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By James Hohmann (
mailto:jhohmann@politico.com
jhohmann@politico.com ) and Alexander Burns (
mailto:aburns@politico.com
aburns@politico.com )

SNEAK PEEK - HUNTSMAN'S MONEY TRAIL - Jon Huntsman has at least 18 fundraising events planned this month for his almost-declared presidential campaign, starting with a finance reception in New York scheduled for the day he kicks off his campaign. According to a calendar of events obtained by POLITICO, Huntsman's campaign will hold events in 17 cities in 10 states between June 21, when he's expected to announce his bid, and June 30, when the fundraising quarter ends. On the list of locations: New York, Columbia (S.C.), Miami, Naples (Fla.), Orlando, Salt Lake City, San Diego, San Francisco, Silicon Valley, Los Angeles, Orange County (Calif.), San Antonio, Dallas, Houston, Chicago, Grand
Rapids and Boston.

MORE- A separate Huntsman document outlines three levels of major donor involvement: The highest level, "H1," requires donors to bring in $100,000 for the campaign in exchange for perks such as "in person briefings by campaign leadership" and "quarterly appreciation events for H1 Team Members." The other levels are "H2," which involves raising $50,000, and "H3," which has participants raising $25,000 each.

TODAY - MITT-MENTUM IN FLA., GA. - Mitt Romney is rolling through Florida and Georgia Thursday, collecting a string of formal endorsements from prominent Republican officials as he goes. The former Massachusetts governor starts the day in Tampa, where his campaign has lined up statements of support from four prominent Floridians: Reps. Tom Rooney, Ander Crenshaw and Connie Mack and state Sen. John Thrasher. Several of those officials have previously signaled that they'll support Romney in 2012. In the afternoon, Romney will cross the border into Georgia, where he plans to tour a small business and attend a finance event. He'll meet up with state Attorney General Sam Olens for a 3:30 p.m.
tour of Kenny's Great Pies in Smyrna, nabbing Olens's endorsement in the process.

WHAT THEY'LL SAY ABOUT HIM - Olens's statement: "Mitt Romney has a proven record of creating jobs, balancing budgets, and cutting taxes. He has the needed experience to lead the country out of this economic downturn." And from Connie Mack: "President Obama's policies have failed Florida and the American people. Mitt Romney has the experience to lead a much-needed economic recovery. He has created jobs, balanced budgets, and cut taxes."

As the RLC approaches, Chris Christie wins a big one and Michele Bachmann plants a flag in New Hampshire, here's POLITICO's Morning Score: your daily guide to the permanent campaign.

WHERE THE RACE STANDS - ROMNEY AND THE REST: Mitt Romney has opened up a wider lead over his GOP opponents and claims nearly a third of the primary vote in the latest NBC/Wall Street Journal poll. The standings: Romney - 30; Sarah Palin - 14; Herman Cain - 12; Rick Perry - 8; Ron Paul - 7; Newt Gingrich - 6; Tim Pawlenty - 4; Rick Santorum - 4; Michele Bachmann - 3; Jon Huntsman - 1. Tested in a smaller field of just six candidates, Romney takes an impressive 43 percent of the vote ...
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AND THE GENERAL ELECTION - President Barack Obama currently leads all the Republican presidential candidates; Romney fares best against him but is still at a 6-point deficit, trailing with 43 percent to Obama's 49 percent. Pawlenty would start out at a 13-point disadvantage.
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HOW THE JOURNAL HANDICAPS IT - OBAMA STEADY, BUT VULNERABLE: "[A]ttacks on President Barack Obama's economic stewardship have yet to shake the president's lead over the GOP ... Still, a year and a half before Election Day, the political environment has grown more perilous for the president as economic gloom remains high. Some 62% of respondents said the U.S. is on the wrong track, up 12 percentage points from a month ago. Forty-four percent said the U.S. is heading for another recession, a slightly larger share than those who don't foresee a 'double dip.'"
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THE LATEST ON PALIN - A majority of respondents in the NBC/WSJ poll have a negative impression of the former Alaska governor, and most think she isn't equipped with the talents to be president. Fifty-four percent said they had a "somewhat" or "very negative" view of Palin, compared with 24 percent who had a "somewhat" or "very positive" view. Sixty percent of respondents said they were "not at all confident" that Palin "has the skills and abilities necessary to be president," with an additional 25 percent saying they're "only somewhat confident."
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LIVE FROM MSP - NETROOTS, ASSEMBLE: Netroots Nation, the biggest annual meeting of progressive activists, begins today at the Minneapolis Convention Center. Hohmann is on hand to cover the proceedings, and the UpTake will livestream seven channels of speeches, workshops and interviews. Livestream here:
http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=824472d04cd3d94cf2bf034349d392730f0e32728631c575e1b4f1784de08fb6
http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=824472d04cd3d94cf2bf034349d392730f0e32728631c575e1b4f1784de08fb6 ; the agenda for the conference:
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NEARBY - PAWLENTY HOUSE CALL - Your Minneapolis-based Morning Score correspondent spent Wednesday afternoon visiting Tim Pawlenty's national campaign headquarters and meeting members of the youthful and energetic staff. About two dozen people were hard at work in a nice space on the ninth floor of 1 Financial Plaza, a downtown Minneapolis high rise. Lucky for staff, they have both a Starbucks and a Caribou on the second floor of the building.

MORE TPAW - RAMPING UP IN IOWA - Pawlenty's first mailer will start to land in thousands of Iowa mailboxes Thursday, kicking off a more intense phase of the former governor's Hawkeye State campaign. The AP reports that Pawlenty will spend about 15 days in Iowa next month, a huge investment of time ahead of the August 13 straw poll in Ames. The wire notes that Pawlenty "hasn't ruled out running television advertising ahead of the straw poll."
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POPPING OVERNIGHT - NEWT ON THE WARPATH - The former House speaker is calling on NBC to apologize for a story claiming his wife, Callista, was central to the conflicts that triggered a mass staff exodus last week. "We make decisions as a couple, but in the end I take full responsibility," Gingrich told Fox News's Greta Van Susteren. "The program this morning [on NBC] was totally irresponsible, and personally reprehensible, and the kind of thing that makes it hard to get decent people to run for public office."
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AND - WHERE HE GOES FROM HERE - Gingrich plans to focus heavily on Iowa as the place to start his comeback, adviser Joe DeSantis told National Review, explaining: "This is where we need to build a powerful movement. We think we can still be competitive there." National Review outlines what the Gingrich team looks like now, organizationally: "Kathy Lubbers, Gingrich's daughter, is a senior adviser; Michael Krull is the campaign's political director; R. C. Hammond is the press secretary; Jody Thomas runs fundraising; Karen Olson advises Callista; Brady Cassis is the lead researcher; Bess Kelly is the scheduler. Perhaps the most important shift, DeSantis says, is Gingrich's decision to make
Vince Haley, his coauthor on books and policy proposals, the campaign's policy director." Read on for questions about a "major conflict of interest" in last week's staff departures:
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TALK RADIO BAIT - 'CRANKS' - Huntsman strategist John Weaver took the safety off in an interview with Esquire magazine, leveling harsh criticism at Huntsman's opponents - and the GOP in general. Weaver dubbed the current Republican presidential field "the weakest since 1940," declaring: "There's a simple reason our party is nowhere near being a national governing party ... No one wants to be around a bunch of cranks." He goes after Romney: "What version are we on now? Mitt 5.0? 6.0? And Pawlenty: "Tim's a nice guy, and there's nothing worse than seeing a nice guy pretend that he's angry. Is that really what we want to be?" PS: The article was supposed to be about Afghanistan.
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NOT JUST RUNNING IN IOWA - BACHMANN ADDS N.H. STAFF - The Union Leader has word that the Minnesota congresswoman is staffing up in the Granite State. Bachmann has hired former McCain organizer Matthew LeDuc, who worked on state GOP Chairman Jack Kimball's gubernatorial campaign, as her director of operations. Tom Lukacz, who ran Kimball's 2010 campaign, is also on board and former state GOP field operative Caroline Gigler will be Bachmann's southern New Hampshire field director. The paper reports Bachmann "has been getting help for months now from long-time friend and radio talk show host Jeff Chidester, who will continue to 'give her advice' and has been asked to take a stronger role,
'which we will talk about' in the coming days, he says."
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LOOKING AHEAD - ON THE RLC BALLOT - A dozen names will be on the straw poll ballot at this weekend's Republican Leadership Conference in New Orleans, but Rick Perry won't be among them. That's good news for the Texas governor, who may collect write-in support but won't face a serious comparison against the other candidates. POLITICO's Molly Ball scoops the list of competitors: Romney, Pawlenty, Gingrich, Huntsman, Bachmann, Cain, Paul, Santorum, Palin, Johnson, Roemer and McCotter. Romney beat Paul in last year's straw poll by one vote.
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CORNYN ON PERRY - NOT SWEPT AWAY - The Texas senator and National Republican Senatorial Committee chair doesn't sound overwhelmed by the idea of a Perry presidential run. John Cornyn told reporters on a conference call that Perry is a "skillful campaigner" with "good political instincts," but said: "The field is already pretty full. There have been a lot of people working at it for a number of years."
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CHRISTIE WINS BIG - "N.J. pension reform deal reached between Christie and 4 top lawmakers" - The Star-Ledger reports: "Gov. Chris Christie and leading legislators ended months of negotiations tonight by announcing an agreement to roll back pension and health benefits for public employees. Senate President Stephen Sweeney (D-Gloucester) and Assembly Speaker Sheila Oliver (D-Essex) have bucked members of their party by pushing forward with the plan, a signature issue of the governor's, angering public employee unions that have long allied themselves with Democrats ... 'There have been months of serious discussions about this,' Christie said [in Plainsboro]. 'The issues are difficult and they
are emotional ones.'"
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MEANWHILE, IN S.C. - THEY REALLY LIKE HIM - The Christie-for-president drumbeat continues, even as the governor remains crystal clear that he will not run in 2012. A handful of conservative South Carolina legislators held a press conference at the state house Wednesday afternoon to urge Christie into the race, with ringleader Kris Crawford of Florence telling a Fox reporter: "I hear what he's saying, but I'm watching what he's doing. He's clearly looking for national exposure. All he has said is 'No, no, no.' All we are asking him to do is sit down and talk about it." The full list of state reps involved: Crawford, Dan Hamilton, Phyllis Henderson, Murrell Smith, Jr., Chip Limehouse, Andy
Patrick, Michael Gambrell, Bill Taylor and Anne Thayer.
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WEINER WATCH - HIGH NOON - House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and other Democratic leaders will meet at 12 p.m. today to discuss revoking New York Rep. Anthony Weiner's committee assignments and other steps that might push him toward resignation. POLITICO's Jon Allen and Maggie Haberman: "[P]arty leaders who have not yet called for Weiner's ouster may be pressured to join that chorus. The renewed effort comes even as some of Weiner's closest friends in the House are criticizing Democratic colleagues for piling on." The Weiner scandal continued to overwhelm other Hill news yesterday, thanks to a press conference featuring superlawyer Gloria Allred and Ginger Lee, the former adult film star
who exchanged messages with Weiner.
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CODA - QUOTE OF THE DAY: "I was 88 on my last birthday ... I have no ambitions." - Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, on his lack of desire to return to public office
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