This morning we asked if Rick Santorum had gone too far by saying it would be better to vote for Barack Obama than an Etch A Sketch Republican like Mitt Romney.

Well, Santorum has now tried to walk back the comment -- and he lashes out at the Romney campaign, blaming it for causing the dust up.

"I would never vote for Barack Obama over any Republican and to suggest otherwise is preposterous,” Santorum said in a statement released by his campaign. “This is just another attempt by the Romney Campaign to distort and distract the media and voters from the unshakeable fact that many of Romney's policies mirror Barack Obama's. I was simply making the point that there is a huge enthusiasm gap around Mitt Romney and it's easy to see why - Romney has sided with Obama on healthcare mandates, cap-and-trade, and the Wall Street bailouts. Voters have to be excited enough to actually go vote, and my campaign's movement to restore freedom is exciting this nation. If this election is about Obama versus the Obama-Lite candidate, we have a tough time rallying this nation. It's time for bold vision, bold reforms and bold contrasts. This election is about more than Barack Obama, Mitt Romney, or Rick Santorum - this campaign is about freedom and I will fight to restore your freedoms." 

But it was Santorum who said yesterday, "You win by giving people the opportunity to see a different vision for our country, not someone who’s just going to be a little different than the person in there. If you’re going to be a little different, we might as well stay with what we have instead of taking a risk with what may be the Etch A Sketch candidate of the future.”

Newt Gingrich and Romney pounced, with Gingrich saying any of the Republicans running would be better than Obama, and Romney calling Santorum “desperate” and frustrated.

"I want to start with something Rick said tonight that I frankly was very surprised that he said and that I hope he's taking back,” Gingrich said, adding, “I may have some very substantial disagreements with Gov. Romney. There is no doubt in my mind that if the choice was Gov. Romney or Barack Obama, we would have no choice,” Gingrich said. “The danger of Obama is so great that I would hope that every candidate running -- Ron Paul, Gov. Romney and Sen. Santorum – that we would all agree that whoever becomes the Republican nominee, we have one common goal and that is to defeat Barack Obama.”

On Hugh Hewitt’s radio show this morning, Romney said of Santorum, “Desperate polls call for desperate pols.”

He added, “I know that there are a lot of people across the country that are saying we need to consolidate behind the guy who has now weathered, I think there are 38 different contests we've had, if you include all the little islands as well. … I'm sure that the Senator's hearing from some of those people saying hey, let's get going, let's move on and get our nominee ready to go against President Obama. and perhaps he's striking out with frustration from those kind of questions.”

And he went further, accusing Santorum of vanity.

“I'm afraid that Rick increasingly thinks this race is about him,” Romney said. “It's not about him. It's not about me. It's not about a personality. It's about the country. And I'm really disappointed in Rick's statement. Obviously, he endorsed me three years ago when I was running for president. He had no problem calling me a real conservative, a solid conservative. But now that he's in the race, it has become all about Rick.”

Lionsgate

Jennifer Lawrence stars as Katniss Everdeen in "The Hunger Games."

With 26 million books in "The Hunger Games" trilogy sold thus far, one hardly needs to look further for reasons why the first film installment is bound to open huge Friday (on Thursday, Fandango was selling 10 tickets per second). Nevertheless, here’s another one: politics.

In an extremely partisan atmosphere seven months before a presidential election, "Hunger Games" has the great advantage of being a movie with subtle political overtones that appeal to conservatives, and others that appeal to liberals. Evidence that both ends of the political spectrum have embraced the story of a dystopian future where reality TV pits children against each other in a competition to the death, in fact, is all over the Internet.

Occupy-Wall-Street liberals are loving the way the film portrays an extraordinary gap between the rich and poor as simply an innate evil. There’s no evidence that the spoiled rich earned their wealth through hard work and initiative. Quite the opposite, in fact: The poor are portrayed as the industrious ones and the rich are the lazy and overly indulged oppressors.

GALLERY: 'Hunger Games' Premiere Red Carpet Interviews

The left is also gravitating to a global-warming theme that technically isn’t even in the film. They’re just assuming that destructive activity by humans created a catastrophic change in climate that destroyed North America and gave rise to Panem, the fictional country where "Hunger Games" is set.

It’s not a stretch to glean such a message, either, since Suzanne Collins, the author of the book and an executive producer on the film indicated as much in an interview with the New York Times.

"It’s crucial that young readers are considering scenarios about humanity's future, because the challenges are about to land in their laps," Collins said. "I hope they question how elements of the books might be relevant to their own lives. About global warming, about our mistreatment of the environment, but also questions like: How do you feel about the fact that some people take their next meal for granted when so many other people are starving in the world?”

That quote from Collins, and more about the politics of "Hunger Games," are even included in the production notes that Lionsgate has distributed to film reviewers, indicating that marketers aren’t shy about broaching the touchy topic of partisan politics. In the case of global warming, polls have indicated that roughly 85 percent of Democrats view it as a major, manmade problem while only 15 percent of Republicans agree.

EXCLUSIVE PHOTOS: Behind the Scenes of THR's 'Hunger Games' Cover Shoot

Joe Romm at ThinkProgress.org (one of the liberal groups trying to get Rush Limbaugh booted off the air), seized on both themes that Collins touches on in the production notes.

"Feeding some 9 billion people by mid-century in the face of a rapidly worsening climate may well be the greatest challenge the human race has ever faced," he wrote. "'The Hunger Games' makes that challenge a literal and hyper-violent one."

Liberal feminists are also thrilled that the heroine, Katniss Everdeen, played by Jennifer Lawrence, is every bit as physically lethal as her male counterparts – actually, more so.

There’s plenty in "Hunger Games" for right-wingers, too. The most obvious message being that government overreach can lead to tyranny.

Conservative film reviewer Christian Toto begins his online review like so: "'The Hunger Games' is infinitely better than any of the 'Twilight' films. Let’s take a deep breath and say, 'Thank you.'"

STORY: Why 'Hunger Games' Is Not The New 'Twilight'

Then he delves into the political messages.

"The fact that the film targets an all-powerful government enslaving its citizens gives it even extra heft for right-of-center audiences," he writes.

Part of the movie’s mission, Toto writes, is “not to whack us with an ideological cudgel. In "The Hunger Games," story comes first, even if it’s hard not to notice a nanny state which thinks its citizens should bow down and thank them for their very survival.”

Writing for the Frederick Douglass Foundation, Mack Rights argues that there’s not only a powerful conservative message in "Hunger Games" but a Christian one, as well, since the story takes place after "liberals have succeeded in erasing God and Christ from the culture completely by successfully creating their own utopia – which is really a dystopian nightmare for anyone not in the liberal ruling class."

And writing for Forbes, self-described Libertarian John Tamny says, “On its face, the book reveals the oppressive cruelty that is big government,” then he attempts to dismantle what the left believes about food shortages and overpopulation. “While the global political class and their enablers in the media to this day try to explain away droughts and the resulting famines from an 'Act of God' point of view, the simple truth is that economically free countries don’t suffer them.”

Do you plan to see "The Hunger Games" this weekend? Talk to us about it on Facebook.

Related content:

• 'Hunger Games' makes winning transition to film
• Check out Jennifer Lawrence on the red carpet
• North Carolina braces for tourism impact

J. Scott Applewhite / AP

President Barack Obama signs the health care bill in the East Room of the White House in Washington, Tuesday, March 23, 2010.

The fate of President Obama’s biggest legislative achievement will be debated in the nation’s highest court next week but that doesn’t mean the fight won’t continue back in the legislative branch of government regardless of how the court eventually rules.

On Monday, the justices of the Supreme Court will begin three days of oral argument on the 2010 health care overhaul, the Affordable Care Act, considering the constitutionality of two of its core provisions: an expansion of the Medicaid program for lower-income Americans and, more important, the individual mandate -- the requirement that almost every adult American purchase health insurance.

“I think it would be very, very devastating if that individual requirement to purchase health care was struck,” said Chris Jennings, a health care policy advisor to President Bill Clinton and a former Senate Democratic aide. 

It might have an effect on Democrats in this fall’s election -- perhaps motivating them even more to vote.

Recommended: House votes to repeal key 'Obamacare' provision

But for independent voters, Jennings said, if the justices strike down the law, it will validate the view of “those who accused this law of being a government over-reach” and will change the debate for the 2012 campaign from being a clash over Medicare and entitlements -- issues on which the Democrats think they have an advantage in public opinion -- to a debate over the Affordable Care Act. The key piece of the law, the individual mandate, remains highly unpopular, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation Health Tracking Poll and other polls.

Democratic lawyer Joe Onek, the former senior counsel to ex-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, contended that the challenges to the law are “frivolous.” But if that’s the case, he asked, “Why all the concern? Why all the fuss? I can give you the answer to that in three ominous words: Bush vs. Gore”-- the high court’s ruling in the 2000 Florida election dispute -- which most Democrats saw as an unprincipled and partisan meddling in the election.

Related: Individual mandate will be in Supreme Court spotlight

Apart from its effect on Congress, the justices’ ruling, which will likely come in June, will have an effect on the high court’s reputation.

Georgetown University law professor Randy Barnett, who worked on the National Federation of Independent Business suit challenging the individual mandate, said “the unpopularity of the law gives the Supreme Court the opportunity to evaluate fairly the valid constitutional objections … without fear of a popular backlash.”

He added the justices “can decide the case on the merits -- they don’t have to worry that the legitimacy of the court will be somehow undermined should they decide to strike the mandate down.”

But Neal Katyal, who served as acting solicitor general in the Obama administration and defended the law in the federal appeals courts, argued for judicial restraint -- “the unelected Supreme Court shouldn’t be taking democratic decisions away from the people.”

Here are the most likely rulings the court may hand down and what might be the aftermath of each:

Scenario 1: If the court strikes down the individual mandate and also decides that it is not legally severable from the rest of the statute, then the entire Affordable Care Act will be invalidated. Congress would then face the task of writing a new law, if enough members in each house wanted to address some of the problems that led to the health care overhaul in the first place, such as people with pre-existing medical conditions being denied coverage. “What is remaining in the law after the court rules -- if they in any way alter it -- is going to be very difficult to fix or to change,” Jennings said. That will be partly due to the partisan divide in Congress and partly due to the pressing need for Congress to take action on the national debt, continued federal deficits, and an overhaul of the tax system.

Scenario 2: If the court were to strike down the individual mandate, but decide that that provision is legally severable from the rest of the law, then the remaining provisions would stay in effect: for example, the law’s tax credits for low- and middle-income people to buy insurance, and the state-based insurance marketplaces or “exchanges,” at least in the states that are cooperating with the law.

But the expectation among groups that have filed friend-of-the-court briefs is that if the justices rule the individual mandate invalid, they will also strike down the law’s insurance market reforms, such as the requirement that insurance companies not refuse coverage to seriously ill people with high medical costs.

 "Frankly, no one knows what would happen” in a scenario in which the justices strike down the mandate but leave the rest of the law intact, said medical economist Larry Levitt, a former health policy official in the Clinton administration who is now at the Kaiser Family Foundation.  “This is not an experiment that we’ve done before.”

Jennings said politically “it may be virtually impossible” to fix the remainder of the law if the individual mandate is struck down because congressional consensus wouldn’t exist.

“The environment in which those conversations are likely to take place … will be so poisoned” that it will be difficult for members of each party to draw back from the hardline positions they’ve taken, said Sheila Burke, former chief of staff to Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole, who now teaches at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government.

A possible congressional response to the court striking down the mandate, Levitt said, is that Congress could replace the mandate with a tax. The revenues would be used to subsidize health insurance for people with medical conditions who had difficulty buying insurance. “This would be, I think, the simplest approach and the cleanest and most effective,” said Levitt. But in 2010 congressional Democrats were averse to calling the health insurance mandate a tax and it’s doubtful there would be enough votes in the House to pass such a tax, even if the Democrats are back in majority in 2013.

Scenario 3: The justices uphold the entire law. This is the outcome many Democratic lawyers expect. If this happens, then for opponents of the law “it will be an incentive to essentially re-fight all of the individual elements point by point,” said Burke. “You might imagine most at risk might be the individual mandate, the employer mandates, the Medicaid expansion … There is a list of individual items that you might imagine people (in Congress) will try to go after. They will go piecemeal -- from the left and from the right -- trying to alter what’s in place. So I don’t think we can assume that people will simply say ‘All right, the court has decided let’s move on.’ I think those fights will continue.”

One challenge in carrying out the law, if it is upheld, is the huge expansion of the Medicaid-eligible population, with 17 million more Americans able to get benefits. Gail Wilensky, former health care advisor to President George H.W. Bush, points out the newly-eligible people are highly concentrated in the southern states. For example, Louisiana will have 37 percent of its population on Medicaid, she said, adding, “How in the world are we going to get services to all these people?” Some states “likely to be overwhelmed with new people” on Medicaid.

But if Republicans win the 2012 election and control the Senate, then some of the provisions of the law -- such as the Medicaid expansion -- could be overturned using the same reconciliation procedure Senate Democrats used to enact them.

Mark McClellan, who served as Medicare and Medicaid director under President George W. Bush, said that if the law is upheld, the unpopularity of the individual mandate might lead Congress to consider delaying the penalties for not buying insurance, or perhaps come up with a different approach to spurring younger healthier people into buying insurance, such as lower premiums for the uninsured who enroll at a younger age and a penalty for those who wait to buy insurance.

Beginning Monday, the Supreme Court devotes three days in the courtroom to the titanic legal battle over the Affordable Care Act, the Obama administration’s landmark health care law.  The justices will hear a remarkable six hours of oral argument, the most attention given to a single act of Congress in nearly half a century.

The showdown comes two years, almost to the day, after it was signed into law on March 23, 2010. "The bill I'm signing will set in motion reforms that generations of Americans have fought for, and marched for, and hungered to see," President Barack Obama declared at the White House ceremony.

Related: Health care ruling could send fight back to Congress

But his signature also set in motion a flurry of legal challenges that worked their way through the federal courts at the same time some provisions of the new law were taking effect.

Here's what to expect on next week:

Though the lawyers begin their presentations Monday, the main event actually comes Tuesday, March 27, when the court hears two hours of argument over the constitutionality of the "individual mandate," which requires virtually all Americans to buy health insurance for the rest of their lives.

The parties agree that Congress has never before compelled nearly every citizen to buy something on the private market. The issue is whether the Constitution's grant of the power "to regulate commerce" gives Congress such sweeping authority.   

“The Affordable Care Act,” argues the Justice Department in its brief defending the law, “creates an incentive for individuals to finance their participation in the health care market by means of insurance, the customary way of paying for health care in this country.”

Nationwide commerce is implicated, the government says, because the 50 million Americans who lack insurance pay only about a third of their health care costs. The unpaid amount is shifted to those who do have coverage, increasing the average premium for insured families by more than $1,000 a year.

Says Neal Katyal, a former Obama administration deputy solicitor general, “Congress found that everyone is going to consume health care at some point in their lives, and it needed to regulate the financing for it to make sure that people essentially had enough money, once they got sick, to be able to pay for it.”

But 26 states and the National Federation of Independent Business argue that the Constitution gives Congress the power to regulate only individuals actually engaged in commerce. By their logic, Congress can regulate those who already have health insurance but not those who lack coverage and are therefore outside the stream of commerce.

“Forcing people into commerce does not regulate commerce. Otherwise, Congress could compel the purchase of any product,” says Michael Carvin, a Washington, D.C., lawyer representing the business group.

“Congress’s power to regulate interstate commerce does not remotely authorize it to regulate individuals whose defining characteristic is their commercial non-participation,” he says.

Representing the 26 states challenging the law, former Bush administration solicitor general Paul Clement compares it to the federal government’s “Cash for Clunkers” program, which provided an incentive to buy newer, more fuel-efficient cars.

“Why fool around with incentives if you could just force people above a certain income level to just go buy a car?” he asks. “If Congress can do this with health insurance, Congress presumably could do this in all sorts of markets where it would be very convenient to force people to engage in commerce.”

The court begins the week Monday by considering whether the legal challenges can be heard now, or if the justices are blocked from taking up the issue by the Anti-Injunction act, a federal law passed almost 150 years ago. That law bars the courts from hearing challenges to new taxes before they take effect. The health care law imposes a penalty on anyone who doesn't buy health insurance, to be paid at tax time and collected by the Internal Revenue Service. 

The court will therefore consider whether the health care law imposes what amounts to a tax and, if so, whether the challengers must wait a few more years until the Affordable Care Act is fully in force, including the mandatory insurance provision. 

Kicking the issue down the road might be attractive to some -- perhaps even some of the justices -- who don't want the decision becoming an issue in an active presidential race or who don’t want the campaign complicating the decision. But both the challengers and the Obama administration urge the court to find that it's simply a penalty, not a tax, and decide the case now.

On Wednesday, the court takes up two other questions. If it finds the health insurance requirement is unconstitutional, can it be severed from the Affordable Care Act so that the rest of the law would be allowed survive?  And do the law’s new Medicaid provisions push the states too far?

Both the states and the business group claim that Congress would not have passed the law without the minimum insurance coverage provision.  “Insurance companies would remain free to turn away millions of the very same uninsured individuals to whom the Act promised insurance,” says the legal brief for the states.

But the Justice Department points out that many of the Act’s provisions are already in effect, two years before the insurance mandate takes effect in 2014.  “That time lag,” the government said, “establishes conclusively that much of the act operates independently.”

As for Medicaid, the states claim that Congress has treaded over a constitutional line by requiring them to widen coverage under the federal-state program that funds health care for the needy.  The Affordable Care Act expands eligibility to many under 65 who earn up to 133 percent of the poverty level. 

While Congress has broad authority to set conditions on how states spend federal money, the states argue that the expense of expanding coverage will force them to make an impossible choice: either continue to participate in Medicaid and incur billions in new expenses or drop out of Medicaid completely. Such a take-it-or-leave-it mandate, they claim, gives the federal government the power to compel them to pay for Medicaid expansion, violating the Constitution’s limits on federal power over the states.

The Obama administration, however, maintains that the Medicaid expansion is only the latest in a series of changes in the program.  The federal government will pay all of the additional costs at first.  By 2020, the states must pick up ten percent of the additional expense, which the administration says is less than their usual contribution rate under the program.

If the court gets past the Anti-Injunction Act question and goes to the heart of the health care issue, which most legal experts believe it will, a decision will probably come three months from now, in late June.   

Legal experts widely expect that the court’s liberal-minded  justices: Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor, and Elena Kagan -- will vote to uphold the act.  And Justice Clarence Thomas, who views the Commerce Clause power as a very limited, will almost certainly vote to strike it down.

The liberal arm might find a fifth vote from Justice Anthony Kennedy.  But even the opponents of the law say the vote of Justice Antonin Scalia may be in play. He has joined the court’s majorities in past decisions that read the Constitution’s commerce power very broadly. 

By NBC's Anna Tuman and Natalie Cucchiara

The February totals are in for the presidential campaigns but where’s all the money going? Today’s Deep Dive takes a closer look at FEC filings from the Romney, Gingrich, Santorum and Obama presidential campaigns to see where big campaign money is being spent.

Check out the top five expenditures (disbursements) for the each of the campaigns and top Super PACs in the past month below, and for a full report watch Chuck's Deep Dive segment from today.

Newt 2012 (largest disbursements):
1. INFOCISION -- 488,493.29
2. Moby Dick Airways LTD -- 200,200.00
3. PATRIOT GROUP -- 174,979.81
4. GINGRICH, NEWT -- 156,360.68
5. SOUTHWEST PUBLISHING -- 149,491.49

WINNING OUR FUTURE
1. Norman B Cummings (consultant/research) -- 135,000.00
2. Gregg A. Phillips (consultant/strategic planning) -- 30,852.00
3. Richard Tyler (consultant/media) -- 26,977.94
4. Rebecca Burkett (consultant/exec. management) -- 23,505.12
5. VHH Consult, LLC -- $11,734

MITT ROMNEY
1. AMERICAN RAMBLER PRODUCTIONS LLC --3,493,868.37
2. SJZ LLC -- 1,634,509.00
3. FLS CONNECT LLC -- 1,140,663.49
4. TARGETED VICTORY -- 1,135,000.00
5. SCM ASSOCIATES INC. -- 446,513.32

About each group:
American Rambler Productions: company that manages Romney’s advertising, production and media buying
SJZ LLC: consulting group
FLS Connect: helps campaigns with fundraising, voter & constituent contact and data
Targeted Victory: Republican digital strategic consulting firm
SCM Associates Inc.: Republican fundraising and direct-response firm

RESTORE OUR FUTURE
1. NMB Research (survey research) -- 449,000.00
2. TargetPoint Consulting (survey research) -- 95,250.00
3. Visa BankCard Center (Credit Card Payment) -- 8,813.32
4. Groundwork Communications (research) -- 8,572.00
5. Black Rock Group LLC (communications, consulting) --  3,004.99

RICK SANTORUM
1. BRABENDER COX -- 3,289,063.76
2. MDI IMAGING & MAIL -- 628,104.37
3. THE PROSPER GROUP -- 604,182.39
4. EMOTIVE LLC -- 565,612.11
5. NEW STREAM MARKETING STRATEGIES INC -- 418,651.00

About each group:
Brabender Cox: PR/Media firm for campaigns (owned by chief Santorum strategist John Brabender)
MDI Imaging and Mail: mail production firm
The Prosper Group: makes websites
Emotive LLC: online marketing
New Stream Marking strategies Inc.: advertising/marketing firm

RED WHITE & BLUE FUND
1. American Viewpoint (public opinion research) -- 79,560.00
2. Global Intermediate LLC (voter ID phone calls) -- 67,757.84
3. Stuart Roy (media relations services) -- 10,000.00
4. SRCP Media (advertising production costs/consultant shipping expenses) -- 6283.22
5. Piryx, Inc. (Credit Card Processing) -- 4060.18

BARACK OBAMA
1. Bully Pulpit Interactive LLC -- 2,957,819.64
2. AB Data -- 2,680,127.73
3. ADP -- 1,139,157.79
4. Blue State Digital, LLC -- 353,403.36
5. Perkins Coie -- 317,707.53

About each group:
Bully Pulpit Interactive LLC: marketing group
AB Data:  fundraising group
ADP: human resources/payroll services
Blue State Digital, LLC: online fundraising group.
Perkins Coie: attorneys

PRIORITIES ACTION USA
1. PayChex, Inc (payroll) -- 68,054.89
2. Shorr Johnson Magnus (production costs) -- 37,158.00
3. Peter D. Hart Research Associates (pollster) -- 28,000.00
4. Paul Begala (consultant/strategist) -- 20,000.00
5. GSG Communications (website maintenance) --10,000.00

SAN ANTONIO, TX -- Rick Santorum today suggested it would be better to stick with President Obama over a candidate that might be "the Etch A Sketch candidate of the future” -- a shot at chief rival Mitt Romney.

"You win by giving people the opportunity to see a different vision for our country, not someone who’s just going to be a little different than the person in there," said Santorum. "If you’re going to be a little different, we might as well stay with what we have instead of taking a risk with what may be the Etch A Sketch candidate of the future.”

For the second day in a row, the former Pennsylvania senator brought an Etch A Sketch on the trail as a prop to remind voters of Romney adviser Eric Fehrnstrom's response to a question about whether Santorum is pushing Romney too far right to win over moderate voters in a general election. "Well, I think you hit a reset button for the fall campaign. Everything changes," Fehrnstrom said Wednesday on CNN. "It’s almost like an Etch A Sketch. You can kind of shake it up and restart all over again."

The comment gave plenty of ammunition to Santorum and Newt Gingrich, both of whom have made the well-known children's toy a staple of their stump speeches.

Speaking at the USAA headquarters here, Santorum showed optimism about his chances in the delegate rich state of Texas. He told the crowd the primary would not be over by the time the Lone Star State votes on May 29.

"It's the second-biggest delegate prize, and you're going to have an important role. This race will not be over when Texas is coming around," he said.

Santorum's viability hinges on picking up a majority of the 155 delegates that will be up for grabs here. When asked about his path to the nomination, Texas plays a key role.

Still, the GOP hopeful avoided calling on Newt Gingrich to leave the race, though senior campaign advisers have said the former House speaker remaining in the race is cutting into their vote totals and that they would like to receive the former House speaker's support.

Santorum said his campaign has been in contact with both the Gingrich and Romney campaigns, though he declined to give specifics of the conversations.

"I’m worried about being a candidate. I’m not worried about anything else right now,” Santorum told reporters who asked about the nature of the conversations.

Accompanying Santorum on the trail today was billionaire-backer Foster Freiss, who is a chief contributor to the pro-Santorum Super PAC Red, White and Blue Fund. They will attend a fundraiser in Dallas on Thursday afternoon.

*** UPDATE *** The Romney camp responds with this statement from the former Massachusetts governor: “I am in this race to defeat Barack Obama and restore America’s promise. I was disappointed to hear that Rick Santorum would rather have Barack Obama as president than a Republican. This election is more important than any one person. It is about the future of America. Any of the Republicans running would be better than President Obama and his record of failure.”

The Senate on Thursday sent President Barack Obama a scaled-down bill to explicitly ban members of Congress, the president and thousands of other federal workers from profiting from nonpublic information learned on the job.

Obama has said he would sign the bill.

In an unusual move, the legislation passed unanimously without a vote on the measure itself. Passage was automatically triggered by a procedural motion that was approved on a 96-3 vote. The lawmakers who voted no were Republican Sens. Tom Coburn of Oklahoma, Richard Burr of North Carolina and Charles Grassley of Iowa.

Related: House votes to repeal key 'Obamacare' provision  

The bill would give the public a more frequent look at financial transactions of government officials. A driving force has been Congress' focus on its own dismal approval ratings, which ranged from 12 to 19 percent in polls over the last several weeks.

Public reports would be posted online either 30 days after the individual was notified of a transaction in his or her account or 45 days after the transaction. The House currently posts disclosure information on the Internet, but the Senate still requires people seeking the data to appear personally in a Senate office building.

Both the House and Senate overwhelmingly have approved separate versions of the STOCK Act, which stands for Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge. A segment on CBS' "60 Minutes" in November said that members of Congress were profiting from inside information, giving new impetus to legislation that had languished for years.

Lacking enough votes, Majority Leader Harry Reid abandoned the Senate's own, stronger bill and decided to accept the House legislation, which stripped out two key provisions from the bill that originally passed the Senate.

One was designed to strengthen criminal laws in public corruption cases, including restoration of tools used by prosecutors that were limited by a Supreme Court ruling.

The second, which was more controversial, would have required registration and public reports — similar to those filed by lobbyists — by anyone selling inside information learned from members of Congress and their staffs.

Opponents of regulating so-called political intelligence operatives substituted a study to learn more about individuals and firms collecting and selling information.

Federal officials, including members of Congress, are not excluded from federal laws prohibiting insider trading. But there is little public information showing that members of Congress have been investigated.

Recently, it was learned the Office of Congressional Ethics was looking at the trading activities of Rep. Spencer Bachus, R-Ala. In the two months surrounding the 2008 financial collapse and subsequent $700 billion economic bailout passed by Congress, Bachus made more than three dozen trades. The OCE is an independent ethics office of the House, run by a board outside of Congress.

Bachus, now chairman of the House Financial Services Committee but then the panel's senior Republican under a Democratic chairman, participated in closed briefings on the crisis by Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and then-Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson. He's denied using inside information, and subsequent records show he incurred a net loss of $19,490.

Bachus has denied any wrongdoing.

The bill has a number of additional provisions, including one major exemption. The frequent reporting will not include transactions in widely held investment funds that are publicly traded, have diversified assets and are not controlled by the covered government official.

The bill also adds stronger ethical and legal provisions.

It would deny federal retirement benefits to the president, vice president or an elected official of a state or local government convicted of certain felonies. It also would prohibit senior executives of mortgage giants Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac from receiving bonuses while the companies are under government control. And it would expand the definition of public corruption crimes and increase maximum penalties.

It also requires officials to disclose the mortgages on their primary residences, a provision that has been exempt from reporting requirements.

Legislation to help startup companies raise capital by reducing some federal regulations has easily passed the Senate despite warnings from some Democrats that less government oversight would mean more abuse and scams.

Related: House votes to repeal key 'Obamacare' provision 

President Barack Obama supports the measure, which stands to be one of few bipartisan bills to pass Congress during this politically contentious election year.

Democrats pushed through an amendment designed to increase investor protections, so the legislation will still require either another House vote or House-Senate negotiations. The House passed the measure two weeks ago on a 390-23 vote. All 26 negative votes in the Senate came from Democrats.

Recommended: Obama, on site, praises development of portion of oil pipeline 

The legislation combines six smaller bills that change Securities and Exchange Commission rules so small businesses can attract investors and go public with less red tape and cost.

The House voted Thursday to repeal a central provision of the 2010 health care overhaul, the Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB).

The vote was 223 to 181, with seven Democrats voting with most Republicans to abolish IPAB. Ten Republicans voted against the effort to kill IPAB.

The board’s job is to propose cost-saving changes to Medicare if per capita spending on that program exceeds a target, the national income growth rate, plus 1 percent. The IPAB changes would automatically take effect unless Congress blocked them or enacted its own cost-saving measures.

The House vote took place only four days before the Supreme Court begins hearing oral arguments on the constitutionality of other provision of the 2010 law.

Thursday’s vote will have little more than a symbolic election-year effect since if the Senate were to vote on IPAB, Democrats have enough votes to keep it alive.

And the board, which is supposed to have 15 members with expertise in medical care and economics, still exists only on paper: President Obama has not yet nominated anyone to serve on it. Its members are subject to Senate confirmation.

But the White House has issued a veto threat against the House bill, saying it would dismantle IPAB “even before it has a chance to work. The bill would eliminate an important safeguard that… will help reduce the rate of Medicare cost growth responsibly while protecting Medicare beneficiaries….”

The 2010 Affordable Care Act which created the board, says IPAB can’t ration care, restrict benefits, increase the premiums Medicare recipients must pay, or alter the eligibility for Medicare. But it can limit or change payments to doctors, hospitals, hospices, and other providers.

After the vote, the chief proponent of IPAB, Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D- W.V., issued a statement denouncing the move to abolish it.

“Today’s House vote is a good example of what happens when special interests win – seniors lose,” he said. “The Independent Payment Advisory Board was created to protect Medicare for seniors – by improving the quality of Medicare services and by extending the life of Medicare for years to come." 

In House debate Wednesday, Rep. Sander Levin, D- Mich., defended IPAB, saying, “For conservatives who talk about the importance of cost containment, they want to repeal an act that has within it not only the seeds of cost containment, but the instrumentalities of it. In fact, they’re beginning to work well enough. That’s why CBO (Congressional Budget Office) says that it’s going to be 10 years before IPAB is triggered.”

But Rep. Dan Lungren, R- Calif., said, “The idea that 15 unelected individuals on the Independent Payment Advisory Board have been empowered by the so-called Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act to ration health care for seniors—and that’s for all seniors— is as Orwellian as these titles crafted by the previous Congress to divert attention from what’s really being done here.”

He said that IPAB “raises the most serious ethical concerns about respect for the dignity of our seniors. This is the unfortunate consequence of a world view which favors the notion of bureaucratic expertise and efficiency as a solution to the challenges facing our health care system today.”

The House bill also included a provision to impose a $250,000 cap on noneconomic damages and to limit the contingency fees lawyers can charge in medical malpractice cases.

CUSHING, OK -- Surrounded by massive green pipes that will eventually make up part of the Keystone oil pipeline, President Obama today praised the decision by TransCanada to move forward with the southern portion of the controversial energy project.

"Right now, a company called TransCanada has applied to build a new pipeline to speed more oil from Cushing to state-of-the-art refineries down on the Gulf Coast," Obama said in Cushing, OK. "And today, I am directing my administration to cut through red tape, break through bureaucratic hurdles, and make this project a priority."

Obama also used the occasion to announce that he is instructing federal agencies to expedite the permitting process for the Cushing pipeline as well as an executive order for agencies to overall issue permits faster for “vital infrastructure projects.”

Mandel Ngan / AFP - Getty Images

President Obama talks about his administration's energy efforts on Thursday in Cushing, Okla.

Since news of this announcement broke on Tuesday, Republicans have slammed the move as an attempt to take ownership of a process over which the White House has no actual authority.

“The president can take credit for having nothing to do with the bottom half of this pipeline, and the fact is is there's only one permit that requires his approval because it crosses our national boundaries and that's the keystone decision on the upper half of this," House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) said at a press conference on Capitol Hill.

Republicans have been vocal in their criticism of the Obama administration for not moving forward with the full pipeline; the administration declined earlier this year to approve a permit request that would have allowed for the construction of the full, transnational oil pipeline.

Obama said in Cushing that he would continue pushing for oil exploration and development, but he would seek to "do it in a way that protects the health and safety of the American people."

"We don't have to choose between one or the other," he said, "We can do both."

But the White House on Wednesday provided an unclear picture of which agencies specifically would have authority to expedite the procedure for the TransCanada route and other pipelines.

Asked during a flight from Washington, D.C. to Nevada, where the president spoke earlier Wednesday, press secretary Jay Carney told reporters, “I just don’t have those details handy for you” when asked which agencies are involved in such processes.

Senior administration officials were later asked the same question on a conference call, as a reporter mentioned the Department of Fish and Wildlife and the Army Corps of Engineers as two agencies that might be involved.

One official said that permitting and review requirements would depend on the specific route and details of each pipeline plan but that “the agencies you suggested are in line with our best estimate.”

After his speech in Cushing, President Obama flew to Columbus, Ohio to make a speech on energy research and development at Ohio State University.

Michael O'Brien contributed

Jeff Haynes / Reuters

Republican presidential candidate and former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney speaks at his Illinois primary night rally in Schaumburg, Illinois, March 20, 2012.

Yesterday’s feeding frenzy highlights these problems for Romney: He gets no benefit of the doubt… And he doesn’t have a base that will defend him when the going gets tough… Overshadowed by all the attention to “Etch A Sketch”: Romney’s TARP comment… Romney campaign goes up with new TV ad in Wisconsin… Gingrich admits he’ll come in 3^rd place in GOP race… Day 2 of Obama’s energy swing… And defending dysfunction.

*** Not getting the benefit of the doubt: While the Romney campaign finds itself mired in yet another feeding frenzy over a top aide’s “Etch A Sketch” comment, it is important to take a step back here. One, Romney never said the remark (senior adviser Eric Fehrnstrom did). And two, a lot more good for the campaign happened yesterday (aftermath of winning Illinois, getting Jeb Bush’s endorsement) than bad (“Etch A Sketch”). Yet the feeding frenzy highlights a bigger problem for Romney, especially as we begin transitioning to the general election: He gets almost no benefit of the doubt. Every gaffe becomes a story; every mistake become fodder for late-night comedians. And more importantly, this is what happens when you don’t have a solid base of support that can serve as a cocoon of protection during the toughest of times. Successful presidential candidates (Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama) had grassroots supporters rushing to their defense, even in the toughest of political times. Romney -- right now -- doesn’t have this. In fact, it was notable during yesterday’s “Etch A Sketch” controversy that we didn’t see many prominent conservatives railing against media bias or unfairness. Instead, they were either standing on the sidelines or piling on. And that’s a problem for Romney.

*** Shake it up: But a silver lining to Team Romney’s day yesterday: His Republican rivals jumped on the “Etch A Sketch” remark so fast and so gleefully that there was almost an air of desperation to it. Both Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich understand that the math and momentum isn’t on their side, and their critique yesterday -- that Romney isn’t a true conservative and he’ll become the moderate Romney, circa 2003, in a general election -- is their last-ditch effort to stop him.

*** Romney’s TARP comment: Strikingly, both Santorum and Gingrich jumped on the “Etch A Sketch” remark, but they missed a more substantive opportunity to pounce on Romney’s conservative credentials -- over his full-throated defense of TARP yesterday. “There was a concern in this country that all the banks were going to go out of business. That there was going to be run on the banks,” Romney said yesterday. “In that circumstance, President Bush and Hank Paulson said we've got to do something to show we're not going to let the whole system go out of business. I think they were right. I know some people disagree with me. I think they were right to do that." Romney then added, “I keep hearing the president say that he's responsible for keeping America from going into a Great Depression. No, no, no. That was President George W. Bush and Hank Paulson that stepped in and kept that from happening.” So a defense of the bailouts from Romney, but also an attempt to take credit away from the president as the economy recovers. We’ll see if that works.

*** Romney’s new TV ad in Wisconsin: Perhaps in response to yesterday’s kerfuffle, Team Romney is going up with a new TV ad in Wisconsin that highlights his conservative credentials; in fact, the ad is called “Conservative Record.” In the ad, Romney says, “I spent my career in the private sector. In Massachusetts, when I came in we faced almost a three billion dollar budget gap. And there were some that said why don’t we just raise taxes. Or why don’t we just borrow money? We actually cut spending. I balanced the budget every single year and by the time I left we had established over two billion dollars of a rainy day fund.” Yet here’s what Romney DOES NOT mention in the ad: His administration balanced the budget, in part, by raising revenues and fees.  

*** How to stop a candidate’s momentum: Yet if Romney and his campaign want to know why they’ve had a harder-than-expected time wrapping up the GOP nomination and putting away Rick Santorum and Newt Gingrich, part of the answer can be found in their bathroom mirrors. Indeed, every time they’ve had momentum in this Republican race, they’ve committed a gaffe highlighting a chief Romney weakness. So right before Romney’s blow-out win in New Hampshire, the candidate uttered the words, “I like being able to fire people” and “There were a couple of times I wondered if I was going to get a pink slip.” Right after Romney’s big win in Florida, he told CNN, “I’m not concerned about the very poor.” And then yesterday, senior adviser Eric Fehrnstrom said this in response to a question about whether the GOP primary has forced Romney too far to the right: "Well, I think you hit a reset button for the fall campaign. Everything changes. It’s almost like an Etch A Sketch. You can kind of shake it up and restart all over again."

*** Out-Drudging Drudge: We’ll make one final point about yesterday’s “Etch A Sketch” story: The first to capitalize on it was the liberal site Think Progress. In fact, liberal and progressives have begun to out-Drudge Drudge (which has been VERY friendly to Team Romney during this campaign) when it comes to pushing out oppo and amplifying gaffes. By the way, are we really at the portion of the campaign that the political community is simply in search of the next gaffe to generate the next feeding frenzy? The most striking thing about this cycle -- compared to other ones -- is the concerted effort by EVERY SINGLE campaign and by EVERY SINGLE entity related to politics to create the “next viral moment.” The campaigns do it big time, the partisans do it and have sophisticated tracking operations, and even the press gets caught up in it. It’s the campaign in front of us, and it’s become a vicious cycle.

*** Gingrich admits he’ll come in third: Newt Gingrich said this in an interview with NPR, per NBC’s John Bailey: “Santorum's not going to get to a majority. I'm probably going to come in third with-- in terms of total delegates. But the question is, until Romney actually has an absolute majority, I don't think anybody is inclined to give him the nomination.” More: “I think the possibility is very real that we could get to an open convention. I think in an open convention, nobody knows what it would produce and in that process, I may well end up being there as the nominee or having a significant influence on the nominee.”

*** On the trail, per NBC’s Adam Perez: Santorum heads to Dallas, TX for a fundraiser…Gingrich stumps in Louisiana, making a stop in Houma and later participating in a Tea Party Presidential forum and straw poll in Baton Rouge… Romney is off the campaign trail.

*** Day 2 of Obama’s energy swing: While Romney had a rough day yesterday, President Obama’s trip out West to promote energy hasn’t been a smashing success, either. First, critics panned Obama for speaking for just 10 minutes while in New Mexico yesterday -- before moving on to Oklahoma. Second, a new Gallup poll shows that a majority of Americans (57%) say the U.S. government should approve of the Keystone XL Pipeline. Obama again talks energy in Cushing, OK at 10:55 am ET and in Columbus, OH at 4:25 pm ET.

*** Team Obama’s memo on Medicare, Social Security: Meanwhile, the Obama campaign is out with this new memo – from Harvard economist David Cutler -- pegged to the release of Paul Ryan’s latest budget. “President Obama believes that every American, after a lifetime of work, should be able to look forward to the security and dignity these programs assure. In contrast, plans from Mitt Romney, Paul Ryan and other Republicans would end Medicare as we know it and devastate Social Security, under the guise of saving them -- even as they propose trillions in tax cuts tilted to the most fortunate. On Friday, Vice President Biden will discuss the importance of protecting Social Security and Medicare in Florida, a state where Social Security and Medicare beneficiaries make up about 20 percent of the population.”

*** Defending dysfunction: Last night at the Bipartisan Policy Center’s tribute to two great American statesmen -- former Senate Majority Leaders Howard Baker and Bob Dole -- there was a lot of talk about the “good old days” of finding common ground when the senate “worked.” In fact, it was those moments where Dole and Baker worked across the aisle that were lionized last night, as they usually are for ANY politician of ANY party. You’ll rarely find a politician that won’t want THOSE moments talked about before others. There were a slew of speakers at the tribute, mostly ex-senators -- from Vice President Biden (who was very good and surprisingly short) to Bill Frist to Tom Daschle -- to current ones like Pat Roberts (who brought the house down) and of course the two CURRENT senate leaders, Harry Reid and Mitch McConnell. And it was THEIR remarks that deserve highlighting. Both clearly realized they were walking into a lion’s den of ex-senators who whisper complaints about the current senators REGULARLY around town. Their remarks were as much about defending the Senate’s current dysfunction by claiming the two of them are really friends and that they do somehow get things done. They tried their best but judging by the response afterwards, there weren’t a lot of believers.

Countdown to Louisiana primary: 2 days
Countdown to DC, Maryland, Wisconsin primaries: 12 days
Countdown to Election Day: 229 days

Click here to sign up for First Read emails.
Text FIRST to 622639, to sign up for First Read alerts to your mobile phone.
Check us out on Facebook and also on Twitter. Follow us @chucktodd, @mmurraypolitics, @DomenicoNBC, @brookebrower

It's a good thing the GOP presidential race slows down from here: The candidates are even more tired than the voters. And, boy, does it show.

Mitt Romney, who scaled back his public schedule this week to get a break, has slept in his own bed just twice since Christmas. Rick Santorum's been making the kind of flubs that come with exhaustion. Newt Gingrich got caught sleeping on camera a few weeks back, and looked like he just might topple over.

And then there's 76-year-old Ron Paul, last in the delegate hunt. The oldest candidate in the race, Paul is running a campaign that's a study in Ever. So. Slow. Pacing.

Recommended: Santorum gave paid speeches during presidential campaign 

Maybe that's why he seemed so chipper when he turned up on the "The Tonight Show" this week, chatting about an exercise regimen that "helps my brain relax" while the other candidates were scrambling for every last vote in Illinois.

Does it matter if the candidates are exhausted? Oh, yeah.

That's when they make mistakes, get testy and lose perspective. At best, they may just seem to be off stride, muffing key lines and sounding, well, tired.

That can hurt, especially in an election year when the president is able to cruise into the general election without a primary fight. Barack Obama's still got a country to run, and he's already scheduling lots of fundraisers, but it's nothing like the pace of his opponents.

In an odd sort of way, there can be an upside to the brutal grind of campaign life.

"You do get the snot beaten out of you," Rep. Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann said after she dropped out of the race earlier this year. But she went on to say that it's a good way to sort out the very toughest candidates for "the toughest job in the world."

"It made me a better person," she said.

Recommended: Romney says he'll run as conservative amid 'Etch A Sketch' gaffe 

Small comfort to Romney, Santorum and Gingrich, who have been slogging through the week-in, week-out grind of primaries, fundraisers, town halls, interviews, hotel rooms and airplane food.

"I woke up this morning and found I did not have any shirts that would be appropriate for a fundraiser, so I had to wash my shirt out in the sink," Romney confessed Tuesday, in an interview sandwiched between a Chicago fundraiser and an Illinois victory party. "And then I thought, 'How am I going to get this thing dried fast enough?' So I got the iron out. It took me about 20 minutes to iron it dry. The collar is finally dry."

Dee Dee Myers, Bill Clinton's press secretary during the 1992 campaign and then at the White House, recalls that Clinton "made all of his worst mistakes when he was tired."

"But when every primary feels like a single-elimination contest, you can't afford to take a day off," she said.

Overall, Myers said, Romney seems to showing the stamina of the "Energizer bunny." But she said the Republicans also seem to be suffering from a lack of "message discipline" as they dart from one event to the next without taking time to think through exactly what they want voters to hear.

"That's probably a function of getting tired," she said.

After Saturday's voting in Louisiana, the candidates get a 10-day break before Washington, D.C., Maryland and Wisconsin hold primaries on April 3. That's a welcome respite, but there still will be ads to cut, supporters to cajole, money to raise and all the rest.

The lighter schedule is coming none too soon.

Santorum, Romney's chief rival, has had to backpedal on a series of ill-thought remarks in recent days, prompting him to wish for a "do-over" after saying the unemployment rate wasn't a crucial issue to his campaign.

Some missteps aren't all that surprising when a recent — and typical — campaign day for Santorum had events or interviews scheduled for 8 a.m., 9:05 a.m., 9:15 a.m. 10 a.m., 10:20 a.m., 11:30 a.m., 2 p.m., 5 p.m. and 7:30 p.m., in seven cities in Illinois and Missouri, followed by a late-night flight in stormy weather to Louisiana for church services the next morning.

"At the age of 53, with seven children ages 20 to 3, it's not exactly the best time to be going out and running for president of the United States," he said last weekend in Effingham, Ill. He'll sometimes sprint home to McLean, Va., for less than a day of down time with his family before revving back up for another long stretch of campaigning.

Santorum will catch a break wherever he can get one. That left him apologizing last week after a less-than-flattering photo surfaced of him asnooze, shirtless, in a chaise lounge during a campaign stop in Puerto Rico.

"I'm sure that's not a pretty sight," he allowed.

Gingrich appears to still be working on perfecting the power nap.

Earlier this month he drifted off, on camera, while waiting for his turn to address a live-streamed meeting of a pro-Israel lobby.

"I understand you have a panel," he told the moderator as he snapped open his eyes. "I look forward to any questions."

An awkward pause ensued while Gingrich waited for questions.

"Mr. Speaker, there is not a panel," the moderator informed him. "Please do continue, sir."

Gingrich may have done himself more good by staying up until 2 a.m. dancing with his wife, Callista, at a hotel lounge in Jackson, Miss., a few days later.

The former House speaker later pronounced it great fun, and called it a "two-hour vacation."

Early on, Gingrich caught grief for taking a couple weeks off the campaign to take his wife on a Mediterranean cruise, and he still gets home many weekends to rest and attend Callista's Sunday choir performances, but he's put in his share of late nights campaigning.

And that's when he's prone to loosen up and get a little punchy, producing what reporters call "late-night Newt" performances.

On one recent evening, Gingrich tested out possible bumper sticker and T-shirt slogans, such as "With Newt, Drill Here, Pay Less," and "Barack Obama, Pay More, Pay Weird."

Romney, for his part, savors the rare chance to sleep in his own bed.

"Oh, boy, we're headed home," he said earlier this month when the primary calendar gave him a pit stop in his home state of Massachusetts after two straight months on the road.

He knew it wouldn't last, though.

"Tomorrow, we wake up and we start again. And the next day, we'll do the same," Romney said. "And so we'll go, day by day, step by step, door by door, heart to heart. There will be good days. There will be bad days. Always long hours, never enough time to get everything done."

Maybe not enough time to wash his shirt. But, hey, Romney says at least he gets "a lot of frequent flyer points," for staying at all those hotels.

And on Romney's campaign bus, the candidate can count on a never-ending supply of one of his favorite comfort foods: peanut butter and jelly sandwiches.

Mitt Romney offered an unprompted defense of the 2008 Wall Street bailout on Wednesday, crediting President George W. Bush and the preceding administration for averting an economic depression.

Answering a question during a campaign event in Maryland, Romney both condemned the 2009 bailout of troubled automakers engineered by President Obama while praising the Troubled Asset Relief Program authorized in fall of 2008 to prop up the financial services industry.

"There was a fear that the whole economic system of America would collapse -- that all of our banks, or virtually all, would go out of business," Romney said. "In that circumstance, President Bush and Hank Paulson said we've got to do something to show we're not going to let the whole system go out of business. I think they were right. I know some people disagree with me. I think they were right to do that."

Romney's remarks were somewhat overshadowed by two other stories swirling around his campaign today, one relating to an aide's gaffe comparing Romney's pivot to the general election to erasing an Etch A Sketch; Romney also won the endorsement Wednesday of former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (R).

It was Jeb Bush's brother, former George W. Bush, whom Romney said deserved the lion's share of credit for saving the financial sector from collapsing during the 2008 crisis.

"I keep hearing the president [Obama] say that he's responsible for keeping America from going into a Great Depression," Romney said. "No, no, no. That was President George W. Bush and [then Treasury Secretary] Hank Paulson that stepped in and kept that from happening."

But Romney also reiterated opposition to the 2009 decision to support General Motors and Chrysler, funds for which were drawn from TARP. The former Massachusetts governor said he drew a distinction between Bush's actions and Obama's, which he said only forestalled the necessary bankruptcy for automakers, and gave unions undue influence over the remade companies.

Stil, Romney's defense of the Wall Street bailout comes at a point in his campaign where he looks to pivot toward the general election, and away from the primary battle against former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum and former House Speaker Newt Gingrich.

Santorum in particular has taken aim at Romney's support for TARP, arguing that Romney was acting as a friend to Wall street. While campaigning in Michigan, Santorum, who opposed both bailouts, questioned why Romney would support one for the financial industry, and oppose one for the auto industry.

Moreover, the Bush administration's decision to act to support the financial services industry was an especially distasteful decision among conservatives -- a group that hasn't fully embraced Romney in his bid for the Republican presidential nomination. TARP is seen as a program that helped spark the genesis of the Tea Party.

CHICAGO, IL -- Newt Gingrich prides himself in running an unconventional presidential campaign and the man who currently oversees the team’s daily operations of that campaign fits this “anti-establishment” mold perfectly.

Patrick Millsaps, 39, Gingrich’s chief of staff, explains that he “stumbled into working in politics” a few years ago. He was brought on as the campaign’s top aide in late December amid an implosion in Gingrich’s numbers heading into the Iowa caucuses – the first contest that would launch two and a half months of voting.

“I got involved in politics by happenstance; I needed a job out of college,” said Millsaps, who graduated from Samford University in 1995 with a degree in Psychology after a short stint as a preacher. (He remains a licensed Baptist Minister who can still marry and bury people.)

Growing up in Marietta, GA, Millsaps was a constituent of the Republican lawmaker who would become his future boss – former House Speaker Gingrich. But the two men only met once, in 1994, as Gingrich worked the ropeline following an event. Eighteen years later, Millsaps, a lifelong Georgian, made his interest in helping the campaign known.

“The one type of race I have never been involved in as a volunteer was a presidential race,” Millsaps recalls telling one of Gingrich’s close advisors, Randy Evans, in early 2011. “I told him if there is ever a way I can help in a meaningful way, let me know.”

Nine months later, Evans did just that. Millsaps was contacted by the Gingrich campaign the day after Christmas (as he was about to take a week vacation), and flew to Iowa first thing to start as deputy legal counsel.

“One day he was in a court room in Southern Georgia, the next he was smack in the middle of the GOP primary. He didn’t blink,” Gingrich spokesman R.C. Hammond said.

Having graduated from the University of Georgia School of Law in 2000, Millsaps has been practicing law ever since.

“In 1996, I worked as a deputy political director for a United States Senate candidate in Georgia,” he said. “I decided to go to law school after we lost the primary and after that I decided I was just done with politics.”

Moving to Camilla, GA – a small town in the Southwest section of the state – back in 2004, Millsaps started his own law practice while his wife, Elizabeth, opened a pharmacy. He continued to stay active in politics here and there, helping his former law school friends organize events for politicians near him, while also raising his three small daughters.

After working with the Gingrich campaign for just more than a month, the speaker promoted Millsaps to chief of staff when their charter plane landed in Reno, NV in early February. In this new role, Millsaps changed the organizational structure of the campaign and even created internal teams to help the process flow better.

“I think I brought a perspective that was very non-DC – there is nothing further from Washington, D.C. than Southwest Georgia,” he said.

This is the type of campaign Gingrich is trying to run, according to Millsaps, who admitted he thought he would be off the campaign after South Carolina. “It has been a benefit that I have worked on enough campaigns that I know my way around campaigns but it has also been a benefit that I bring a different perspective to the table,” he said.

“Patrick has really done a great job at doing a lot with limited resources in such a short amount of time,” Hammond said.

Now, Millsaps and the speaker work together very closely every day and have even become friends, complementing each other with their traits along the way.

“Speaker Gingrich is the one who came up with $2.50 gasoline. Nobody saw gasoline as the big issue. He has the big idea of how he wants his campaign to go and what we need to be talking about and then I am the one who tries to figure out what kind of assets we have and how we get the message out,” Millsaps said.

Millsaps described himself as the campaign’s “problem solver” and noted that the campaign always had a great product in its candidate – they just needed someone to push that material out the door to voters.

Vowing to only work for politicians he truly believes in, Millsaps says Gingrich has really struck him as a different type of politicians and doesn’t see this type of campaign happening again.

“Newt is the most intellectually curious person I have ever met,” he said. “I have met a lot of politicians that are just so full of themselves that you will never get a word in edgewise but Newt is the opposite of this.”

No matter what happens in the next few weeks, the chief of staff says he is in for the long haul.

“I am one of these people who believes that God has a plan for me and I am just going to see what happens next. I will stay with the campaign and hopefully take it all the way to Tampa and then see what happens,” Millsaps said. “I learned a long time ago that the people who try to plan their lives out seem to be disappointed.”

President Obama today embarks on a two-day, four-time-zone tour to highlight his administration’s efforts in both traditional and alternative energy production.

But despite the stated official purpose for the trip, there will be strong political undercurrents at each stop: three of the four states Obama will visit -- Nevada, New Mexico and Ohio -- are vital to his re-election chances, while the fourth, Oklahoma, is at the heart of a political maelstrom over exactly the issue Obama will talk about: energy production.

One other factor unites the four states Obama will visit: each suffers from stubbornly high gas prices, a reminder that even as the president seeks to highlight his administration’s efforts in energy production, there’s no substitute in voters’ minds – or wallets – for lowering prices at the pump.

Jason Reed / Reuters

President Barack Obama walks to Air Force One at Andrews Air Force Base. Obama is traveling to Nevada, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Ohio for events on his energy initiative.

Nevada sunshine
President Obama will first stop in Boulder City, Nev., to showcase the Copper Mountain Solar 1 Facility, the largest photovoltaic plant in the United States. This visit will allow the president to highlight his efforts to diversify the “country’s energy portfolio,” according to the White House -- one of the cornerstones of his stated “all-of-the-above” energy production strategy.

Nevada is also a critical part of the president’s re-election strategy in the West. He turned the state blue in 2008 with 55 percent, higher than George W. Bush’s 51-47 margin of victory in 2004.

Boulder City, where Obama visits Wednesday, is in Clark County (home to Las Vegas), one of only three counties Obama won in 2008, along with Washoe and Carson City. But they are population centers.

The president needs a strong performance in those two counties to win Nevada again, said Nevada political commentator and journalist Jon Ralston.

“The way Democrats win statewide in Nevada is generally to build up a huge bank of votes in Clark County, which has two-thirds of the population,” he said, “and then do OK in Washoe County to make up for the hemorrhaging in the other rural counties.”

But Ralston cautioned that Obama’s approval in the state has slipped recently; a poll conducted by Republican firm Public Opinion Strategies in late February found that 47 percent of likely voters would re-elect Obama, while 49% would elect a “new person” (the poll did not, however, test head-to-head matchups between Obama and hypothetical Republican nominees).

Potential slippage could be exacerbated by continued high gas prices (averaging $3.96 in Boulder City on Tuesday), as well as that the unemployment (12.7%) and foreclosure rates (one in every 278 Nevada homes is in foreclosure, according to RealtyTrac) are the highest in the country.

Ralston added that while Nevada’s sunny weather makes it a natural fit for the president to tout his solar energy plan, voters in the state, as elsewhere in the country, are likely more concerned about filling up their cars and keeping their homes than they are advances in solar-energy production.

“There’s a reason to wonder if this is the right message for Nevada,” Ralston said. “I think most people can’t relate to solar energy in Boulder City; they’re thinking, ‘What are you going to do to help me with my underwater mortgage or how are you going to help me get a job, Mr. President?’”

Nevada’s state politics do, however, offer the Obama administration a silver lining in an unlikely, probably unintentional advocate: Republican Gov. Brian Sandoval. Though unemployment remains the highest in the country, Sandoval has highlighted the 2-point drop in the rate since Sandoval took office – the conditions for which Obama could argue he helped create.

During an interview with CNN Feb. 3rd, Sandoval noted, “When I came into the office one year ago, our unemployment rate was 14.9. I think we have done well in terms of getting it down to 12.6.”

When asked by the interviewer whether President Obama could also take some credit in the falling unemployment rate, Sandoval answered, “Well, he can try to do that” before moving on to federal regulation of the mining industry.

“If I were the Obama campaign I’d pull Sandoval quotes out and put them on TV here,” Ralston said of the governor’s optimistic outlook.

Drilling in New Mexico
After the president speaks in Nevada, Air Force One will jet over to New Mexico, where the president will speak against a backdrop of federal oil and gas production fields to tout his administration’s “commitment to expanding domestic oil and gas production,” according to the White House.

While Obama won the state in 2008 with 56 percent, anchoring his victory in urban areas with large Hispanic populations like Albuquerque (60% of the vote), Santa Fe (77%) and Las Cruces (58%), he took only 27% in Lea County, where he will be speaking Wednesday.

Joe Monahan, author of the political blog New Mexico Politics, said Obama’s visit to solid-red “enemy territory” sends a message, intentional or not, that the campaign is looking to potentially expand its playing field in the key re-election battleground.

“Anytime he’s going to set foot in an area that’s traditionally Republican territory, that’s going to make them a bit nervous. He’s going down there showing his flag,” Monahan said.

But terminally high gas prices (averaging $3.75 in Lea County on Tuesday) will continue to plague him in New Mexico as it will in other top swing states, especially because those costs hit one of Obama’s key constituencies in the state – Hispanic voters, many of whom are low-income earners – particularly hard, Monahan said.

“It’s really a political thermometer, and it doesn’t surprise anyone that he’s down in Eddy County trying to show he’s doing all he says he can to promote a productive energy policy,” he added, referring to a county that houses Carlsbad, near where the president is touring.

The political pipeline in Oklahoma
The president begins the second day of his energy tour in Cushing, Okla., not to make a showing in a key re-election state -- John McCain won it in 2008 with 65 percent and is the only state in the country where every county voted more Republican than 2008.

Rather, it’s an effort to put his mark on a politically red-hot issue in both Washington and on the campaign trail -- the energy company TransCanada’s Keystone oil pipeline.

The Obama administration rejected a portion of the company’s plan that would have extended over U.S. borders from Canada, an international pipeline over which the federal government has diplomatic authority. But TransCanada is going ahead with plans to build a domestic line from Cushing to the Gulf of Mexico, which does not require presidential approval.

While President Obama has stopped short of taking responsibility for approving the Cushing pipeline, he has touted it in past appearances as an example of the kind of drilling he says his administration wants to increase.

““We're approving dozens of new pipelines. We just announced that we'll do whatever we can to speed up construction of a pipeline in Oklahoma that's going to relieve a bottleneck and get more oil to the Gulf -- to the refineries down there -- and that's going to help create jobs, encourage more production,” Obama said at a March 7th energy policy speech in Charlotte, N.C.

But Rep. Frank Lucas, whose Oklahoma district encompasses Cushing, says the president’s speech there Thursday, which he will make in front of pipes that will form the new Keystone pipeline, is “a P.R. event celebrating what private enterprise has done with private money without any influence of the White House.”

Lucas added that “while it’s good the president is celebrating what private enterprise and money is doing” he said it was “a shame he wouldn’t give permission” to the portion of the pipeline that would extend through Canada.

Republicans were also quick to pan news that Obama will announce during the Cushing visit that his administration will expedite the permit process for the southern portion of the pipeline, saying he is once again seeking to take ownership of a process that does not involve the White House.

“This is like a governor personally issuing a fishing license,” said Brendan Buck, a spokesman for House Speaker John Boehner. “The President’s attempt to take credit for a pipeline he blocked and personally lobbied Congress against is staggering in its disingenuousness. This portion of the pipeline is being built in spite of the President, not because of him.”

In addition to the national political undertones of his visit to Cushing, gas prices will also loom over the president there – while the average is on the lower end of the cities he’s visiting, it is still hovering around $3.62 in Payne County, where Cushing is.

Research in Ohio
Obama will end his trip in Ohio, a Midwestern state whose narrow 51-47 percent victory the president is looking to repeat in 2012. He’s already visited the state twice this year – once to make remarks on the economy and visit with a family at their home and once to bring British Prime Minister David Cameron to an NCAA basketball game.

On Thursday, Obama will highlight the capabilities of American universities in energy research and development at Ohio State University in Columbus, whose county he won 49-40 percent in 2008 (and whose No. 2-seeded basketball team is in the NCAA Tournament’s Sweet Sixteen).

Ohio is yet another key portion of the president’s Midwestern path to victory, and, in fact, a late February NBC-Marist poll found that while Ohio voters were split evenly, 45-45 percent, on his job approval, he fared better than Mitt Romney, GOP frontrunner, by double digits, 50-38 percent.

But Ohio’s gas prices -- as high as $4.03 in Columbus on Tuesday -- present a different challenge for the incumbent looking to win over the state’s key blue-collar voters.

www.mittromney.com

MItt Romney aide Garrett Jackson's new campaign blog seeks to soften the candidate's sometimes robotic image.

It is no great secret that Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney is often regarded as about as stiff as his perfectly coiffed hairdo.

But Garrett Jackson, Romney’s personal aide and self-proclaimed "body man," is on a mission to change that perception. On Thursday Jackson launched a campaign-related blog that seeks to show the softer side of Mitt.

“Folks always ask me what it is like to be on the road with the Gov every day. Rather than just e-mail my mom about it, I figured I could start to blog. Check it out and let me know what you think,” Jackson wrote. “The more that you respond the more they will let me write...”

Readers are then treated to the tasty detail that Romney “had a great campaign breakfast – some oatmeal and a radio interview – before heading to Studio J in NYC” on Thursday morning.

Okay, so details about oatmeal breakfasts and Romney’s affinity for cupcakes aren’t exactly “Game Change”-level information. Then again, Jackson, a Mississippi native, was also reportedly the inspiration for Romney’s consumption of “cheesy grits” and drawling “y’all”.

Brian Snyder / Reuters file

Romney campaign aide Garrett Jackson steadies the chair on which the candidate is standing during a campaign stop in Mason City, Iowa.

Jackson was even photographed holding Romney’s chair during an Iowa campaign stop.

Jackson’s tame posts and YouTube footage of Romney snagging a cupcake at Junior’s Cheesecake restaurant in New York contrast with the more controversial posts of campaign economic adviser Greg Mankiw.

Mankiw, a Harvard professor, posted a newspaper clipping that suggested a Jonathan Swift-style “Modest Proposal” solution to decreasing Social Security and Medicare costs. In part, the clip read: “Next month, the Immigration Department will start deporting seniors (instead of illegals) … older people are easier to catch and less likely to remember how to get back home.” Mankiw added the comment: “Thanks to the reader who passed this along.”

In contrast, Jackson’s posts are far more innocuous. True to recent revelations that Romney has a bit of a sweet tooth, Jackson offered a picture of the candidate with a huge pancake: “Giant Pancake (house special) from Charlie Parker's diner in Springfield, IL,” he wrote.

TODAY.com political contributor Halimah Abdullah is a native Southerner who says “cheese grits,” not “cheesy grits.” She is the site’s woman in Washington.

Romney holds his ground winning Illinois by 12 points (and widening his delegate lead)… Romney also beginning to find his stump speech… Gingrich, who finished 4^th, approaches danger territory -- becoming more fodder for late-night comedians… Paul remains AWOL… Why Romney won Illinois: It’s the demography, stupid… He also rocked the Chicago suburbs… NBC’s new delegate count: Romney 485, Santorum 193, Gingrich 137, Paul 34… Five observations from yesterday’s FEC reports… Wrapping up last night’s congressional primaries… And Obama embarks on his energy-related swing.

*** Romney holds his ground: It wasn't a blowout win or a knockout punch, but Mitt Romney's 12-point victory in Illinois (and his even more decisive delegate haul) was exactly what he needed to do to keep his grasp on the GOP nomination. As for Rick Santorum, it was an expected loss and he kept the primary competitive despite being greatly outspent and out-organized, but it's now more and more difficult to see how he could capture the nomination. Despite what some are saying, however, the race isn't over -- at least not yet: The GOP primary contest moves on to Louisiana, where Santorum is favored. And then, on April 3, it heads to DC, Maryland, and Wisconsin. If Romney pulls off the upset in Louisiana and/or sweeps the April 3 contests (especially Wisconsin), then it will be fair to conclude the race is over. Bottom line: After a rockier-than-expected flight, the landing gear for Air Romney has been lowered, but the plane hasn’t yet touched the ground. Landings get aborted, and this one could, too -- it’s all in the hands of the folks in Wisconsin (or maybe even Louisiana).

Jeff Haynes / Reuters

Mitt Romney won the Illinois Republican primary with ease Tuesday night, allowing him to grow his delegate advantage over his rivals in the fight for the party's presidential nomination.

*** Romney’s also beginning to find his stump speech: While last night’s results in Illinois didn’t reveal any new information about the GOP primary race (more on that below), we learned something from Romney’s victory speech: He’s beginning to get comfortable with a stump speech that might actually last a while. His delivery was looser, and the narrative he’s trying to tell -- that he’s uniquely qualified to do this -- is getting better. He’s the businessman again; he even acknowledges some of his faults as a businessman, but says those lessons will serve him well. And he’s also trying to combine the businessman narrative with a values argument against the president that pays homage to an issue elite conservatives care a lot about: American exceptionalism.  Romney also sounded optimistic. The speech still had its share of empty rhetoric that lacked definition and his examples about the great things America does (like the Hoover Dam and Interstate Highway System) were PUBLIC works projects (and plays into the president’s hands potentially). But overall, it’s an improvement from his previous attempts at a stump and the delivery was better.

*** Gingrich approaches dangerous territory: Meanwhile, Newt Gingrich is getting close to dangerous territory: the embarrassment line. Last night, he finished fourth -- behind Ron Paul -- with just 8%. He appeared on FOX, but he spoke very briefly because he kept getting bumped by the Romney and Santorum speeches. Folks, that tells you all you need to know. Gingrich and his campaign have always been a target for late-night comedians (and they were at it AGAIN last night). But after last night -- and if he doesn’t win Louisiana -- that target is only going to get bigger and bigger.

*** Paul remains AWOL: As for Ron Paul, is he even running for president anymore? Today, he’s AWOL again from the campaign trail; in fact, his last campaign event was a week ago, on March 14. As NBC’s Chris Donovan points out, Paul has run for the GOP nomination in ’08 and in ’12, and -- despite the money he’s raised and the following he now has -- he’s been unable to win a SINGLE state in either cycle.

*** Illinois isn’t Alabama or Mississippi (and it’s not even Ohio): The biggest reason why Romney won in Illinois last night? It’s the demography, stupid. Indeed, we’ve reached the point in the GOP race where all you have to do is plug in a state’s demographic data (ideology, religion, income status), and you can pretty much determine who is going to win. According to the exit poll, just four in 10 GOP primary voters in Illinois described themselves as evangelical Christians -- versus eight in 10 who said that in Alabama and Mississippi. As the Washington Post’s Dan Balz points out, Romney has won every state where exit polls have found evangelical Christians to account for less than 50% of GOP primary voters, and he’s lost every state where they’ve been more than 50%. In addition last night, 29% say they were "very conservative,” compared with 42% who said that in Mississippi and 36% in Alabama. And 37% of Republican primary voters in Illinois said their total family income exceeds $100,000. But just 23% in Alabama and 26% in Mississippi said that. Another way to look at this: Romney has yet to lose a primary in a blue state. Another way to look at this: Romney has yet to lose a PRIMARY in a blue state. (Yes, we know he has lost some blue state CAUCUSES).

*** Rockin’ the suburbs: What also fueled Romney’s win were the Chicago suburbs. His margin of victory was 107,000 votes, but he got a 122,000-vote difference out of these areas -- the Cook County suburbs (45,000), DuPage County (27,000), Lake County (16,000), Chicago (14,000), Will County (8,000), Kane County (7,000), McHenry County (5,000).

*** The delegate count: While Romney won Illinois by 12 points last night (47%-35%), his delegate haul was even bigger. He captured 41 delegates to Santorum’s 10 -- with three delegates still undecided. Here’s NBC’s delegate count to date: Romney 485, Santorum 193, Gingrich 137, Paul 34. According to our math, Romney needs to win about 48% of the remaining delegates to reach 1,114, while Santorum needs to win about 69%.

*** Five observations from the FEC reports: One, Obama's fundraising and cash on hand is on par -- more or less -- with Bush's numbers in '04 (which is surprising given what many, including us, thought he was capable of raising at the beginning of this race)... Two, Romney's burn rate is over 100% (which might explain why the Super PAC, and not the campaign, is airing ads in post-Illinois races)...  Three, the pro-Santorum Super PAC has just $365,000 in the bank (Foster Friess, you have a call on Line 2)... Four, Gingrich now has more in debt ($1.55 million) than cash on hand ($1.54 million)… And five, the pro-Obama Super PAC Priorities USA continues to be a flop, with it raising just $2 million (half of which came from Bill Maher). By the way, don’t overlook the spending numbers for the campaigns. It’s where you learn the philosophies of the campaign. Obama’s campaign is putting a LARGE emphasis (read: money) online. A large chunk of the February spending was devoted to online advertising. Also, do note that the Obama campaign continues to keep overall STAFF salaries down, at least compared to what other campaigns pay, including Romney. In fact, Romney has at least five staffers who make more than Obama’s campaign manager.

*** The February FEC totals:
Obama (raised $21.3 million, spent $12.6 million, $85 million COH)
Romney (raised $12 million, spent $12.4 million, $7.3 million COH)
Santorum (raised $9 million, spent $7.9 million, $2.6 million COH)
Gingrich (raised $2.6 million, spent $2.9 million, $1.5 million COH)
Paul (raised $3.3 million, spent $3.5 million, $1.4 million COH)
Restore Our Future (raised $6.4 million, spent $12.2 million, $10.4 million COH)
Red White and Blue Fund (raised $2.9 million, spent $3.2 million, $365,000 COH)
Winning Our Future (raised $5.7 million -- $5.5 million from the Adelson family -- spent $5.8 million, $2.3 million COH)
Priorities USA (raised $2 million – half coming from Bill Maher – spent $500,000, and has $2.8 million COH)

*** Wrapping up the congressional primaries: There also were plenty of interesting congressional primary contests in Illinois last night. Per msnbc.com’s Mike O’Brien, Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R) beat Rep. Don Manzullo (R), allowing Eric Cantor (who had controversially endorsed Kinzinger) to breathe a sign of relief… Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. (D) beat former Rep. Debbie Halvorson (D)… Tammy Duckworth (D) beat Raja Krishnamoorthi (D) for the right to take on GOP Rep. Joe Walsh… And Brad Schenider beat progressive favorite Ilya Sheyman.

*** On the trail, per NBC’s Adam Perez: Romney fundraises in D.C. and hosts an town hall event in Arbutus, MD...Gingrich visits Louisiana, campaigning in Pineville, Lake Charles, and Lafayette…Santorum also makes a stop in the Pelican State, rallying in Harvey, Mandeville, and Alexandria.

*** All about energy (and gas prices): Lastly, President Obama today embarks on his energy-related swing, giving remarks in Nevada at 4:20 pm ET and in New Mexico at 8:15 pm ET. First Read will have more on this swing later today.

Countdown to Louisiana primary: 3 days
Countdown to DC, Maryland, Wisconsin primaries: 13 days
Countdown to Election Day: 230 days

Click here to sign up for First Read emails.
Text FIRST to 622639, to sign up for First Read alerts to your mobile phone.
Check us out on Facebook and also on Twitter. Follow us @chucktodd, @mmurraypolitics, @DomenicoNBC, @brookebrower

Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice this week dismissed accusations from President Obama’s Republican rivals that the commander-in-chief is not tough enough on Iran.

She suggested that she has seen a shift in the administration’s position, saying that White House may have learned diplomatic lessons on how to deal with its enemies, but, “now you're not hearing much … from the administration about reaching out a hand of friendship any longer to the Iranians.”

But the former Bush administration official told David Gregory that the United States is in danger from backing down on its commitments abroad. She acknowledged that “the American people are tired” from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and when it comes to facing threats from other countries, “you can feel a sense of perhaps we'll just leave them to their own devices.”

But she defended President Bush’s foreign policy decisions: “We have to remember what it looked like 11 years ago, in Afghanistan, with the Taliban in power.”  Rice warned that avoiding the threats within countries like Iran and Afghanistan, “has always backfired … even if you have to talk to your enemies, you do so with a big stick next to your side.”

Rice was in Washington to head a task force that claims it has a new solution to American security issues: education. Rice said that today, many Americans are unfit to serve in the military because they have not received an adequate education. If the school system is not fixed, she believes,  “our national cohesion is really at stake.”

Watch PRESS Pass above to hear more of David’s interview with Secretary Rice, who is an avid football fan, including her thoughts on Peyton Manning’s move to the Denver Broncos.

A freshman congressman unseated a 10-term veteran colleague in a bitter Republican primary in a redrawn Illinois district. 

Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R) unseated longtime Rep. Don Manzullo in Illinois's redrawn 16th congressional district. The Associated Press called the race for Kinzinger on Tuesday evening. 

AP, file

Rep. Adam Kinzinger, right, unseated longtime Rep. Don Manzullo, left, in a bitter Republican primary.

The Kinzinger-Manzullo battle was just one of several districts forming the undercard of the day's presidential primary battle between Mitt Romney and Rick Santorum. (Romney won that race handily.)

But none of those contests were as bitter or high-profile, though, as the battle between the veteran Manzullo and Kinzinger, a 34-year-old Air Force veteran and deputy whip in the House who is seen as a potential rising star in the GOP.

The two Republicans had been drawn into a shared district by Democrats in the state legislature. The new 16th district had been seen as marginally favorable to Manzullo. 

The race had become a generational battle, and took on higher significance after a somewhat unusual endorsement by Majority Leader Eric Cantor, the second-ranking Republican in the House, whose super PAC spent $50,000 on advertising against Manzullo.

Cantor’s decision to endorse added a new dimension of bitterness to the primary, prompting Manzullo to ask for the Virginia congressman’s resignation as majority leader.

Democratic leaders were more willing to get involved in another intramural scrape between Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr., and former Rep. Debbie Halvorson, who was swept out of office by the Republican wave in 2010 after only a single term in office.

Jackson won the contest easily, and the AP called the race for him Tuesday evening.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.,  traveled to Chicago earlier this month to endorse Jackson, who was facing the toughest primary battle of his career from Halvorson. Jackson has served in Congress since 1995 and is the son of the civil rights icon who shares the same name. 

But Jackson has also been forced to address allegations that he or an associate was engaged in an effort to raise campaign contributions for then-Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, a Democrat, in exchange for an appointment to Obama’s old Senate seat in 2008. Blagojevich was eventually convicted and sent to jail on corruption charges; the House Ethics Committee continues to investigate Jackson. 

Another Democratic favorite with ties to the Obama administration won a primary battle in her bid to challenge firebrand freshman GOP Rep. Joe Walsh in November. 

Tammy Duckworth, a disabled Iraq war veteran who served in the Obama administration as an official in the Department of Veterans Affairs, prevailed over opponent Raja Krishnamoorthi, according to the Associated Press. 

Duckworth, who unsuccessfully ran for Congress in 2006, enjoyed the support of top Democrats including David Axelrod, the Chicago-based senior strategist to President Obama. She'll face Walsh this fall in a new 8th district redrawn in Democrats' favor.

Liberals also suffered a disappointing loss, too, in a Democratic primary in Illinois’s 10th congressional district. Liberal advocacy groups like the Progressive Change Campaign Committee have raised money to promote candidate Ilya Sheyman over businessman Brad Schneider, a more moderate candidate favored by the establishment. 

Schneider was able to hold off Sheyman, though, in the battle to take on freshman Republican Rep. Bob Dold in a competitive suburban Chicago district.

Chip Somodevilla / Getty Images

Republican presidential candidate, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and his wife Ann Romney celebrate their victory in the Illinois GOP primary at the Renaissance Schaumburg Convention Center Hotel March 20, 2012.

In Tuesday’s Illinois primary, Mitt Romney hit a new high in exit polling of voters in this year’s competitive primaries and caucuses: winning 71 percent of voters who see defeating President Barack Obama as the thing they most want from their party’s candidate this November. And in another showing of strength for Romney in Tuesday’s exit poll, nearly three out of five voters saw him as the candidate most likely to defeat the incumbent Democratic president.

Romney demonstrated Tuesday that he may finally be uniting Republicans behind his candidacy in a way that he has not until now: he won 43 percent of conservatives, who accounted for two out of three voters in Tuesday’s contest. Santorum won 39 percent of conservatives in Illinois.

Romney’s winning the conservative segment of the electorate is an indication that Republican voters are starting to coalesce behind his candidacy. In the March 6 Ohio primary, only 35 percent of conservatives voted for Romney and in South Carolina primary on Jan. 21 only 24 percent of conservatives backed him.

Despite Romney’s stronger performance among conservatives in Illinois compared to prior contests, Illinois voters were still split: 43 percent said Romney’s positions on the issues were not conservative enough and 43 percent said his positions were “about right;” another 8 percent said his positions were too conservative.

Going all the way back to the Iowa caucuses, exit polling of voters in this year’s Republican primaries and caucuses has shown that Romney has consistently run better than his rivals among moderate voters.

In the Jan. 21 South Carolina primary, for example, Romney bested his rivals by winning 36 percent of moderates, while in Ohio on March 6 Romney won 44 percent of moderates. So too Tuesday in Illinois, where self-identified moderates accounted for nearly three out of ten voters and Romney won nearly half of them, with Santorum winning 26 percent and Paul and Newt Gingrich splitting the rest.

Arguably, a self-described moderate in a Republican primary is closer to the median voter in the November election than is a conservative GOP primary voter. So it may be a hopeful sign for Romney that from the beginning he has run better among moderates than any of his competitors.

A large majority of Tuesday’s voters -- 58 percent -- picked the economy as the issue that mattered most in deciding how they voted and nearly half of those voters favored Romney.

Tuesday’s exit poll also showed that Romney continued to underperform Santorum among the less educated and lower-income voters.

Among those voters who were high school graduates or who’d never graduated from high school, Santorum won 44 percent to Romney’s 33 percent. But among college graduates Romney beat Santorum by 18 points. Among voters with annual family income under $50,000, Santorum edged Romney, 42 percent to 37 percent; but Romney beat Santorum by 13 points among voters with incomes of $50,000 or more and among voters with income of $100,00 or more, Romney beat Santorum by 25 points.

Despite Romney’s immense wealth, 35 percent of Illinois voter said he best understands the problems of ordinary Americans; 29 percent said Santorum best understands their problems.

Evangelical Christian voters favored Santorum over Rooney by 12 points, 47 percent to 35 percent. But nearly three-fifths of Tuesday’s voters were not evangelical Christians and they preferred Romney by a very wide margin, 51 percent to 27 percent.

And despite Santorum being a Catholic, his co-religionists preferred Romney: 48 percent of Catholics backed Romney and only 32 percent supported Santorum.

The Supreme Court has taken up the controversial issue of life in prison for juvenile offenders. NBC’s Pete Williams reports.