Political Wire: “A new Quinnipiac poll in Virginia shows President Obama pulling ahead of Mitt Romney in a general election match up, 47% to 43%. In late December, Romney was ahead by two points, 44% to 42%. Obama also leads Rick Santorum 49% to 41%, tops Ron Paul 47% to 40%, and crushes Newt Gingrich 51% to 37%.”

The New York Times writes, “Any hope for a fast and quiet resolution to the Congressional battle over a payroll tax cut seemed to dim Tuesday as members of a bipartisan negotiating committee clashed over how to pay for the extension, and Senate Democrats suggested that they would come up with their own bill to get the matter resolved.”

President Obama personally signed off on his campaign's decision to actively encourage donations to Democratic Super PAC Priorities USA, according to senior campaign officials who spoke on a conference call with reporters Tuesday morning.

But an official would not characterize the tone of Obama's agreement to back a policy that is at odds with his previous vocal opposition to the Citizens United decision that allows Super PACs to solicit unlimited donations.  

Conversations among top advisers about the need to "lend support" to the outside fundraising effort have been going on for "weeks," and the decision was made after a review of FEC filings from the Super PAC committees supporting the GOP presidential candidates, officials said. 

As a result of the decision, some White House officials, campaign aides, and cabinet members will appear at Priorities USA events to "amplify [Obama's] message" but will not directly solicit donations. The president, First Lady, and vice president will not attend any Priorities USA events, however. 

The campaign said Tuesday that it will not encourage donations to a related 501(c)4 organization that does not disclose its donors to the FEC as the Priorities USA SuperPAC will. 

The reversal opens Obama -- who has long bemoaned the influx of money into the political process -- to accusations of hypocrisy as his campaign now hopes to lure big donors to the fundraising body founded by former White House aide Bill Burton. 

Officials maintain that the decision "not to unilaterally disarm" by rejecting Super PACs is simply a response to the millions expected to be spent by GOP interests to fight Obama's re-election. 

"We can't afford hundreds of millions of dollars by corporate special interests on the air drowning out our message, while we're fighting hand-to-hand on the ground," said one official. 

COLORADO SPRINGS, CO -- Rick Santorum began what could end up being a very good day for his campaign emphasizing the importance of the Colorado caucus during the first of three campaign stops in three different states on Tuesday.

Santorum made stops in Colorado and Minnesota, which host caucuses tonight, and will end the day in Missouri, where voters head to the polls for a primary.  Signs indicate Santorum could do well in all three contests, possibly even win one, prompting Santorum to stress the importance of the three states and taking shots at other candidates claiming to not compete there.

"Colorado is a state that, four years ago, Gov. Romney won with 61 percent of the vote. He won and he campaigned hard here. He didn't pass it off like he's been doing the last couple of days and saying, 'Oh, well these are just non binding caucuses, they don't really matter much,'" said Santorum here this morning. "Well they mattered four years ago when he came out here and he campaigned in these very same states. You have an opportunity to reset this race, you have an opportunity to put the best person forward that can defeat Barack Obama tonight."

Missouri in particular has been dismissed by candidates and pundits as nothing more than a beauty contest. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich will not be on the ballot there, and Tuesday's non-binding primary will be followed by a caucus next month. It's the state where Santorum has the best chance of winning and where Mitt Romney's campaign has downplayed expectations.

Though he may not officially win any delegates today, any victory for Santorum would be a much needed boast for a campaign struggling to remain relevant since a victory in the Iowa caucuses. Winning Missouri would allow Santorum to boast of a head-to-head victory against Romney, since Gingrich wasn't on the ballot. Along with breaking Romney's winning streak, it could help lend credibility to Santorum's argument that he is the best alternative GOP candidate to the former Massachusetts governor.

"We need to have a conservative alternative and my feeling is that Speaker Gingrich sort of had his chance in the arena and came up short in Florida and Nevada and now it’s our turn hopefully to get a one-on-one in Missouri," Santorum said on Monday at the Colorado School of Mines.

While the Romney campaign has been taming expectations with email blasts warning that their candidate cannot win every primary and caucus, Santorum is doing the opposite.

"If you're looking at the polls, today could be a very good day for the conservative cause," Santorum said.

Earlier this morning, we wrote that President Obama and his campaign would be taking heat from good-government groups, the media, and liberals on their decision to encourage donors to give money to a pro-Obama Super PAC.

Two of those groups (the good-government groups and media) have followed through with their criticism. But with one notable exception -- former Sen. Russ Feingold -- the left so far has largely supported the move.

Here are a few takes from prominent liberal bloggers and writers, who've sometimes openly disagreed with the president:

Steve Benen:

[T]here's a reasonable case to be made that the president and his team are simply adapting to circumstances beyond their control. The far-right and well-financed Republican super PACs are going to exist and will spend hundreds of millions of dollars in 2012, whether Obama likes it or not. The question, then, is whether the president and his allies are prepared to fight fire with fire. As of today, the answer appears to be "yes."

New York magazine's Jonathan Chait:

The phrase “unilateral disarmament” has been used, in a negative sense, to justify a lot of unjustifiable behavior. But President Obama’s argument against unilateral disarmament in the super PAC war seems totally persuasive.

The Washington Monthly's Ed Kilgore:

Super PACs have already become a huge factor in this presidential race. Wishing them away won’t do a bit of good, and until such time as the composition of the Supreme Court changes, they will remain an unfortunate but immovable part of the political landscape.

The Washington Post's Greg Sargent:

Outside money of this nature is bad for democracy, no matter who is spending it. But here are the plain facts of the matter. Obama and Democrats tried to pass legislation that would have limited outside money and ended non-disclosure; Republicans opposed it. Democrats would close down their Super PACs tomorrow if Republicans agreed to do the same.

So Dems have a choice: Either they can lead by example — which is to say, by setting an example that Republicans will never agree to — and give the GOP a lopsided advantage in outside spending and the tsunami of ads it will finance. Or they can play by the rules as Republicans have defined them, and continue to work to change those rules.

JOHNSTOWN, CO -- Mitt Romney's campaign spent Tuesday morning tamping down expectations ahead of tonight's nominating contests, going so far as to say they expect to lose the Minnesota caucus to Rick Santorum.

The former Massachusetts governor's campaign circulated a memo and talking points to reporters this morning reminding them that no delegates are bound by tonight's caucuses in Minnesota and Colorado and another primary in Missouri, while reminding interested parties that John McCain lost 19 states in  his successful run for the nomination in 2008.

A senior campaign official also said yesterday he expects Romney will lose Minnesota today -- a state he carried four years ago -- but that the contests remaining in February (and the other ones set for March) all favor point toward Romney being able to gain momentum cement his status as the campaign's frontrunner. This morning's memo from political director Rich Beeson closed by underscoring that same point.

"Speaker Gingrich’s and Senator Santorum’s campaigns have resource challenges. The remaining February states may not be kind to them, and their hopes for a comeback in March may be very difficult and based on an incomplete understanding of the delegate selection rules.  Even “success” in a few states will not mean collecting enough delegates to win the nomination," Beeson wrote. "In contrast, Governor Romney will be competing across the country and collecting delegates in state after state, even if other candidates pick up some wins.  This is exactly the sort of methodical, long-haul campaign we planned for, and we are well on the way to victory."

Romney's campaign made this argument as the candidate himself made a final appearance in Colorado before tonight's caucuses.

The event, though, did not get off to a smooth start.

Thirty minutes after Romney was scheduled to arrive, a woman standing in the front of the crowd suffered a medical problem requiring police attention. She remained on site and was later moved to a VIP seating area. With Romney still absent forty minutes after campaign advisories said the event was scheduled to begin, the candidate called in to the room via Skype, and provided a pixelated and electronically-garbled apology for being late.

When he finally did arrive, nearly an hour behind schedule (a rarity for the tightly-run Romney campaign), Romney apologized for his truancy, blaming weather.

"I really appreciate the warm welcome on such a cold and snowy morning, I guess it took a long time to get the snow off the windshield of the bus. So it slowed us down, but it did not slow you down, so I appreciate your willingness to be here, and to participate in this process," Romney said.

During his speech, Romney once again accused President Obama of waging an "assault on religion," for his position on ministerial exemptions, and on the ongoing battle between the administration and the Catholic church over a new health care mandate.
 
"Just in the last several days the administration has said, under Obamacare, that religious organization like schools, catholic schools, catholic hospitals and so forth have to provide for free contraceptives and free morning after pills, abortive pills, for all of their employees in violation of the religious conscience of those organizations," Romney said this morning at a rally north of Denver. "This kind of assault on religion will end if I’m president of the United States."

Democrats have pushed back since last night, when Romney first spoke about the issue, accusing him of hypocrisy by pointing to similarities between the federal law -- which requires religious organizations like hospitals, colleges and charities to provide birth control under their health plans -- and a similar provision under Romney's Massachusetts health care reform law.

CINCINNATI, OH –- Newt Gingrich today tried to link Mitt Romney and Barack Obama as one in the same when it comes to their stances on birth control for religious institutions.
 
“Romneycare and Obamacare they're too similar,” Gingrich told the crowd inside Price Hill Chili Restaurant at his first campaign event in the Buckeye State this morning. “There's been a lot of talk about the Obama administration's attack on the Catholic Church. Well the fact is, Gov. Romney insisted that Catholic hospitals give out abortion pills against their religious belief when he was governor.”
 
Gingrich was referring to a Feb. 3 Boston Globe article, which reported that Romney -- in Dec. 2005 -- "required all Massachusetts hospitals, including Catholic ones, to provide emergency contraception to rape victims, even though some Catholics view the morning-after pill as a form of abortion."

More from the article: "[Romney] said he was acting on his legal counsel’s interpretation of a new state law - one passed by lawmakers despite his veto - but he also said that 'in his heart of hearts,’ he believed that rape victims should have access to emergency contraception." 

Since Jan. 30, Gingrich has relentlessly criticized the Obama administration for including a provision in the health-care law that requires all religious institutions to cover birth control in their insurance plans, despite religious teachings.
 
“The Obama administration is engaged in a war against religion,” the former House Speaker, who converted to Catholicism, told supporters at a rally in Jacksonville, FL two weeks ago after hearing the letter sent by Catholic Bishops to churches read at mass. “Their decision last week that they would impose on every Catholic institution, every Jewish institution, every Protestant institution, the Obamacare standard of what you have to buy as insurance. It is a direct violation of freedom of religion and an example of the increasingly dictatorial attitude of this administration.”
 
Yesterday in Colorado, Romney jumped in the battle, calling the Obama administration’s coverage for contraception a "violation of conscience” and has written in the past that he "stands with" the Catholic Bishop’s opposed to the mandate in the health care law.
 
But today, Gingrich argued that when Romney was governor, he made religious institutions cover birth control as well.
 
“Over and over, you get the same pattern. And I think that a Massachusetts moderate finds it very hard to draw a sharp contrast with somebody who is an Illinois radical," Gingrich told the 150 person crowd in the Buckeye State.

*** UPDATED AT 1:15 PM WITH COMMENT FROM PRIORITIES USA ***

A top campaign watchdog group today is calling for a Justice Department criminal investigation into Super PACs supporting President Obama and GOP front runner Mitt Romney.

Fred Wertheimer, president of Democracy 21, a group sharply critical of Super PACs, said Priorities USA Action, the Obama Super PAC, and Restore Our Future, a similar group backing Romney, are both "illegal operations" because of their close ties to the candidates they are backing.

In the wake of reports that the White House has signed off on plans to urge wealthy donors to contribute to the group, Wertheimer said he is writing a letter to the Justice Department today urging criminal probes of both groups.

"In order to believe that the Super PACs supporting President Obama and Mitt Romney are 'independent' from the presidential campaigns they are supporting, you must believe in the tooth fairy," Wertheimer said.

Bill Burton, Obama's former deputy press secretary and 2008 campaign spokesman, set up Priorities USA Action last year along with another former Obama political aide, Sean Sweeney. Burton did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Restore Our Future, which has spent millions in the GOP primary so far, was set up by former Romney aides Charlie Spies, who was Romney’s general counsel during his 2008 bid, and Carl Forti, who was Romney’s political director. Forti is also the political director for American Crossroads.

The White House plan to steer wealthy donors to give money to Priorities USA Action was disclosed in a blog posting on the Obama campaign website, saying that the move was needed to "neutralize the avalanche of special interest spending" being mounted on the GOP side to defeat President Obama.

"The stakes are too important to play by two different sets of rules," Jim Messina, Obama's campaign manager wrote.

The New York Times reported that the White House plans to dispatch top officials, including senior advisers David Plouffe and Valerie Jarrett to meet with donors. Romney himself has appeared at Restore Our Future fundraisers, something he defended on MSNBC’s The Daily Rundown, saying he’d acted within the law.

“They can help in terms of fundraising, but cannot in any way communicate a course of advertising, suggest when ads run, where they run, what's in the content of the ads,” Romney said of candidates and campaigns and whether or how much they can coordinate with Super PACs supporting them. “Those are things that are prohibited so we're being very careful in that regard.”

A top strategist who works with Democratic Super PACs told NBC News that the White House decision came after mounting worries within party circles that spending by a phalanx of GOP Super PACs could reach $1 billion by election day -- including $100 million from the conservative oil magnate Koch brothers -- drowning out the president's message

"When you see numbers like that, it starts getting a little spooky," the strategist said.

He also said most big Democratic donors have so far been gun shy of the Super PACs, because of Obama's past criticism of such groups. In the 2010 election, Obama charged that GOP groups, fueled with “special interest” money, were threatening to “hijack” democracy.

"We need some of our big birds to get off the wire," the strategist said, noting that some wealthy donors have expressed concerns that they'll be "demonized" if they give to one of the Democratic Super PACs.

So far, Priorities USA Action has had relatively little success in raising funds, reporting last week that it had collected just $4.4 million through the end of last year. A Priorities official said it had raised another $2.3 million via a 501(c)4 arm that doesn’t have to disclose donors. (The Karl Rove-Ed Gillespie-led groups American Crossroads and Crossroads GPS have a similar set up and has raised far more money.)

That $6.7 million is compared to the $30 million raised by Restore Our Future and the $51 million reported raised by American Crossroads and its non-profit, non-disclosed affiliate Crossroads GPS.

The pro-Obama group did report a handful of big checks, including $2 million from Hollywood mogul Jeffrey Katzenberg, $1 million from the SEIU labor union, $100,000 from director Steven Spielberg, and others.

While individual donors can only give $2,500 a piece to official campaign committees, the Super PACs can collect unlimited donations from individuals, corporations, and labor unions. Priorities USA Action also reported last week that $215,000 of its operating expenses were being paid by its non-profit affiliate -- called Priorities USA -- which like Crossroads GPS, does not disclose its donors.

"As much as [David] Axelrod hates to give up this part of the president's message,” the strategist said, “most voters are pretty cynical about this stuff and don't much care.”

*** UPDATE *** Priorities spokesman Bill Burton disputes the notion that Priorities is an "illegal operation."

"We of course are abiding by all appropriate rules and laws," Burton said.

Mark Murray and Domenico Montanaro discuss tonight’s Colorado and Minnesota Caucus, tonight’s Missouri Primary and Obama’s Super PAC jumping into the swing of things.

Former Sen. Bob Kerrey (D) announced this morning he would not seek the U.S. Senate seat from Nebraska -- all but ensuring another Republican takeover.

"I have given the decision of becoming a candidate for the U.S. Senate very serious thought and prayer," Kerrey said in an email, per AP. "For many reasons I nearly said yes. In the end I choose to remain a private citizen. To those who urged me to do so, I am sorry, very sorry to have disappointed you. I hope you understand that I have chosen what I believe is best for my family and me."

The decision came despite a recruiting push by national Democrats to try and get him to run after incumbent Democratic Sen. Ben Nelson announced he would not seek reelection.

If President Obama wins reelection, Republicans need to win a net of four seats to take back control of the Senate. If a Republican wins the presidency, the GOP needs to pick up three. With this Nebraska seat, it's the second where Republicans are heavily favored -- North Dakota being the other.

The favorite to win the GOP primary in Nebraska is Attorney General Jon Bruning, but faces a primary notably from state Treasurer Don Stenberg.

Kerrey served in the U.S. Senate from 1989 to 2000 and ran for president in 1992. It's not the first time Kerrey's name has come up for a Nebraska Senate seat and he declined.

But he has lived in New York City for the past decade, serving as president of The New School, far from his Nebraska roots. (He's currently President Emeritus at The New School.)

Democrats still maintain they have a chance here, but it's unlikely.

“As we have seen in the last several weeks, Republicans are at each other’s throats in Nebraska," said Matt Canter, spokesman for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. "The Republican primary in the state has become a proxy war between Mitch McConnell’s ethically challenged candidate Jon Bruning and Jim Demint’s tea partier Don Stenberg, which will provide an opportunity for Democrats to remain competitive."

Looking past Nebraska, Canter notes, "We continue to play offense this election cycle in Massachusetts, Nevada, Arizona, and Indiana, and remain fully confident that we will hold the majority next year.”

Some potential Democratic candidates in Nebraska include Omaha State Sen. Steve Lathrop and Chuck Hassebrook, executive director of the Center for Rural Affairs and member of the Board of Regents.

Team Obama’s Super PAC reversal and “Super” hypocrisy… Messina: “We can’t allow for two sets of rules whereby … Democrats unilaterally disarm”… And screwing up the fundraising vetting.

Larry Downing / Reuters

U.S. President Barack Obama talks about the economy at Fire Station Number Five in Arlington, Virginia February 3, 2012.

*** A 'Super' reversal: Anyone who is surprised by the Obama campaign's announcement last night that it's encouraging Democratic donors to give money to the pro-Obama Super PAC Priorities USA Action -- after previously criticizing this practice -- wasn't paying attention in 2008. Back then, remember, Obama reversed himself and opted out of public financing for the general election, enabling his campaign to raise some $750 million to win the presidency. That reversal then and this reversal now tell us two important things about Obama and modern presidential politics. One, it's a losing proposition to always put principle above winning. Indeed, the rise of these Super PACs (like Karl Rove's American Crossroads, the pro-Romney Restore Our Future, and the Sheldon Adelson-backed Winning Our Future) could very well wipe out any fundraising advantage the incumbent enjoys in 2012. And two, as the L.A. Times' Mark Barabak points out, voters rarely care about these kind of process stories. After all, did Obama lose a single vote in '08 due to his public-financing reversal?

*** And ‘Super’ hypocrisy: But make no mistake: The White House is going to receive plenty of heat -- from good-government groups, liberals, and the media -- for this reversal. Why? Because after all of its criticism of Citizens United and Super PACs, last night’s announcement looks hypocritical no matter how you try and rationalize it. Three additional things seem to be going on with this change in policy: 1) The Obama campaign appears to be spooked by the $30 million the pro-Romney Restore Our Future raised in 2011; 2) Democratic donors who wanted to start giving to Super PACs were complaining; and 3) The blessing from the Obama campaign opens the spigot for the Democratic House and Senate Super PACs who had been struggling to raise money since the titular head of the party spent the last year and half demonizing these groups. What’s more, his decision won’t just be a financial boon for the struggling Democratic Super PACs; it’s going to be a seal of approval for the Republican Super PACs. They now have been legitimized by the president and their effectiveness has been highlighted by the Obama campaign. The financial nuclear arms race is now afoot.

*** “We can’t allow for two sets of rules”: In a blog posting last night, Obama Campaign Manager Jim Messina wrote that the president “opposed the Citizens United decision. He understood that with the dramatic growth in opportunities to raise and spend unlimited special-interest money, we would see new strategies to hide it from public view. He continues to support a law to force full disclosure of all funding intended to influence our elections… And [he] favors action -- by constitutional amendment, if necessary -- to place reasonable limits on all such spending.” But Messina added, “With so much at stake, we can't allow for two sets of rules in this election whereby the Republican nominee is the beneficiary of unlimited spending and Democrats unilaterally disarm.” He also announced in the blog posting that top campaign aides and Cabinet secretaries would speak at fundraising events for Priorities USA Action, though the president, vice president, and first lady wouldn’t. Three people, in particular, are singled out for this duty: David Plouffe, Valerie Jarrett, and HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius (who formerly worked for the Kansas Trial Lawyers Association and obviously has lots of connections with the big donor trial-lawyer community). By the way, the Obama campaign is holding a conference call on its announcement at 11:00 am ET.

*** Screwing up the vetting: The Obama campaign’s Super PAC reversal overshadowed a New York Times report that the family of a Mexican casino magnate, Juan Jose Rojas (Pepe) Cardona, who fled the U.S. on drug and fraud charges had been bundling money for the campaign. “When The New York Times asked the Obama campaign early Monday about the Cardonas, officials said they were unaware of the brother in Mexico. Later in the day, the campaign said it was refunding the money raised by the family, which totaled more than $200,000.” This kind of story hits at this truth: When campaigns are raising big bucks – whether they are Democratic or Republican – it is human nature that you sometimes screw up the vetting. Fundraisers get so excited about hitting the lottery with a big donor or big bundler that they, perhaps, vet with eye toward finding nothing.

*** And more on the contraception story and the Eastwood ad: Two additional points on some of the other politics topics of the day. One, the White House’s decision on contraception pitted women vs. the Catholic bishops, and Team Obama decided that it was more important not to alienate women’s groups. (In fact, if this story becomes about women’s health, it won’t be a problem for the Obama folks. But it will be a problem if it’s viewed as government interference.) Two, do Republican critics of the Clint Eastwood/Chrysler ad – like Karl Rove yesterday – look like they are rooting against America and the rebounding U.S. auto industry? Remember, the Bush administration also helped bail out Chrysler.

Countdown to Super Tuesday: 28 days
Countdown to Election Day: 273 days

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*** Tuesday’s “Daily Rundown” line-up, per NBC’s Anna Tuman: Missouri Senator Roy Blunt (R) on Mitt Romney and the 2012 race, today’s vote in Missouri, and the economy…The Washington Post’s E.J. Dionne and The Ethics and Public Policy Center’s George Weigel discuss the recent contraception regulations… The latest on the race to 2012 with Democratic Strategist Michael Feldman, The Grio’s Perry Bacon, and The Financial Times’ Anna Fifield.  

*** Tuesday’s “Jansing & Co.” line-up: MSNBC’s Chris Jansing interviews Ralph Nader, the Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg, the Washington Institute’s Michael Singh, The Nation’s Ari Melber, liberal writer Joe Conason, and NARAL’s Donna Crane.

*** Tuesday’s “MSNBC Live with Thomas Roberts” line-up: MSNBC’s Thomas Roberts talks with the DNC’s Brad Woodhouse, Richard Wolffe, David Weigel, Robert Traynham, Alicia Mendendez and Jon Soltz of VoteVets.org.

*** Tuesday’s “NOW with Alex Wagner” line-up: Alex Wagner’s guests include New York Magazine’s  John Heilemann, former RNC Chair Michael Steele, the Daily Beast’s Patricia Murphy, Salon’s Joan Walsh, and Dan Choi of the Foundation for Equal Rights

*** Tuesday’s “Andrea Mitchell Reports” line-up (guest hosted by NBC’s Chuck Todd): NBC’s Chuck Todd interviews Stephanie Cutter of the Obama campaign, the Romney camp’s Gail Gitcho, the Washington Post’s Chris Cillizza, the Human Rights Campaign’s Fred Saniz, and the Washington Post’s Anne Kornblut.

“President Barack Obama, who has decried the influence of outside groups in politics, is now encouraging his top donors to contribute to the independent political action committee backing his re-election,” Bloomberg writes, adding, “The rising influence of the Super-PACs has been a topic of discussion with the president for some time and in the last few days Obama was consulted on the announcement the campaign was readying to make, according to a campaign official who spoke about the internal deliberations on condition of anonymity.”

Bill Burton, co-founder of Priorities USA, said: “As has become evident in the past month, the only enthusiasm in the Republican Party is among oil company billionaires and investment bankers on Wall Street looking to defeat President Obama. We’re committed to providing a balance to Karl Rove and the Koch brothers who have pledged more than half a billion dollars to their effort.”

The New York Times notes that Obama's "past criticism of outside groups, some Democrats said, had made it hard to persuade donors to back Priorities USA Action, contributing to its problems in keeping up with conservative groups. 'It’s hard to pass the plate for super PAC money while Democratic leaders have been preaching about the sins of it,' said Robert Zimmerman, a New York fund-raiser for Mr. Obama. 'But the reality is, it is essential in 2012.'"  http://www.nytimes.com/2012/02/07/us/politics/with-a-signal-to-donors-obama-yields-on-super-pacs.html?ref=politics

In Obama’s State of the Union, he talked about the “corrosive influence of money in politics”: “I’ve talked tonight about the deficit of trust between Main Street and Wall Street. But the divide between this city and the rest of the country is at least as bad -- and it seems to get worse every year. Some of this has to do with the corrosive influence of money in politics.”

Republicans decried the move, noting that Obama in 2010 called outside group a “threat to our democracy.”

Campaigning in Pennsylvania in October 2010, Obama said, “Thanks to a Supreme Court decision called Citizens United, [Republicans] are being helped along this year by special interest groups that are spending unlimited amounts of money on attack ads -- attacking folks like Patrick Murphy, attacking folks like Joe Sestak -- just attacking people without ever disclosing who’s behind all these attack ads.  You don’t know.  It could be the oil industry.  It could be the insurance industry.  It could even be foreign-owned corporations.  You don’t know because they don’t have to disclose. Now, that’s not just a threat to Democrats -- that’s a threat to our democracy.” 

On MSNBC’s Morning Joe this morning, Axelrod said, “The bottom line here is that the Citizens United decision was a bad decision. It did open the flood gates, and now the rules are what the rules are.” He cited the amount raised in the GOP primary for Super PACs, for Crossroads and the Koch Brothers before saying. “We were faced with a situation of whether we could play by two sets of rules. And the answer is no. … That doesn’t mean we think this is the best.” But “We have to live in a world as it is now as we want it to be.”

"The other thing that worries me are these big super PACs that we see Gov. Romney and others benefiting from right now.  I think there's going to be a ton of money aimed at the president," Axelrod said in an interview aired Sunday on CNN's "State of the Union." "They're talking upwards of half a billion dollars in negative ads aimed at the president from interest groups who don't disclose and who can raise unlimited amounts of money," he said. "That is a very, very concerning thing to me."

Politico: “[T]he fundraising prowess of the pro-Romney super PAC Restore Our Future — and the effectiveness of its withering ads in degrading the popularity of rival Newt Gingrich in Iowa — turned heads in Obama’s Chicago campaign headquarters, prompting the campaign to take the baby step of allowing national finance committee members to solicit contributions for Priorities USA.”

The New York Post calls Santorum “Mitt’s new target.” “Turning his focus away from Newt Gingrich for a day, Mitt Romney yesterday sought to slap down Rick Santorum’s attempt at a comeback in today’s GOP presidential caucuses in Colorado and Minnesota,” the paper writes.

Political Wire notes this as its “Quote of the Day”: “ It's a badge of honor that Romney has decided to try to destroy us.’ -- Rick Santorum adviser John Brabender, quoted by Byron York, on Romney turning his guns on the former Pennsylvania senator.”

COLORADO: “[T]he race in Colorado, as well as in Minnesota and Missouri — which also hold contests today — appeared to be coming down to Romney and Santorum, both of whom have events scheduled in Colorado again today,” the Denver Post writes. “Romney's campaign, apparently feeling pressure from the former Pennsylvania senator, spent much of the day criticizing Santorum's time in the Senate as ‘not effective.’ Meanwhile, Santorum — positioning himself as the true conservative in the race — said that on key issues such as health care, Romney ‘is the weakest candidate we could put up.’ Gingrich, who will spend today campaigning in Ohio, predicted the time Santorum's campaign has spent in Colorado will pay off.” (Ohio’s contest isn’t until June.)

There are signs Colorado GOP officials aren’t prepared for today’s caucus with confusion of identifying new precincts with an earlier caucus date. “There has been much confusion — and even some conspiracy theories — in Mesa County over precinct caucuses. Part of that is due to the fact that state congressional-district boundaries were revamped since the last general election. Part of it can be pinned on a broken printer,” the Denver Post adds, “Although the Mesa County confusion stands out in Colorado, this caucus is proving to be a challenge for many clerks.” Said Bonnie Beckstein, who has been a long time Colorado Republican. "I've been active in the party since 1976, and this is the most confusion over caucuses that I've seen," said Beckstein, who was answering precinct questions outside a rally for Romney on Monday.

MINNESOTA: “The Republican presidential race has taken on a white-hot intensity here as Minnesotans prepare to caucus Tuesday night, with major candidates scurrying across the state hoping to gain an edge that could reshape the contest,” the Minneapolis Star Tribune writes. “At a last-minute rally in the Minneapolis Convention Center, more than 1,800 people jammed in to hear Ron Paul… Earlier in the day, Paul drew more than 900 supporters in St. Cloud. Rick Santorum kicked off his day in Rochester, telling an overflow crowd at the Kahler Hotel that frontrunner Romney was not only ‘unqualified’ to debate President Obama on health care, but should be ‘disqualified.’ Romney returned fire via a surrogate, former Gov. Tim Pawlenty, and in scorching local mailers that savaged Santorum's congressional record in Washington. Newt Gingrich issued a blistering attack on President Obama, vowing major and immediate change, in his first pre-caucus appearance in Minnesota Monday night.”

The St. Paul Pioneer-Press: “Republican presidential hopefuls Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum and U.S. Rep. Ron Paul made their pitches to supportive Minnesota crowds Monday, the eve of the state caucuses.”

Santorum’s also helped by the fact that only a slice of the electorate is expected to turn out. "Maybe 60,000 people will turn out, in a state where millions of people vote" in general elections," Steven Schier, a professor of political science at Carleton College in Northfield, Minn., told the Pioneer-Press. "It's a sliver of a sliver. Santorum knows that, and he's been here and he's been active."

Romney’s top Minnesota surrogate Tim Pawlenty yesterday was playing some expectations-setting, saying, per the St. Paul Pioneer-Press, "I could easily see a scenario where the three or four top candidates tomorrow are bunched together towards the top of the pack. It will be very competitive. I can't tell you who's going to come out on top.” And he proceeded to take shots at Santorum for a “long history of pork-barrel spending” and for being “part of the big-spending establishment in Congress.”

MISSOURI: “White House hopeful Rick Santorum crisscrossed Missouri last week, hoping to inject some meaning into the state's ‘beauty contest’ Republican primary today. It may be a lonely position,” St. Louis Dispatch writes. “Many Republicans were in favor of scrapping the election altogether, which comes with an estimated price tag of nearly $7 million. The candidate with the most to gain on Tuesday — and about the only GOP contender talking about the Missouri primary — is Santorum, who is seeking to plant his flag as the leading alternative to former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney. Newt Gingrich, for reasons that remain ambiguous, did not sign up for the Missouri primary ballot, giving Santorum the rare, if unconventional, opportunity to go head-to-head with the front-runner Romney. Santorum has made stops all over the state in the run-up to Tuesday's election.”

Republican Rep. Pete Hoekstra, running for the U.S. Senate against incumbent Democratic Sen. Debbie Stabenow, is defending an ad his campaign ran during the Super Bowl using a Chinese girl speaking broken English to attack Stabenow.

“The only group of people that this ad is ‘anti’ - it’s anti-Debbie Stabenow; it’s anti-Barack Obama, the spending policies of the liberal left,” Hoekstra said on FOX. “You’ll notice that the ad points to the opportunities that America’s dumb economic policies - deficit spending, trillion dollars of deficits, trillions and trillions of debt - it creates the opportunities for countries like China and others to take advantage of our weakness. … It weakens the U.S. economy, and it strengthens our competitors.”

President Obama's re-election campaign made an about-face late Monday in its opposition to super PACs, encouraging donors to send their unlimited contributions to one such group founded by a former administration spokesman. 

Obama campaign manager Jim Messina emailed supporters to formally endorse contributions to Priorities USA, the Democratic super PAC founded by Bill Burton, a former White House deputy press secretary. 

"With so much at stake, we can't allow for two sets of rules in this election whereby the Republican nominee is the beneficiary of unlimited spending and Democrats unilaterally disarm," Messina wrote on the campaign's blog. "Therefore, the campaign has decided to do what we can, consistent with the law, to support Priorities USA in its effort to counter the weight of the GOP Super PAC."

The decision represents a stark reversal for Obama, who has been among the most vocal critics of these outside political spending groups since the Supreme Court's 2010 ruling that paved the way for the rise of super PACs. 

NYT: Obama returns cash tied to Mexico 'casino czar'

Obama has led Democrats in opposition to these groups, especially at the height of 2010's congressional elections. Republican-aligned groups like American Crossroads and Crossroads GPS took advantage of the new rules to great effect, spending tens of millions of dollars against Democrats during that election. 

"And thanks to a Supreme Court decision called Citizens United, they are being helped along this year by special interest groups that are spending unlimited amounts of money on attack ads … without ever disclosing who’s behind all these attack ads," Obama said of Republicans and super PACs that fall. "Now, that’s not just a threat to Democrats — that’s a threat to our democracy."

The president expressed his alarm as recently as Sunday in an interview with TODAY's Matt Lauer: "One of the worries we have obviously in the next campaign is that there are so many of these so-called super PACs, these independent expenditures that are gonna be out there," he said in a pre-Super Bowl interview.

'Smell test'
Moreover, after Priorities USA had launched, the White House continued to encourage it to abide by a stricter set of rules and disclose its donors. As recently as last week, Senate Democrats had announced their intention to investigate these groups, with New York Sen. Chuck Schumer (D) arguing that the notion that groups like these don't coordinate a failure of the "smell test."

The Obama campaign's reversal, though, is a testament to the effectiveness of these groups. Restore Our Future, a super PAC established on behalf of Mitt Romney, has raised tens of millions of dollars already and spent some of that war chest with great effectiveness against Romney's rivals in the Republican primary. 

Messina's statement Monday evening said that senior campaign officials, along with some White House and cabinet officials, would attend events and solicit donations for Priorities USA. Those actions are permitted under federal election laws, though Priorities USA is barred from coordinating formally with the Obama campaign. (Messina said that Obama, Vice President Biden and the first lady would not participate in this effort.)

"As has become evident in the past month, the only enthusiasm in the Republican Party is among oil company billionaires and investment bankers on Wall Street looking to defeat President Obama," Burton said by email in reaction to the decision. "We’re committed to providing a balance to Karl Rove and the Koch brothers who have pledged more than half a billion dollars to their effort."

According to a filing this month with the Federal Election Commission, Priorities USA Action had managed to raise about $1.2 million in the second half of 2011, leaving it with about $1.5 million in the bank at the end of the year. 

With the heft of the Obama campaign behind its efforts, though, Priorities USA could see its bank accounts swell, giving the group millions to spend on behalf of the president — and agains his eventual Republican challenger — over the course of the next nine months.

CENTENNIAL, CO — Mitt Romney injected himself into a battle between religious groups and the Obama administration on Monday night, calling a new requirement that health care plans include coverage for contraception a "violation of conscience."

Before one of the largest crowds of his campaign, Romney decried the new rule, which requires religious institutions like hospitals, universities and charities to provide coverage for contraceptive services as part of their health care plans, regardless of the particular group's teachings on contraception. 

While churches are exempt from the new requirement, it has quickly become a lightning rod issue for social conservatives, with the Catholic Church leading the charge against it. 

"We must have a president who is willing to protect America’s first right, a right to worship God, according to the dictates of our own conscience," Romney said to an audience of nearly 3,000 people gathered in a high school gymnasium. "We'll either have a government that protects religious diversity and freedom, or we'll have a government that tells us what kind of conscience they think we ought to have."

Romney, who rarely discusses social issues unprompted on the stump, on Monday made his opposition to the mandate a major applause line at his rally outside Denver.

The issue has quickly become a part of the Republican campaign; Newt Gingrich has accused the Obama administration of waging a "war against religion" with the regulation. 

Romney's comments echo a Washington Examiner op-ed piece he wrote last week, in which the former Massachusetts governor used even more forceful language to describe the new rule as "trampling" religious freedom.

"The Obama administration is forcing religious institutions to choose between violating their conscience or dropping health care coverage for their employees, effectively destroying their ability to carry on their work," Romney wrote, saying he "stands with" Catholic bishops opposed to the mandate. 

Romney's focus on an issue of particular interest to Catholic voters comes on a day in which his campaign has focused its fire on Rick Santorum, a devout Catholic who has made social issues a cornerstone of his campaign. 

The former Massachusetts governor's comments tonight could be seen as an attempt to try to peel away voters from Santorum, the Republican rival a Romney campaign senior adviser acknowledged could snap Romney's electoral win-streak with an upset in Minnesota or Missouri tomorrow.

Democrats called the attacks on the law hypocritical, and were quick to point out similar provisions in the healthcare law Romney passed in Massachusetts. 

“It's the ultimate hypocrisy that Mitt Romney is hitting the President for the same birth control policy he oversaw and protected as Governor," Obama campaign adviser Stephanie Cutter said in a statement. "The problem for him is that women are on to him.  The trust of voters is priceless in elections, and unfortunately for him it can’t be bought.”

GOLDEN, Colo. -- Rick Santorum is fighting back after a barrage of attacks from rival Mitt Romney ahead of three primary season contests that could give the former Pennsylvania senator his best day on the campaign trail since winning the Iowa caucus.

"Gov. Romney, on that vitally important issue of ObamaCare, is in fact the weakest candidate that we could put up," Santorum told reporters after a speech here at the Colorado School of Mines.  "Campaigns are about ideas, and on the ideas that matter most to the American people right now, he's on the wrong side."

Santorum traveled to Colorado after a morning speech where he delivered a blistering critique of the health care law Romney signed as governor of Massachusetts.  A policy, Santorum says, that forced individuals to become dependent on government and was the basis for the law President Obama signed in 2010.

For a candidate who has not finished better than third since winning Iowa, Santorum has received an unusually high amount of attention from the frontrunner.  Opposition emails from the Romney camp and conference calls with surrogates have bashed Santorum for his record on earmarks and his 2008 endorsement of his now rival.

It is no coincidence that the attacks come just one day before the Colorado and Minnesota caucuses and Missouri primary -- all states where Santorum is showing strength and may even have a chance to win.

He'll watch returns Tuesday night in Missouri, whose non-binding contest will not have Newt Gingrich on the ballot, and where campaign advisers say he'll show his strength against Romney in a field without Gingrich.

"Our hope is that conservatives who are stepping back and looking at the race and making the same calculation that I've just made that a Romney nomination would not be in the best interest of us winning the general election and we need to have a conservative alternative," he said.

"My feeling is that Speaker Gingrich sort of had his chance in the arena and came up short in Florida and Nevada and now it's our turn hopefully to get a one-on-one in Missouri, which we have."

Monday's address on health care was the second time in as many weeks that the Santorum camp has billed a campaign stop as a major health care speech.  The former Massachusetts governor's support of a health care bill containing a mandate has been a term the GOP presidential hopeful brings out almost daily on the campaign trail. It's a message that has not been received well since the Hawkeye State, but Romney attacks show neighboring states like Minnesota may be tuning in.

But Santorum dismissed any criticisms that his attacks could do nothing more than bring down the eventual nominee.

"Let me assure you that the president will do a much better job and a much, much, much more caustic job of doing that than I will, which is just basically talking about his record and that's all I talk about and I suspect the president will embellish that quite a bit more than I have," said Santorum.

But he did not rule out sharing a ticket with a man he has fiercely criticized throughout his campaign.  "I'm not going to run as a third party, but I will do whatever I can to make sure Barack Obama is not the next president of the United States," he said.

 Update at 11:24 p.m. ET

From Ryan Williams, press secretary for presidential candidate Mitt Romney:

“Rick Santorum has had a history in this campaign of making false statements about Mitt Romney’s record – this is just one more example. Mitt Romney will repeal Obamacare.  Rick Santorum is hoping to get some momentum behind his campaign, but has unfortunately resorted to false and negative attacks."

Mitt Romney took umbrage at President Obama's assertion that he deserves a second term, the former Massachusetts governor arguing that Obama should be held accountable for the slow pace of the economic recovery.

Speaking at a rally Monday in Colorado, Romney took aim at the president's comments to the TODAY Show in an interview that aired on Sunday and Monday. In that interview, Obama said he deserved a second term despite having said in a 2009 interview before the Super Bowl that, if the economy hadn't recovered by now, his presidency would be a "one-term proposition."

"President Obama three years ago was on the today show and he said if he couldn't turn the economy around in three years, he'd be looking at a one-term proposition," Romney said at a morning rally, repeating a line he often uses on the campaign trail. "We are here to collect and, by the way, he was on the Today show again this morning on the anniversary of that statement and he said he deserves a second term."

First Thoughts: 'I deserve a second term'

"No, Mr. President you do not deserve a second term. You see he set his own standards. He said if we let him borrow nearly a trillion dollars, he'd keep the unemployment rate below 8 percent. It has not been below 8 percent since. So he does not deserve it based upon on that," Romney added.

Romney was referring to figures compiled by an economic adviser to Obama, Christina Romer, projecting the trajectory of the unemployment rate with and without the aid of the $787 billion stimulus for which the Obama administration had pushed in early 2009. That chart projected unemployment at the low 6 percent range by now if the stimulus were passed, and a rate closer to 7 percent if it weren't approved by Congress.

According to tthe Bureau of Labor Statistics report last Friday, the national unemployement rate stood at 8.3 percent at the end of January. That represented one of the lowest points in the Obama administration, and was the result of better-than-expected job creation last month.

"I'm afraid. based upon the president's own standards he has failed, he does not deserve a second term," Romney said.

GRAND JUNCTION, CO -- Mitt Romney's campaign has begun to train its sights on Rick Santorum over the past 48 hours, reflecting the Romney campaign's concern that the former Pennsylvania senator may pose the freshest threat to their frontrunner status.

The Romney campaign released a barrage of opposition research on Santorum on Monday morning, the type of offensive tactic that had previously been reserved for Newt Gingrich and, before him, Texas Gov. Rick Perry. The former Massachusetts governor's campaign worked to link Santorum to pork barrel spending during his time in Congress, and touting his endorsement of Governor Romney in the last presidential race. 

Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty assailed Santorum's record on spending during a conference call with reporters, listing the litany of earmarks Santorum had supported -- and has subsequently defended -- during his time in Congress.

And, in a reflection of the changing dynamics in the GOP nominating battle, Pawlenty sought to downplay expectations for Romney's performance in tomorrow's Minnesota caucuses -- a minor nominating contest, but one in which Santorum believes he might be able to score a February upset.

"I think it's going to be a tight race. Mitt Romney is competitive here," Pawlenty told Andrea Mitchell in an MSNBC interview this afternoon, repeating a point he made on the conference call. "I think you'll see a clumping result tomorrow. But it's certainly a place where other candidates are going to have a stronghold, and it's not going to be a walk in the park for Mitt Romney."

Why the change in focus? It's reflective of a change in political geography and political realities that opens the door for Santorum to climb back into the top tier of candidates this week.

Social conservatives make up a greater proportion of the voters in Minnesota, whose caucus-goers might most closely resemble caucus-goers in Iowa -- the contest in which Santorum barely edged Romney on Jan. 3. Unlike in Iowa, though, Romney doesn't have the benefit of having spent the kind of money as he did in Iowa, and his infrastructure there is less developed than it was in the Hawkeye State.

Campaigning this morning in Rochester, and clearly enjoying the chance to scrap with the frontrunner, Santorum delivered a speech attacking Romney for his Massachusetts healthcare plan, labeling it "Obamneycare" -- a term coined, ironically, by Pawlenty this June.

"The press likes to write the story that there is an inevitability to 'Obama light' on health care being the Republican nominee. That would be a devastating thing for the chances of us who would like to see President Obama defeated in the next election," he said. "Gov. Romney is dead wrong on the most important issue of the day and he should not be our nominee."

Santorum's campaign has aggressively circulated the results of computerized polling (data not used by NBC News) suggesting a surge in momentum for their candidate in Minnesota.

For the Romney campaign's part, they've largely ignored Minnesota and Missouri. Romney hasn't campaigned in Missouri at all in 2012, and has made only one stop in Minnesota: taking part in a rally in Eagan last week. Today, Romney will send surrogates John Bolton and Pawlenty to campaign for him in Minnesota, while he campaigns in Colorado for the next two days.

On Jan. 30, Romney was asked by a reporter what states he thought could present uphill battles going forward. Minnesota was the first state to pass his lips, and he described it as one of a number of states that present "challenges and opportunities, and as a "state that’s hard to predict how they’ll make their decision."

NBC's Mark Murray and Domenico Montanaro discuss the Republican nominating season so far and if the other candidates can catch up to the GOP front-runner, former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney.

Video edited by NBC's Morgan Parmet.

MARK MURRAY: Welcome to your latest edition of Inside the Boiler Room, I'm NBC's Mark Murray joined by my awesome colleague Domenico Montanaro. Domenico, we are now 5 contests in. Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina, Florida, and now Nevada. What do we make about the whole GOP nominating season so far?

DOMENICO MONTANARO: Well, I think we know Romney is the front-runner. There's been some bruising battles along the way, through Iowa, New Hampshire, losing Iowa, getting a big victory in New Hampshire, going down to South Carolina and having a big setback there and then rebounding and winning big in Florida, winning big in Nevada. He's got a month here where it looks like a lot of these contests line up for him and it seems like a matter of time before he is the nominee.

MARK MURRAY: One thing about Romney is that he has improved in all these contests since 2008 where he finished second in Iowa, he finished second in New Hampshire--he was able to finish second in Iowa but won New Hampshire this time around. But the whole primary process so far has exposed some weaknesses for Mitt Romney particularly as we look forward to the general election. We have seen some hits from his Republican opponents on some of his biggest vulnerabilities: his work at Bain Capital, his wealth, his income taxes and that has actually all borne out in a brand new Washington Post/ABC poll that shows that his standing has taken a bit of a hit over the past few weeks.

DOMENICO MONTANARO: Yeah, I think that it bore out also in the NBC/Wall Street Journal poll that we had out last week which showed among Independents, this is the key voting bloc in the general election, that he's (President Obama) gone up 20-points with Indepenents since November. This is a huge red flag, it should be a huge warning sign for them, and it is why you are seeing Mitt Romney try to reshape his message back to talking about the middle and middle-class voters. The problem is for him, is that his tax policy, when it lines up with that rhetoric and people start looking at what Mitt Romney says vs. what he would propose, there is a little bit of a difference there. In particular, he cuts taxes proportionally more for the rich than he does for the middle class.

MARK MURRAY: And Domenico, you have crunched the numbers on the turnout too--looking at the turnout in the first five contests as well.

DOMENICO MONTANARO: Yeah, turnout has been down. It was up a huge margin in South Carolina, up 36-percent in South Carolina, it was down in Florida by about 13-percent. It was down in Nevada also. So that all has some warning for whoever becomes the Republican nominee on enthusiasm. Especially for Romney, whether or not they will have the enthusiasm necessary in this 'Anybody But Obama' climate on the Republican side, if they will come out in droves and the big numbers that they need to beat Obama in the fall.

MARK MURRAY: We do actually have a long way to go, only a fraction of the delegates have so far been decided. The question is if one of these candidates, and I am looking at Newt Gingrich, can really make a move in these later contests. Of course we have some of the caucus contests coming up on Tuesday, we have primaries in Arizona and Michigan on February 28th. And then comes Newt Gingrich's big opportunity come Super Tuesday, where you are seeing some primaries in southern states where he could actually be able to win.

DOMENICO MONTANARO: Now, I'll say this, there are some southern states. But there's 11 states on Super Tuesday, I think that only four of them are southern states, so that doesn't make it a rousing day. He is hoping to get to that day, but then what? He is going to have a February, a split-day on March 6th--

MARK MURRAY: --I think he is looking for a lifeline but that is maybe all that he could get. A lifeline is better than having your campaign end. 

DOMENICO MONTANARO: We'll see. Also, maybe if Rick Santorum can win in Minnesota, win in Missouri, then what does Newt Gingrich say? Maybe does the worm turn a little bit to March 6th where Newt Gingrich winds up thinking he could have looked forward, looked past Santorum and Santorum  picks up a little bit of momentum.MARK MURRAY: Five contests in, many more to go.

Transcribed by NBC's Natalie Cucchiara.

A federal appeals court will issue its long-awaited decision Tuesday on the constitutionality of a 2008 ballot initiative in California banning same-sex marriages in the state.

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals is expected to issue its decision on Proposition 8, which just over 52 percent of California voters approved during the 2008 election.

The case, Perry v. Brown, has been closely monitored for its possible implications not just in California, but nationwide as well. A bipartisan pair of prominent attorneys, Theodore Olson and David Boies, have represented the opponents of Prop. 8, raising speculation that the case may eventually make its way to the U.S. Supreme Court.

If the U.S. Supreme Court were to hear the case, the decision could possibly have a wide-ranging impact on marriage law due to any precedent established in that case.

msnbc.com's Michael O'Brien contribued

The Mitt Romney campaign is pushing back against a new Washington Post/ABC poll out today, showing President Obama ahead of Romney 51%-45% because of what its pollster sees as a questionnaire design flaw.

"Well, there’s a good reason why," Romney pollster Neil Newhouse writes in a campaign-released memo about why Obama is over 50%. "The poll introduced specific negative information about Governor Romney immediately prior to asking the ballot match-up against President Obama."

Newhouse continues, "So, immediately prior to the President ballot test, this poll introduced information regarding Romney’s background and suggested 'he cut jobs,' 'he benefited from opportunities that are not available to other people,' 'he is not paying his fair share of taxes,' and that his Mormon religion might be a factor not to support himm.' While I certainly understand the difficulty of designing a questionnaire to learn as much information as possible about a campaign, and the compromises that sometimes have to be made, the questionnaire design used by the Post/ABC Poll in this case is seriously flawed."

(Newhouse works for Public Opinion Strategies, the GOP polling firm that also conducts the NBC/Wall Street Journal poll with Hart Research, a Democratic firm.)

Mark Blumenthall of pollster.com tweeted: "Newhouse has a point: Odd choice to ask about candidate negs before vote, but they did ask 2 each about Romney, Gingrich & Obama."

*** UPDATE *** Washington Post pollster Jon Cohen offers this response: "We take question writing and ordering seriously, as both can make differences. We also welcome discussion on these, but note the movement on the horse race numbers under scrutiny is in sync with the trend on answers throughout the poll. The result is also in line with other publicly released polls. That said, we publish our full questionnaires - with exact question wording - for just such scrutiny."

Full memo below:

TO:                  INTERESTED PARTIES

FROM:            NEIL NEWHOUSE

SUBJECT:      THE WASHINGTON POST/ABC NEWS POLL

DATE:             FEBRUARY 6, 2012

The Washington Post/ABC News just released their most recent national poll regarding the mood of the country and the state of the Presidential campaign.  Their headline is “Obama holds edge over Romney in general election matchup, poll finds,” and the writers make the point that the ballot match-up between President Obama and Governor Romney is the first time Obama has ever received more than 50% of the vote among registered voters.

Well, there’s a good reason why.  The poll introduced specific negative information about Governor Romney immediately prior to asking the ballot match-up against President Obama.

The specifics:

The ballot test matching Obama and Romney was asked on question 32 of the questionnaire.

Question 28:  In his work as a corporate investor, do you think Mitt Romney did more to (create jobs) or more to (cut jobs)?

Question 29: Do you think of Romney’s wealth as more of a (positive because it suggests he has achieved the American dream) or as more of a (negative because it suggests he benefited from opportunities that are not available to most people)?

Question 30: Romney paid about a 14% federal tax rate on income of about 22 million dollars last year.  Do you think he is or is not paying his fair share of taxes?

Question 31: For each item I name, please tell me if it is a major reason to (support) that candidate, a major reason to (oppose) that candidate, or not a major factor?

1. Romney’s business experience
2. Romney’s Mormon religion
3. Gingrich’s performance as Speaker of the House in the early 1990’s.
4. Gingrich’s consulting work for companies with an interest in federal policymaking.
5. Obama’s handling of the economy.
6. Obama’s handling of the threat of terrorism.

So, immediately prior to the President ballot test, this poll introduced information regarding Romney’s background and suggested “he cut jobs,” “he benefited from opportunities that are not available to other people,” “he is not paying his fair share of taxes,” and that his Mormon religion might be a factor not to support him.

While I certainly understand the difficulty of designing a questionnaire to learn as much information as possible about a campaign, and the compromises that sometimes have to be made, the questionnaire design used by the Post/ABC Poll in this case is seriously flawed. 

Their Presidential ballot test is pretty clearly tainted by the questions asked immediately prior to the ballot, resulting in what some would call a “pushed” ballot.  A pollster can’t ask or suggest specific negatives on a candidate immediately prior to a ballot test and expect to get anything other than a biased result.

The ABC/Washington Post poll is rightly highly regarded for its careful design and the quality of its information.  Survey design is complicated, but this is one of those times when a mistake was made and should not be repeated in the future.