President Obama “will hold his first two major political rallies of the general-election campaign next weekend at colleges in Ohio and Virginia, staking a claim in two of the most closely watched battleground states of the year and continuing his dialogue with student voters, whose energy and enthusiasm were crucial to his victory four years ago,” the Washington Post reports.

Said David Axelrod: “Welcome to the general election.”

Headline in the Cincinnati Enquirer: “Obama to kick off campaign in — where else — Ohio.”

The Hotline explains why House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) got into trouble
with his own party for wading into a primary race between two
incumbents, while House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-MD) has been
“quietly praised” in his party for doing the same thing.

“Why the
difference? Cantor took heat for funneling some cash through the
Campaign for Primary Accountability, an organization with the express
goal of ousting incumbents in their own primaries. What’s more, Cantor’s
actions sharpened the divide between the old bulls on Capitol Hill and
the hard-charging freshmen who are wholly uninterested in waiting their
turn in the seniority system… Altmire engendered no such good will
among fellow Democrats. Hoyer only got involved on Critz’s behalf after
Altmire attacked Critz for voting with Democratic leadership on a
Republican budget vote… It didn’t help that Altmire had voted against
health care and cap and trade legislation, two of the three major
Democratic initiatives in the 111th Congress.”

Charles Mahtesian
looks back at Rep. Ron Paul’s (R-TX) performance in the New England
states this primary season, noting that Paul “finished second in every
state except Massachusetts, nearly won Maine and won about a quarter of
the vote in New Hampshire, Vermont and Rhode Island.”

“What explains
the unusual regional appeal? Probably a number of factors, beginning
with the fact that Paul isn’t perceived as a Southern candidate but
rather a national one. The numerous universities and small liberal arts
colleges that dot the landscape probably help his cause, given his
appeal to the youth vote. So does the fact that New England isn’t as
hawkish as other parts of the country. Then there is small town and
rural New England — ancestrally Republican, with distinct libertarian
coloring and vestiges of skin-flint fiscal conservatism.”

With more polls of the presidential race every day, Micah Cohen reminds that “the election is still more than six months away, and in the past 10 presidential campaigns, the national polling leader in late April has won the election only half of the time.”

The latest Purple Poll finds an extremely close presidential race in four key swing states which “represent the crown jewels of both campaigns’ strategies to win 270 electoral votes.”

President Obama leads Mitt Romney in Ohio 49% to 44%, and holds a slight lead in Virginia, 48% to 46%. The candidates are tied in Colorado, 47% to 47%, while Romney has the edge in Florida, 47% to 45%.

Molly Ball: “By behaving childishly and running totally amateurish campaigns, they made Romney look good. Next to Santorum’s inability to stay on message, Romney’s gaffes looked minor. Next to Gingrich’s petulant posturing, Romney looked like a grown-up. Next to both men’s improvised, bare-bones efforts, Romney’s flawed operation looked like the Cadillac of political campaigns. In losing in the most undignified manner possible, Gingrich made Romney shine. And for that, Romney owes Gingrich his gratitude.”

A CNN Money analysis finds Mitt Romney spent a total of $76.6 million on his presidential campaign through the end of March, more than the combined spending of Ron Paul, Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich.

That’s equal to $18.50 per vote and $126,000 per delegate won in the primaries and caucuses.

A new Rocky Mountain Poll in Arizona finds President Obama edging Mitt Romney, 42% to 40% with a high 18% undecided.

Two days ago, a Merrill/Morrisson Institute poll found Romney ahead by two points.

Jason Zengerle has a must-read profile of Erik Fehrnstrom, the Mitt Romney aide probably now best known for his Etch-a-Sketch comments.

“He wears the uniform of the modern political consultant — iPad tucked in the crook of his arm, open-collared shirt, rectangular-framed glasses — but his fleshy face and thick New England accent betray a rougher core. And far from reining in Romney, he performs the opposite service for his client: Fehrnstrom toughens him up… The best political operatives are the ones who provide their clients with a tangible quality the candidate himself lacks. If Karl Rove was Bush’s brain, then Fehrnstrom is Romney’s balls.”

Former President Jimmy Carter told MSNBC that President Obama would likely win re-election this fall, but said that he would be fine with Mitt Romney as president.

Said Carter: “I’d rather have a Democrat but I would be comfortable — I think Romney has shown in the past, in his previous years as a moderate or progressive… that he was fairly competent as a governor and also running the Olympics as you know. He’s a good solid family man and so forth, he’s gone to the extreme right wing positions on some very important issues in order to get the nomination. What he’ll do in the general election, what he’ll do as president I think is different.”

[Read more…]

One risk that Mitt Romney (R) — or any candidate for president — faces
as he rapidly builds a presidential campaign geared towards the general
election is the close scrutiny paid to staff selections. Nowhere is
this more evident than in the backlash “from the left and right” against
Romney’s selection of Richard Grenell as a national security and
foreign policy adviser, reports the Washington Post.

“Grenell,
who spent seven years at the United Nations heading the communications
department for the U.S. mission, has had to scrub snarky tweets aimed at
women — particularly Democrats and liberals — and the media, while the
Romney campaign has had to fend off criticism from social conservatives
who object to Grenell’s appointment because he is gay.”

“I don’t think that their nominee is going to be able to suddenly say,
‘Everything I’ve said for the last six months, I didn’t mean.’ I’m assuming that he meant it. When you’re running for president,
people are paying attention to what you’re saying.”

— President Obama, in a Rolling Stone interview.

As the presidential campaign gets underway and President Obama and Mitt Romney search for useful attacks on one another, Tim Alberta thinks the Obama team has “achieved plausible deniability” for running
against Romney’s wealth “without ever explicitly mentioning their target.”

“They know that attacking Romney for his prosperity and privileged background is terrible politics. But they also recognize that Romney’s wealth speaks to his single biggest vulnerability, the perception of being an out-of-touch aristocrat who can’t empathize with the struggles of everyday Americans. Obama, on the other hand, possesses the unique ability among politicians to connect with voters by saying he feels their pain — and then proving it… With Romney finally emerging as their all-but-official opponent, it appears Obama’s team thinks the most effective way to force this implicit comparison upon the American electorate is by reminding them not of Romney’s rich background, but of Obama’s humble beginnings. And America loves an underdog.”