The New Republic

Maggie Haberman reports on the personal animosity between Mitt Romney and Rick Perry: Perry thinks "Romney stands for nothing,” said a Perry confidante. “He’s got no spine, no backbone.” ... Perry, people familiar with his views said, sees Romney as expedient, overly ambitious and unpalatable to the conservative base. Likewise, people close to Romney said he has unflattering opinions about Perry. READ MORE >>

Of course she can: READ MORE >>

The Wall Street Journal editorial page twists the knife: READ MORE >>

Tomorrow Mitt Romney ventures straight into the lion's den -- Ann Arbor, Michigan, home of Jonathan Cohn, where he will deliver a health care speech attempting to explain the unexplainable. Just as Luke Skywalker was bound to seek out and confront Darth Vader, Romney must confront Cohn. If Romney winds up bloodied, one hand sliced off and clinging to a weathervane with the other, he'll have done better than I expect. READ MORE >>

A new report on health care access in Massachusetts has given conservatives a new opportunity to say “told you so” about Romneycare and the Affordable Care Act. READ MORE >>

This doesn't strike me as a really powerful push-back against the charge that the Affordable Care Act strongly resembles Romneycare: READ MORE >>

There’s just so much to get to in Matt Bai’s latest, in today’s NYT, on the 2012 presidential contest. READ MORE >>

Salt Lake City, Utah Jon Huntsman Jr. wants to know if I'm in the mood for Mexican food for lunch. "I know a great place we can go downtown," the Utah governor says as we pile into the back seat of his black, tinted Suburban. (He goes there all the time, three of his aides separately assure me.) We drive south from Capitol Hill, passing the enormous Mormon temple in the center of town. The car finally turns into a Sears parking lot on the other side of the city, across the street from a pornography store that offers to "BUY AND SELL USED ADULT MAGAZINES AND DVDS." READ MORE >>

Okay, not Romney himself, but his longtime aide, Eric Fehrnstrom, who pens a column for the Des Moines Register telling Iowans what to expect based on his experiences in Massachusetts: The next few years will not be happy times for the Hawkeye state. Battles lines will be drawn. Neighbors will be pitted against neighbors. Extremists on both sides will turn Iowa into ground zero in the nation's culture wars. READ MORE >>

McCain vs. Romney (plus Laura Ingraham) vs. Dole vs. Limbaugh vs. McCain. From Marc Ambinder: READ MORE >>