North Carolina Gov. Bev Perdue (D) is expected to announce today that she will not seek a second term as governor, the Raleigh News & Observer reports.

Her campaign began telling top North Carolina Democrats in the past 24 hours, setting up a scramble at the top of the state ticket.

The Washington Post says names that are likely to be bandied about as possible Democratic replacements include Lt. Gov. Walter Dalton, Attorney General Roy Cooper, former White House chief of staff Erskine Bowles and Charlotte Mayor Anthony Foxx.

Rep. Brad Miller (D-NC) told the Raleigh News & Observer he would retire rather than face a primary challenge against Rep. David Price (D-NC) after redistricting redrew his congressional district.

Former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-TX) ripped Newt Gingrich in an interview on KTRH-AM:

“What has been said about Newt is pretty much true. He had to step down because Republicans, conservative Republicans, wouldn’t vote for him again as Speaker. Because he’s not really a conservative. I mean, he’ll tell you what you want to hear. He has an uncanny ability, sort of like Clinton, to feel your pain and know his audience and speak to his audience and fire them up. But when he was speaker, he was erratic, undisciplined.”

The AP
reports that Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R), who will soon likely be
embroiled in a recall election, “has raised a record sum to fight a
recall and much of the money is coming from big donors from out of
state.”

“An Associated Press analysis of campaign finance reports Mr.
Walker submitted Monday shows more than 60 percent of his money raised
over the past five weeks came from out of state… The Wisconsin
Democracy Campaign, a government watchdog group, says roughly half of
the $4.5 million Mr. Walker raised over the past five weeks came from 33
individuals. The governor has raised $12.1 million since last year, the
most ever by a Wisconsin candidate for governor.”

A new Quinnipiac poll in Florida shows Mitt Romney deadlocked with President Obama in a possible general election match up, 45% to 45%, while Obama holds a strong lead over Newt Gingrich, 50% to 39%.

A new Suffolk University poll shows Romney beating Obama by five points in Florida, while Gingrich loses to Obama by nine points.

Mitt Romney seems to be smarting after watching Newt Gingrich once again
rise in the polls by attacking the media at debates, criticizing him
for playing to the crowd, The Hill reports.

Said Romney, “It’s very easy to talk down a moderator… The moderator
asks a question and then has to sit by and take whatever you send to
them. And Speaker Gingrich has been wonderful at attacking the
moderators and attacking the media… But it’s very different to have
candidates going against candidates, and that’s something I’ll be doing,
going against President Obama, if I get the chance to be our nominee.”

A new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll found American voters feeling more positively about the economy and of President Obama’s handling of it. Some 30% believed the country was headed in the right direction, up eight points from a month ago. Some 60% said the country was on the wrong track, down from 69% in December.

For the first time in seven months, more people approve of Obama’s job performance than disapprove, 48% to 46%.

In an interesting ABC News interview, Warren Buffett lashed out at assertions from Republicans that the “Buffett rule” endorsed last night by President Obama — which says that anyone earning more than a million dollars a year should be taxed at at least 30% — is class warfare.

Said Buffett: “If this is a war, my side has the nuclear bomb.”

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A new CNN-Time poll in Florida finds Mitt Romney leading with 36%, followed by Newt Gingrich at 34%, Rick Santorum at 11% and Ron Paul at 9%.

Key findings: “Romney leads Gingrich among female and white voters, voters over 50, and those with a college degree… Gingrich holds leads among men, Tea Party voters, self-identified conservatives — among whom he boasts a 10-point advantage — and born-again Christians. His fans also appear to be more committed than Romney’s.”

Buzzfeed: “Because garments are considered so sacred, Mormons tend to recoil when
they hear non-Mormons make casual reference to their
underwear — especially in a political context. But if there ever was a
time when discussion of the subject could be contained to Mormon
circles, now is not it.”

Newt Gingrich insisted that there was nothing similar about his personal failings and those of Bill Clinton — even though both were having extramarital affairs in the late 1990s, CNN reports.

Said Gingrich: “I didn’t do the same thing. I have never lied under oath. I have never committed perjury. I have never been involved in a felony. He was.”

Lois Romano: “You got hand it to the guy. He always tries to find a small patch of moral high ground on which to stand. No matter how tiny.”

Fidel Castro lambasted the Republican presidential race as the greatest
competition of “idiocy and ignorance” the world has ever seen, the AP reports.

“Castro’s comments came in a long opinion piece carried by official media
two days after Republican presidential hopefuls at a debate in Florida
presented mostly hard-line stances on what to do about the Communist-run
island, and even speculated as to what would happen to the 85-year-old
revolutionary leader’s soul when he dies. Cuba has become an important issue as the candidates court Florida’s influential Cuban-American community in an effort to win the biggest electoral prize so far in the primary season.”

While Mitt Romney regularly accuses President Obama of wanting to turn the United States into Europe, a new DNC video asks why Romney puts so much of his money there in secret Swiss bank accounts and other overseas tax havens.

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