Rick Santorum’s presidential campaign “is actively seeking the support of Democrats in Tuesday’s Michigan primary, running a robocall that sounds oddly like one that would be run by an organized labor group,” the Washington Post reports.

TPM: “Michigan’s primary rules allow Dems to vote in the state’s GOP primaries. The liberal site DailyKos and other progressive partners have been trying to drum up enthusiasm for ‘Operation Hilarity’ — an effort to get Democrats to vote in the GOP primary and tilt the vote against Mitt Romney. The Santorum campaign evidently decided they’d take votes from any legitimate source.”

Harry Enten notes that three Michigan polls from last Thursday found Mitt Romney leading Rick Santorum by an average of 5.7 points. However, Romney’s average lead in polls taken over the weekend is down to just 1 point.

Meanwhile, a Public Policy Polling survey in the field tonight is already picking up on “encouraging things for Santorum.” The full poll results will be out late tonight.

If true, it could be a late night tomorrow waiting for primary results to come in.

A new WPRI 12 poll in Rhode Island’s 1st congressional district finds challenger Brendan Doherty (R) crushing Rep. David Cicilline (D-RI), 49% to 34%, with 16% still undecided.

Jonathan Chait: “The modern GOP — the party of Nixon, Reagan, and both Bushes — is staring down its own demographic extinction. Right-wing warnings of impending tyranny express, in hyperbolic form, well-grounded dread: that conservative America will soon come to be dominated, in a semi-permanent fashion, by an ascendant Democratic coalition hostile to its outlook and interests. And this impending doom has colored the party’s frantic, fearful response to the Obama presidency.”

Mitt Romney recalled childhood memories of a landmark moment in Detroit history, noting he was “probably 4 or something like that” the day of the Golden Jubilee, to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the American automobile, the Toronto Star reports.

Said Romney: “My dad had a job being the grandmaster. They painted Woodward Ave. with gold paint.”

Unfortunately, the event took place June 1, 1946 — fully nine months before Romney was born.

After a rough election cycle for Democratic chairmen of House committees in 2010, The Hill provides a rundown of the Republican chairmen facing difficult reelection battles, including a few primary challenges.

Nate Silver‘s latest forecast shows Romney still has the advantage in the Michigan GOP primary tomorrow “but it is more tenuous than the one we released overnight. The model gives him a 64 percent chance of winning the state, down from 77 percent in the previous forecast.”

The reason? Five new polls are out today with three showing Romney in the lead and two putting Santorum ahead.

Steve Kornacki: “The familiar Romney campaign formula — wait for conservative rival to emerge, beat back conservative rival with attack ads and strong debate performance, prevail in do-or-die primary test, wait for next conservative rival to emerge — may be in the process of repeating itself in Michigan. But the final polling in advance of tomorrow’s primary contains some serious hints of trouble for Romney.”

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) will not challenge any signatures by Monday’s deadline in an attempt to stop a recall election against him, the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel reports.

“That leaves only a review by state elections officials standing
between the Republican governor and only the third recall election for a
governor is U.S. history.”

Joshua Spivak has an excellent look at what to expect next.

Former Sen. Bob Kerrey (D-NE) “appears to be flirting — once again — with the prospect of running for U.S. Senate,” the Omaha World Herald reports.

“He met earlier this morning with Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, setting off speculations that Kerrey is in the race. Kerrey has had talks with his former campaign manager, Paul Johnson, about a prospective run.”

The Washington Post reports Kerrey will run.

Brad Phillips: “Mr. Romney finds himself in the worst of two worlds. On one hand, he’s a rich guy whose privileged life keeps slipping out through obliviously tone-deaf gaffes. On the other hand, he’s pretending to be a populist who personally relates to the financial struggles of ordinary Americans.”

“I understand why Mr. Romney’s advisers didn’t want him to run as a ‘rich guy’ candidate. With income inequality at record-high levels and Romney’s image as a corporate raider, his wealth could easily be viewed as a campaign-killing liability. But Mr. Romney’s chronic gaffes have rendered that strategy impossible. It’s time for Romney to start running as the person he really is: a rich guy.”

The Hotline
reports that Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell (R) expressed support for
reforms to Virginia’s gubernatorial term limits, which currently allow
for just a single four-year term.

Said McDonnell: “The problem is,
there’s a lack of continuity. After two years in office, I’ve already
got people in the press worried about the next chase, the next
election… So I honestly thing the right formula would be to maybe
slightly tweak the balance of powers between the legislative and
executive branch and then allow a two-term governor.”

ThinkProgress reviewed the 20 Republican presidential debates and found that Ron Paul has not once attacked Mitt Romney.

While Paul has ripped the other presidential contenders 39 times, he has never harshly criticized Romney or singled him out in any way for criticism. It’s particularly striking given that Paul and Romney “do not agree on virtually any policy positions.”

AFSCME is up with a tough new ad in Ohio that blasts Mitt Romney’s rejection of the auto industry bailout.

Greg Sargent: “It’s unclear whether this message will have resonance among GOP primary voters. But the ad represents a bet that the GOP primary has forced Romney so far to the right on the auto-bailout — requiring him to go through comical contortions to pretend it wasn’t a big success — that it’s worth branding him hard with it now, among swing voters in states other than Michigan.”

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Jill Lawrence: “First came Mitt Romney’s dismissive remarks about President Obama’s ‘faculty lounge’ pals. Now Rick Santorum is calling Obama snobby for urging people to go to college — and defending that view in a series of TV appearances.”

[Read more…]