Darren Hauck / Reuters

Tom Barrett and Republican Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker talk during a debate held at Marquette University Law School in Milwaukee on May 31.

Updated 5:14 p.m. — Democrats and their allies in organized labor are heading into a final weekend of campaigning in hopes of avoiding an embarrassment in their goal of recalling Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker.

The Badger State has played host to months of furious campaigning since Walker, the conservative governor first elected in 2010, sought major reforms for public employee unions. He pushed through legislation to strip them of collective bargaining rights and force them to contribute to their pensions.

But the Republican governor leads Tom Barrett, the Democratic mayor of Milwaukee and Walker’s opponent in the 2010 general election, by 7 points, according to a Marquette Law Poll released Wednesday.

“Democrats really were just foolish in this way they approached this recall,” Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus said in a sit-down interview with NBCPolitics.com this week. “They set up this World Series event in Wisconsin, built it up. They put on the ballot a candidate who’s not worth two nickels – he’s already lost twice statewide, and is going to lose a third time now.”

The recall battle carries high stakes for not only for Walker, who has become the face of a generation of reformist conservatives, but also for Democrats and organized labor, which vowed revenge in the aftermath of the politically divisive fight to push the collective bargaining law through the state legislature.

That battle drew tens of thousands of protesters to the state Capitol in Madison, and a million people put their names to paper in support of an initial petition seeking Walker’s recall.

Jeffrey Phelps / AP

A supporter of Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, right, talks with a supporter of Democratic opponent Tom Barrett at a recall election rally Friday, June 1, 2012, in Milwaukee.

Several state senators were recalled in 2011 as a result of the collective bargaining clamp-down, and Democrats almost succeeded in unseating a state Supreme Court justice, too.

But Walker’s been the beneficiary of a marginally improved state economy and overall fatigue associated with the recall. His chief advantage, though, comes from the millions more he, and supportive groups, have been able to spend on the campaign. Walker and those groups have spent $23 million in his race against Barrett; the governor’s fundraising was enabled by a loophole in state law allowing him to collect funds in large sums.  Barrett and labor groups have spent $12.4 million, by contrast.

"From recruiting volunteers and registering voters to organizing on campuses across the state, the DNC and OFA are working alongside the Barrett campaign and the state party to build the ground game that is crucial for success on Election Day.  And we will continue to utilize both our substantial network of activists, volunteers and supporters and extensive online resources to lay the groundwork for victory," said Melanie Roussell, a spokeswoman for the Democratic National Committee. 

The DNC and Organizing for America — the president's political arm — have invested almost $1.5 million in staffing, offices and support in order to help Barrett pull out a win on Tuesday.

The campaign has taken a turn toward bare-knuckled politics, though, in which Walker and Barrett have traded barbs at debates and in those paid advertisements. Barrett has sought to stoke suspicions regarding the so-called “John Doe” investigation, in which former Walker aides stand accused of allegedly misappropriating campaign funds.

The Walker campaign, in turn, has questioned Barrett’s crime record as mayor, and their overarching strategy has involved questioning the wisdom of the recall in the first place.

Eager to fight off the sense that the recall is all but lost, Democrats have been furiously contesting public polls that show Walker ahead, and releasing a flurry of internal surveys that, they say, depict a much tighter race.

Democratic National Committee Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz was in the state this week to help raise money for Barrett, and on Friday, former President Bill Clinton will stump against Walker in Wisconsin. For his part, Walker brought his own heavyweight to the fight: South Carolina Gov. Nikki campaigned with him Friday in Sussex.

But the Obama administration has been somewhat removed from the campaign; the president has no plans to campaign in the state for Barrett, and the White House was forced on Wednesday to clarify whether Obama had even endorsed the Democratic nominee (he has).

The saving grace for Democrats might lie in a labor-driven turnout effort. But Republicans have been equally enthusiastic about retaining Walker, whom they treat as a vanguard for efforts to rein in public employee unions and entitlement spending.

But Republicans contend that, between the 2010 elections and two intervening recalls before this one, they have built a voter outreach machine on par with few others – one which could pay dividends in an election like Tuesday’s, which may hinge on each side’s ability to drive supporters to the polls.

The Justice Department entered the long-running struggle over voter eligibility Thursday, warning Florida that its program to check the citizenship status of registered voters violates both Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act and the 1993 National Voter Registration Act.

In a battleground state in a presidential election year, the voter eligibility scuffle may have big implications, especially when you consider that George W. Bush won Florida in 2000 by a mere 537 votes in a case ultimately decided by the U.S. Supreme Court.

People wait before Republican presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich visits a voting precinct at the First Baptist Church of Windermere January 31, 2012 in Orlando, Florida.

The state said its initial check found 180,000 potential non-citizens who may be registered voters.

Florida Democratic Rep. Ted Deutch referred to the citizenship verification process as Republican Gov. Rick Scott’s “blatant campaign to suppress the vote immediately in advance of the presidential election.”

The struggle over who should be eligible to vote and who shouldn’t – not only in Florida, but in another battleground state, Colorado, and in other states as well – raises important policy questions:

• Why is there no national registry of American citizens that state and local election officials could check to see if someone is eligible to vote? Solicitor General Donald Verrilli confirmed in the oral argument before the Supreme Court on the Arizona immigration law that “there is no reliable way in the (DHS) database to verify that you are a citizen, unless you are in the passport database.”
• Is the attempt to remove non-citizens from the list of voters simply impossible – due to lack of accurate data on citizen status, or is it possible to do, but will have the side effect of inadvertently striking some citizens from the rolls?
• For those citizens who are mistakenly struck from the list of voters, do states have adequate notice and appeal processes in place to protect their ability to vote?
• Rather than leaving this task to elected state officials, would it be efficient for Congress to create a federal agency to ensure that all eligible voters can cast a ballot and that non-citizens can’t vote?

Since early May, Florida Secretary of State Ken Detzner, an appointee of Scott’s, has been leading an effort to use data from the state Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles to verify that registered voters are U.S. citizens. 

Thursday’s letter to Detzner from Christian Herren, chief of the voting section at Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division, said Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act required the state to get pre-clearance from the department or from a federal judge before implementing its citizenship checking program.

Herren also said the NVRA doesn’t allow an effort to remove the names of ineligible people from the list of voters so close to an election – Florida holds its primary on Aug. 14.

Chris Cate, spokesman for the Florida Department of State said his department had not yet had a chance to thoroughly review Herren’s letter.

But he added, “We provided information to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security yesterday, and have been doing so for nearly nine months, in hopes that the federal government would help us identify ineligible voters.”

Having gotten the letter from Herren, he said, “at least we know the federal government knows we take ineligible voters on the voter rolls seriously. We hope the federal government will recognize the importance of accurate voter rolls and support our efforts.”

In his letter to Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, Detzner asked her to provide the state access to DHS’s Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements database to help it verify citizenship of would-be voters. According to an analysis by the Miami Herald, nearly three out of five of those initially identified by the Florida Department of State as potential noncitizens are Latinos. But whether they are citizens or not is still unclear.

Separately, a federal judge Thursday blocked enforcement of new Florida rules on voter registration, saying they imposed “burdensome record-keeping and reporting requirements that serve little if any purpose … .” The League of Women Voters of Florida, Florida Public Interest Research Group Education Fund, and Rock the Vote had filed suit challenging the rules.

In scrutinizing the list of voters, former Kentucky secretary of state Trey Grayson, who is now director of the Harvard University Institute of Politics, said, “We always run this risk of: Which side do we err on? Do we err on the side of leaving a non-citizen or somebody who is ineligible on the voter rolls? Or do we run the risk of removing somebody who otherwise is eligible to vote? And sometimes when you’re trying to do one, you end up doing the other.”

Cate said that as for cases of citizens being mistakenly caught in Florida’s initial screening, “We’re using data based on someone’s last interaction with the Florida Dept. of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles. We’ve known some of the 180,000 potential non-citizens may have become a citizen since they last updated their driver’s license. But this is the best process we have to remove ineligible voters from our voter rolls, to contact every one of the 180,000 people individually.”

Meanwhile in Colorado, which President Obama won with 53.6 percent of the vote in 2008, Secretary of State Scott Gessler, a Republican, has also urged DHS to use its databases to help the state verify the citizenship of certain register voters.

Gessler said in a letter to Napolitano that more than 2,000 registered voters had presented a non-citizen document to the Colorado Department of Motor Vehicles during a driver’s license transaction.

In a letter last month to Gessler, Alejandro Mayorkas, director of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, a DHS agency, said, “We must further assess serious legal and operational issues” before deciding whether to give Colorado the information it sought.

“I know they have some information that will help us. For example, everyone who is here legally, every green card holder or holder of a student visa, that information is kept” by DHS, said Gessler in an interview Friday. “And that’s information we could use. They also have information on illegal residents here, not all of them of course. I recognize that information is not perfect, but that information could help us as well. I don’t expect the databases that Homeland Security has to solve every problem with 100 percent accuracy, but it could really go a long way to helping us out a lot here in Colorado, and I’m sure in other states too.”

Recommended: Former justice predicts cracks in Citizens United decision

How do non-citizens wind up being registered voters in Colorado? “A lot of times people mistakenly believe they can register to vote even if they’re not a citizen,” Gessler said.

Asked whether 2,000 or so noncitizens being registered to vote is a significant issue in a state where more than 2.4 million people voted in the 2008 presidential election, Gessler said, “Colorado has a history of close races: for example, one of our current congressmen, Jared Polis, won his first election as a member of the Board of Education – an at-large seat which meant he ran statewide, by 90 votes,” Gessler said.

And to those who might impute a political motive to Gessler to scrub the voter rolls in a state which swung from Republican in 2004 to Democratic in 2008, Gessler said, “I’ve got an obligation enforce the law and let the chips fall where they may.”

Election law expert Rick Hasen, a law professor at the University of California Irvine School of Law, said, “If we were serious about dealing with non-citizen voting, which does happen on occasion, we should move to national voter registration for federal elections, and check data against citizenship records.”

But he said for Congress to create such a national election agency “is not politically feasible now.”

David gives his analysis of this week's political news, including the Obama campaign attacking Romney's time at Bain and the Romney campaign's response.

Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney talks about today's bleak jobs report, repealing Obamacare and his role in private equity.

One of Mitt Romney's central messages has been that President Obama isn't improving the economy. So how is it that Romney while on the stump is visiting swing states with a lower unemployment rate than the national average? Politico's Mike Allen reports.

SAN DIEGO -- Mitt Romney declared May's disappointing jobs report a "harsh indictment" of President Obama's stewardship of the economy, accusing the president of being overly focused on "legislative achievements" instead of putting Americans back to work.

"The president's policies and his handling of the economy has been dealt a harsh indictment," Romney said in an interview on CNBC. "In many respects their policies have made it harder for the economy to recover."

Romney scheduled the appearance in reaction to a new government report on Friday that showed the economy added 69,000 jobs in May -- well below expectations -- and that the unemployment rate had ticked upward to 8.2 percent.

The dismal numbers gave Romney ammunition to prosecute his case against Obama as a manager of America's economy.

"Jobs are job No. 1 for the presidency," Romney said.

Romney's argument on CNBC was largely similar to the one he makes on the campaign trail: that the recovery has been dampened by Obama's policies. Romney said the president's focus on "legislative achievements," like green energy policies, taxes, and health care reform, which Romney asserted would slow the recovery.

"He decided instead of getting people back to work he’d fight for something he thought was historic, and frankly the American people don’t want it and we can’t afford it," Romney said.

Economists have attributed some of the struggles in the U.S. to the ongoing monetary crisis in Europe, but Romney said that was no excuse for Obama.

"Of course the developments around the world always influence our jobs, but we should be well into a very robust recovery right now," Romney said, noting several times during the interview that the unemployment rate has remained above eight percent for 40 straight months -- longer than the Euro crisis."

The former Massachusetts governor said the most significant prescription to instill confidence in businesses in the near term would be to "elect a new president," and that his energy, tax and spending policies would stimulate more robust growth in the private sector.

Romney also voiced opposition to a third wave of so-called "quantitative easing," a stimulative effort by the Federal Reserve that, critics fear, could lead to inflation.

Beyond the economy, Romney also addressed some of the larger political issues to plague his campaign this week.

Three days after appearing at a fundraiser with controversial supporter Donald Trump, who has continued to question whether President Obama was born in the United States, Romney was asked again why he does not simply tell one of his most prominent surrogates to drop the issue.

"I disagree with it," Romney said. "there's no question that the President was born in the United States of America,"

Romney added that he doesn't tell his supporters what to think, but that Trump "knows what I believe about this."

The presumptive GOP nominee also pushed back on the Obama campaign's criticism of his private sector record.

"I'm happy to embrace my record in private equity," he said, pointing also to an interview given last night by former President Bill Clinton, who said Romney's business career was "sterling."

Count House Speaker John Boehner as being a “nay” on New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s plan to ban the sale of large sugary drinks to combat obesity.

The speaker, an admitted chain smoker and Merlot connoisseur, issued a harsh rebuke to Bloomberg’s idea at his morning press conference at the Capitol.

Responding to a question from NBC News Boehner said, “I like Mayor Bloomberg, but are you kidding me!? You look, come on, don't we have bigger issues to deal with than the size of some soft drink that somebody buys?”

Boehner’s view echoes many of those on the right that feel Bloomberg’s plan is the ultimate example of the overreaching “nanny state.”

A congressional aide said there are no plans on either side to institute a federal ban on the sale of large soft drinks.

Obama maintains his battleground-map lead in latest NBC News map… But today’s job report is an “ouch” for Team Obama: Just 69,000 jobs created in May, while the unemployment rate ticked up to 8.2%... Summing up yesterday’s political activity: a day of stunts… Team Romney and riding the Tea Party/Breitbart tiger… Bill Clinton’s praise of Bain not helpful to the Obama camp… Edwards’ acquittal and what’s stopping the future Bunny Mellons?... And are Walker and Obama following the same campaign playbook?

Kevin Lamarque / Reuters

President Barack Obama speaks before signing the reauthorization of the Export-Import Bank at the White House in Washington May 30, 2012.

*** Ouch for Team Obama: Why is this presidential race close? And why might it get closer? Look no further than today’s jobs report for May, which is a gut-punch for Team Obama. According to the report, employers added just 69,000 in May -- the fewest in a year -- and the unemployment rate increased to 8.2%. The AP: “U.S. employers created 69,000 jobs in May, the fewest in a year, and the unemployment rate ticked up. The dismal jobs figures could fan fears that the economy is sputtering. The Labor Department also says the economy created far fewer jobs in the previous two months than first thought. It revised those figures down to show 49,000 fewer jobs created.”

** Obama maintains his battleground-map lead: After our new rounds of NBC-Marist polls, as well as our conversations with the presidential campaigns, we’ve unveiled our latest NBC News Battleground map. And it shows -- surprise, surprise -- a very competitive contest. We have 237 electoral votes in the Democratic column and 191 in the GOP one. That’s a slight change from our last map in April, when it was 231 to 197. The big changes in our map: We moved New Hampshire and Wisconsin from Lean Dem to Toss-up; Iowa from Lean GOP to Toss-up; and Pennsylvania from Toss-up to Lean Dem. Why the Pennsylvania move when the current polling suggests that Obama has just a modest lead over Romney? The Romney camp simply isn’t spending the money or building the organization; the state appears to be lower on their target list than others, at least for now. The way Republicans are treating Pennsylvania is akin to how Democrats appear to be treating Missouri. One way to judge how a move in the perception of the economy can shift landscape? Focus on the “leans” in on our map; a tick upward in Obama’s direction buts more of these lean GOPers in play… a move, like we may be seeing today with the May jobs report would shift those Lean Dem states to the right. Here’s our map as of today: 

Solid Dem (no chance at flip): DC, DE, HI, ME (3 EVs) MD, MA, NY, RI, VT (70 electoral votes)
Likely Dem (takes a landslide to flip): CA, CT, IL, WA (94)
Lean Dem: ME (1 EV) MI, MN, NJ, NM, OR, PA (73)
Toss-up: CO, FL, IA, NV, NH, NC, OH, VA, WI (110)
Lean GOP: AZ, GA, IN, MO, NE (I EV) (49)
Likely GOP (takes a landslide to flip): AL, LA, MS, MT, ND, SC, SD, TX (79)
Solid GOP (no chance at flip): AK, AR, ID, KS, KY, NE (4 EVs) OK, TN, UT, WV, WY (63)

*** Stunt men: How do we sum up yesterday’s dueling campaign events? It was a day of stunts. There was the Obama camp holding a press conference in Boston; Team Romney trying to crash that presser; and Romney making a secret stop to Solyndra. What struck us was how both campaigns seemed to be more worried about winning the news cycle than making their point. Did Team Obama really not think that holding an event in the city where the Romney campaign headquarters is located could be interrupted? Likewise, does anyone think Romney would have received more attention with his Solyndra trip if they had actually publicized it instead of keeping it a secret? (Also, they might have tried picking a time other than the very moment all the cameras and attention were focused on George W. Bush at the White House.) When you chase the news cycle like McCain and Clinton did a lot in 2008 -- something Team Obama rarely did in ’07-’08 -- you forget about other things. Both campaigns chased the news cycle yesterday, and neither got what it wanted.

*** Riding the Tea Party/Breitbart tiger: Buzzfeed has this additional observation about yesterday’s stunts by the Romney campaign: They are winning over the Limbaughs and other parts of the GOP base. “[Romney’s] aggressive tactics stand in for the sort of policy compromises that could damage him in November; better, his advisers argue, to court conservatives with a press conference shouting match than with a high-profile fight over abortion or gay marriage. What’s more, they say, the media obsession with Romney ‘pandering’ to the right represents a misunderstanding of conservatives, who can live with Romney’s moderate record – as long as he’s a fighting moderate.” As one conservative remarked to Buzzfeed about yesterday’s Solyndra stunt: "My God, this is right out of Breitbart's playbook. I love it!" The question is whether riding the Tea Party/Breitbart tiger is good long-term politics. After all, you ride that tiger -- and everything that comes with it -- at your own peril, especially if you’re looking to be able to govern after winning, never mind trying to win swing voters in the fall. We get that the campaign believes swing voters are NOT paying attention now, but there’s a line.

*** Bill Clinton’s praise of Bain: The folks in Chicago are probably “shocked, shocked” that Bill Clinton wasn’t on message when he praised Romney’s business background and work at Bain Capital on CNN yesterday. "I don't think that we ought to get into the position where we say 'This is bad work. This is good work.” And: "I think the real issue ought to be, what has Gov. Romney advocated in the campaign that he will do as president? What has President Obama done and what does he propose to do? How do these things stack up against each other?" A few points here: One, like Cory Booker, Clinton didn’t do Team Obama any favors here. Two, remember that Clinton wasn’t always on message even when campaigning for Hillary (remember South Carolina in ’08?). And three, notice that all of the Dem praise of Bain has come from folks who live and work in the Acela Corridor (Booker, Rendell, Ford, Clinton). We’ve yet to hear from a single Democrat from Toledo or Green Bay about private equity’s virtues. So be careful assuming Bain attacks don’t work.  

*** What’s stopping the future Bunny Mellons? As you may have noticed, we haven’t had much to say about John Edwards and his trial in North Carolina. But after a jury acquitted him on one charge -- and was unable to reach a verdict on the others -- we have this political observation: Campaign-finance loopholes remain a mile wide. If wealthy donors/patrons can cut large checks to hide an affair and love child, there’s nothing to stop future ones from being able to find new ways to curry influence with the politicians they sponsor. What about a $1 million check to help a politician’s friend start up a new business? Or a $1 million check to help pay off someone’s debt? (Then again that donor or patron could always start up -- legally -- a Super PAC.) As the New Yorker writes, “The Edwards trial put the question in crude terms—What do you owe the rich donor who helped hide your mistress?—but a lot of politicians have a lot of debts as well as secrets that are increasingly inaccessible to the public.” Ultimately, what we learned from the whole ordeal: Campaign-finance cases are VERY hard to criminalize. One other thing we’ve heard from folks close to the Edwards family: They want him to stay out of the public spotlight. So far, John Edwards is showing he’s learned nothing from how he got into trouble. He still has no self-awareness.

*** Are Obama and Walker following the same campaign playbook? We’re just four days away until the Wisconsin recall, and one of us wrote yesterday that despite their ideological and stylistic differences, Scott Walker and Barack Obama are trying to run the same kind of campaign. Turn the race into a choice, not a referendum; argue that progress has been made, no matter how slowly or controversially; and link your opponent to your even more unpopular predecessor. Of course, there are some differences here, including the difference between a gubernatorial recall and a presidential contest. But just take a look at some of the pro-Walker ads that are airing in Wisconsin. Their messages -- disqualifying the challenger, touting any good economic news, and reminding you of the even more unpopular predecessor -- aren’t going to be much different from the pro-Obama ads you’ll see in September and October.  By the way, Walker and Tom Barrett squared off in their final debate last night, and it was pretty contentious. 

Countdown to WI recall: 4 days
Countdown to GOP convention: 88 days
Countdown to Dem convention: 95 days
Countdown to Election Day: 159 days

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Republican strategist "Karl Rove and his allies have taken the gloves off" in Ohio. Send money to stop them.

No, wait. "Hollywood-liberal-elites are trying to hijack a Senate seat in Missouri." Funds needed now to prevent it.

These aren't letters home from distraught relatives or friends. They are part of a ceaseless competition for campaign cash in the email era, from the race for the White House to Congress and local office.

The stakes are high, measured in the hundreds of millions of dollars every election cycle. Precisely how much is not known, since the Federal Election Commission does not require federal candidates to tally donations raised via email or websites separately from those made in response to traditional mail, phone banks or candidate calls.

In an age of multi-tasking, getting attention fast is critical.

President Barack Obama entered small-dollar donors into a lottery with a chance to have lunch with him last fall. In a follow-up, the prize is dinner with him and former President Bill Clinton.

The idea seems to be catching on. Mitt Romney's campaign is raising funds by giving contributors a chance to be one of four picked to "sit down for a bite to eat" with the Republican presidential contender and his wife, Ann.

Some online appeals include video, like one that Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., included of her rival, Pete Hoekstra, saying he favored drilling for oil in the Great Lakes laterally from onshore platforms.

Others seek a signature on an online petition, an act meant to create a sense of empowerment in the signer, and one that leads quickly to a request for funds.

Opponents of the recall of Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker often send out email requests for money that include a list of names of "Great Patriots" and the amounts they have donated. The hope is that others will join.

"It's like a two-minute elevator pitch," said Taryn Rosenkranz, whose company, New Blue Interactive, works for Democratic candidates and causes. "You don't have very much time before you've lost the reader."

Messages delivered digitally are "faster and more agile than TV, direct mail or phones. You can initiate a fundraising campaign the day a news story hits or something of note occurs in the political environment," said Ben Olson, director of online services for the Republican-aligned firm Arena Communications.

Even preview lines — those short phrases that summarize items in an email inbox — are viewed as critically important. "Nasty, vindictive and liberal to boot!" read one recently, practically begging to be opened. "Exclusive: We want you to be the first to see this," confided another mass email.

Technology lets campaigns know instantly how much money is coming in the door in response to the latest pitch. "A lot of times what you can do is put out two or three different versions and put them out to different demographics and sometimes through different websites," said Steve McMahon, a Democratic political consultant.

Increasingly, campaigns use Facebook and other social media websites to raise money. Erik Nilsson, vice president at the CDMI, a Republican-aligned firm, claims credit on the company's website for showing that online fundraising yields "can be increased by 52 percent by engaging donors through social networks."

In an interview, Nilsson said, "Friends asking friends are more likely to get a donation and when those donations come in ... they come in much higher."

The next frontier may be donation by text message, which is currently banned.

Among the obstacles is a long lag between the time a donation is made and when it is transferred to the campaign by the mobile company. Also, a text donation to a charity, for example, provides a donor's cell phone number, but not name, address and occupation, information the Federal Election Commission requires to ensure a contribution is legal.

Lawyers representing a pair of consulting firms, one allied with each of the two major political parties, have recommended steps to overcome the difficulties and last month asked the FEC to permit donations by texting.

None of the technical considerations is readily apparent to the potential donor, left to sift through competing appeals.

No event or issue, it seems, is too minor to trigger an urgent and/or outraged request for contributions.

The campaign of Sen. Sherrod Brown wants money because Rove and his allies "have taken the gloves off" and are attacking the Ohio Democrat. "If we can't hit the million-dollar goal for our No Fear Fund, we'll get buried before the summer even starts," said a recent email.

Sarah Steelman, a Republican running for the Senate in Missouri, warned recently that Democratic incumbent Claire McCaskill "has a series of liberal celebrities who are funding her campaign ... defeat Hollywood's Third Senator," it says. Photos of Danny DeVito, Susan Sarandon, Kate Capshaw and Steven Spielberg are included, superimposed on the iconic Hollywood sign in the hills of Los Angeles.

In recent days, Florida Democrats claimed they had registered 10 percent more voters than Republicans and pleaded, "Contribute today and help us keep the momentum."

South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley's political organization emailed supporters about her new book, "Can't Is Not an Option."

"If you donate $50 or more to help me continue our fight, you will receive a limited edition personalized copy," she wrote.

Tommy Thompson, a Republican contender for the Senate in Wisconsin, told his email recipients somewhat breathlessly, "We just received our first shipment of yard signs." Anyone interested in having one could stop by the office. If not, they could join the campaign as a volunteer.

Either way, a $20 donation means "we can keep buying more signs."

What "religious freedom" bill?

Republicans stung by the culture wars that dominated the nation's political discourse this year are standing down on social issues, acutely aware that the presidential and congressional elections five months off are expected to turn on a thin margin of cash-strapped independent voters neither party can afford to alienate.

How about House Speaker John Boehner's vow to reverse President Barack Obama's birth control policy? There's no sign of any such legislation. The Ohio Republican reminds people daily that he is focused on jobs now.

Obama's revelation that he supports gay marriage? Told ya so, said social conservatives at the core of the GOP — before they turned back to assailing the president's stewardship of the economy.

And what happened to the GOP's efforts to curb abortion? House Republican leaders made it go away by offering a vote on a bill to ban gender-based abortions Thursday — under special rules that guaranteed it would fail.

There is a growing sense among Republicans that, with Mitt Romney all but crowned as their presidential nominee, social issues generally are losers for the party at a time when the GOP is trying to appeal to swing voters. Through a searing primary season that erupted repeatedly over gender politics to the general election now under way, polls have consistently shown that voters remain most concerned about jobs and the economy.

"I'm not trying to dismiss the social issues ... they are important to a lot of people," said Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, one of Romney's liaisons to Congress. "But we must stay focused on the jobs and the economy. That does more to affect people's social (policy) than anything else."

Polls and the party's recent experience suggest the strategy also is smart politics.

The GOP took a drubbing over the winter after picking a fight over a provision in Obama's health care law that required employers to provide workers access to contraception, even when religious views prohibit its use. In a coordinated effort, Republicans on both sides of the Capitol denounced the policy as a violation of the Constitution's guarantee of religious liberty and vowed to reverse Obama's rule. Democrats fired back that Republicans were trying to limit access to contraception as part of a "Republican war against women."

Polls showed that the Democrats won that early round, key to their mission to retain Obama's wide lead among women, who account for a majority of voters in presidential election years. Republicans were slow to respond, and Romney never engaged in the debate over contraception, convinced then as now that all Americans view the election as referendum on Obama's stewardship of the recovering economy.

Recent voter research offers support for the move away from the sort of "culture war" that conservative Patrick Buchanan called for from the podium of the Republican National Convention in 1992. Many Republicans viewed that approach as one that alienated moderates. Two decades later, as the candidates battle over that same voting bloc, polling suggests that social issues are a motivating factor for female voters — but not in the Republicans' favor.

An AP-GfK poll conducted earlier this month showed Obama holding a 53 percent to 32 percent advantage over Romney as the candidate who would do a better job handling social issues such as abortion and same-sex marriage.

And while a Washington Post/ABC News poll released Wednesday showed Republican women warming to Romney, other surveys suggest he still faces a broad gap on issues of concern to women.

A Kaiser Family Foundation poll also released Wednesday found that 4 in 10 women have taken some political action as a result of things they've heard, read or seen recently about women's reproductive health choices and services. Among liberal women, 51 percent said they had taken action, compared with 41 percent among conservative women.

Social issues change minds, notably among independent women, the survey found. Thirteen percent of women who identified themselves as independents said they had changed their mind about who to vote for as a result of news on reproductive issues, compared with 9 percent of Republican women and 7 percent of Democratic women.

Social issues have great emotional resonance in political campaigns and are thus risky subjects for emphasis in close elections. That's why House Republican leaders last month struck a deal with Rep. Trent Franks, R-Ariz., to bring up the gender-based anti-abortion bill for a vote on its own, rather than attach it to the controversial Violence Against Women Act.

On Thursday, Frank's bill got a vote — under a rule that required the support of two-thirds of the House. It failed by 30 votes. A leadership aide said there were no plans to bring it up for passage by a simple majority. The aide spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss strategy.

Steering away from social issues doesn't sit easily with some conservatives. Buchanan, for example, is still advocating on his blog for a culture war. Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, a leader of the House's most conservative members, said he hopes House GOP leaders will bring back Franks' anti-abortion bill for passage with a simple majority.

"I think there's an understanding among everyone about how serious the fiscal situation is, that under President Obama, our economy is not growing the way we want it to grow," said Jordan, who like Boehner is from swing state Ohio. "But just because we understand that doesn't mean we have abandoned or forgotten the idea that there are certain fundamental principles and values that are worth defending."

First things first, countered another swing-state Republican, Rep. Jo Ann Emerson of Missouri.

"I truly believe that those things will shake out in a more positive way if we can just deal with the issues that we really need to deal with, on the economy and fiscal side," Emerson said. "And shame on us if we can't do it."