Morning Must Reads: Momentum

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–Unemployment falls to 8.8% in March, a two-year low, as non-farm payrolls swell by 216,000. It’s a good sign of momentum, but obviously the bar for happy news is pretty low. A return to normal employment levels will take a very long time at this rate.

–Many conservatives are feeling good about 2011 budgets and would prefer to declare victory and turn to the next fight rather than scrap this one out.

–Paul Ryan hotly anticipated 2012 budget will reportedly include $1 trillion in Medicaid cuts, but won’t directly touch Social Security.

–Is Gaddafi’s regime looking for an out? Rebels offer a ceasefire.

–Tim Pawlenty lays out a few names he’d like to see get the vice presidential nomination in ’12: Marco Rubio, Chris Christie, John Kasich, Brian Sandoval, Susana Martinez. All are rising talents in the party, four of the five are governors and three of them (Rubio, Sandoval and Martinez) are Hispanic.

–Liberals have an uneasy history with Jim Messina, Obama’s ’12 campaign manager.

–Mitt Romney will start really raising money this month. His PAC took in $1.9 million in the first three months of this year.

–Early presidential primary polls aren’t useless.

–A political science paper suggests a vote for health care cost Democrats 6-8% in the midterms, or around 13 House seats.

–The Fed’s discount window disclosures have been released, but it will take a while for reporters to sort through 25,000-pages of documents for the word “Goldman.”

–And Republicans wish President Obama a happy April Fools Day:

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VIA5aszzA18]

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