Politico notes it took just 30 minutes for conservatives "to jump all over Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) and his leadership team after the GOP's game plan for dealing with President Barack Obama's health care law leaked to the media."

"Their gripe? Republicans would try to replicate popular parts of Obama's health care law if the Supreme Court overturns the law this summer... The behind-the-scenes fight among Republicans richly illustrates why House GOP leadership is so cautious, sensitive and calculating when it comes to dealing with the conservative right."

"I love policy, I don't really love politics. One can do a lot with policy not in Washington."

-- Former Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice, quoted by NBC Chicago, on why she doesn't want to be Mitt Romney's running mate.

First Read: "What we learned last week and this week is how hard it is for both Obama and Romney to stay on their own messages. Both had their best-laid plans for the week stepped on in various ways. Last week, gay marriage did that to Obama. This week, the debt ceiling and then Ricketts did that for Romney. It's just never easy to stay on message (and it's hardest part of a presidential campaign). The good ones figure out what to ignore and what to jump on."

"Donors from big banks are betting on Mitt Romney to defeat President Obama and repeal new restraints on risky, large-scale investments," the Boston Globe reports.

"The top five donor groups in Romney's campaign are individuals and political action committees associated with large financial institutions... By contrast, Obama's top five contributor groups include individuals and PACs affiliated with high technology giants Google Inc. and Microsoft Corp., and the global law firms DLA Piper and Sidley Austin, and do not include those associated with banks. In 2008, financial institutions backed him generously."

Mitt Romney is up with his first advertisement since becoming the almost-certain Republican nominee, a positive spot featuring the Keystone XL pipeline, health care and taxes.

Newt Gingrich "did not exactly recant" to the Atlanta Journal Constitution "but did acknowledge the ineffectiveness of one attack he used on Romney -- the private equity firm Bain Capital. When Gingrich accused Romney and Bain of taking over companies and downsizing them at the expense of workers, he was widely condemned by fellow Republicans and eventually backed off."

"This week the Obama campaign released an ad along those same lines. Gingrich said his experience should be a lesson to Obama: 'that dog won't hunt.'"

Gingrich explained: "You want me to be mad because in one company somewhere Romney may have in fact been involved in someone losing their job while you as president have been involved in millions of people losing their jobs?"

Paul Krugman: "Suddenly, it has become easy to see how the euro -- that grand, flawed experiment in monetary union without political union -- could come apart at the seams. We're not talking about a distant prospect, either. Things could fall apart with stunning speed, in a matter of months, not years. And the costs -- both economic and, arguably even more important, political -- could be huge."

A new Mason-Dixon poll shows Mitt Romney (R) leading President Obama by three points in the presidential race nationally, 47% to 44%.

Meanwhile, a new Investors Business Daily/TIPP poll shows Obama ahead by three points, 43% to 40%.

The results are within each survey's margin of error.

It's been nearly two years since Al Gore shocked the public with the announcement he had separated from his wife Tipper after 40 years of marriage and now the Washington Post reports he has a girl friend.

"Her name is Elizabeth Keadle -- better known as Liz -- a well-heeled Democratic donor from Southern California in her 50s with a background in science and a devotion to environmental causes."

Mitt Romney's campaign has begun vetting running mates, The Hill reports.

"The team for Beth Myers, the Romney adviser leading the search for the GOP's vice presidential nominee, has already contacted potential running mates... By beginning the process early, the Romney camp hopes to avoid the mistake of John McCain's 2008 presidential campaign, when that campaign found itself unprepared for the onslaught of public attention that greeted Sarah Palin."

Breitbart News reports on a promotional booklet produced in 1991 by Barack Obama's then-literary agency which describes the author as "born in Kenya and raised in Indonesia and Hawaii."

Miriam Goderich issued the following statement to Political Wire:

"You're undoubtedly aware of the brouhaha stirred up by Breitbart about the erroneous statement in a client list Acton & Dystel published in 1991 (for circulation within the publishing industry only) that Barack Obama was born in Kenya.  This was nothing more than a fact checking error by me -- an agency assistant at the time.  There was never any information given to us by Obama in any of his correspondence or other communications suggesting in any way that he was born in Kenya and not Hawaii.  I hope you can communicate to your readers that this was a simple mistake and nothing more."

Full disclosure: I am a client of the same literary agency.

"I'm not familiar precisely with exactly what I said, but I stand by what I said, whatever it was."

-- Mitt Romney, at a press conference in Florida, defending previous statements he's made about President Obama and his relationship with the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

In the first poll of Nebraska's U.S. Senate race after this week's GOP primary, Rasmussen finds Deb Fischer (R) crushing former Sen. Bob Kerrey (D), 56% to 38%.

"I think guys like that so misunderstand the state of the nation they act like its 1942 or something. I mean think the public is so so far beyond. And then I heard getting out of the car it looks like they are not going to do that now. Look there are certain things that are sort of so morally clear and straight-straight lines about it-it almost doesn't warrant commenting."

-- Vice President Joe Biden, quoted by Time, on plans of a Romney-aligned Super PAC to hit President Obama with ads highlighting his ties to the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

Gallup: "Fifty-six percent of Americans think Barack Obama will win the 2012 presidential election, compared with 36% who think Mitt Romney will win. Democrats are more likely to believe that Obama will win than Republicans are to believe Romney will. Independents are nearly twice as likely to think that Obama, rather than Romney, will prevail."

A new Public Policy Polling survey in North Carolina finds "a noticeable shift" in the attitudes of African Americans toward rights for gay couples in the wake of President Obama's announcement last week that he supports gay marriage.

Key finding: "Our final poll before the primary last week found only 20% of black voters in the state favoring gay marriage, with 63% opposed. Now 27% express support for gay marriage with 59% opposed, for an overall 11 point shift on the margin."

Nate Silver updated his Senate forecast and concludes "the most likely outcome" to be Republicans winning 50 seats, Democrats 49, and Angus King (I) the seat in Maine. Under those circumstances, the Democrats would retain control of the Senate if King caucused with them and President Obama won re-election, making Vice President Biden the tiebreaking vote. Otherwise, Republicans would control the chamber.

However, the range in the forecast is from Democrats winning 55 seats to Republicans winning 56 seats.

When asked about the report that a Super PAC is planning to runs ads about President Obama's relationship with the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Mitt Romney told Townhall that it was the Obama campaign that was engaging in "character assassination."

Said Romney: "I would like to see this campaign focus on the economy, on getting people back to work, on seeing rising incomes and growing prosperity... And I think what we've seen so far from the Obama campaign is a campaign of character assassination. I hope that isn't the course of this campaign."

Maggie Haberman: "Obama's campaign's attacks have been about Bain Capital, which has been a key element of his curriculum vitae that he cites as qualifying him for the job."

A new WPRI poll in Rhode Island finds Rep. David Cicilline (D-RI) -- one of the most vulnerable incumbents in the country -- holds a slim lead over his Democratic primary opponent Anthony Gemma (D), 40% to 36%, with another 20% still undecided.

However, the primary to pick the opponent to Brendan Doherty (R) isn't for another four months.

Young workers were hit hard by the recession and at least one recent poll shows the president lagging significantly among younger voters.

National Journal: "The White House incumbent enjoyed the overwhelming enthusiasm of young voters in 2008, winning them by a two-to-one margin over Republican John McCain -- an incredible edge even for a group that usually leans left. But replicating that success could prove difficult when so many of those same voters are beset by personal financial difficulty. To do so, the Obama campaign might have to rely on a culturally oriented pitch, one that can tout the president's support of same-sex marriage."