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Mara Gay Contributor AOL News (March 16) -- This time, it's partisan. About a month after a billboard of former President George W. Bush with the question "Miss Me Yet?" was spotted beside a Minnesota highway, a similarly mysterious billboard has appeared in the state. This one features Ronald Reagan, and, unlike the original billboard, the message is unmistakably conservative: "Remember Real Hope and Change?" the sign asks, openly mocking President Barack Obama's campaign slogan.

In a vacuum there’s nothing newsy about this, but 2012 isn’t a vacuum. We’ve talked before about the developing narrative: Palin vs. anti-Palin, “true conservatives” vs. centrists, blue-collar vs. white-collar, and … populists vs. “elitists.” With Beck having brought down the house at CPAC and the GOP in the grip of tea party fee-vah, why oh why would a potential nominee spritz cold water on populism? Branding, dear boy, branding: As Mitt Romney sets out this week to promote his new book, “No Apology,’’ he is also auditioning for a rapidly disappearing role in American politics: a politician who is...

Former Gov. Mitt Romney showed the right stuff by keeping cool when an unruly airline passenger threatened the likely GOP presidential contender in a flap over reclining seats, experts said. “There’s no need to get into fisticuffs over a reclined seat,” said etiquette guru Jodi R.R. Smith, president of Mannersmith. Smith called Romney “generally one of the more well-mannered politicians on our national stage.” The former Bay State governor and his wife, Ann, were on a flight from Vancouver to Los Angeles Monday when Romney asked the man sitting in front of his wife to put his seat upright for...

"Now, two weeks before publication of "No Apology: The Case for American Greatness," Romney is pivoting again -- this time pitching himself as a problem solver whose background as a successful financier makes him the ideal candidate to rescue the ailing U.S. economy. But the real problem, said the paper, is "the real Mitt Romney — Harvard MBA, political scion, hard-working businessman, super-wealthy master of Wall Street offerings, devout Mormon — might not be what Republican primary voters actually want."

Thus prompting the question: How uncool did he used to be? "He’s changed, he’s changed. You know, he’s actually — before he was an outsider coming in and he was, you know, kind of, you know, stiff. But he’s actually, like, funny, he’s like — when he was at my events he was cracking jokes, when we were on the bus — I was like, who is this guy? He’s really kind of, I think, settled into his role kind of being the elder statesman of the party and everything he went through as president. It’s kind of, and once...

Just before yesterday’s White House jobs summit, Mitt Romney minced no words in blasting President Obama’s economic policies. “Like other presidents before him, Barack Obama inherited a recession. But unlike them, he has made it worse, not better,’’ Romney wrote in an opinion piece published yesterday in USA Today. The former Massachusetts governor - who made his name and fortune at private equity firm Bain Capital, ran for the GOP presidential nomination last year, and could very well run again in 2012 - derides Obama’s economic know-how. “His failure to stem the unemployment tide should not have been a surprise....

... The so-called purity test is a 10-point checklist -- a suicide pact, really -- of alleged Republican positions... James Bopp Jr., chief sponsor of the resolution and a committee member from Indiana, has said that "the problem is that many conservatives have lost trust in the conservative credentials of the Republican Party." Actually, no, the problem is that many conservatives have lost faith in the ability of Republican leaders to think. The resolutions aren't so much statements of principle as dogmatic responses to complex issues that may, occasionally, require more than a Sharpie check in a little square. It's...

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Depictions ‘took place entirely in her imagination,’ says Wallace. NBC NEWS and NEWS SERVICES NEW YORK - Former McCain campaign senior adviser Nicolle Wallace says Sarah Palin's book "Going Rogue" is "based on fabrications," and that the basis for Palin’s depictions of her and former McCain campaign director Steve Schmidt as villains "took place entirely in her imagination." In a statement to The Rachel Maddow Show, the former McCain spokesperson repeatedly used the word "fiction" to describe Palin's narrative and echoed criticisms by other former McCain staffers. "She [Palin] probably has a legitimate complaint that things could have been better...

WASHINGTON (CNN) – Fewer than three in 10 Americans think Sarah Palin's qualified to be president, according to a new national poll - the least of any of the five potential candidates included in the survey. But another woman tops that list in the CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey released Monday: two-thirds of the public thinks that Secretary of State HIllary Clinton's qualified for the Oval Office. That's more than Vice President Joe Biden, who's currently next in line for the presidency. According to the poll, 28 percent of Americans say Palin is qualified to run the White House, with seven...

Okay okay, one final birther story. Unfortunately for the true believers your leader, Orly Taitz, was fined $20,000 for mis-use of the legal system. Justice Clay Land wrote a 43 page order railing against Ms. Taitz and warned her against misusing the court system to push purely political agendas. You can read the order here (it's pretty scathing). For any who are not familiar with Orly Taitz, she is one of the leaders of the so-called birther movement who has sought to have the legitimacy of President Obama's election over-turned through the claim that he never provided a true birth...

This memorandum addresses the matter of how we can maximize the fact of our incumbency in dealing with persons known to be active in their opposition to our Administration, Stated a bit more bluntly--how we can use the available federal machinery to screw our political enemies. After reviewing this matter with a number of persons possessed of experience in the field, I have concluded that we do not need an elaborate mechanism or game plan, rather we need a good project coordinator and full support for the project. In brief, the system would work as follows: --Key members of the...