Romney One-Ups Obama in Fundraising, the Potency of Citizens United and More

Romney Bests Obama in May Fundraising:

Last month was a good one for Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign: Not only did he clinch the number of delegates needed to win the GOP nomination, he also raised about $17 million more than President Obama did in the same period. Partnering up with the Republican National Committee, Romney raised a whopping $77 million in May. The joint fundraising effort between the president and the Democratic National Committee netted $60 million. Not as good as Romney, to be sure, but still not a bad haul over a span of 31 days. (Read more)

Romney Campaign Spelling Errors Mount: Here’s a fruitful idea of how Romney can spend his millions: on a spell-checker. First, his campaign messed up the spelling of America (it was spelled Amercia) in an iPhone app (leading to this hilarious parody by Stephen Colbert). Next, it offered a “sneak-peak” of a new campaign commercial. Now, Romney’s campaign team has messed up the spelling of Republican icon Ronald Reagan (spelling it Regan). This raises the question: Does someone who can’t hire people capable of spelling America and Reagan correctly even deserve to be the GOP presidential nominee? (Read more)

The Effect of Citizens United: Chuck Todd, political director for NBC News, had an interesting tidbit about campaign fundraising for the Wisconsin recall election. Todd pointed out on Twitter that the $63 million raised in the race to recall Republican Gov. Scott Walker was just $4 million less than what George W. Bush and Al Gore spent campaigning in a dozen states in the 2000 general election. Much of the money in the Wisconsin campaign came from outside the Badger State, and a majority was earmarked for Walker’s bid to keep his office, ultimately demonstrating the full effect of the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision on American politics. Is this really the way our Founding Fathers envisioned democracy? (Read more)

Clinton Under Fire: Aides to Bill Clinton said the former president screwed up by going off of President Obama’s campaign message (on the Bush tax cuts, Mitt Romney and the economy). On this point, it seems, aides to Obama and to Clinton (gasp!) agreed. Clinton tried to backtrack, arguing his words were taken out of context by the media. He also later apologized. And finally, for good measure, his team issued the ever popular—yet still somewhat embarrassing—here’s what-the-former-president-actually-meant-by-this clarification. Still, it’s worth asking whether Clinton actually meant what he said, or whether his tangential musings were misinterpreted, especially given how important the former president has become to Democrats during election years. (Read more)

Poll Shows Bad News for Obama Health Care Law: A poll released Thursday shows a majority of Americans—nearly seven out of 10—favor the Supreme Court striking down all, or part of, President Obama’s Affordable Care Act. Among the key findings from the survey conducted by The New York Times and CBS News: 41 percent want the entire law overturned, while 27 percent favor the high court striking down just the individual mandate part. The Supreme Court is expected to announce the highly anticipated ruling sometime before the end of June. (Read more)

Video of the Day: That awkward moment when you’re talking on the Senate floor and your cellphone goes off and you briefly can’t figure out how to silence it. Watch:

— Posted by Tracy Bloom