Top Obama campaign officials today said they would be outspent by Mitt Romney and allies, especially when you include all the various outside groups.

"We are going to be the first incumbent [president] outspent," said one of these officials at a pen-and-pad session with reporters in DC.

The ad-spending numbers for the general election show the two sides to be even right now. According to data from NBC/SMG Delta, the Obama campaign has spent nearly $61 million on advertising, versus $14 million for the Romney camp.

But when you factor in all the outside groups -- including the Super PACs (which have to disclose their donors) and 501c4s (which don't) -- Romney and his allies reach parity with Obama and his allies, $73 million to $73 million.

The same Obama campaign official predicted that Romney, the Republican National Committee, and the Romney Victory Fund would raise $100 million in June -- more than Team Obama would. In May, Team Romney outraised Team Obama, $77 million to $60 million.

When a reporter mentioned that the Obama campaign had a clear financial advantage over John McCain in 2008, another top official shot back that all of that money was transparent and disclosed, and much of it came from small donors. But this time, the official added, there are a slew of GOP-leaning 501c4 groups -- like the Karl Rove-backed Crossroads GPS and the Koch Brothers' Americans for Prosperity -- that don't have to disclose their donors and are being funded by seven-figure and even eight-figure checks.

The purpose of this pen-and-pad meeting was for the Obama campaign to discuss the state of the race, and these officials maintained that the Obama-Romney contest was close as expected. "We've got the race we anticipated," said one official.

And what's especially striking, these officials continued, is how stable the contest has been, despite all the polls and the various ups and downs. "The reality is there hasn't been a great deal of change in the last few months," the same official added.

That said, the campaign discussed all of its different paths to 270 electoral votes, its strength with minority voters (predicting they would represent 28% of all voters, up from 26% in 2008), its appeal with female voters, and its organizational advantage over Romney.

The campaign also said it wouldn't be backing away from its attacks on Romney's business background at Bain Capital, contending that they're working and they highlight Romney's economic values.

Meanwhile, it said, the advertising attacks on Romney's record as Massachusetts governor are intended to point to his competence -- or lack thereof. "Most Americans don't know he was the governor of Massachusetts because he's trying to put that behind him," argued one official.

The campaign officials emphasized another point to the assembled reporters: Romney has yet to receive scrutiny for his policies and plans, and they hope that scrutiny comes.

In fact, they pointed to five issues -- the Simpson-Bowles deficit-reduction plan, how to pay for Romney's $5 trillion tax cut, immigration, foreign policy, and the Romney jobs plan -- where the former Massachusetts governor has been vague or unspecific.

If Romney wants to be president, one of the officials said, "he ought to answer single, direct questions about his positions... If there is one consistent quality he has shown, it is evasiveness. They don't want to be scrutinized."

And another official charged that Romney "is the most secretive presidential candidate in our lifetime," noting that he hasn't released the names of his campaign bundlers, his income tax returns (beyond one for 2010 and an estimate for 2011), or many of his records as Massachusetts governor.

GRAND RAPIDS, MI -- Some of Mitt Romney's most deep-pocketed donors will flock to Utah for an exclusive gathering this weekend featuring top Republican political figures and strategists.

More than 100 of the GOP's top fundraisers and bundlers will attend the "First National Romney Victory Leadership Retreat," a weekend-long retreat intended to rally, educate and reward the men and women who have been the primary financial backers of the presumptive nominee's campaign thus far.

The attendees will be treated to presentations, briefing and panel discussions featuring an all-star cast of Republican politicians, including several thought to be among Romney's top vice presidential choices.

Among the possible VP contenders a Romney campaign adviser confirmed would be in attendance are former Govs. Tim Pawlenty (MN) and Jeb Bush (FL), Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal and former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. The GOP's last presidential nominee, Arizona Sen. John McCain, will also attend, according to Republican sources familiar with the event's schedule.

Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell will speak at one of the weekend's two major dinners, according to a McDonnell staffer.

The Washington Post has reported that Sen. John Thune, Rep. Paul Ryan -- two other rumored VP short-listers will attend, as will Republican power-broker Karl Rove. NBC News has not independently confirmed this information.

"All the major players of the party will be there," Dallas businessman Ray Washburne, who will attend the retreat, told NBC News. "Its kind of a reunion of all the people who worked hard on the campaign so far."

Washburne is indicative of the type of Republican rainmaker the Romney campaign intends to woo, and reward, at the retreat. The real estate developer, investor and restauranteur headed up a recent Romney fundraiser in Dallas that brought in $3.6 million for the campaign, and has co-chaired Romney's fundraising effort in the Lone Star state after the first candidate he supported -- Pawlenty -- dropped out of the race.

The invitees are primarily those donors who have raised enough money to qualify as national finance committee members, one Romney adviser said.

"The party is all falling in behind the candidate now, and this is kind of the first kind of anointment of Mitt by everyone," Washburne said.

On Saturday, attendees will be briefed by top Romney campaign officials, including political director Rich Beeson, and the famously media-averse campaign manager Matt Rhodes, on the state of the campaign and strategy going forward. That night they will also attend the second of two dinners with the candidate himself.

Attendees at the weekend-long retreat will at gather at a resort hotel in the mountains surrounding Salt Lake city, not far from where Romney first rose to prominence by running the Salt Lake City Olympics in 2002, and in the state where he still retains a rock star-like political status.

Romney and his guests will be far from the prying eyes of most media. The entire three-day conference is closed to the press, and Romney has no public events in Utah to draw reporters here otherwise. His campaign has refused most official requests for comment on the conference, including several made for this report.

When the conference concludes at the end of the weekend, the campaign will continue with one major question -- likely to be discussed all weekend -- that will remain unanswered: Was the vice presidential nominee among those in attendance?

"That's all anybody wants to know," Washburne said.

NBC's Alex Moe contributed.

Saul Loeb / AFP - Getty Images

The Supreme Court is seen on June 18, 2012. The high court is set to rule within days on the constitutionality of President Barack Obama's health care overhaul.

The Supreme Court of the United States – as much as campaign spending, the news media, and political ads on television – is a force shaping the 2012 presidential campaign.

That’s not only because the justices will soon decide the fate of both the Affordable Care Act and the Arizona anti-illegal immigration law, but because the court’s docket for its term beginning in October has a number of contentious cases on it. Among them: the use of racial preferences in admissions to state universities, the ability of U.S. citizens to challenge the validity of the government’s use of electronic surveillance to detect terrorist threats, and whether federal law allows suits in U.S. courts over alleged human rights violations committed in foreign countries.

Other high-profile cases dealing with same-sex marriage, campaign finance, the Voting Rights Act, and an Arizona law requiring proof of citizenship to register to vote have a good chance of being added to the docket before October.

Election Day seems likely to serve as a referendum on the court itself, especially if the justices strike down all or parts of President Barack Obama’s signature legislative achievement, the health care overhaul.

Obama has signaled that if the justices struck down the law, he would make “judicial activism” a theme of his campaign. In his 2010 State of the Union address, he already complained about the court loosening campaign finance rules in its Citizens United decision.

And after the justices heard oral arguments in the health care litigation, Obama told reporters, “I’m confident that the Supreme Court will not take what would be an unprecedented, extraordinary step of overturning a law that was passed by a strong majority of a democratically elected Congress.” He said conservatives had complained for years about “a lack of judicial restraint -- that an unelected group of people would somehow overturn a duly constituted and passed law.”

Obama would take up that conservative grievance and ask voters to give him a second term put his imprint on the court.

And that appointment power is what’s looming over voters’ choice of Obama versus Mitt Romney; the ability to select successors to Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Antonin Scalia, and Anthony Kennedy -- the three oldest justices on the court, all of whom are over the age of 75.

As is almost everyone else in Washington, several former Justice Department officials and law professors who spoke at a panel discussion Tuesday sponsored by the progressive-leaning American Constitution Society speculated on what the court might do in the landmark health care case, which could be announced as early as Thursday.

Paul Wolfson, who has argued 20 cases before the Supreme Court and clerked for Justice Byron White, said the provision in the ACA which expands Medicaid, the federal-state health insurance program for low-income people, is more significant than many observers have noticed.

“In terms of the progressive policy objective of making health care universally accessible and affordable to all Americans, the expansion of Medicaid is equally as important, if not more important” than the insurance purchase mandate that most commentators have focused on.

That provision expands the Medicaid-eligible population by one-third and imposes a uniform income eligibility standard in every state (135 percent of the federal poverty line) -- which means that middle-class people in poorer states will be covered. The states challenging that part of the ACA claim that they are being coerced into going along with the Medicaid expansion, even though most of the most is being borne by the federal taxpayers.

Washington attorney Walter Dellinger, a former acting solicitor general during the Clinton administration and a supporter of the ACA, hazarded the guess that the justices will affirm the health care law.

“I’m wondering whether the court might possibly do something undramatic” and that would be to focus on the government’s argument that a person is complying with the law if he pays the penalty for not purchasing health insurance. Since the penalty (or tax) for not buying insurance is so small, Dellinger said, a majority of the justices might see it as not too much of an infringement on individual rights. “The penalty is OK, but the mandate isn’t” because it “would preserve the idea that you can’t be forced into a transaction” is how Dellinger summed up this possible ruling. That, he said would leave the law intact.

But another lawyer on the ACS panel, Patricia Millett, a former lawyer in the solicitor general’s office during the Clinton administration who has argued 31 cases before the high court, said it was clear from the justices’ questions during oral argument that the difficulty of removing one section of the law which the court found to be unconstitutional without damaging the rest was weighing on their minds: “Do we then create a Frankenstein of a statute that functions in a way that Congress would have never wanted?”

Looking to the new term that begins in October, Dellinger said it’s likely the court will address the constitutionality of Section 3 of the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act, which defines marriage in federal law as the union of one man and one woman. He said that provision of DOMA undermined the existing laws in a handful of states that do allow same-sex couples to marry -- because it deprives those couples of federal benefits, including those protected under the federal estate and gift tax exemption.

He was bullish on the court striking down Section 3 of DOMA: “The DOMA case is a very powerful case to go to the Supreme Court because states’ rights and gay rights are on the same side.”

Dellinger said it was “a troublesome fact” that the ideological alignment on the court was so often the five appointees of Republican presidents (Scalia, Kennedy, Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Chief Justice John Roberts) opposing the four justices appointed by Democratic presidents (Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan). “For the first time in my lifetime, we have an alignment of ideology and political party,” he said. Formerly there would be at least a few justices such as Byron White who, although being appointed by a Democratic president, turned out to be conservative on some issues, or like John Paul Stevens who although appointed by a Republican president turned out to be liberal on some issues.

But former Solicitor General Paul Clement, who argued both the Arizona immigration case and the ACA cases before the court, pointed out that in the current term of the court there have been several unanimous decisions such as in the Texas redistricting case, a religious freedom case, a search-and-seizure case including GPS devices, and a major environmental case on the Clean Water Act.

These were “tremendously important and consequential cases,” Clement said --  all were voted 9-0 by the justices.  

Once the House committee votes in favor of citing Attorney General Eric Holder in contempt, it goes to the full House for consideration.

If the full House votes in favor of the contempt citation, the issue is sent to the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia. A federal law adopted by Congress in 1857 directs federal prosecutors to refer these matters to a grand jury for possible prosecution. The language is mandatory as to the U.S. attorney: "whose duty it shall be to bring the matter before the grand jury for its action."

But from there on, it gets complicated.

The Justice Department has long taken the position, as a separation of powers matter, that Congress cannot force the Justice Department to undertake a prosecution of an executive branch official. The courts have never resolved the question. 

The Justice Department, under both Democratic and Republican administrations, has further claimed that a U.S. attorney must not initiate a prosecution when the president has asserted executive privilege over what Congress seeks.

The administration of George W. Bush most recently made this claim during the congressional investigation of the firings of several U.S. attorneys nationwide. Congress subpoenaed former White House counsel Harriet Miers and Chief of Staff Josh Bolton, and the president directed that neither should testify or produce the requested documents. Though the broad issue of executive privlege went to court, it is still unresolved.

Another gray area here is how much a president can cover under the umbrella of an assertion of executive privilege. The further a matter gets from the White House and presidential decision making, the more the courts have been unwilling to recognize it.

On a broader point, the federal courts have been reluctant to referee what they see as fights between the White House and Congress. During the legal battle over Miers, the federal district court in Washington practically begged the two sides to work it out without suing each other.

"The court strongly encourages the political branches to resume their discourse and negotiations in an effort to resolve their differences constructively," it said.

And finally, there's this point to remember: if this does end up in court, it could take up to two years to resolve, given the time for a trial and subsequent appeals. However, a contempt citation is valid only during the Congress which approved it. Each term of Congress lasts only two years, so if the issue was still in the courts when this Congress ends in a year and a half, the contempt citation would evaporate, and so would any lawsuit.

Although the Latino vote could very well decide the upcoming presidential election, Hispanics no longer make up the fastest-growing immigrant group in the United States.

That honor instead goes to immigrants from Asia, according to a new study by the Pew Research Institute.

The study shows that, from 2000-2010, the annual arrival of Hispanic immigrants declined from 59% of all immigrants to 31%, while Asian immigrants increased from 19% to 36%.

Overall, the Asian-American population in America reached a record 18.2 million in 2011, bringing the demographic to 5.8% of the U.S. population -- a surge from 1% in 1965.

By comparison, however, there are 52 million Latinos in the U.S., or 16% of the population.

Politically, Asian Americans in the U.S. tend to vote Democratic. According to Pew, half of them are Democrats or lean toward the Democratic Party; only 28% identify as Republicans.

Asian Americans also view President Obama in a more favorable light, with a 54% approving of his job versus 44% for the general public who do. According to 2008 Election Day exit polls, Asian Americans supported Obama over John McCain by a 62%-35% margin.

On a broader political ideology scale, 55% of Asian Americans prefer a larger government with more services, while only 36% support a smaller government. Those numbers for the general populace are essentially reversed, with 52% supporting small government and 39% favoring bigger government.

When it comes to social issues, Asian Americans support same-sex marriage by a 53%-35% margin, and 54% believe abortion should be legal (versus 37% who say it should be illegal).

But how important will the Asian-American vote be in 2012, especially in key battleground states? The Asian-American populations in Nevada and Virginia are 6.2% and 4.9%, respectively, according to the U.S. Census Bureau data.

The populations in Florida and North Carolina, however, are much smaller, making up only 2% in each state. The states where Asian-Americans mostly reside are (in order) Hawaii, California, New Jersey, and New York.

Why Rubio probably won’t be Romney’s VP pick… And why T-Paw seems to be rising… Obama campaign releases two new TV ads hitting Romney’s record as Massachusetts governor… Romney’s boxed in on immigration… Romney raises money in Michigan, while the first lady stumps in Colorado… And House Republicans appear move forward on bringing contempt charges against AG Holder.

*** Why Rubio probably won’t be the pick: After reports surfaced yesterday revealing that Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) either wasn’t being vetted by Mitt Romney’s vice-presidential search team or he wasn’t being vetted as much as two other choices, Romney made a statement to correct the record. “Marco Rubio is being thoroughly vetted as part of our process,” he told reporters, per NBC’s Garrett Haake. But here’s a little rule of thumb in American politics: If you have to say you’re vetting someone, is that someone really under serious consideration? Indeed, despite being the party’s rising star and a favorite of the GOP base, the signs always have pointed AGAINST Rubio being Romney’s pick. Why? For starters, he’s only been a U.S. senator for a year and a half, and he didn’t endorse Romney until late in the GOP primary season. Then there’s the opposition research out there on him -- something that the Romney folks who worked for Charlie Crist’s 2010 Senate campaign know pretty well: Rubio charged more than $100,000 to state GOP credit cards, had racked up nearly $1 million in personal debt, and nearly had his home foreclosed on. No doubt that Rubio has plenty of assets (young, Latino, from Florida). But he also carries a lot of risk for the usually risk-averse Romney.  

Jae C. Hong / AP file photo

Sen. Marco Rubio joins Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney for a news conference prior to a town hall-style meeting in Aston, Pa.

*** T-Paw rising: So if it isn’t going to be Rubio, who will it be? Politico today writes something we’ve been saying over the past couple of weeks: Don’t lose sight of Tim Pawlenty. “Tim Pawlenty has jumped to the top of the vice presidential shortlist of several Mitt Romney advisers after emerging as the most effective — and well-liked — surrogate for the GOP nominee-to-be, according to several Republicans familiar with campaign deliberations.” That story follows a Washington Post report noting that Pawlenty and Sen. Rob Portman (R-OH) have undergone “a more intensive review” than Rubio has in the Romney campaign’s vetting process. If Pawlenty becomes the pick, Romney and his team would be sending this fairly implicit message: T-Paw should have been the VP choice four years ago. It also highlights just how differently Romney and McCain go about making decisions -- Romney: data-driven; McCain: gut. See the AP’s write up today on how Romney’s likely going about the VP process “The Bain Way.”

*** Team Obama’s two new TV ads: The Obama campaign has unveiled two new TV ads, both of which continue to hammer away at Romney’s record as Massachusetts governor. The first one points out that Romney raised revenues and fees as governor -- something that his GOP opponents rarely brought up during the primary season. The other one hits him for outsourcing jobs to India when he was governor. “Outsourcing jobs -- Romney economics. It didn’t work then, and it won’t work now,” that advertisement goes. The Romney campaign has issued this response to these new ads: “Mitt Romney was a successful businessman and governor with a decades-long record of helping to create American jobs, in contrast to President Obama's hostility to free enterprise that has left millions of Americans out of work.  It's still the economy and the American people aren't stupid.” Speaking of ads, the conservative group Concerned Women for America is up with a big buy in swing states hitting the health-care law.

*** Romney boxed in on immigration: Why do Republicans have a problem when it comes to immigration? And why will Romney’s speech on Thursday to the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials (NALEO) be such a challenge for him? Here’s a reason: The first actual GOP bill that gets traction after Obama’s immigration move on Friday is an effort to reverse the president’s action. As NBC’s Frank Thorp reported yesterday, Rep. David Schweikert (R-AZ) has introduced legislation that would prevent the Department of Homeland Security from enforcing a presidential executive action as immigration law. This demonstrates the box that Romney finds himself in (and which John McCain found himself in four years ago): Even if you want to try to woo Latinos by pursuing a more moderate path on immigration, the GOP base is against that. That said, the Republican National Committee is up with web video (in both English and Spanish) arguing that the economy hasn’t worked for Latinos during the Obama years. But is an economic message, with nothing to offer on immigration, really enough?

*** On the trail: Romney hits a pair of fundraisers in Michigan… First Lady Michelle Obama speaks to two gatherings of campaign volunteers in Colorado… Vice President Biden begins his day with a fundraiser in Carmel, CA before heading to New Orleans, where he addresses the National Association of Black Journalists… And the Romney sons appear on Conan O’Brien’s show.

*** Trying to pressure Merkel: Here’s the dispatch by NBC’s Shawna Thomas and one of us from the G20 summit in Mexico. “President Barack Obama expressed support for his European counterparts and their measures to manage the fiscal crisis as the G20 Summit in Los Cabos, Mexico wrapped up Tuesday, saying he believes they are ‘ready to do what is necessary to hold the Eurozone together.’ Behind the scenes, however, one senior administration official said the focus of the summit was to convince German Chancellor Angela Merkel to pull away from an austerity plan and focus more on spending and creating jobs. Another senior administration official was asked whether leaders "ganged up" on Merkel; that official replied, ‘I don’t think I’d describe it that way.’ But another official said world leaders were very blunt in their efforts to convince Merkel to sign on to the plan.”

*** In contempt? After failing to reach an agreement yesterday with Attorney General Eric Holder in handing over more documents in the so-called “Fast & Furious” matter, House Republicans appear to be moving ahead to bring contempt charges against Holder. Politico looks at the stakes for the House GOP: “The contempt fight with Holder and the White House is a big moment for House Republicans. With stubbornly high unemployment, a president with weak approval ratings, a redistricting process that has shored up Republican seats from coast to coast and a worse-than-expected economic recovery, GOP officials think they’re poised to keep the House in their control, and many believe they have a shot at taking the Senate and White House. Yet, despite public pronouncements of support from Boehner and other GOP leaders, significant pockets among GOP leadership think the spectacle of holding the attorney general in contempt of Congress would knock the party off message.”

Countdown to GOP convention: 68 days
Countdown to Dem convention: 75 days
Countdown to Election Day: 139 days

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*** Wednesday’s “Daily Rundown” line-up with guest host Luke Russert: Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) on the economic debate and the fight for Ohio… Rep. Aaron Schock (R-IL) on the tax fight… Rep. Loretta Sanchez (D-CA) on the immigration debate… NBC’s Pete Williams with the latest on the House Oversight Committee and Atty. Gen. Eric Holder… NBC’s Richard Engel with the latest from Egypt… More 2012 headlines with Politico’s Jake Sherman, The Grio’s Perry Bacon and Michelle Bernard of the Bernard Center for Women, Politics and Public Policy.

*** Wednesday’s “Jansing & Co.” line-up: MSNBC Chris Jansing will cover the House Oversight & Reform Committee’s contempt citation  news at 10am when House Oversight & Gov’t Reform Cmte will vote on Contempt citation for AG Eric Holder – Chris welcomes Cmte members Rep Jackie Speier (D-CA) & Rep Patrick Meehan (R-PA); MSNBC Host of “Politics NATION” Rev. Al Sharpton; Washington Post’s Nia-Malika Henderson; National Journal’s Major Garrett; Politico’s Jonathan Martin; GOP Pollster Ed Goeas; Democratic Strategist Chuck Rocha and civil attorney John Q. Kelly.

*** Wednesday’s “MSNBC Live with Thomas Roberts” line-up: MSNBC’s Thomas Roberts interviews RealClearPolitics’ Erin McPike, GOP strategist John Feehery and Dem strategist Richard Fowler;   Rep. John Mica on Holder contempt vote; Arturo Vargas, the executive director of National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials – the group that Romney and Obama will be speaking to later this week.

*** Wednesday’s “NOW with Alex Wagner” line-up: Alex Wagner’s guests include the Washington Post’s Ezra Klein, former RNC Chair Michael Steele, CNBC’s John Harwood, the AP’s Kasie Hunt, DNC Executive Dir. Patrick Gaspard, Moody’s Mark Zandi, and former State Dept. Spokesman P.J. Crowley

*** Wednesday’s “Andrea Mitchell Reports” line-up: NBC’s Andrea Mitchell interviews the Washington Post’s Chris Cillizza, “Teavangelicals” author David Brody, “The Lady and the Peacock” author Peter Popham, and attorney Tom Goldstein of “SCOTUSBlog.”

*** Wednesday’s “News Nation with Tamron Hall” line-up: MSNBC’s Tamron Hall interviews the Washington Post’s Nia Malika Henderson, political columnist Earl Offari Hutchinson, NAACP senior VP Hilary Shelton, Newsweek Jerusalem Bureau Chief Dan Ephron, and PA Attorney General candidate Kathleen Kane.

Obama leads Romney in a Bloomberg/Selzer poll, 53%-40%, “even as the public gives him low marks on handling the economy and the deficit, and six in 10 say the nation is headed down the wrong track.”

Romney has a 39/48% fav/unfav.”A majority of likely voters, 55 percent, view him as more out of touch with average Americans compared with 36 percent who say the president is more out of touch,” Bloomberg writes. But: “The presidential race is roughly tied among the most enthusiastic voters, 49 percent of whom back Romney compared with 48 percent for Obama. Still, Romney inspires far less enthusiasm even among his supporters than does Obama, with 35 percent of Romney backers saying their support for him is “very strong,” compared with 51 percent of Obama backers who say so.”

The New York Times does its own fact-checking of Obama and Romney campaign statements. “With the presidential race largely focused on the economy and the budget, Mr. Obama and Mr. Romney are filling speeches with facts and figures designed to enhance their case and diminish the other guy’s, in the process often making assertions fundamentally at odds with one another. Along the way, both candidates are at times stretching the truth, using statistics without context, exaggerating their own records and misrepresenting their opponent’s.”

There are two new Obama ads out today, both negative, hitting Romney's tenure as governor of Massachusetts, NBC’s Carrie Dann reports. "Mosaic" focuses on fees Romney raised (with a reference to Romney's personal wealth). And "Come and Go" attacks on Romney outsourcing jobs -- an already familiar jab. The ads are set to air in New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Virginia, North Carolina, Florida, Ohio, Iowa, Colorado, and Nevada.

“The US Department of Health and Human Services released a report Tuesday showing that President Obama’s health care overhaul has benefited 3.1 million young adults who have gained insurance through their parents’ health plans, a popular provision of the otherwise controversial law,” the Boston Globe writes. “Federal health officials have been on a push to sell the law to Americans, regularly releasing reports on how the law has benefited various population groups. The Supreme Court is expected to rule on the constitutionality of the law in coming days.”

“President Obama voiced confidence Tuesday in Europe’s ability to tackle its crippling debt crisis as he sought to calm both global financial markets and the election-year worries of American voters,” the New York Daily News writes. “Obama, speaking at the close of the Group of 20 economic summit, said Europe’s leaders showed a ‘heightened sense of urgency’ during two days of talks in this Mexican resort.”

“Vice President Joe Biden, campaigning in Sacramento on Tuesday, said President Barack Obama must be better organized in swing states than he was in 2008 if he is to win re-election in the fall,” The Sacramento Bee writes.

The liberal group MoveOn today is surveying its members today through tomorrow to see if they will endorse Obama in the fall. (The answer to that question is most likely yes.)

Romney made the front page of the (more conservative) Detroit News, but just a sidebar photo in the Free Press. He gets the full centerpiece front-page treatment in the Grand Rapids Press with a photo of him and wife Ann, strolling barefoot on a lakeshore. Headline: “Romney woos West Michigan.”

Whoops. Romney calling Gov. Rick Snyder “one tough geek” (instead of “nerd”) gets picked up in Michigan. Snyder corrected him. And there was this: “Romney, in his Frankenmuth speech, said Snyder came into office facing unemployment levels at ‘like 15 percent.’ In fact, the jobless rate crested at 14.2 percent in August 2009 when Democratic Gov. Jennifer Granholm was in office, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. When Snyder took office in January 2011, it stood at 10.9 percent.”

The Romneys’ horse qualified for the Olympics in the effete sport of dressage. The New Yorker sees political risk for Romney in the spotlight being on that.

“Mitt Romney rarely visited the University of Massachusetts as governor, but on July 18, 2005, he called a news conference at the system’s Boston campus. It was sweltering out, but he barely broke a sweat. Standing in an underground parking garage so dilapidated it endangered the buildings above, he pledged $50 million for repairs,” the Boston Globe writes. “What happened next would be part of a pattern marking his four-year effort to change higher education. His plan went nowhere. … A review of Romney’s record on higher education as governor reveals several sweeping plans - a wholesale reform of the public system, steep budget cuts followed by dramatic funding proposals - that all ran into a buzz saw in the Democratic-controlled Legislature.”