Subject: POLITICO's Morning Score: Biden's apology - Dairyland Armageddon - Blue state ballot tests - High school hijinks - Rallying around Romney - Elizabeth Warren watch
From: "Morning Score" <[email-masked]>
To: <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 11 May 2012 05:38:45 -0600

By Charles Mahtesian

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[email-masked] ; Twitter: @charliepolitico)

AFTER THE EVOLUTION:The President's decision to back gay marriage still driving the news cycle. Google reports post-announcement top related search terms with 'Obama' were 'Obama gay marriage,' 'Obama same sex marriage,' and 'Obama supports gay marriage.' Overall, national searches for 'Obama' and 'gay marriage' increased by 458.8% from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.

LEADING DRUDGE - "SORRY BOSS":Bloomberg: Vice President Joe Biden apologized to President Barack Obama for upsetting the White House's timetable for revealing the president's support for same-sex marriage, according to an administration official.Biden delivered the apology to the president the morning of May 9, before Obama gave an interview to ABC News in which he said he has had a change of heart and now supports legal gay marriage, the official said.
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DAIRYLAND ARMAGEDDON - THE WALKER RACE SPECTACLE: POLITICO: "Whether it's the casino mogul who financed Newt Gingrich's super PAC, the billionaire who bankrolled the Swift Boats ad campaign against John Kerry or President Barack Obama's reelection arm, in one way or another, everybody who is anybody is involved in what's become one of the biggest political spectacles in decades."
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As the president dines with the stars, Bobby Jindals flies under the radar and conservatives ask for scrutiny of Obama's high school years, here's POLITICO's Morning Score: your daily guide to the permanent campaign.

UNCOMFORTABLE EXCHANGES - YEARS OF PRESSURE: From the Washington Post: "The conversion also followed years of private and public pressure on Obama, sometimes involving uncomfortable exchanges in which people spoke passionately for gay rights and the president responded by invoking the civil rights movement and rarely ceding ground."
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BLUE STATES GET SAME-SEX BALLOT TEST - WILL OBAMA CHANGE MINDS?: LA Times: "President Obama&#39;s affirmation of same-sex marriage sets up four state battles over gay unions as important tests of whether his stand - and changing public perceptions - will combine to reverse a long string of defeats at the ballot box. Maine, Maryland, Minnesota and Washington state are expected to decide in November whether to allow gay marriage. Despite growing public support for such unions, opponents have won almost every time the question has come before voters."
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GAY MARRIAGE, MARYLAND EDITION - WILL OBAMA STATEMENT MATTER? Washington Post: "Groups on both sides of the issue - which will likely be decided by Maryland voters - have weighed in on the president's pronouncement. Not surprisingly, they have come to different conclusions."
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HOLLYWOOD HAUL - OBAMA DINNER WITH CLOONEY NETS $15 MILL: POLITICO: "President Obama told a star-studded group of supporters Thursday that his decision to back gay marriage 'was a logical extension of what America is supposed to be.' Speaking to about 150 donors who gave $40,000 each for a dinner at the Studio City home of actor George Clooney, Obama acknowledged that 'obviously, yesterday we made some news,' though he didn&#39;t actually use the word 'marriage' to describe the news he made. The crowd roared in approval."
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RALLYING AROUND MITT - SOCIAL CONSERVS GET ON BOARD: POLITICO: "Social conservatives who doubted Mitt Romney now have a reason to rally around him after President Barack Obama's embrace of gay marriage. Despite the fact that very conservative and religious voters didn't support Romney in the primary, their fierce opposition to the issue will give the presumptive GOP nominee a way to harness conservative enthusiasm in November."
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ROMNEY TEAM - STAFF LOOKING LIKE GWB'S: Washington Times: "Mr. Romney's corps of advisers, in fact, is heavily salted with figures who surrounded the 43rd president as he watched over massive increases in federal spending, the creation of more government programs and the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as the nation-building efforts that followed."
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ROMNEY BACKS GAY COUPLES' RIGHT TO ADOPT: Wall Street Journal: "Mitt Romney reiterated his opposition to gay marriage Thursday but said he's OK with gay couples' right to adopt... The presumptive GOP nominee said he knows there are gay couples who are in committed relationships and have the right to live together, receive domestic partnership benefits and can adopt children."
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BULLYING STORY DAY 2 - MITT APOLOGIZES: New York Times: "The day after President Obama endorsed gay marriage, Mitt Romney found himself responding to allegations that as a teenager he harassed a prep school classmate who later came out as gay. The account put Mr. Romney, who has struggled on the campaign trail to cast off his rivals' image of him as privileged and insensitive, on the defensive about events nearly 50 years ago."http://nyti.ms/J1IKoZ

BUT...SISTER OF ALLEGED ROMNEY TARGET HAS "NO KNOWLEDGE" OF ANY INCIDENT: ABC News: "The older sister of Mitt Romney's former high school classmate said she has no knowledge of any bullying incident involving her brother and the GOP presidential candidate... When ABC News showed her the story, Christine Lauber's eyes welled up with tears and she became agitated. She also corrected the story, saying her brother was a boarder, not a day student. She described her brother as a "very unusual person.""
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"CHOOM GANG" REVISITED - RIGHT WANTS OBAMA H.S. SCRUTINY: Breitbart: "While the Washington Post has been diligently digging into relatively innocent high school pranks by Mitt Romney, they've spent the last few years diligently ignoring President Obama's far more controversial high school days."
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VEEP ALERT - JINDAL FLIES UNDER RADAR: RealClearPolitics: "Interviews with several Republican leaders and private conversations with people close to both Romney and Jindal suggest plenty of reasons to believe things might play out differently this time. Though the nation's first Indian-American governor may be flying a bit under the radar in the VP speculation game, his chance of being selected may be as good as any of the more buzzed-about prospects."
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WISCONSIN RECALL

DIVIDE AND CONQUER - WALKER SPELLS OUT PLAN: Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel: "A filmmaker released a video Thursday that shows Gov. Scott Walker saying he would use 'divide and conquer' as a strategy against unions. Walker made the comments to Beloit billionaire Diane Hendricks, who has since given $510,000 to the governor&#39;s campaign - making her Walker&#39;s single-largest donor and the largest known donor to a candidate in state history. The filmmaker has done work on Democratic campaigns and gave $100 in 2010 to Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett, Walker&#39;s challenger in the June 5 recall election."
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BATTLE FOR CONGRESS:

SPENDING SPREE - SUPER PACS, CONSERVATIVES LEAD APRIL SURGE: Huffington Post: "The spending in Indiana was part of an April trend of more independent group involvement in congressional races. As the Republican presidential primary wound down, spending by independent groups in congressional races ticked up. These groups, the unlimited-money super PACs and nonprofits, spent $7.87 million on congressional races in April, a rise of more than 500 percent from the $1.9 million spent in March, according to a review of Federal Election Commission records."
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WARREN WATCH - ANOTHER SCHOOL'S RECORDS: Boston Globe: "A second law school, the University of Pennsylvania, has touted Elizabeth Warren as a minority faculty member in an official school publication, according to an online document obtained by the Globe. The University of Pennsylvania, where Warren taught at the law school from 1987 through 1995, listed her as a minority in a "Minority Equity Report" posted on its website."
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RON PAUL'S HOUSE SEAT - 9 REPUBLICANS VIE FOR NOMINATION: Texas Tribune: "Ron Paul is a tough act to follow, and the major Republican candidates running to replace him in Congress are not even trying... And for all the hero worship Mr. Paul has cultivated among a small but vocal subset of the electorate, nobody is rushing to imitate "Dr. No."
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CODA:

"But when you look back, Dick had been here for 36 years, he did not own a house in Indiana, had issues relative to not going home often enough." -- Georgia GOP Sen. Saxby Chambliss.
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