The Obama campaign is up with its second significant TV ad of the cycle, this one a response to a recent $3 million-plus ad blitz by the American Energy Alliance, a group with ties to the conservative Koch Brothers.

The new Obama ad -- which will air in Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Nevada, Ohio, and Virginia -- also knocks Mitt Romney.

An Obama campaign official adds to First Read: "We saw it as an opportunity to highlight the president's energy record."

It's worth noting that the campaign's first TV ad was in response to another anti-Obama advertisement by a group -- Americans for Prosperity -- with ties to the Koch Brothers.

The script of the new TV ad:

Under President Obama, domestic oil production’s at an eight-year high.

So why is Big Oil attacking him?

Because he’s fighting to end their tax breaks.

He’s raising mileage standards, and doubling renewable energy.

In all these fights, Mitt Romney’s stood with Big Oil— for their tax breaks, attacking higher mileage standards and renewables.

So when you see this ad

Remember who paid for it. And what they want.

HOWARD, WI -- Mitt Romney bristled at a question Monday about his Mormon faith as it relates to an issue of race before returning to the issue of his beliefs.

Romney engaged in two separate exchanges at a town hall event here -- one tense, the other empathetic -- that shed light on arguably one of the most poorly understood elements of the former Massachusetts governor's personal biography.

The first exchange occurred when Bret Hatch, a 28-year-old supporter of Texas Rep. Ron Paul, haltingly attempted to quote a passage from Mormon scripture which dealt with race, before being prodded by Romney to ask an actual question.

“I’m sorry, we’re just not going to have a discussion about religion in my view, but if you have a question, I’ll be happy to answer your question,” Romney said.

"I guess my question is -- do you believe it’s a sin for a white man to marry and procreate with a black?" Hatch asked.

"No. Next question," Romney responded tersely, turning his back to Hatch and looking for another raised hand.

Romney is a lifelong member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, commonly referred to as the Mormon or LDS church. His family is steeped in the history of the LDS church, and Romney has long been involved in church affairs, including serving as a missionary in France as a young man.

On the stump, however, Romney rarely discusses his faith or his religion, preferring to stay focused on matters of policy and the economy. The largest single exception to this rule was a speech Romney gave in December of 2007, in which the former Massachusetts governor strongly defended his belief in what he called the "faith of my fathers" and praised America's core beliefs in the importance of religious tolerance.

When Romney's religion has become a political topic this election cycle, it has rarely been to his benefit. Most notably, in October, an evangelical pastor from Dallas labeled Mormonism a "cult" during a speech in Washington D.C. -- leading to countless stories and questions about what Romney truly believed, effectively jarring the candidate off of his core message for days.

With that in mind, it might have seemed unlikely for Romney to pivot back toward discussing his faith after the initial question.

But a few minutes after the first exchange, in response to a question about whether or not Romney is out of touch with average voters, Romney returned to the issue of his faith, telling his audience that his time as a local LDS ward leader and then stake-president in Massachusetts allowed him to work hands-on with regular folks who needed help:

I’ve had an unusual experience. This gentleman wanted to talk about the doctrines of my religion. I’ll talk about the practices of my faith. I had the occasion in my church to be asked to be the pastor, if you will, of a congregation," Romney said. "I’ve served in that kind of role for about 10 years. And that gave me the occasion to work with people on a very personal basis that were dealing with unemployment, with marital difficulties, with health difficulties of their own and with their kids.”

Most Americans, by the way, are carrying a burden of some kind. We don’t see it, we see someone on the street, they smile and say ‘Hello,’ but behind them they are carrying a bag of rocks. It may be their own health difficulties. It may be concern about a job, it may be inability to pay for the home or the college they were hoping to pay for for a child. But people have burdens in this country, and when you get a chance to know people on a very personal basis, whether you’re serving as a pastor or as a counselor or in other kinds of roles, you understand that every kind of person you see is facing some challenges. And one of the reasons I’m running for president of the United States is I want to help people, I want to lighten those burdens.

Romney also used the experience of his wife, Ann, who has been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis, to further make a connection with his audience.

“My good wife, I mean, you see her, she’s beautiful, she’s energetic, articulate, but you know, she has MS, and she also had to fight breast cancer. And I watched her as a person with great strength and capacity," Romney said. "You don’t always see the things that are happening in people’s lives, and yet, she wants to help people, and to reach out to those that are facing some difficulty.”

Eric Cantor’s press shop has a leader again.

Veteran GOP operative Doug Heye, who most famously served as the communications director at the Republican National Committee during Michael Steele’s tenure there, will return to Capitol Hill to head the House majority leader’s messaging operation. Heye is a constant fixture as a GOP talking head on national cable shows, and he utilizes a down-home style often injecting WWE references into his punditry.

Heye replaces Brad Dayspring, who left Cantor’s Capitol Hill staff last month to work for Cantor “Young Guns” issue advocacy organization. A Democratic aide familiar with both men told NBC News, “While Dayspring was a pitbull for Cantor who liked to agitate, Heye is a calmer still effective hand. He’s less about conflict and more about making his boss look the best.”

More importantly, many on Capitol Hill feel Heye’s signing will usher in a stronger more unified bond with Speaker John Boehner’s press team. At times since the GOP took back the House majority, there has been a well-documented rift between the Boehner and Cantor camps about messaging on major issues. A GOP source who asked not to be quoted so that person could speak candidly about the hiring said, “Heye at Cantor’s office will help foster a close and effective working relationship [with Boehner’s office.] Doug is a talented veteran who brings valuable communications experience and perspective to the job.” 

Heye’s presence will further continue the softening of Cantor’s public image, which took a hit when many blamed him for the collapse of the “grand bargain” debt deal between Boehner and President Obama last summer. Recently, Cantor has pushed bipartisan bills through the House to help small businesses and ban insider trading by members of Congress.

Updated 3:41 p.m. -- In his first comments since last week's oral arguments at the Supreme Court, President Obama said he is "confident" the health law will be upheld.

"I’m confident that this will be upheld, because it should be upheld," Obama said in a press conference from the White House's Rose Garden, flanked by the leaders of Mexico and Canada. 

Obama noted that some conservative writers and judges who are "not sympathetic" to the law agree. "It's not just my opinion," Obama contended.

Of course, the court seems split between its liberal and conservative justices and the decision on whether the law will be declared constitutional -- to come in June -- very well could be 5-4.

Obama called the court an "unelected group" and warned the court against engaging in "judicial activism" by finding the law unconstitutional.

“I’d just remind conservative commentators that for years, what we’ve heard is the biggest problem on the bench was judicial activism or a lack of judicial restraint that an unelected group of people would somehow overturn a duly constituted and passed law.”

He also made an emotional appeal about the law, saying that 2.5 million young people have been able to get health insurance through their parents’ plans since the law took effect, and that people with preexisting conditions would be able to be insured regardless of their illnesses. 

"There's not only an economic element to this, and a legal element to this, but there's a human element to this. And I hope that is not forgotten in this political debate."

The president also took on a question directed at his two foreign counterparts, Mexican President Felipe Calderon and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, regarding Mitt Romney’s comments that Obama does not have the same feelings about “American exceptionalism” as the rest of the country and that the United States’ influence is waning around the world.

Obama said he rejected Romney’s premise.

“My entire career has been a testimony to American exceptionalism,” Obama said, adding, without mentioning Romney’s name that he would “cut folks some slack” because “it’s still primary season” and Republicans were still in the process of choosing their nominee. 

APPLETON, WI -- With less than 36 hours remaining until Wisconsin voters may well hand to Mitt Romney another primary victory, Rick Santorum told reporters that a contested convention in Tampa would be "fascinating" and "energizing" for the Republican Party.

"I think it would be a fascinating display of open democracy and I think it would be an energizing thing for our party to have a candidate emerge who isn’t the blessed candidate of the republican establishment," he told reporters during a stop at a cheese shop and factory.

"I think that’s a good thing, it’s a good narrative for us," he said of a prolonged primary contest and floor fight.  "It makes this election a short election. The shorter this election in the fall, the better off we are, not the worse."

Santorum, who trails in public polls in the Badger State, faces increasing calls to exit the race and allow Romney, who's working to cement his status as the party's presumptive nominee, to focus on the general election.

But the former Pennsylvania senator, who spends much of his stump speech arguing against that premise, has vowed to keep the heat on his rival.

"Cutting this short and getting the wrong candidate is worse than making this a fight for the heart and soul of America and the heart and soul of the Republican Party," he told voters last night in Green Bay."

In Appleton, Santorum offered a lengthy explanation of his view of a contested convention, saying that the ultimate nominee would be determined by unbound delegates rather than by "power brokers" like in past cycles.

"That’s just not how the Republican nomination works anymore," he said of traditional "brokered conventions" of old.

Santorum also hopes that a strong showing in his home state of Pennsylvania in three weeks will re-inject an air of legitimacy to a campaign that most political observers now see as a sideshow.

"We're going to win there," he said of Pennsylvania. "The maps look a lot better for us in May."

But of Wisconsin, he only promised "a good vote ... a loud, confident vote from conservatives."

FREDERICK, Md. -- Newt Gingrich unveiled a new message to Mitt Romney Monday morning if the former Massachusetts governor does become the Republican nominee: pick a conservative platform.

But speaking on the eve of three primaries that could potentially seal the Republican nomination in Romney’s favor, Gingrich vowed to only exit the race if a candidate gets the required delegates.

“I will be going to Tampa,” he insisted again. But Gingrich's “going to Tampa” line is starting to sound like actually traveling there rather than continuing a campaign there.

“Callista and I will both be going to Tampa, because we are going to fight for a conservative platform,” Gingrich continued. “He [Romney] has to win 1,144 uncontested delegates. At that point, the question is going to become, if he wants our support in the general election, let’s talk about the platform and it better be a solid, 21^st century conservative platform based on sound principles that we can stick to.”

Gingrich, speaking to a couple hundred people at a Ford dealership here in Western Maryland, noted that he took the recent Etch-A-Sketch comments from Romney’s communication director “very seriously” and worried that “clever” consultants would hinder a platform conducive to more conservative Republicans.

The former House Speaker also argues the former governor is being awarded too many delegates from Florida, Arizona, and Idaho because the states, he argues, are supposed to be proportional by RNC rules.

Campaign spokesman R.C. Hammond, tells NBC News that the campaign has sent letters to those state’s Republican Parties to correct the “errors.” But an aggrieved Florida voter has to file a challenge with the RNC and have the RNC’s ruling overturn that Florida is winner-take-all.

These new comments from the Speaker come as his campaign is trying to remain in the political conversation, as he struggles both financially and in recent elections. He has been focusing much more on attacking President Obama lately, as Gingrich says he does better doing that than focusing on his Republican opponents. While he did touch on Romney today, Gingrich failed to mention Rick Santorum, who also is ahead of him in the delegate count.

One topic Gingrich loves to talk about -- the court system in America, came up Monday morning as well. Perhaps in an appeal to the Tea Party attendees in the audience with “Don’t tread on me” flags, the Speaker launched a new attack on Supreme Court Justice Ginsburg for her comments on the U.S. constitution.

“When a Supreme Court justice said last year that the Constitution wasn't where she would look in order to get a constitution for the future -- she suggested the South African constitution is much better-- I wondered why she was serving on the United States Supreme Court,” he said.

Ginsburg, in that interview on Egyptian TV, said, “I would not look to the U.S. constitution if I were drafting a constitution in 2012.” She instead said Egypt should look to more recent writings like in South Africa, Europe, and Canada.

“I can’t speak about what the Egyptian experience should be, because I’m operating under a rather old Constitution,” she said. “The United States, in comparison to Egypt, is a very new nation, and yet we have the oldest written Constitution still enforced in the world.”

She noted that the founders were “very wise” men, but that the Constitutional convention was not representative. They “were lacking one thing,” she said, that “there were no women as part of the Constitutional convention.” And she noted that the original U.S. Constitution preserved slavery.

But she also extoled the virtues of the U.S. Constitution, including the First Amendment, separation of powers (including judicial independence), checks and balances, freedom, and liberty.

“And it’s a Constitution that starts out with three wonderful words, ‘We, the People,’” she said. “And so that’s the molding idea – that the government’s formed with the consent of the people and it should serve the interests of … all of the people not just some of them.”

Gingrich holds one more event in Maryland this afternoon but has no public events scheduled for Tuesday when voters in Maryland, Washington, DC and Wisconsin vote.

Down in the polls to Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum is up with tough new TV ad in Wisconsin, which shows President Obama's face morphing into Romney's.

The script:

“I’m Rick Santorum and I approve this message.

Female narrator: "What if I told you this man’s big government mandated healthcare included $50 abortions and killed thousands of jobs?

Would you ever vote for him? What if I told you he supported radical environmental job killing cap and trade and the Wall Street bailouts?

And what if I told you he dramatically raised taxes and stuck taxpayers with a $1 billion shortfall? 

One more thing: What if I told you the man I’m talking about isn’t him?

[picture morphs from Obama to Romney]

It’s him.

*** UPDATE *** The Romney campaign issues this response: “Rick Santorum is attacking pollsters, attacking reporters and attacking Mitt Romney. It is sad to see him completely lose his bearings and revert to patently false claims. Senator Santorum is at a point of desperation that he will say or do anything. It is pretty clear that he is lashing out at everyone around him in order to prop up his sinking campaign.”

Steven Senne / AP

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney speaks to an audience during a campaign stop April 1, 2012, in Milwaukee, Wis.

And we’re off: Plenty of evidence that the general-election train has left the station… Biden unloads on Romney… Romney unveils his new stump speech… Rick Santorum = Kansas Jayhawks?... Bill Clinton to raise money with Obama… Dems go on the offensive against the Ryan budget… Yet another sign the Tea Party might be over: House GOPers looking to revive earmarks… And it’s tight in the Brown-Warren race.

*** And we're off: Yes, the Wisconsin GOP primary is still a day away. And, yes, Rick Santorum could always pull off a surprise tomorrow. But it's also hard not to recognize that the general election has already begun. On Friday, Mitt Romney unveiled a new stump speech that focused exclusively on President Obama and not his GOP rivals. Then, on Sunday, Vice President Biden appeared on "Face the Nation," where he unloaded on Romney. Also late last week, a conservative group with ties to the Koch Brothers launched a $3 million-plus TV ad campaign in battleground states, while the pro-Obama Super PAC is now up with its own response. And yesterday, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said “the chances are overwhelming that [Romney] will be our nominee. It seems to me we’re in the final phases of wrapping up this nomination.” To be sure, we might see final minor twist or turn in this GOP primary race, but with seven months until Nov. 6, the general-election train appears to have finally left the station.

*** Biden unloads on Romney: As mentioned above, the vice president appeared on CBS’ Sunday show, where he assailed Romney for being out of touch with the middle class and for being naïve on foreign policy. “I can't remember a presidential candidate in the recent past who seems not to understand by what he says what ordinary middle-class people are thinking about and are concerned about,” Biden said. And in response to the GOP criticism of President Obama’s hot-mic moment, he added: “Gov. Romney's answer, I thought, was incredibly revealing. He acts like he thinks the Cold War is still on -- Russia is still our major adversary. I don't know where he has been. I mean, we have disagreements with Russia, but they're united with us on Iran. The only way we're getting one of only two ways we're getting material into Afghanistan to our troops is through Russia. They're working closely with us. They have just said to Europe, if there is an oil shutdown in any way in the Gulf, they'll consider increasing oil supplies to Europe. That's not-- this is not 1956.” Throughout the interview, it was clear Biden’s playing what is a traditional role for a sitting VP: attack dog.

*** Romney unveils new stump speech: Meanwhile, as NBC’s Garrett Haake has pointed out, Romney debuted a new stump speech in Wisconsin on Friday that “sounded more like a late-October general election pitch than a primary candidate’s plea.” Said Romney: "Under President Obama, America hasn't been working. The ironic tragedy is that the community organizer who wanted to help those hurt by a plant closing became the President on whose watch more jobs were lost than any other time since the great Depression." More Romney: "And instead of doing everything possible to promote the power of the free enterprise system, to create jobs and get us out of this crisis, Barack Obama has promoted the power of government. And the results have been predictable and dismal." Wisconsin is as good a place as any for Romney to test a general election message. The Romney map has been shrinking -- not growing -- and he can’t afford for Wisconsin to fall off the battleground map the way Michigan already has.

*** Rick Santorum = Kansas Jayhawks? Back to the GOP primary race, Santorum said on “Meet the Press” that he would bow out of the contest if Romney gets his 1,144 delegates. “If Gov. Romney gets that required number, then without a doubt, if he's at that number we'll step aside. But right now he's not there. He's not even close to it.” And while he maintained that Tuesday’s Wisconsin primary isn’t “do or die” for him, but he noted that it could send a signal. “I keep coming back to the fact that when you look at the odds, they're against us. I think David would like to have these odds versus Goliath I think.” On the campaign trail yesterday, he described his challenge this way: “It’s like telling Kansas last night, ‘You’re down by 18 points, but before halftime — give up its over.’ We aren’t even at halftime folks, not even half the delegates have been selected in this race.” Gingrich also invoked Kansas’ comeback: “I’m going to take Kansas as a model,” he said.

*** On the trail: Almost all of the activity, not surprisingly, is in Wisconsin: Santorum holds rallies in Shawano, Appleton and Oshkosh; he bowls in Menasha; and he ends his day in Ripon, which is considered the birthplace of the Republican Party… Romney and Paul Ryan hold campaign events in Green Bay and Milwaukee… Gingrich campaigns in Maryland… And Paul remains off the campaign trail.

*** Bill Clinton to raise money with Obama: In an interview with NBC’s Luke Russert, former President Bill Clinton revealed he will attend three fundraisers with Obama. “We’re going to do these fundraisers. Three, I think, together,” he told Russert. Clinton also said this about his wife, Hillary, and 2016: “She’s told you and everybody else that she thinks she’ll probably never run for office again. But I’ve been there. I know what happens when you go through this decompression, after years of relentless high pressure activity. And I just think she needs to rest up, do some things she cares about and whatever she decides to do, I’ll support.” 

*** Dems go on the offensive against Ryan’s budget: The week after House Republicans passed the Paul Ryan budget plan, Democrats are going on the offensive in dual ad campaigns. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is up with radio ads in eight GOP districts -- Jeff Denham (CA-10), Mary Bono Mack (CA-36), Tom Latham (IA-03), Dan Benishek (MI-01), John Kline (MN-02), Joe Heck (NV-03), Quico Canseco (TX-23), Reid Ribble (WI-08) -- that hits them for voting “to essentially end Medicare.” An example: “Did you know Congressman Joe Heck voted twice to essentially end Medicare to give tax breaks to millionaires. Tell Heck to fight for Medicare!” In addition, AFSCME and Americans United for Change are up with TV ads (here, here, here, and here) making the same point. Yesterday on ABC, Ryan contended that his budget would “stop subsidizing the wealthy.” Yet it cuts the top rate from 35% to 25%.

*** Yet another sign that the Tea Party might be over: Reuters: “In a closed-door meeting with fellow Republicans [in early March], [GOP Rep. Mike] Rogers recommended reviving a proven legislative sweetener that became politically toxic a year ago. Bring back earmarks, Rogers, who was first elected to Congress in 2002, told his colleagues.” More: “House Speaker John Boehner, who pushed for the earmark ban, is considering forming a committee to study earmarks reforms, according to Rogers. Other sources also said that during the closed meeting, the speaker said he would consider reforms, and other leading Republicans did not shoot down the idea.”

*** Tight in Massachusetts: Finally, a Boston Globe poll over the weekend showed Scott Brown (R) and Elizabeth Warren virtually tied, with Brown at 37% and Warren at 35%, with a whopping 26% undecided. 

Countdown to DC, Maryland, Wisconsin primaries: 1 day
Countdown to Election Day: 218 days

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*** Monday’s “Daily Rundown” line-up: NBC’s Luke Russert on his interview with former President Bill Clinton… NBC’s Ron Mott live from Milwaukee… Politico’s Jim VandeHei (an Oshkosh native himself) on how Wisconsin became the center of the national political scene… More 2012 news with National Review’s Robert Costa, Bloomberg News’ Jeanne Cummings and Neera Tanden of the Center for American Progress.

*** Monday’s “Jansing & Co.” line-up: MSNBC’s Chris Jansing interviews Jesse Jackson on Trayvon Martin, former Mike Huckabee Campaign Manager Chip Saltsman, Democratic strategist Doug Thornell, the Chicago Tribune’s Clarence Page, and RealClearPolitics’ Erin McPike.

*** Monday’s “MSNBC Live with Thomas Roberts: MSNBC’S Thomas Roberts talks with Karen Finney, Susan Del Percio, Politico’s Joe Williams, LA Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, Sanford City Manager Norton Bonaparte, and Wisconsin State Sen. Jon Erpenbach.

*** Monday’s “NOW with Alex Wagner” line-up: Alex Wagner’s guests include The Nation’s Ari Melber, Rolling Stone Editor Eric Bates, NBCLatino.com’s Alicia Menendez, former White House special adviser for green jobs Van Jones, Brian Moulton of the Human Rights Campaign, and Peter Popham, author of “The Lady and the Peacock”

*** Monday’s “Andrea Mitchell Reports” line-up: NBC’s Andrea Mitchell interviews GOP strategist Fred Malek, the Washington Post’s Chris Cillizza, Bob and Suzanne Wright, and TheGrio.com’s Joy Ann Reid. Also, Mitchell will air her interview with Secretary of State Clinton.

*** Monday’s “News Nation with Tamron Hall” line-up: MSNBC’s Tamron Hall interviews Marcia Clark (on the Trayvon Martin case), as well as RealClearPolitics’ Erin McPike and Steve Deace (on Decision 2012).

On Sunday, the New York Times wrote, “Mitt Romney is on the cusp of taking firm control of the Republican nominating contest for the first time, neutralizing his most powerful critics and rallying a broad spectrum of conservatives behind him as party leaders grow increasingly eager to take on President Obama.”

More: “‘I don’t think he’s presumptive just yet, but I do think we’re near a tipping point,’ said Ed Gillespie, a former Republican Party chairman and White House counselor to President George W. Bush who supports Mr. Romney. ‘April is pretty happy hunting ground for him, and he’s got some potentially significant delegate accumulation ahead.’”

GINGRICH: He says he’d back Romney if he wins the nomination (which he has said repeatedly about any of the Republican candidates).

ROMNEY: “As Mitt Romney delivered a speech Friday afternoon to kick off his closing Wisconsin campaign push, he stood alone at the podium, surrounded by darkness, a solitary figure at center stage,” the Boston Globe’s Johnson writes. “It was emblematic of where Romney has come in his bid for the Republican presidential nomination, and the status he could solidify after Tuesday’s Wisconsin primary.”

Mitch McConnell on CNN: “I think he’s going to be an excellent candidate, and I think the chances are overwhelming that he will be our nominee.”

The New York Post on Romney’s chances: “Mitt lookin’ like the Big Cheese.”

“Appearing ever-more confident in Wisconsin’s primary, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney focused entirely on President Obama during a campaign trip and predicted a victory that could effectively seal the nomination for him,” AP writes.

Romney got Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson’s (R) endorsement on Meet the Press. Johnson is a Tea Party favorite. Of that endorsement, the New York Post calls it “‘Tea’ time for Romney.”

“Vice President Joe Biden on Sunday became the latest to blast Republican presidential frontrunner Mitt Romney for his view of Russia, saying the former Massachusetts governor is unknowledgeable about foreign policy,” the Boston Globe writes. Biden said, “He just seems to be uninformed or stuck in a Cold War mentality. I think what the exchange did [is] it exposes how little Governor Romney knows about foreign policy.”

Romney swatted back: “Raising taxes on American job creators is apparently not enough to satisfy President’s Obama’s trillion-dollar spending addiction.”

The DNC attacked Romney for embracing Paul Ryan’s budget plan with this web video centered on economic inequality.

SANTORUM: On Meet the Press, Santorum was still comparing himself to “David” against “Goliath.” He said Wisconsin’s not do or die, but he has to win Pennsylvania. “We have to win Pennsylvania,” he said, “and we’re going to win Pennsylvania. I have no doubt about that.”

The New York Times on Santorum’s “Big Lebowski” strategy: “Mr. Santorum dropped in to Pla-Mor Lanes here on Sunday afternoon, his fourth visit to a bowling alley in Wisconsin, as part of what appears to be a clear effort to drive home his working-class credentials to voters. It is a comfortable setting for Mr. Santorum, who grew up bowling with his father and even took Bowling 101 for credit at Penn State.”

The New York Daily News looks at how Catholics haven’t been voting for Santorum.

He went after JFK again in an op-ed on Real Clear Politics sister site, Real Clear Religion: “The idea of strict or absolute separation of church and state is not and never was the American model.” (Hat tip: GOP 12)

Newt Gingrich praised Romney for getting Paul Ryan’s endorsement, but Rick Santorum? He says Ryan’s plan doesn’t go far enough.

“President Obama has opened the first significant lead of the 2012 campaign in the nation's dozen top battleground states, a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll finds, boosted by a huge shift of women to his side,” USA Today writes. “In the fifth Swing States survey taken since last fall, Obama leads Republican front-runner Mitt Romney 51%-42% among registered voters just a month after the president had trailed him by two percentage points. The biggest change came among women under 50. In mid-February, just under half of those voters supported Obama. Now more than six in 10 do while Romney's support among them has dropped by 14 points, to 30%. The president leads him 2-1 in this group.”

GOP 12 notes that New Mexico, Michigan, and Wisconsin don’t look like swing states at all and thereby skew the poll. And states like Arizona, Indiana, and Missouri should be included, since they were closer in 2008, but lean GOP. Still, Romney and the GOP need to expand the playing field and places like Wisconsin are places they hope to play.

60 Minutes highlights the promises Obama made as a candidate on space and the impact cuts to the space program have had on Brevard County, Florida. Obama said on Aug. 2, 2008: “I'm gonna ensure that our space program doesn't suffer when the shuttle goes out of service by making sure that all those who work in the space industry in Florida do not lose their jobs when the shuttle is retired because we can't afford to lose their expertise.”

“A major donor to President Barack Obama has been accused of defrauding a businessman and impersonating a bank official, creating new headaches for Obama's re-election campaign as it deals with the questionable history of another top supporter,” AP reports. “The New York donor, Abake Assongba, and her husband contributed more than $50,000 to Obama's re-election effort this year, federal records show. But Assongba is also fending off a civil court case in Florida, where she's accused of thieving more than $650,000 to help build a multimillion-dollar home in the state -- a charge her husband denies.”

ARIZONA: State Rep. Matt Heinz is staying in the race against former Gabrielle Giffords staffer Ron Barber.

MASSACHUSETTS: A Boston Globe poll finds incumbent Sen. Scott Brown and challenger Elizabeth Warren in a tight race, with Brown up 37%-35%, with 26% undecided.

NEW JERSEY: The special election date is set to replace Rep. Donald Payne (D-NJ).

PEWAUKEE, Wisc. -- The drama facing Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker took center stage at a GOP dinner here Saturday, where presidential candidates Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum and other high profile Republicans – including Walker himself – addressed several hundred activists days before this state’s April 3 primary.

Walker, who faces a recall election on June 5^th, was the center of gravity among a roster of national Republican stars – demonstrating the national import of a battle threatening to pull attention and resources away from the presidential race.

Calling Walker the "anti-Barack Obama," RNC Chairman Reince Priebus cast the recall as a prelude to the Presidential election, declaring, "Anything Scott Walker needs from the RNC, Scott Walker’s going to get from the RNC."

"This is not even just about Scott Walker.  It's not," Priebus said.  "This is about whether or not in this country we can elect people of their word, who clearly lay out their agenda before they’re elected."

But earlier, during his own remarks, Walker conceded he should have won more support for his controversial budget plan, which set in motion a fight over collective bargaining rights for public sector unions.

"Along the way, should I have spent some more time maybe explaining?  Absolutely," Walker said, adding, of his state’s budget crisis, "I bet you a lot of taxpayers would have said, 'Governor, you need to fix this.'"

The remarks were a noticeable act of modesty before a crowd that seemed sympathetic to Walker’s view of the drama that played out at this state’s capital building last year.

"The whole thing is coming to a crescendo.  It’s coming to a crescendo on June the 5^th here in Wisconsin," Rep. Paul Ryan – who endorsed Romney last week – told the crowd here. 

As for the candidates themselves, Romney declared Walker a "hero," and Santorum called for the crowd to support Walker and his Lieutenant Governor, Rebecca Kleefisch, who also faces recall.

"Please continue to lead and defend these two great public officials," Santorum said.