforming the tax code to benefit manufacturers. According to the White House, Conveyor would be eligible to receive an increased manufacturing tax credit if the president’s tax reform proposals were able to get through Congress.

Obama referred to employees of the business when he said, “Jeff and Greg told me that if we passed tax reforms like these, they’d be able to buy more equipment for their facility. So let’s do it. Today, my administration is laying out several concrete actions we can take right now to discourage outsourcing and encouraging investing.”

He continued, “Tell Congress to send me this tax reform plan. I will sign it right away.”

The speech was a mixture of last night’s State of the Union combined with other messaging events where the president has asked the audience to “tell Congress” to do any number of things. And while Iowa’s Republican governor, Terry Brandstad, was in attendance, the Republican National Committee’s prebuttal to the President’s first stop was political and partisan.

“Obviously, the President’s State of the Union address last night and now, as always, his taxpayer funded campaign stop in Iowa, makes it just absolutely clear that President Obama has given up governing,” RNC chairman Reince Priebus said in a conference call with reporters.

The White House continues to insist that the purpose of this three-day, five-state trip is to expand on last night’s speech but the election year implications of visiting the battleground states of Iowa, Arizona, Nevada, Colorado and Michigan are difficult to divorce for the storyline. 

After the President speaks about manufacturing at an Intel facility in Phoenix, AZ he will travel on to Las Vegas, Denver and Ann Arbor, MI. 

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney leads former House Speaker Newt Gingrich by two points in Florida, a margin well within a new poll's margin of error, reflecting a close race in the key primary.

Thirty-six percent of Republicans likely to vote in Florida's primary said they intend to vote for Romney; 34 percent would choose Gingrich, according to a CNN/TIME/ORC poll released Wednesday.

The poll underscores the tightness of what has essentially become a two-man race in the largest state yet to hold its nominating contest in the past month. Former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum has seen his numbers plummet to 11 percent from 19 percent in CNN's last poll of Florida, conducted Jan. 13-17. Nine percent of Florida Republicans voiced support for Texas Rep. Ron Paul, who is not competing in earnest in Florida's primary.

The new data reflect the closeness of the race following Gingrich's win in the South Carolina primary last Saturday; Romney had led the former speaker by a 25-point margin in the previous version of this poll, a lead that's shrunk to two points, within the five percent margin of error of this survey.

The poll is the first statewide survey in Florida conducted completely after South Carolina's primary, in which Gingrich trounced Romney by 12 points, reviving his campaign and seemingly claiming the mantle of the candidate who presents a conservative alternative for Romney.

In the intervening days since that primary, the Romney campaign has spent millions on advertising assailing Gingrich's record, and a super PAC spending on Romney's behalf has spent millions more. A pro-Gingrich super PAC has also reserved millions in ads, but it's still dwarfed by the spending done by Romney forces in the state.

Moreover, Romney's been voicing sharper criticism of Gingrich and his record in Congress and advocacy work for Freddie Mac, most pointedly in a high-rated debate on Monday night in Florida.

To that end, the CNN poll suggests that Romney might have regained some footing against Gingrich in recent days. While Gingrich led Romney, 38 to 32 percent, in Sunday's polling, respondents on Monday and Tuesday were slightly more for Romney, 38 to 29 percent.

Jim Lo Scalzo / EPA

Rick Perry waits to greet Iowans at the Santa Maria Vineyard and Winery in Carroll, Iowa, Jan. 2, 2012.

CHARLESTON, SC -- It was in a cramped Myrtle Beach coffee shop, just hours before the debate that would prove to be his last, when Rick Perry swallowed hard, looked at his wife Anita, and peered into his political future. 

"If I just had to walk away from all this," the governor said, his voice catching on a lump of exhaustion that seemed to have been growing in his throat for days, "If she was walking with me, it'd all be okay." 

To the focus group of mothers gathered in the room, the moment was a touching expression of the couple's love in the face of adversity. But longtime followers of Perry saw something else too: the first real glimmer of the undefeated Texan's understanding that his once-mighty presidential campaign was finally in the last ungraceful throes of its death. 

Two days later, Perry would be peering at the menu board at a Charleston-area Wendy's restaurant and telling top communications aide Ray Sullivan that he'd be ending his five month campaign in the morning.  The press conference was held in a nondescript airport hotel meeting room ... just 14 miles from where he launched his campaign in the glitzy Francis Marion ballroom.

"Now the journey leads us back to Texas," he declared after he suspended his campaign. "Neither discouraged nor disenchanted, but instead rewarded for the experience and resolute to remain in the arena and in the service of a great nation." 

Slideshow: A look at Gov. Rick Perry's political career

Mark Lambie / El Paso Times via AP

A look at the Texas governor's bid for the Republican presidential nomination.

Launch slideshow

In his farewell remarks, Perry thanked advisors Nelson Warfield and Mari Will -- both relative newcomers to his team after an October shakeup that resulted in a deep divide between the governor's old guard and fresh blood. 

Unnamed by the governor in his thank-yous to staff and key endorsers were de-facto campaign chief Joe Allbaugh, onetime manager Rob Johnson, and Perry's original political maestro and friend of 13 years, Dave Carney. 

***** 

Everything was going pretty much as planned until Orlando. 

A month after Perry swaggered into the GOP race, a steady stream of fundraisers (which filled up the candidate's schedule at the expense of fulfilling even a fraction of the interview requests that flooded in to Austin) meant that the campaign's war chest was in the same league as Mitt Romney's, the frontrunner in the campaign until that point.

Perry seemed to be aptly navigating away from the Bible-thumping caricature from opponents who snarked about his "calling from God" to run for president and his "praying for rain" in the face of devastating drought. Michele Bachmann's damaging attack over Perry's support for an HPV vaccine for young girls had been substantially blunted by her self-inflicted wound the next day when she overstated the side effects of the medication. 

But after Perry's indignant comment at a Sept. 22 debate that those who opposed offering in-state tuition for the children of illegal immigrants "don't have a heart," the ascendant governor's momentum was abruptly knocked off course by a lower-than-expected finish in the Presidency 5 straw poll. 

After the loss, spokesman Mark Miner grimly marched into the press area and spun the results as a loss for Romney, surprising reporters used to a cagey press operation that frequently ignored email requests for responses or interviews. But little more was done to mitigate the damage. A full six days later, during an interview with conservative web site Newsmax, Perry finally apologized for the "heartless" comment. 

The night of the P5 loss, Alec Baldwin lampooned Perry as sleepy and disoriented during the season premier of NBC's Saturday Night Live.

The Perry parody, which would go through several iterations before settling on "just plain dumb," was born. 

*****

In Orlando, Carney and Johnson met with former Dole aide Nelson Warfield, the strategist who would later be the chief advocate of a controversial television ad taking aim at gay soldiers. Carney brought on Warfield and Washington-based pollster Tony Fabrizio to augment a team swiftly recognizing the consequences of Perry's late entry into the presidential contest. 

"At the end of the day, this thing needed to have started two months before it did," said Perry's South Carolina chair Katon Dawson, who along with Carney and Johnson had defected from Gingrich's flagging campaign in June. 

At the urging of first lady Anita Perry, Texan strategist Joe Allbaugh also began to help advise the campaign. Allbaugh, George W. Bush's former campaign manager, was preceded by a reputation for steadiness, experience and no-nonsense discipline. 

With the arrival of new talent, a reboot appeared possible. The new team --  including Fabrizio, Warfield and media strategist Curt Anderson  -- instituted a rigorous interview and TV ad schedule for the candidate.

When Perry's utterance of "oops" during CNBC's Michigan debate forever entered the political lexicon on Nov. 7, the campaign responded with an unprecedented swiftness -- ushering the self-deprecating candidate to confront reporters in the debate spin room and scheduling light-hearted media appearances to blunt the damage.

But as Carney and Allbaugh's conflicting visions clashed, communication between the two camps disintegrated. Longtime Texas aides began to be cut out of major discussions. On at least one occasion, Allbaugh chose to meet with consultants at the Steven F. Austin hotel -- across the street from the campaign headquarters on Congress Avenue. 

As Perry publicly insisted to reporters that rumors of campaign manager Rob Johnson's demotion were "just scuttlebutt," the Arkansas native was being dispatched far away from the Austin headquarters to work in early campaign states. Carney was sequestered in New Hampshire. 

The famed "vault" -- the thick-walled box in the center of Perry HQ that had served as Carney and Johnson's office -- stood empty. 

Perry's poll numbers continued their decline, and some of the new class of consultants began to grumble to reporters about the after-effects of early disorganization on the part of Carney and his original team. Longtime Perry loyalists fumed at damaging leaks that went undisciplined by Allbaugh or by the candidate himself. 

"There was a misguided sense from the Washington consultants that the simple-minded Texans messed everything up and they were going to rise to the rescue," said Sullivan. "And it didn't work out that way."

The governor's performances continued to be uneven, with Perry alternating between energetically sharp and distractedly rambling even at consecutive campaign appearances. The staff was sometimes left wondering which version of their candidate would show up on a given day. 

And "oops" haunted him. While advisers later determined that the famed "brain freeze" might have been surmountable were it not for Perry's "heartless" debacle, the narrative cake -- unhelped by Perry's Bush-like drawl and his infirm grasp on issues outside his economic expertise as governor -- was already baked.  Errors big and small were amplified into "yet another oops." 

In New Hampshire, when Perry inaccurately pegged the voting age at 21, the moment launched hundreds of headlines. In Iowa, when Perry misspoke in naming "the country Solyndra" (which he'd correctly identified as a solar energy *company* at scores of campaign events before), observers questioned whether he was aware it was not in fact a sovereign nation.  In South Carolina, Sullivan and traveling spokesman Mark Miner bewilderedly fielded calls from reporters who read in an Los Angeles Times dispatch that Perry had mistaken a mannequin for a human person at a town hall. (He was joking.) 

Every bumble -- real or imagined -- had its cost. 

*****

If Perry's endorsement of Newt Gingrich last Thursday served as the funeral ceremony for his campaign, the wake came 16 days earlier when his fifth place finish in the Iowa caucuses appeared to snuff out the last flicker of his staff's hopes for salvaging their dreams of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. 

Early December polling indicated a fluid race in Iowa, where Perry had assembled a formidable team and "strike force" operation made up largely of Texas allies. Albeit often in small venues, the campaign still packed in Iowans willing to give Perry a "second look." His debate performances improved, and an unforced error from Romney offering Perry a bet of $10,000 during a Des Moines debate underscored Perry's populist message. 

In the days before launching his 44-stop bus tour in the state, the Texas governor painted the picture of a new man, blaming his early stumbles on pain resulting from his June back surgery, toppling months of denials from Perry's press staff that the operation had any impact on his performances. 

"Frankly I didn't know the impact it was having on me from the standpoint of just being fatigued and it showed up in the first few debates," he said on Sean Hannity's radio program on Jan. 13. "I have never felt better and I think you saw a glimpse of what you can expect out of me as we go forward in that last debate we had in Iowa." 

Again, hope glimmered, but not for long. 

Two weeks before the caucuses, influential conservatives at the Family Leader seemed on the verge of throwing their support behind Perry.

Senior staff in Iowa heard rumblings of the potentially game-changing endorsement from the group on the evening before the Dec. 20 press conference. But the group ultimately declined formal support of any candidate, and its chief members independently boosted Rick Santorum instead. 

Crowds shrunk. After the Christmas holiday, Perry took on Santorum's previous support for earmarks in his most direct negative ad yet, but the slam didn't seem to stick. 

On the morning of Dec. 31, an anonymously sourced story in POLITICO finally aired in spectacular fashion the grievances of the new class of Perry advisers, who eviscerated Carney and Johnson as inept in handling the media and unprepared for the immigration onslaught. 

The sting of the story -- particularly burning because of its publication days before the caucuses -- went uncontested by Austin, with the only voice in response being some tempered on-the-record pushback from Sullivan. (Carney, who was only briefly quoted, had long been detached from the campaign.) 

The Texans, concerned about derailing their famously micromanagement-averse boss with internal distractions, never confronted Perry about the story. Defeat was already all but written, in any case. 
They slogged on. 

After Perry announced that he would "reassess" his campaign after the disappointing caucus night finish three days later, Perry's top Texas aides walked out of the ballroom and into the bar at the West Des Moines Sheraton expecting a dropout press conference in Austin within 48 hours. 

As staffers and surrogates mingled until last call in the hotel's Waterfall Grille Restaurant & Lounge - and bartenders scurried into the bar's reserves for extra tequila for the Texans -- they spoke about the campaign in the past tense, and disdain for the Washington consultants flowed as readily as the drinks. (Allbaugh and others had long since retreated to their rooms.)

At one point, journalists still filing their stories in the lobby heard a cheer so deafening that a few sprinted to see what they assumed must be a guest appearance by the governor himself.

It wasn't Perry, but Johnson. Still beloved by the Austin footsoldiers, he offered a rousing speech to his exhausted and relieved team, sporting a navy blue Perry for President fleece -- a gift from the staff -- personalized with just one word: "Hefe." 

The next morning, he -- along with Miner and the rest of the press staff as well as the lead advance men who would be charged with orchestrating the South Carolina Alamo -- found out from the governor's Twitter account that the campaign wasn't over yet. 

****** 

The night of the Iowa loss, Perry gathered with family and his close advisers in a hotel suite to discuss his path forward.  
Backer and close family friend Capt. Dan Moran, a former Marine who suffered severe burns to over half his body after an IED attack in 2006, was in the room.

Evan Vucci / AP

Republican presidential candidate Texas Gov. Rick Perry gets ready for an interview during a caucus night watch party Tuesday, Jan. 3, 2012, in West Des Moines, Iowa.

With Perry's wife and son Griffin on board to continue the campaign, Moran -- whose fierce admiration for the governor had been on display during a series of fiery speeches to Iowa voters that week -- alluded to his own physical struggle in voicing his support for a last-ditch effort to rescue the campaign. 

"Sir, I didn't get these scars on my face to quit," he told the governor. 

By announcing the next morning that he would continue his presidential run into South Carolina, Perry earned a collective "wait, what?" from the political world and from most of his own campaign team. Moran was one of the few who wasn't surprised by the decision. 

With a roiling field and resistance to an "inevitable" Romney nomination, Perry could have been in a position to catch a late wave in the Palmetto State. But even his allies in the state conceded that Perry needed a "lucky break" to begin courting back the social conservatives and veterans most ideologically aligned with his platform. And he'd have to do it with fewer resources, less vocal endorsers, and a badly damaged political brand. 

Gone was the shiny "Faith, Jobs, and Freedom" bus that had schlepped Perry to over 40 cities in Iowa. Gone were the national political backers who loyally stood by his side before the caucuses, as press staff gradually stopped pretending that former advocates Govs. Bobby Jindal or Sam Brownback would be in the state on Perry's behalf. 

And his final gamble backfired. According to aides, it was Perry himself who coined the phrase "vulture capitalism" to describe Romney's practices at investment firm Bain capital.  

But the phrase disappeared from the candidate's vernacular within two days after some Perry backers publicly rebuked him. Previously supportive conservative commentators on FOX News accused him of leaning towards socialism, reducing the creator of over one million jobs in Texas to claiming he is the "probably the most pro-capitalist individual... in America."

"I think that FOX News jumped on us put us back on the mat again," said Dawson. "When they hit us and they stayed on us for a day we fell back again from the little bit of momentum we created by skipping New Hampshire."

Gingrich, who had employed the same line of attack against Romney's Bain days, was ascendant. Perry's poll numbers in the state that was once his conservative firewall dipped below five percent.  

Late in the afternoon on Jan. 18, Perry began informing advisors that he would drop out the following day.

***** 

Twenty-four hours before telling Sullivan about his decision under the fluorescent lights of a fast-food joint, the governor was praying. 

On stage at a prayer rally in Greenville, S.C., inspired by "The Response" event he masterminded in Texas last summer, Perry delivered remarks almost word-for-word to those he had given before that audience of 30,000 in a football stadium in August, at a time when history-making drought conditions had prompted the governor to urge citizens to pray for rain.

"His agenda’s not a political agenda," Perry said of God to several hundred worshippers -- a crowd tiny in comparison to the August audience packed into the home of the Houston Texans.  "He’s smarter than that. He’s smart enough, wise enough not to get involved with any political affiliation or any institution that man has made. He understands the imperfections of those." 

Sudden rumbling thunder shook the building as he spoke from Psalms 145 of a God who is slow to anger, and Perry raised his right arm to declare "Amen" in answer. 

As the governor left the stage, he was crying. And smiling. 

It was pouring in Greenville.

Carrie Dann (or as the candidate nicknamed her, "Lieutenant Dann") covered the Perry campaign as an embedded reporter for NBC News. Explore more of her Decision 2012 work here.

Democrats pivoted quickly on Wednesday to make Mitt Romney the poster boy for the "Buffett Rule," the concept announced by President Obama during his State of the Union address that no millionaire should pay less than 30 percent in taxes on their income.

Democrats hope that Romney becomes a prime example of the excesses of the current tax structure. The linkage is meant not just to boost efforts to reform the tax code, but to also tarnish the former Massachusetts governor as a general election candidate by highlighting his wealth, and the restructuring work he did in the private sector to earn it.

One of Obama's chief re-election strategists admitted Wednesday that the release of Romney's tax returns on Tuesday, which showed that he paid about 14 percent in taxes on about $42 million of income in 2010 and 2011.

"Mitt may have thought story would be buried" by the State of the Union, Obama adviser David Axelrod wrote on Twitter, but "his tax release helped make case for Buffett rule."

The Buffett Rule, named for the billionaire investor who's pushed for higher taxes on the wealthy from their investment-related income, was a central part of Obama's speech on Tuesday. The address hit hard on the idea of fairness, and the idea that the tax code currently benefits the wealthy over middle class households.

"You can call this class warfare all you want," Obama said. "But asking a billionaire to pay at least as much as his secretary in taxes? Most Americans would call that common sense."

The administration seems especially confident in its position because the argument, when presented to voters, polls well.

A CBS News poll in December found that 60 percent of U.S. adults favor increasing taxes on households earning more than $1 million to help bridge the budget deficit. Mindful of that, Democrats sought to use a surtax on millionaires to finance a variety of components of the president's jobs bill when they came up for a vote last fall; all failed due to Republican objections.

On the more specific issue of dividend income, a New York Times/CBS News poll released this week found that a majority of Americans favor taxing it the same as income from employment.

In Romney, Democrats have a perfect poster boy for what they argue are the inequities in the current tax code. The former Massachusetts governor paid such a low tax rate because most of his income in recent years came from investment, which are taxed at a lower rate.

"Look at what we have with the disclosure of Mitt Romney and his tax returns -- an annual income of $21 million and a tax rate of less than 15 percent, about 14 percent," Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin, the second-ranking Senate Democrat, said Wednesday on Bloomberg Television. "And you ask yourself, now, is that fair? Is it fair that ... making that much money in a year is paying a lower rate tax rate than someone struggling paycheck to paycheck?"

And for much as the reignited tax debate has shone the spotlight on Romney and his wealth, it's allowed his Republican foes to pounce, as well.

"I think you have to live in a world of Swiss bank accounts and Cayman Island accounts and automatic $20 million-a-year income with no work to have some fantasy this far from reality," former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said at an Univision forum on Wednesday in Miami, connecting Romney's wealth to his position on illegal immigration.

Romney has emphasized that he pays all of the taxes required of him by law, and has pointed to the millions in additional income he and his wife donate to charity. But he characterized his tax burden as "fair" at Monday night's NBC News/National Journal/Tampa Bay Times debate, inserting himself into the narrative the Obama campaign is trying to build about inequality.

"I don’t think you want someone as the candidate for president who pays more taxes than he owes. So I’ll point out that that’s the case," he said. "And will there will discussion? Sure. Will it be an article? Yeah. But is it entirely legal and fair? Absolutely."

And that's why Democrats have no hesitance about linking Romney to the Buffett Rule, so much so that it might just be renamed after the former GOP governor.

"We agree with the president that it makes no sense that a millionaire should pay lower taxes than a secretary. So, it's a priority for us to act on some sort of Romney--" Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY) said at a press conference Wednesday on Capitol Hill before catching himself, "--I mean, Buffett Rule this year."

NAPLES, FL -- Failing to show early signs of momentum in the Sunshine State, presidential hopeful Rick Santorum on Wednesday signaled he may be cutting out of Florida before the state's Jan. 31 primary.

Speaking to reporters here, the former Pennsylvania senator said was unsure if he would be in Florida the night of the primary, committing only to campaigning in the state over the next two days. On Saturday, he'll head home to Virginia for fundraisers and to prepare his tax records which he plans to soon make public.

Santorum said this weekend will be the first time he's slept in his own bed since Christmas.

His campaign has acknowledged that the large and expensive state of Florida would be a tough place to do well. His war chest is dwarfed compared to that of frontrunners Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich, who each also have well funded Super PACs.  A Quinnipiac Poll released today shows Santorum running nearly 20 points behind the top candidates.

But the GOP hopeful has been seen strong crowds in the South, drawing more than 1,000 supporters to a Megachurch here. And his rhetoric suggests he has no plans to leave the race anytime soon.

"This race has just started.  It's a three man race.  We're going to be in this race for the long term," he said.

Santorum will campaign in the Florida Panhandle on Thursday before tomorrow night's debate in Jacksonville. But plans after that remain fluid, his staff has advised. The candidate has dismissed any change in schedule is a sign of a waining campaign. His trip is a chance to raise money and prepare his tax documents, said Santorum.

"I want to get that issue, you know, out there and behind me so I'm not the guy thats not doing their taxes."

DORAL, FL -- Newt Gingrich combined attacks on Mitt Romney's wealth and his stance on immigration in a forum less than a week before the Latino-heavy Florida GOP primary.

Gingrich attacked the former Massachusetts governor for being out-of-touch with the experience of undocumented immigrants in the U.S. who have laid down roots in America.

"I think you have to live in worlds of Swiss bank accounts and Cayman Island accounts and automatic $20 million a year income with no work to have some fantasy this far from reality," Gingrich said at a forum organized by the Spanish-language network Univision. "I talk very specifically about people who have been here for a long time ...for Romney to believe that somebody's grandmother is going to be so cut off she is going to self deport? This verges -- this is an Obama level fantasy."

Gingrich defended his immigration policy while criticizing his chief rival’s policy for lacking “humanity” and being a “fantasy.”

“He certainly shows no concern for the humanity of the people who are already here,” Gingrich told the crowd about Romney, who floated the idea of self-deportation in a Republican debate on Monday night, a concept somewhat nebulous in its execution.

The former House speaker, who began his interview with Univision anchor Jorge Ramos, believes that citizen panels should decide if illegal immigrants who have been in the United States for 20-25 years and participate in the community should be allowed to remain in the country legally. Gingrich wants to build a new worker permit program, as well.

The speaker continued to stump in one of the most heavily Hispanic parts of Florida today giving a speech on Latin American Policy at Florida International University.

Gingrich made his case for why he's best suited to win over Latinos in the general election. He said he aims to win 50 percent of Latinos nationally and outlined policy positions that might contribute to him making inroads in that community

But Gingrich trails Romney among Latinos voting in next Tuesday’s primary according to a new poll, and performs more poorly than Romney against Obama among Latinos nationally.

A new poll conducted by Latino Decisions for Univision News and ABC News finds that Romney holds a 15 percent lead over Gingrich in the Hispanic vote in Florida, 35 to 20 percent.

Both presidential candidates are courting voters in the Miami area today.

Ramos asked Gingrich to clarify comments he made in 2007 where it seemed he implied that Spanish was the language of the ghetto. 

"It wasn't about Spanish, I said it about all languages," Gingrich said inside the Univision studios.

"I am for English as a common unifying language…Most parents, whatever their linguistic background, want their children to be able to function in English because they know they will have a better job and a better future,” he said.

The speaker, whose oldest daughter lives in Miami-Dade county, even got a little chocked up at his speech at FIU while talking about his granddaughter learning to play the violin by a Cuban-American violinist -- Luis Haza -- who escaped from Fidel Castro’s rule after his father was executed.

“If you talk to Luis, you will understand the passion that he is left here to deal with over the years and why my determination to free Cuba and to help the people of Cuba be free is because he is a deep, deep advocate for human freedom and decency,” Gingrich said about Haza.

ORLANDO, Fla. -- Responding to the president's State of the Union address last night, Mitt Romney this morning ripped President Obama as "speaking in Fantasyland" and "detached" from reality. He lamented what he sees as the president's leadership, which he labeled 'legislator's lethargy."

"As I watched the president speak I was reminded of his trip to Florida just a week or so ago when he spoke in Fantasyland, because he was speaking in Fantasyland again last night,” Romney said to laughter. "The detachment between reality and what he says is so extraordinary, I was just shaking my head. My guess is that what he didn't say was probably even more disturbing and detached from reality than some of the things he did say. What he didn't say last night is that we are spending too much and borrowing too much and that America is on a collision course with debt and that if we don't get off this course we could sink the American economy and go into calamity."

Romney listed several instances where he said the president's rhetoric and policy could not be aligned.

"This is a President who talks about deregulation, even as he regulates. He talks about lowering taxes, even as raises them. He talks about developing all of our energy resources, even as he tries to shut them down, coal in particular. Regulation after regulation, making it almost impossible for coal users and for coal miners to be successful. And then of course there was the discussion of China. I must admit that I took some pleasure in the fact that he said he would crack down on China, even as he has not done so," Romney said.

Speaking from the floor of a metal fabrication plant just outside Orlando, Romney described a president who promised big things, but who's inability to work with Congress and unwillingness to take charge of negotiations has blunted his ability to change Washington.

"There were times when the president said: If you send me this legislation, I will sign it. I thought, aren't you the leader of the free world? Why don't you draft some legislation? Why don't you go out and say: here's what I want? Here's what needs to happen. Come to the White House. Let's sit down and hammer this out together. This is what I want, you pass it. Then I'll sign it," Romney said. "Oh no, it was: you go out and work on this, then I'll sign it. It's kind of a legislator's lethargy. Where, instead of leadership, you're always blaming and accusing and pointing fingers, instead of playing golf, instead of taking action, you're lobbying others, instead of acting." 

The lobbying critique Romney also spun into what could be construed as a subtle contrast with Newt Gingrich as well, whom Romney's campaign has attempted to label as lobbyist in recent days.

"Time to have a president who is not just a lobbyist, not just a legislator, not just a blamer and a campaigner, but a president who knows how to get the job done time and time again. I have, and I will," Romney said.

Obama, like Reagan, Clinton, and Bush, signals his re-election message in State of the Union … He struck an optimistic, populist tone and took credit for accomplishments, but also drew a line in the sand with Republicans. … This Obama was changed from the one who came into office with lofty goals. … What does it say when your top-two potential opponents start with praise of your speech? … Pro-Gingrich Super PAC going up with $6 million ad buy in Florida, insures a renewed focus on health care for Romney … The latest ad spending … And Obama takes his message on the road to five battleground states in three days.

*** Obama signals re-elect message with State of the Union: While Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney are locked in a battle that could drag out a while, President Obama last night in his State of the Union address signaled what he’ll run on this year, and he’s going to take that message on the road with stops in five battleground states over the next three days. Last night’s speech, focused on economic fairness with the president trying to sound like an optimistic populist. He delivered the speech with the confidence of a president who, in his most complete way yet, took credit for what he believes are his best accomplishments -- killing Osama bin Laden, ending the war in Iraq, the auto industry’s turnaround, private-sector job growth (especially in manufacturing), cutting the deficit by more than $2 trillion, and new rules for Wall Street. The speech parallels Reagan in 1984, Bush in 2004, and Clinton in 1996 -- it was less about an agenda for Congress and more about the case for what he accomplished and the beginnings of a theme of why he deserves more time.

*** The fighter: He also delivered a forceful and combative warning Republicans not to stand in his way. “I intend to fight obstruction with action,” he said, “and I will oppose any effort to return to the very same policies that brought on this economic crisis in the first place.” And though this wasn’t a campaign speech, per se, he seemed to be responding to quite a few things from the GOP presidential race with talk of “envy,” the auto industry, Iran and Israel (he ad-libbed talking about Israel’s security, adding “and I mean iron clad” for pointed emphasis), his nationalistic tone (he said “America” or “American(s)” 88 times last night), and his proposal for a 30% minimum tax on millionaires, the so-called Buffett Rule. “You can call this class warfare all you want,” Obama said. “But asking a billionaire to pay at least as much as his secretary in taxes? Most Americans would call that common sense.” That tone is sure to please his base, which has always wanted to see more of a fighter. Obama made it clear he would run against inaction in Congress (and inertia in Washington) if it couldn’t get done some of the wide range of smaller proposals he offered. His challenge was could he sound sunny AND populist -- and he did.

Vote: What did you think of the president's speech?

*** A changed Obama: This Barack Obama, delivering what would be his last State of the Union if he’s not reelected, was different than the one who came into office. He didn’t ask for grandiose things to be accomplished from Congress. In fact, when he called for a comprehensive immigration policy in the speech last night, he said, “But if election-year politics keeps Congress from acting on a comprehensive plan, let's at least agree to stop expelling responsible young people who want to staff our labs, start new businesses, and defend this country.” This Obama realizes big things are not likely to happen without huge majorities -- and significant political risk. Don’t bite off more than you can chew or what will come back to bite you. It’s a page from the Clinton playbook. And considering there are a lot of Clinton people in the White House these days who had significant say over this speech (Gene Sperling and Jack Lew, for instance), maybe it shouldn’t be a surprise that it had that Clinton small-ball midnight basketball feel.

*** Romney, Gingrich react: Both Mitt Romney (interviewed by NBC’s Brian Williams in post-debate coverage last night) and Newt Gingrich (on NBC’s TODAY this morning) started out their responses to the president’s speech praising his rhetoric before criticizing Obama. Romney even said the president was sounding themes he’s been striking on the campaign trail, but that “he seems to think the country is on the right track and things are going well,” something Romney called “foreign” to people in Florida.” Gingrich said he liked Obama’s “rhetoric,” but the “gap between President Obama’s rhetoric and his deeds” was "astounding." If you’re in the White House, you know the president’s speech probably went over pretty well when your two chief opponents -- before they get to criticism -- start with a little bit of praise. By the way, a new Florida poll out from Quinnipiac shows Romney up two points – 36%-34% over Gingrich (but part of it was conducted BEFORE South Carolina. Gingrich is up six, 40%-34% AFTER Saturday.) Folks, fasten your Florida seatbelts (it’s mandatory in the state anyway).

*** Pro-Gingrich Super PAC tries to put away Florida, with renewed focus on health care: A Super PAC supporting Newt Gingrich, Winning Our Future, is going up in Florida with a $6 million ad buy, one day after the wife of casino magnate Sheldon Adelson, Miriam Adelson, penned a $5 million check to the group. The new ad being put into the rotation is a hard-hitting one focused on Romney’s health-care plan and him saying he’s a “progressive.” The focus on health care is a shift away from Romney’s time at Bain. Romney really hasn’t taken sustained hits on health care, and it’ll be interesting to see what life is like for him a week later. The ad also likely guarantees health care as a topic at tomorrow night’s debate. The most devastating line of the ad might be -- “the inventor of government-run health care.” Meanwhile, Gingrich is using Republican-turned-independent Charlie Crist against him this week, noting that some of Crist’s ex-REPUBLICAN consultants are now strategists for Romney (the most notable is Stuart Stevens). Interestingly, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio (R), still neutral in the primary, was quick to jump to Romney’s defense, which probably took the Gingrich folks a bit by surprise. Incredibly, even with this buy, Romney and his allies are spending more than DOUBLE what Gingrich and his supporters are.

Here’s an update on spending in Florida, according to NBC/Smart Media Group Delta, with a bunch of changes yesterday, including another Super PAC entering the fray:

- Restore Our Future (pro-Romney Super PAC): $8.7 million
- Romney: $5.7 million
- Wining Our Future (pro-Gingrich Super PAC): $1.8 million (this is the confirmed ad buy so far with likely more to come)
- AFSCME $931,000
- Super PAC USA $245,000 (running anti-Romney ads)
- Gingrich $145,000

*** Wanna be startin’ something: Today, the president hits the road to sell his agenda with stops in five states in three days. At 1:00 pm ET, he speaks in Cedar Rapids, IA, then by 5:35 pm ET, he speaks in Phoenix, AZ, before heading to Las Vegas, where he spends the night. On Thursday, he speaks in Las Vegas before jetting to the Denver suburb of Aurora, CO, in Araphoe County, a key swing county. (Obama won it with 55%, Bush won it twice with 51%). President Obama then heads to Michigan, where he’ll spend the night before speaking in Ann Arbor Friday. When he gets back to the DC area Friday, he’ll immediately head to the Democratic retreat in Maryland. It’s not an official campaign swing, but it looks an awful lot like one.

***On the trail: All candidates -- with one exception -- campaign in Florida, per NBC’s Adam Perez. Santorum rallies in Naples ... Gingrich attends the US Hispanic Chamber/Univision Candidate Forum in Doral, then stumps in Miami, Coral Spring and Cocoa … Romney visits Orlando and Miami… And Paul is (again) off the campaign trail.

Countdown to Florida primary: 6 days
Countdown to Nevada caucuses: 10 days
Countdown to Super Tuesday: 41 days
Countdown to Election Day: 286 days

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***Wednesday’s “The Daily Rundown” line-up: Latest on Rep. Gabby Giffords (D-AZ) on her last day in office and last piece of legislation before resigning… Reaction to the president’s speech with Gingrich-supporting Rep. Tom Price (R-GA) and Sen. Ben Cardin (D-MD)… More 2012 news with The New York Times/CNBC’s John Harwood, Bloomberg News’ Jeanne Cummings and Democratic pollster Fred Yang.

*** Wednesday’s “Jansing & Company” line-up: Chris welcomes former Florida Gov. Bob Martinez, former Biden Economic Advisor Jared Bernstein, Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Karen Hunter; NY Daily News’ S.E. Cupp.

*** Wednesday’s “Andrea Mitchell Reports” line-up: On the show: White House Domestic Policy Director Cecilia Munoz, Rep. Mike Kelly (R-PA), Fmr. Rep. Jane Harman- President Woodrow Wilson Center, Al Jazeera Washington Bureau Chief Abderrahim Foukara on the Egypt uprising anniversary, NBC’s Chuck Todd, CNBC’s John Harwood, and The Washington Post’s Chris Cillizza.

*** Wednesday’s “MSNBC Live with Thomas Roberts” line-up:  MSNBC’s Thomas Roberts talks with Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-CA), Richard Wolffe, Wendy Schiller, Phoenix AZ Mayor Greg Stanton, Karen Finney, Boris Epshteyn, and Joy-Ann Reid.

*** Wednesday’s “Now with Alex Wagner” line-up: Ryan Lizza, The New Yorker, Bill Burton, Priorities USA PAC, Phil Musser, GOP Strategist, Luke Russert, NBC News, Guest: Richard Cordray.

*** Wednesday’s “News Nation” line-up: Joining Craig Melvin today: Dylan Ratigan, AB Stoddard, Michael Smerconish, Rep Nan Hayworth (R-NY).

National Journal: Newt Gingrich is surging in Florida ahead of that state's GOP presidential primary next Tuesday, according to the first nonpartisan, live-caller poll conducted in the state since Gingrich's blowout victory in South Carolina last Saturday. Quinnipiac University began conducting a poll in the state on Thursday, two days before the South Carolina primary, and continued interviews through Monday. For the full poll, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney leads Gingrich, 36 percent to 34 percent, within the poll's margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points. Former Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa., is third, with 13 percent. Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, is at 10 percent. Eight percent prefer another candidate or are undecided.

GINGRICH: A new Gingrich Freddie Mac contract was released. This one showed he reported to Mitchell Delk who was Freddie Mac’s chief lobbyist. On NBC’s TODAY show, Gingrich defended his work at Freddie Mac and called Delk, instead, their “head of public policy.” Gingrich added, “The contract says no lobbying, period. I offered strategic advice. And I think that’s an important thing to remember.” He said he urged for more regulation of Freddie Mac and not to “give Freddie any taxpayer money.” He claimed he said, “Don’t give them the money.” For the record, while he stressed he was not a lobbyist, he defended lobbying. “Lobbying is a perfectly legitimate business, if that’s what you’re in.” But “being a public citizen,” which is how he characterizes the extent of what he was with Freddie Mac, “is different than lobbying.”

The Romney campaign is continuing to push that Gingrich was a lobbyist. An email out this morning has the subject line: “A LOBBYIST BY ANY OTHER NAME…”

Gingrich was also asked on TODAY about House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, who reiterated that she believed Gingrich could not win the presidency, because she knows things from the ethics investigation. She previously has said she has “dirt” on him. Gingrich laughed when asked about it and parried, “She lives in a San Francisco environment of very strange fantasies… If she knows something, spit it out. I have no idea what she’s talking about.”

Newt Gingrich’s interview with CBN’s David Brody per GOP 12: “I have not hidden from the facts of my life, that I have confessed my weaknesses, and that I have had to go to God for forgiveness and for reconciliation. And I think most people can identify, either with themselves or with friends or with loved ones, that life has moments that are very sad, you wish wouldn’t have occurred. And you look back on them, and you seek forgiveness for not having been everything you could be. So, I think in that sense, it may make me more normal than somebody who wanders around seeming perfect and maybe not understanding the human condition and the challenges of life for normal people.”

Reuters: The man hired by Newt Gingrich more than a decade ago to advise him how to walk the line between consulting and lobbying is the co-author of a leading legal text on lobbying and the chief lobbyist of the American Bar Association.

Gingrich drew big crowds yesterday, especially at one event. The Palm Beach Post called it "rock star treatment,” per NBC’s Jamie Novogrod. The headline: "Gingrich draws thousands in Fla. while Romney's, Santorum's crowds number in hundreds.”

ROMNEY: “With the release of his tax returns Tuesday, Mitt Romney has emerged as Exhibit A in a political battle likely to define the 2012 election: how to tax the rich,” The Washington Post writes.

The New York Times: President Obama pledged on Tuesday night to use government power to balance the scale between America’s rich and the rest of the public, trying to present an election-year choice between continued leadership toward an economy “built to last” and what he called irresponsible policies of the past that caused an economic collapse.”

The Washington Post: The economy continues to struggle and Americans are largely pessimistic, but dueling events Tuesday showed why in politics it's good to be the incumbent.

“Already down, Congress got kicked by President Barack Obama in the last State of the Union of his first term Tuesday night. Republicans, wracked with worry about a soft agenda and dim prospects for escaping the “do nothing” label, sat fuming. Democrats clearly loved it. The takeaway: Congress can’t — or won’t — do anything about its sorry state, even if the gridlock plays directly into the president’s political strategy,” Politico writes.

The New York Times’/CNBC’s John Harwood looks at how even as President Obama’s State of the Union embraced campaign-style populism, he can still claim the center on deficit reduction.

PolitiFact: Fact-checking the State of the Union.

The state of the union is "grave," Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels asserted Tuesday evening in the Republican response to President Obama's State of the Union address.

Daniels painted a dark portrait of the nation's fiscal and economic situation, blaming Obama for the struggling economy, while promoting the Republican agenda as the best alternative to Obama and Democrats.

"On these evenings, Presidents naturally seek to find the sunny side of our national condition," Daniels said. "But when President Obama claims that the state of our union is anything but grave, he must know in his heart that this is not true."

It was a pessimistic contrast to the president's more upbeat message, but Daniels pledged the GOP would offer a more upbeat alternative for voters in the coming election season.

"So 2012 is a year of true opportunity, maybe our last, to restore an America of hope and upward mobility, and greater equality," he said. "An opposition that would earn its way back to leadership must offer not just criticism of failures that anyone can see, but a positive and credible plan to make life better, particularly for those aspiring to make a better life for themselves.  Republicans accept this duty, gratefully."

Daniels, a former Office of Management and Budget (OMB) director, had himself been favored by a number Republicans as a dark horse choice in this year's GOP presidential primary. He's regarded as a darling among fiscal hawks in the party, and was chosen by House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) to deliver the rejoinder to the president.

Daniels hit on a series of Republican talking points, criticizing the Obama administration for expanding spending and debt, but also for canceling projects like the Keystone XL pipeline, a transnational oil pipeline Republicans had favored as a jobs initiative.

The Indiana governor also laid out several broad prescriptions as a GOP alternative to Obama, calling for tax reforms and repairs to entitlement programs like Medicare and Social Security to ensure their solvency.

"The mortal enemies of Social Security and Medicare are those who, in contempt of the plain arithmetic, continue to mislead Americans that we should change nothing," Daniels said.

But Daniels also challenged Republicans to strike a unifying chord, which the conservative governor said was in contrast to Obama, whom he characterized as a divisive leader.

"No feature of the Obama Presidency has been sadder than its constant efforts to divide us, to curry favor with some Americans by castigating others," he said.

"As a loyal opposition, who put patriotism and national success ahead of party or ideology or any self-interest, we say that anyone who will join us in the cause of growth and solvency is our ally, and our friend," Daniels added, admitting that Republicans had not always been as successful in the past at bring Americans together. "We will speak the language of unity."

Rate Obama's speech

President Obama railed against dysfunction on Capitol Hill during his State of the Union address, blaming gridlock in Washington for the economy's sluggish performance in the past year.

The president demanded a series of reforms intended to address the poor function of Congress, which played out in a series of battles over taxes and spending over the past year, and drove public opinion of lawmakers to an all-time low.

"But no matter what party they belong to, I bet most Americans are thinking the same thing right now:  Nothing will get done this year, or next year, or maybe even the year after that, because Washington is broken," Obama said. "Can you blame them for feeling a little cynical?"

Obama and lawmakers fought to the last minute on a variety of legislative matters throughout 2011. The biggest fight took the U.S. to the brink of defaulting on its national debt in August, while other battles between House Republicans and the administration almost prompted a government shutdown several times before last-minute agreements could be struck to extend government spending.

The freshest example came just at the end of December, when Republicans balked at a deal to extend an expiring tax-cut for two months, only to eventually relent and agree to pass the extension.

"The greatest blow to confidence in our economy last year didn’t come from events beyond our control.  It came from a debate in Washington over whether the United States would pay its bills or not," Obama said in reference to those battles.

The administration has enjoyed some political traction in its battles with Republicans in Congress. Obama unveiled a comprehensive jobs plan last September, and subjected GOP lawmakers to votes on its individual components throughout the fall. While none of the initiatives came close to becoming law, Republicans were forced to go on the record on some of the Obama proposals, cherry-picked for votes in Congress based on their popularity.

Obama called for a series of government reforms in his address meant to curb the cynicism toward Congress, including a ban on insider trading by members of Congress, as well as new limits on elected officials from owning stocks in industries they impact.

The president also called for a ban on campaign bundlers -- party fundraisers who gather together donations for candidates -- cannot lobby Congress.

In terms of other procedural reforms, Obama called for the Senate to pass a rule ensuring judicial and public service nominees receive an up-or-down confirmation vote within 90 days of their nomination. A recent precedent in both parties of blocking nominees and subjecting them to a higher, 60-vote threshold has taken hold of the upper chamber.

People earning over $1 million per year should pay an effective tax rate of no less than 30 percent, President Obama said in his State of the Union address Tuesday night.

The president laid down one of his most political markers of the annual policy speech by crafting what he called the "Buffett Rule," named after the famous billionaire investor.

"Tax reform should follow the Buffett rule:  If you make more than $1 million a year, you should not pay less than 30 percent in taxes," Obama said.

Recommended: Obama declares 'we've come too far to turn back now'

The president also said that Americans earning over $250,000 per year should also no longer be able to claim special tax breaks or deductions; he said households earning under $250,000 shouldn't face a tax increase.

"You can call this class warfare all you want," Obama said. "But asking a billionaire to pay at least as much as his secretary in taxes?  Most Americans would call that common sense."

Obama's pronouncement comes at a point of contrast, when the Democratic National Committee and the president's re-election campaign have assailed former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, one of the prime candidates for the GOP presidential nomination, for his tax burden.

Romney released his tax returns Tuesday at the behest of his Republican primary opponents. Those tax records found that Romney, whose net worth is estimated between $190 and $250 million, paid about 14 percent of his income in taxes. That's because his income came primarily through investments, which are taxed at a lower rate.

Obama's plan would raise taxes on millionaires like Romney and essentially treat their investment income like any other income. The new Buffett Rule falls cuts to the core of the prime focus on the issue of fairness, which colored Obama's address Tuesday evening.

The president also pressed lawmakers to pass an extension of the payroll tax cut through the end of this calendar year. Congress extended the expiring tax cut in late 2011 in a last-minute deal.

President Obama refused to back off his support for clean energy initiatives in his State of the Union address, pushing back against some of Republicans' fiercest policy criticisms of his administration.

Obama called for an "all-of-the-above" energy strategy in the speech, promoting the work his administration has done to ease exploration of oil and natural gas. But he doubled down on new incentives for clean energy research and employment amid Republican criticism over the past year on the administration's approach to those initiatives.

"I will not cede the wind or solar or battery industry to China or Germany because we refuse to make the same commitment here. We have subsidized oil companies for a century. That’s long enough," Obama said. "It’s time to end the taxpayer giveaways to an industry that’s rarely been more profitable, and double-down on a clean energy industry that’s never been more promising. Pass clean energy tax credits and create these jobs."

That section of the speech seems intended to address some of the most withering criticism from Republicans, who have launched an investigation into whether the administration expedited clean energy loans to Solyndra, the now-defunct clean energy company backed in part by a major Democratic donor.

Moreover, Republicans have loudly criticized the administration's decision to reject an application to build a major transnational oil pipeline between the U.S. and Canada. Republicans said the pipeline was poised to create thousands of jobs.

Obama also took steps to address climate change, decrying Congress for failing to take charge in the battle against global warming. (The Democratic-held House passed a cap-and-trade bill in 2009, but it failed in the Senate despite Democrats' additional control of that chamber.)

"The differences in this chamber may be too deep right now to pass a comprehensive plan to fight climate change. But there’s no reason why Congress shouldn’t at least set a clean energy standard that creates a market for innovation.  So far, you haven’t acted," Obama said. "Well tonight, I will.  I’m directing my Administration to allow the development of clean energy on enough public land to power three million homes. And I’m proud to announce that the Department of Defense, the world’s largest consumer of energy, will make one of the largest commitments to clean energy in history –- with the Navy purchasing enough capacity to power a quarter of a million homes a year."

PUNTA GORDA, FL -- Former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum stressed his humble roots and blue-collar background on the campaign trail Tuesday, the same day GOP primary rival Mitt Romney released tax records underscoring his impressive wealth.

Santorum was careful not to seize on Romney's millions, explaining that he does not begrudge the former Massachusetts governor's wealth.

"People ask me, 'What do you think about Mitt Romney, you know, making a gazillion dollars last year?' Good for him, that's what I say, good for him," Santorum told a tea party group here. "I wish I'd a made some gazillion dollars last year. I'd be in a little better shape financing my own campaign like he's done."

After heavy criticism for initially resisting releasing the documents, Romney today made public his tax records, showing the presidential hopeful earned a total of $42.5 million in 2010 and 2011.  Romney has acknowledged that his previous hesitancy to share the records became a distraction in the days leading up the South Carolina primary, in which Romney finished a distant second to former House Speaker Newt Gingrich.

Unlike some of his GOP rivals, Santorum has avoided critiquing Romney's private sector experience as CEO of investment firm Bain Capital. But while he has shied away from attacks on Romney's business background, he frequently contrasts their backgrounds while on the campaign trail.

Speaking at a rally in Stuart, FL today, Santorum told the story of his immigrant grandfather who labored in the coalmines of Pennsylvania, working to bring his family to America. The personal account drew national attention after the former Pennsylvania senator shared it the night of the Iowa caucus, and it has since become a staple on the trail.

It is those working class roots that will help Santorum win over blue-collar Americans in swing states, Santorum argues.

"The question is how well people can relate to him. That's a question that the voters will decide," he said when asked about what Romney's financial records say about the candidate.

But on the stump over the past month, Santorum has made a much more passionate contrast between his and Romney’s life story.  In the days leading up the South Carolina primary, Santorum told a crowd in Greenville, SC. "I respect Mitt Romney’s career in business, but as the grandson of a coal miner, who grew up in public housing in a steel town in Western Pennsylvania...and whose record is a track record of working in those blue collar communities, [I have] a much better chance of winning those states than an executive from Bain Capital."

Santorum still have yet to release his own tax records, saying he will when he is able to return home to look at them.

Santorum said, "Once I get home, we'll get them out. I’m not everybody else who has teams of accountants and corporations, I mean, it's just me."

Anticipating President Obama’s populist tone tonight, Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels will say the U.S. is not a nation of “haves and have nots” but one of “haves and soon to haves.”

"As Republicans our first concern is for those waiting tonight to begin or resume the climb up life's ladder,” Daniels will say, according to excerpts released by House Speaker John Boehner’s office. “We do not accept that ours will ever be a nation of haves and have nots; we must always be a nation of haves and soon to haves."

He will says President Obama has tried to divide not unite: "No feature of the Obama Presidency has been sadder than its constant efforts to divide us, to curry favor with some Americans by castigating others.”

He will also defend House Republicans from the expected volley by President Obama, who will vow to fight “obstruction.”

"It's not fair and it's not true for the President to attack Republicans in Congress as obstacles on these questions,” Daniels will say. “They and they alone have passed bills to reduce borrowing, reform entitlements, and encourage new job creation, only to be shot down nearly time and again by the President and his Democrat Senate allies."

He will try to present a positive vision with a classic Daniels-esque analogy.

“As in previous moments of national danger, we Americans are all in the same boat,” Daniels will say. “If we drift, quarreling and paralyzed, over a Niagara of debt, we will all suffer, regardless of income, race, gender, or other category.  If we fail to shift to a pro-jobs, pro-growth economic policy, there will never be enough public revenue to pay for our safety net, national security, or whatever size government we decide to have. …

"2012 must be the year we prove the doubters wrong.  The year we strike out boldly not merely to avert national bankruptcy but to say to a new generation that America is still the world's premier land of opportunity. Republicans will speak for those who believe in the dignity and capacity of the individual citizen; who believe that government is meant to serve the people rather than supervise them; who trust Americans enough to tell them the plain truth about the fix we are in, and to lay before them a specific, credible program of change big enough to meet the emergency we are facing."

He will also label the cancelation of the Keystone Pipeline “extremism,” calling it a “perfectly safe pipeline.”

"The extremism that stifles the development of homegrown energy, or cancels a perfectly safe pipeline that would employ tens of thousands, or jacks up consumer utility bills for no improvement in either human health or world temperature, is a pro-poverty policy,” Daniels will say. “It must be replaced by a passionate pro-growth approach that breaks all ties and calls all close ones in favor of private sector jobs that restore opportunity for all and generate the public revenues to pay our bills.”

He will also call for a “dramatically simpler tax system of fewer loopholes and lower rates.”

He will call new regulations “mindless piling on” that “devour dollars that otherwise could be used to hire somebody.”

LEHIGH ACRES, FL -- Mitt Romney is a candidate fighting battles on two fronts.

The former Massachusetts governor is pushing ahead with a two-pronged attack, one on President Obama, the president against whom Romney has longed to battle in the general election, and Newt Gingrich, the latest Republican to claim the mantle as the prime conservative challenger to Romney, the candidate who could upset Romney's presidential aspirations.

Romney took aim at Gingrich on Tuesday in South Florida, speaking from the dusty lawn of a foreclosed home in a state that was particularly ravaged by the collapse in the housing market.

"I noted that he has been working as an influence peddler, let me tell you how that works. He gets paid $1.6 million dollars, he says as an historian. I am waiting to see the history he wrote for Freddie Mac," Romney said this afternoon of Gingrich, reprising an attack line from last night's debate. "I'd like to see the work product. I'd like him to release the work that he did. And let us see what it was and the volumes of the work that he did or the reports that he made. Let's see what he was doing."

The attacks relating to Gingrich's dealings with failed housing lender Freddie Mac have become central to Romney's assault on Gingrich, who he has repeatedly labeled an "influence peddler" here in Florida. Since limping here after his defeat in South Carolina on Saturday, half of Romney's events in Florida, which has the sixth-highest foreclosure rate in the nation, have revolved around housing in some form or fashion. Each of those has included new attacks on Gingrich.

"[Gingrich] was standing up and defending Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, and so conservatives in Congress and conservatives around the country instead of arguing to get rid of these entities, to scale the market back and get rid of these guys, they said well if Newt Gingrich thinks it's a good idea, why, we ought to go along with it," Romney said. "That's what's known as influence peddling. You get paid and then you go out and say things that influence other people. That's the nature of what's been going on in this country. It is wrong, it must stop, we can't have influence peddlers leading our party."

But while the afternoon's event focused primarily on holding off Gingrich -- Romney discussed very little of his own housing policy -- it was a study in contrasts from his event in the morning, when Romney delivered a "pre-buttal" to Obama's third State of the Union address.

"This president has run out of ideas. This president has run out of excuses. In 2012 we've got to make sure that he is run out of the office of the White House," Romney said.

The two events illustrate how Romney has sought to straddle the line between primary and general election candidate. He had hued to the GOP's so-called "Eleventh Commandment," which prohibits attacks among fellow Republicans, for the first few months of the campaign. Romney effectively wore blinders to other candidates' attacks, and stuck to striking Obama at each turn. He dispatched Texas Gov. Rick Perry almost exclusively through debates, leaning on his own strong performances and Perry's gaffes.

Romney's campaign had been able to sit back and allow the super PAC supporting him, Restore our Future, to level the most devastating attacks on his behalf. But now, as NBC News has reported, Gingrich will begin his own multimillion-dollar aerial campaign, and Democratic groups continue to keep Romney -- not Gingrich -- in their crosshairs.

The fate of Romney's campaign may depend on how well he and his campaign can manage two wars at the same time. Already, they're on-air in Florida with their own attacks on the ex-speaker.

President Obama tonight in his State of the Union address will lay out of a vision for the country that focuses on economic fairness – and warn Republicans not to stand in the way.

Calling it “the defining issue of our time,” the president will argue for an economic structure “where hard work pays off, and responsibility is rewarded,” according to excerpts of his speech released by the White House.

“We can either settle for a country where a shrinking number of people do really well, while a growing number of Americans barely get by,” Obama will say. “Or we can restore an economy where everyone gets a fair shot, everyone does their fair share, and everyone plays by the same set of rules. What's at stake are not Democratic values or Republican values, but American values. We have to reclaim them."

He will add, “It's time to apply the same rules from top to bottom: No bailouts, no handouts, and no copouts. An America built to last insists on responsibility from everybody."

Republicans are sure to take issue with those lines, considering the president oversaw the bank and auto bailouts - and he has been accused by Republicans on Capitol Hill and those running for president of expanding government and promoting “European-style socialism.”

Obama will also issue a shot across the aisle, warning the GOP that he intends “to fight obstruction with action, and I will oppose any effort to return to the very same policies that brought on this economic crisis in the first place.”

Here are the full excerpts released by the White House:

"Think about the America within our reach: A country that leads the world in educating its people. An America that attracts a new generation of high-tech manufacturing and high-paying jobs. A future where we're in control of our own energy, and our security and prosperity aren't so tied to unstable parts of the world. An economy built to last, where hard work pays off, and responsibility is rewarded. "
…
"….The defining issue of our time is how to keep that promise alive. No challenge is more urgent. No debate is more important. We can either settle for a country where a shrinking number of people do really well, while a growing number of Americans barely get by. Or we can restore an economy where everyone gets a fair shot, everyone does their fair share, and everyone plays by the same set of rules. What's at stake are not Democratic values or Republican values, but American values. We have to reclaim them."
…
"As long as I'm President, I will work with anyone in this chamber to build on this momentum. But I intend to fight obstruction with action, and I will oppose any effort to return to the very same policies that brought on this economic crisis in the first place.
No, we will not go back to an economy weakened by outsourcing, bad debt, and phony financial profits. Tonight, I want to speak about how we move forward, and lay out a blueprint for an economy that's built to last - an economy built on American manufacturing, American energy, skills for American workers, and a renewal of American values."
…
"Let's never forget: Millions of Americans who work hard and play by the rules every day deserve a government and a financial system that does the same. It's time to apply the same rules from top to bottom: No bailouts, no handouts, and no copouts. An America built to last insists on responsibility from everybody."

A day after it was revealed that the wife of a casino magnate, Miriam Adelson, had written a pro-Gingrich Super PAC a $5 million check, that group, Winning Our Future, says it is going up with a $6 million ad buy in Florida.

"I fully expect Newt to win Florida," Winning Our Future spokesman Rick Tyler told NBC News. "I think if he does win, this nomination process will be a lot shorter than all the pundits predicted.”

A Republican ad buying firm, Smart Media Delta, working with NBC News, confirms Winning Our Future is in the process of making 30-second and 60-second ad buys across the state.

One of the ads running will be a hard-hitting attack ad on Romney's health-care plan and for having said, "My views are progressive." (View the ad here, posted by The Washington Post, which first reported the news of the ad buy.)

“I think this is bold and new,” Tyler said. "And we have something old up already."

Winning Our Future currently has three ads running in the state, and they’re all positive Gingrich ads -- "Prosperity," "Jobs," and "Fighter." This new one will be added to the rotation tomorrow.

Gingrich and his allies have been outspent $14 million to $500,000 in Florida up until now by the Romney campaign and Restore Our Future, the Super PAC supporting Romney. Restore Our Future has expanded its ad buys outside of Florida, NBC News learned this afternoon. They are the first PAC to go on air in Michigan, Nevada, and Arizona now as well.