Here are ten things you need to know today.
- Sunday shows line-up: Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand and Rep. Michele Bachmann will be on NBC’s Meet the Press; David Axelrod and Ed Gilliespie will be on Fox News Sunday; RNC Chair Reince Priebus and Reps. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R) and Carolyn Maloney (D) will be on CNN’s State of the Union; Tim Geithner will be on ABC’s This Week; Tim Geithner and Sen. John McCain will be on CBS’s Face the Nation.
- Romney wasn’t always as supportive of motherhood as work: In January of this year, Mitt Romney recalled his proposal as governor of Massachusetts to give assistance for childcare to the children of women on welfare so they could get a job and experience “the dignity of work.” This is a different interpretation of motherhood and work which the Romney campaign has been pushing since Hilary Rosen said Ann Romney had “never worked a day in her life.” The quote was unearthed and reported on MSNBC’s “Up w/ Chris Hayes” Sunday morning.
- Obama campaign rebuts Romney’s NRA speech in new video: The Obama campaign released a video called “Mitt Romney Versus Reality at the NRA,” in which the campaign rebuts claims about Obama by intersplicing sentences from Romney’s speech with Obama’s own or a newspaper headline saying the opposite. Produced by what the campaign calls its ‘Truth Team,’ the video is one in a series of videos using the same technique to demonstrate that Romney is misconstruing Obama’s record.
- Pro-GOP super PACs out-raise Democratic ones: Democratic super PACs, including the pro-Obama Priorities USA Action, saw their fundraising go up in 2012 over 2011 — but they still lag far behind their Republican counterparts. Four Democratic groups and 2 non-profits raised $7.9 million in the first three months of 2012 (minus Priorities USA Action’s March numbers) while American Crossroads and Restore Our Future brought in $21.5 million in the first two months of the year.
- Rubio says he won’t be the VP pick: Marco Rubio reiterated in an interview with CNN en Español that “I’m not going to be the vice president.” Rubio also discussed how the GOP can earn the support of Latino voters: “I’ll tell you, the Hispanic vote has to be earned,” he said. “You can’t just put somebody on there and say, ‘This is gonna deliver it.’ You’ve got to earn it, and primarily I think you earn it through economic policies.”
- Alberto Gonzales says Rubio is the wrong VP pick: Former attorney general Alberto Gonzales, who served under President George W. Bush, said over the weekend that Florida Sen. Marco Rubio would be a bad VP pick, saying he would not be prepared to be president and that the VP “must be ready on day one.” He also denied that Rubio would give the GOP ticket a boost among Latino voters, adding Rubio might pique their interest “for the first 12 hours if selected for the number two spot, but that won’t last” and said the GOP had alienated Latinos during the primary, not reached out to them.
- Will the election be decided before Labor Day?: Strategists say that the next few months will be critical to the campaign, reports the Washington Post: “The next 60 to 90 days may be among the most important of the general election. Obama and Romney will attempt to frame the issues on terms most favorable to their candidacies. Their campaign teams will try to define their opponent as negatively as possible.”
- Obama attacks Romney’s immigration stance: On a trip to South America over the weekend, President Obama attacked Mitt Romney on immigration reform, saying that his support for Arizona’s immigration law is “very troublesome.” Obama also promised to tackle immigration reform in the first year of his second term.
- SNL offered Romney guest spot on the show: Saturday Night Live’s executive producer Lorne Michaels has offered Mitt Romney a guest spot on the show, New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd reported in her Saturday column. Romney is considering the offer.
- Santorum will hold a conference call to thank supporters: The Santorum campaign has scheduled a conference call for Monday evening at 8pm where the former Senator will “to express my heartfelt thanks to you, share my thoughts on the campaign and my future, as well as answer some submitted questions.”
