memeorandum: OVERNIGHT CAMPAIGN: Proxy battles and recall matches (Emily Goodin/Ballot Box)

6:35 AM ET, June 5, 2012

Top Items:

Justin Sink / The Hill:

Gov. Walker knocks Obama for shying away from Wisconsin recall — GOP Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker said Monday that President Barack Obama's decision to shy away from campaigning on behalf of Democratic challenger Tom Barrett before Tuesday's election shows “there is a real concern” …

Discussion: Politico, CNN, Washington Post, Pirate's Cove and Guardian

Walter Russell Mead / Via Meadia:

Intrade Has Walker's Chances over 90%; NY Times in Panic Mode — Even The New York Times has thrown in the towel on the Wisconsin recall. — With an Intrade poll citing Walker's chances of winning the Wisconsin recall at more than 93%, The New York Times is entering into full-blown panic mode …

Discussion: his vorpal sword, The Daily Beast, The New Republic, New York Times, NewsBusters.org, The Gateway Pundit and The Daily Dish

Emily Goodin / Ballot Box:

OVERNIGHT CAMPAIGN: Proxy battles and recall matches — Wisconsin and New Jersey: two very different states, two very different contests. But they're the ones to watch on Tuesday. — Democrats and union activists were playing damage control Monday ahead of the recall election …

Discussion: Politico, CNN, Guardian, The Hill and Outside the Beltway

Josh Eidelson / Salon:

Wisconsin's resentment factor — Anger toward labor will be a big factor in Tuesday's recall. But unions haven't grown too big; they're too small — MADISON — If Scott Walker survives tomorrow's election, there will be plenty of reasons. Many people will point to his huge cash advantage, for good reason.

Discussion: Washington Monthly and Lawyers, Guns & Money

Monica Davey / New York Times:
Wisconsin Governor Recall Election Is Today

Discussion: The Caucus and Hugh Hewitt's TownHall Blog

weaskamerica.com:
Who Survives? — Our final poll in the Wisconsin gubernatorial …

Discussion: New York Post, Business Insider, Angus Reid Public Opinion, Hot Air, ThinkProgress, National Review, Washington Free Beacon and Weekly Standard

Will Oremus / Slate:
What the Wisconsin Recall Tells Us About November: Nothing

Discussion: Politico, The Daily Beast, NewsBusters.org, The New Republic, The Caucus and American Power

Scott Bauer / Associated Press:
What to know about the Wisconsin recall vote

Discussion: The Moderate Voice, Los Angeles Times, Right Wing News, The Huffington Post and blogs.telegraph.co.uk

BuzzFeed:

Bill Clinton: Romney Presidency Would Be Calamitous For The World — Last week he complimented Romney, today he doesn't pull any punches. — (AP / Ronald Zak) — Former President Bill Clinton warned of global danger in the event Mitt Romney wins in the fall — a shift in tone …

Discussion: Taylor Marsh

Bill Clinton / CNN:
Clinton and Obama hit up the Big Apple

Discussion: Politico and Weekly Standard

Ezra Klein:

The Keynesian case for Romney — Even if you disagree with every one of Mitt Romney's policies, there's a chance he's still the best candidate to lift the economy in 2013. — That's not because he has business experience. For all his bluster about the lessons taught by the private sector …

Discussion: Business Insider, No More Mister Nice Blog, Hot Air and Conservatives4Palin

Pew Research Center for the People and the Press:

Partisan Polarization Surges in Bush, Obama Years — Trends in American Values: 1987-2012 — OVERVIEW — As Americans head to the polls this November, their values and basic beliefs are more polarized along partisan lines than at any point in the past 25 years.

Discussion: Washington Post, 2012 Decoded, CNN, Politico and The Moderate Voice

Ace / Ace of Spades HQ:

National Day of Blogger Silence — This Friday — I'm writing a post about what's happened to Ali Akbar. It's taking some time. — Warning: DO NOT CLICK ON ANY SITE YOU DON'T TRUST ABOUT THIS STORY. I think there is reasonable grounds for suspicion that your IP will be captured …

Discussion: The Other McCain, Patterico's Pontifications, Michelle Malkin, TBogg, The Lonely Conservative and American Power

Jake Tapper / ABCNEWS:

Have We Reached an Economic Tipping Point for the President? - Today's Q's for O's WH - 6/4/2012 — TAPPER: Who specifically is “rooting for failure”? — CARNEY: I think that when you have a situation where action is not being taken on Capitol Hill where it is obvious …

Discussion: Taylor Marsh

Joel B. Pollak / BREITBART.COM:

EXCLUSIVE - THE VETTING - SENATOR BARACK OBAMA ATTENDED BILL AYERS BARBECUE, JULY 4, 2005 — As a presidential candidate in 2008, Barack Obama disavowed any connection with former domestic terrorist Bill Ayers, the Weather Underground radical who was one of Obama's early backers and his colleague …

Discussion: Weasel Zippers, Nice Deb, Little Green Footballs, Israel Matzav, The Lonely Conservative and iOwnTheWorld.com

Joel Achenbach / Washington Post:

NASA gets two military spy telescopes for astronomy — The secretive government agency that flies spy satellites has made a stunning gift to NASA: two exquisite telescopes as big and powerful as the Hubble Space Telescope. They've never left the ground and are in storage in Rochester, N.Y.

Discussion: The Atlantic Online, TPM IdeaLab, New York Times and Outside the Beltway

William Bergstrom / Politico:

Andrew Cuomo proposes lower pot possession charge — New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo on Monday proposed reducing the penalty for public possession of small amounts of marijuana, a move aimed at dramatically slashing the number of arrests resulting from the stop-and-frisk actions by the police department …

Discussion: Associated Press and ThinkProgress

Thomas Kaplan / New York Times:
Bloomberg Backs Plan to Limit Arrests for Marijuana

Discussion: Bloomberg, City Room, The Stranger …, New York Magazine, Hit & Run, The Daily Caller, Cato @ Liberty and Washington Free Beacon

Jim Geraghty / National Review:

Messina: We're Doing Great! Oh, and We May Lose Wisconsin. — The Obama campaign releases a video with campaign manager Jim Messina, discussing the state of the race. — “We're actually ahead of where we were at this point last time around. Remember summer of 2008?

Discussion: RedState, THE ASTUTE BLOGGERS, Hot Air, Mediaite and Power Line

Paul Mirengoff / Power Line:

A speech I'd like to hear Obama deliver — Later this month, the Supreme Court will deliver its ruling in the Obamacare case. Suppose the government loses. What will Obama say? Perhaps his speech will go something like this: — “My fellow citizens. I'm not going to mince words.

Billy House / NationalJournal.com:

Erupting Urinal Soaks House Press Gallery — A big splash occurred on Monday morning at the House Press Gallery in the U.S. Capitol. — No, this wasn't one of those unexpected guest appearances for celebrities to talk to reporters about some favorite cause. — This splash came from an exploding urinal.

Discussion: Wonkette, Indecision Forever and New York Magazine

Callum Borchers / Boston Globe:

President Obama and Mitt Romney campaigns battle over Mass. job growth numbers — video platformvideo managementvideo solutionsvideo player — The Obama and Romney campaigns sparred Sunday over what is the most repeated statistic of the political moment: Massachusetts ranked 47th …

Discussion: Los Angeles Times, theGrio and msnbc.com

Catherine Ho / Washington Post: Romney suggests business experience should be prerequisite

Pema Levy / 2012.talkingpointsmemo.com:
TPM2012 — Romney Camp Defends Poor Jobs Record: He Inherited A Bad Situation

Discussion: Slate, American Prospect, The Maddow Blog, Campaign 2012, The Daily Dish, Daily Kos, National Review, ThinkProgress and Rumproast

Igor Volsky / ThinkProgress:

North Carolina GOP Platform Says Government Should Be Able To Discriminate Against Gays — Emboldened by a recently enacted constitutional amendment prohibiting civil unions and same-sex marriage, North Carolina's Republican party adopted a platform yesterday that condones discrimination on the basis of “sexual orientation.”

Discussion: The Raw Story

Susanne Craig / DealBook:

Goldman Sachs Cuts a Little Deeper — It isn't getting better out there. — Wall Street, which has been paring its ranks over the last year as it struggles with lackluster markets and new regulations, is cutting deeper as it heads into what is expected to be a rough summer.

Discussion: Felix Salmon

Pat Garofalo / ThinkProgress:

Romney Would Save $5 Million In Taxes If He Wins The Election — According to an analysis from Citizens for Tax Justice, 2012 GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney would save himself $5 million in taxes in 2013 by winning November's election (assuming he could get his tax plan enacted into law).

Associated Press:
Obama win could cost Romney $5M in personal taxes

Discussion: Alan Colmes' Liberaland, PERRspectives and Daily Kos

The Boston Globe:

Senator Brown sought to loosen bank rules — OK'd overhaul, then called for leeway, e-mails show — Senator Scott Brown has trumpeted his role in casting the deciding vote in favor of the 2010 Wall Street overhaul, but records show that after he voted for the law, he worked to shield banks …

Discussion: Boston Globe, Daily Kos, Weekly Standard, Swampland, ThinkProgress and Salon

The Atlantic Online:

Tiananmen Square, Then and Now — Twenty-three years ago today, the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) violently cleared Beijing's Tiananmen Square of protesters, ending a six-week demonstration that had called for democracy and widespread political reform.

Discussion: Gawker

Associated Press:

Obama a socialist? Many scoff, but claim persists — NEW YORK (AP) — When President Barack Obama's re-election campaign unveiled its new slogan, some conservative critics were quick to pounce. — “Forward,” they asserted, is a word long associated with Europe's radical left.