President Barack Obama walks with Prime Minister Stephen Harper of Canada, left, and President Felipe Calderon of Mexico following their joint press conference in the Rose Garden of the White House, April 2 (Official White House Photo by Chuck Kennedy)
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Ed Kilgore: Every day there’s at least one headline coming across the transom that doesn’t make you laugh, cry, cheer, or think, but simply scratch your head in puzzlement. Today’s winner is from Politico’s Lois Romano: “Ann Romney is the Romney Democrats Fear Most.”
…. Huh! Everybody thinks Ann Romney is a “rock star?” I did not know that. The “political arena” is all abuzz about her? Missed that, too; the buzzing must be confined to weekends, when I kinda check out from politics as much as possible.
…. If you read this long piece, however, it begins to appear that most of the buzzing Romano is hearing is coming from busy bees inside the Romney campaign itself….
….. Perhaps the most revealing thing about the Romneys as a team that Romano’s account mentions is that their handlers can’t decide whether Ann is more valuable on the road as a speaker, or behind the scenes as a steadying influence on the candidate. It sounds like Mitt needs a road manager and a psychologist as much as he needs a dazzling opening act. Indeed, he seems to be a very needy dude….
USA Today: President Obama has opened the first significant lead of the 2012 campaign in the nation’s dozen top battleground states, a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll finds, boosted by a huge shift of women to his side.
In the fifth Swing States survey taken since last fall, Obama leads Republican front-runner Mitt Romney 51%-42% among registered voters just a month after the president had trailed him by two percentage points.
The biggest change came among women under 50. In mid-February, just under half of those voters supported Obama. Now more than six in 10 do while Romney’s support among them has dropped by 14 points, to 30%. The president leads him 2-1 in this group. Romney’s main advantage is among men 50 and older, swamping Obama 56%-38%.
…. In the poll, Romney leads among all men by a single point, but the president leads among women by 18.
David Javerbaum (NYT): A Quantum Theory of Mitt Romney. The recent remark by Mitt Romney’s senior adviser Eric Fehrnstrom that upon clinching the Republican nomination Mr. Romney could change his political views “like an Etch A Sketch” has already become notorious. The comment seemed all too apt, an apparent admission by a campaign insider of two widely held suspicions about Mitt Romney: that he is a) utterly devoid of any ideological convictions and b) filled with aluminum powder.
…. according to the latest theories, the “Mitt Romney” who seems poised to be the Republican nominee is but one of countless Mitt Romneys, each occupying his own cosmos, each supporting a different platform, each being compared to a different beloved children’s toy but all of them equally real, all of them equally valid and all of them running for president at the same time, in their own alternative Romnealities, somewhere in the vast Romniverse.
Rupert Cornwell (UK Independent): Obamacare is in the hands of the unelected – The Supreme Court has the power to trump Congress and consign to history the US’s boldest attempt at universal healthcare.
….. If the so-called “individual mandate” is rejected, then the whole financial edifice of Obamacare comes crashing down. With the stroke of a judicial pen, unelected judges would have voided the most important piece of health legislation since the Medicare and Medicaid Acts in 1965, and destroyed the boldest effort yet to give America what is taken for granted in every other industrial country: universal health coverage.
…. The biggest casualty of all, however, could be the reputation of the Supreme Court itself … it would be shown once and for all as just another player, albeit a mightily powerful one, in the partisan warfare that has brought the American political system almost to the point of dysfunction. Maybe, that will induce one conservative justice at least to step back from the brink on Obamacare. But don’t bet on it.
Tuesday: PBO will deliver remarks at the AP Luncheon during the ASNE Convention.
Wednesday: PBO will host an Easter Prayer Breakfast at the White House. Christian leaders from across the country will join the President at this breakfast for a time of prayer, reflection, and celebration of Easter. Also on Wednesday, the President will sign the STOCK Act, which makes clear that Members of Congress are subject to the same insider trading laws that apply to everyone else. This was legislation the President called on Congress to pass in his 2012 State of the Union Address.
Thursday: PBO will sign the JOBS Act, which includes key initiatives the President proposed last fall to help small businesses and startups grow and create jobs.
Friday: PBO will deliver remarks at the White House Forum on Women and the Economy. Later, the President and the First Lady will mark the beginning of Passover with a Seder at the White House with friends and staff.
The Obama Diary 
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