A new Christopher Newport University poll in Virginia shows George Allen (R) edging Tim Kaine (D) in the U.S. Senate race, 42% to 40%.

Rick Santorum now leads Mitt Romney by eight points nationally in the Gallup tracking poll, 36% to 28%, with Newt Gingrich at 13% and Ron Paul at 11%.

Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz, who has been floated as a possible presidential candidate for a third-party run, said that he had “no interest in public office,” reports National Journal.

Variety previews the movie Game Change, premiering on March 10, based on the best-selling book about the 2008 campaign by John Heilemann and Mark Halperin,

The authors “have a cameo, as reporters hounding Schmidt during the Republican National Convention. Schmidt is complaining about the unfair, personal media coverage of Palin in the initial days of the St. Paul convention, and even points out that he’s been asked the ‘shameful’ question of when the Alaska governor’s fluid leaked during her pregnancy. Heilemann then shoots back, ‘So when did it start leaking?'”

A new Des Moines Register poll in Iowa shows President Obama trails three of the four Republican candidates in head-to-head match-ups if the election were held today.

The Republican with the biggest lead: Ron Paul, who would defeat Obama by 7 percentage points, 49% to 42%. Rick Santorum leads Obama 48% to 44%. Mitt Romney leads Obama 46% to 44%.The president defeats only Newt Gingrich, 51% to 37%.

“Iowa is considered a swing state in the general election, critical to Obama’s re-election or victory by the Republican nominee.”

Paul Babeu (R), an Arizona county sheriff and congressional candidate — “who became the face of Arizona border security nationally after he started stridently opposing illegal immigration — threatened his Mexican ex-lover with deportation when the man refused to promise never to disclose their years-long relationship,” the Phoenix New Times reports.

Babeu told the Arizona Republic the allegations are “completely false” and that the only information mentioned in the article that’s true is “I’m gay.”

“The president has reached a new low in this country’s history of
oppressing religious freedom that we have never seen before. If he
doesn’t want to call his imposition of his values a theology that’s
fine, but it is an imposition of his values over a church who has very
clear theological reasons for opposing what the Obama administration is
forcing on them.”

— Rick Santorum, quoted by NBC News, saying President Obama preaches “some phony ideal, some phony theology.”

A prominent Republican senator tells Jon Karl that if Mitt Romney can’t win in Michigan, “the Republican Party needs to go back to the drawing board and convince somebody new to get into the race.”

“The senator believes Romney will ultimately win in Michigan but says he will publicly call for the party to find a new candidate if he does not.”

Mike Allen: “A tippy-top Republican, unprompted, yesterday sketched the germ of a plan for a new candidate if Rick Santorum upsets Mitt Romney in the Michigan primary on Feb. 28… Our friend handed us a printout of FEC deadlines for ballot access, with five of them circled and starred: California (March 23), Montana (March 12), New Jersey (April 2), New Mexico (March 16) and South Dakota (March 27). The point: Even after Feb. 28, it might be possible to assemble a Hail Mary candidacy that could garner enough delegates to force a CONTESTED convention (a different nuance than BROKERED, which implies that someone is in charge).”

A new Inside Michigan Politics poll shows Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum deadlocked in the Michigan GOP presidential primary with 33% each, followed by Ron Paul at 7% and Newt Gingrich at 5%.

After one night in the field, a new Public Policy Polling survey shows Santorum with a smaller lead than the 15 point lead he held last week.

This is part of our guest series from Inkwell Strategies analyzing the 2012 campaign ad war.

Rick Santorum’s new ad is a breath of fresh air in an already drawn out primary season.

In
a nominating contest filled to the brim with negative advertising,
Santorum’s “Rombo” ad is an unexpected sojourn into the comedic. The
video features a Romney look-alike firing mud from a machine gun at a
cardboard cut-out of a smiling Santorum in a welcome respite from the
usual political season fair.

[Read more…]

Jonathan Bernstein: “In most GOP caucus states, the voting is not strictly connected to delegate selection. If Santorum’s voters don’t understand the procedures, it’s very possible he could win the vote and yet pick up only a handful of delegates. Indeed, that may have already happened in caucus states he’s won, like Iowa, Colorado, and Minnesota…. It’s not impossible — though it’s very unlikely — that the popularity contest could leave Santorum as the clear, unambiguous winner, while Romney becomes the clear, unambiguous nominee. Imagine Santorum finishing with a five point edge or more in votes — even as Romney gets crowned the GOP candidate for president.”

“This is just crap.”

— Rick Santorum, in an interview with National Review, on the media firestorm over comments on contraception made by Santorum Super PAC donor Foster Freiss.

Maine Republican Party chairman Charlie Webster “has admitted that the state party made numerous clerical errors in counting the state’s caucus results — even omitting some votes because emails reporting tallies ‘went to spam’ in an email account,” Politico reports.

Webster insisted that the errors did not change the outcome, but the Portland Press Herald reports “he won’t release the new totals until he talks to both the Romney and Paul campaigns.”

Rick Hasen: “Amateur hour is over. The choice of a president is simply too important to put in the hands of party bumblers and the small percentage of people who are willing to spend hours to cast a vote.”

President Obama “raised more than $29 million for his campaign and for the Democratic Party in January, a strong fundraising month that put him ahead of the pace he set in the last quarter of 2011,” the AP reports.

“The month’s haul raises Obama’s total combined fundraising for this election cycle to about $250 million. In the last three months of 2011, he averaged about $23 million a month.”