memeorandum: New Santorum ad links Romney to Obama on healthcare, bailouts (Jonathan Easley/Ballot Box)

11:15 AM ET, April 2, 2012

Top Items:

Susan Page / USA Today:

Swing States poll: A shift by women puts Obama in lead — MILWAUKEE - 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.

Justin Sink / The Hill:

‘Mad Men’ character knocks Mitt Romney's father as ‘a clown’ — Sunday's episode of “Mad Men” — the popular drama about an ad agency in the 1960s — gave a nod to the current political scene, with one character taking a not-so-subtle jab at the father of 2012 Republican front-runner Mitt Romney.

Discussion: CNN

Lois Romano / Politico:

Ann Romney is the Romney Democrats fear most — Ann Romney's unexpected rock star status has the political arena buzzing about how her husband's campaign will leverage her popularity in an election in which Michelle Obama — one of the most admired first ladies in history — will have an outsized and substantive portfolio.

Discussion: CNN

Jeffrey M. Jones / Gallup:

Obama 49%, Romney 45% Among Registered Voters Nationwide — Obama, Romney supporters equally enthusiastic about voting — PRINCETON, NJ — If asked to choose between them today, 49% of U.S. registered voters say they would vote for Barack Obama for president, while 45% would choose likely Republican opponent Mitt Romney.

Discussion: Politico, Guardian, The Spectacle Blog, The Maddow Blog, FiveThirtyEight and The PJ Tatler

Christian Heinze / GOP 12:

Swing state poll makes key omissions — USA Today released a seemingly-rough poll for Mitt Romney over the weekend, but it's not nearly as lopsided as it first appears. — The substance: Barack Obama has jumped to a 9% lead over Romney, overall, in swing states (Nevada, Colorado, New Mexico …

Discussion: The Raw Story

Jonathan Easley / Ballot Box:

New Santorum ad links Romney to Obama on healthcare, bailouts — Rick Santorum is going hard after Mitt Romney in a new Web advertisement, directly tying the former Massachusetts governor's policies to those of President Obama. — “What if I told you this man's government-mandated healthcare …

Discussion: CNN

Washington Post:
Mitt Romney's women problem

Discussion: Hot Air, Associated Press, The Hill, The Raw Story and Hotline On Call

Paul Krugman / New York Times:

Pink Slime Economics — The big bad event of last week was, of course, the Supreme Court hearing on health reform. In the course of that hearing it became clear that several of the justices, and possibly a majority, are political creatures pure and simple, willing to embrace any argument …

Discussion: The Hill, The Huffington Post, Paul Krugman, Suburban Guerrilla, Daily Kos, Washington Wire and Prairie Weather

E.J. Dionne Jr / Washington Post:

The right's stealthy coup — Right before our eyes, American conservatism is becoming something very different from what it once was. Yet this transformation is happening by stealth because moderates are too afraid to acknowledge what all their senses tell them.

Discussion: The Mahablog

Jake Tapper / ABCNEWS:

Former President Clinton on Mitt Romney: Etch-a-Sketch “Is What He's Got to Do” — Mitt Romney, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, currently faces a dynamic similar to the one President Bill Clinton faced during his first presidential run 20 years ago: a long, bruising primary, driving up his unfavorable ratings.

Discussion: Yahoo! News, Politico, CNN and Taegan Goddard's …

John E. Sununu / Boston Globe: An exciting VP? Don't go for it, Mitt

Christian Heinze / GOP 12: Clinton: Flip-flops will doom Romney

Jonathan Easley / The Hill:

Rep. Clyburn: Obama should campaign against Supreme Court if health law falls — Rep. James Clyburn (D-S.C.) said President Obama should campaign against the Supreme Court, painting it as a conservative, activist institution if it rules that the administration's healthcare law is unconstitutional.

Discussion: Politico and Hot Air

Wall Street Journal:
Assailing the Supreme Court

Discussion: Althouse and BizzyBlog

Seattle Times:
U.S. Supreme Court should overturn Arizona's anti-illegal-immigration law

Discussion: Don Surber

Washington Examiner:
Sunday Reflection: Don't blame Verrilli: Hard to defend the indefensible

Discussion: The Lonely Conservative, Don Surber and Pirate's Cove

Alexander Bolton / The Hill:

Obama extends olive branch to Cantor after passage of jobs bill — President Obama has extended an olive branch to Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) and invited him to the White House this week to attend a signing ceremony for bipartisan jobs legislation.

Discussion: Prairie Weather

Greg Sargent / Washington Post:
Obama allies launch ad campaign hitting back over gas prices

Discussion: American Prospect

Andrew Restuccia / The Hill:
Facing voter anger at home, lawmakers play gas prices blame game

Discussion: ThinkProgress and The Heritage Foundation

Washington Examiner:

Spike Lee puts the ‘twit’ in Twitter — Just when you thought the controversy over the Trayvon Martin shooting couldn't get any worse, it got worse. Or, more accurately, several parties helped make it worse. — Enter Marcus Davonne Higgins, a Los Angeles man no one's probably ever heard of …

Ylan Q. Mui / Washington Post:

Senior citizens continue to bear burden of student loans — New research from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York shows that Americans 60 and older still owe about $36 billion in student loans, providing a rare window into the dynamics of student debt. More than 10 percent of those loans are delinquent.

Discussion: US Politics and Via Meadia

Terence P. Jeffrey / CNSNews:

Obama Calls for More Redistribution of Wealth, Declaring: 'I Am My Brother's Keeper' — (CNSNews.com) - In a campaign speech in Vermont on Friday, President Barack Obama referenced the biblical story of Cain and Abel in condemning what he called “you're-on-your-own economics” …

Discussion: Weasel Zippers and The Lonely Conservative

Howard Kurtz / The Daily Beast:

Keith Olbermann's Angry Email Trail Traces Breakup With Current TV — His bitter divorce from Al Gore's network followed months of escalating complaints to Current TV executives. Howard Kurtz unearths the acrimonious correspondence. — It was a terrible marriage from the beginning.

Discussion: The Daily Caller, New York Times, The Other McCain, Poynter, New York Magazine and Betsy's Page, more at Mediagazer »

Steven Lee Myers / New York Times:

At Summit, Nations Move to Increase Aid for Syrian Rebels — ISTANBUL — The United States and more than 60 other countries moved closer on Sunday to direct intervention in the fighting in Syria, with Arab nations pledging $100 million to pay opposition fighters and the United States agreeing …

Discussion: ABCNEWS, americanthinker.com, Campaign 2012, LewRockwell.com Blog and Michael J. Totten's blog