Ed Rendell’s 2005 ‘Kiss of Death’ Endorsement of Mitt Romney

Former Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell weighed in Monday on the Obama campaign’s Bain Capital attacks and, alas, another would-be Obama surrogate bit the dust. “I think they’re very disappointing,” Rendell told Buzzfeed about the negative ads by Chicago. “I think Bain is fair game, because Romney has made it fair game. But I think how you examine it, the tone, what you say, is important as well.”

Oof. But that’s not the half of it. Rendell, who has returned to the private sector after an illustrious public career, including years as an Obama booster on cable news, carries some additional Romney baggage,. It can be found in a long forgotten quote Rendell gave to The Atlantic in 2005 concerning Mitt’s presidential qualifications.

Political Pictures of the Week, May 11-18

Brendan Hoffman / Getty Images

TIME’s photo editors bring you the best pictures of the past week from the Beltway and beyond.

Political Pictures of the Week, May 5-11

Michael Reynolds / UPI / LANDOV

TIME’s photo editors bring you the best pictures of the past week from the Beltway and beyond.

Political Pictures of the Week, April 28-May 4

Shannon Stapleton / Reuters

TIME’s photo editors bring you the best pictures of the past week from the Beltway and beyond.

Candidates Change, But Campaigns Remain The Same

The Obama campaign’s first major general election campaign video–released today–makes the case that despite an inherited recession and foreign policy crisis, the President has made the country safer and stronger. Oops. Wrong guy. Wrong election. But it’s the same message. Here is the online video that Obama actually released today:

Political Pictures of the Week, April 21-27

Mark Makela / The New York Times / Redux

TIME’s photo editors bring you the best pictures of the past week from the Beltway and beyond.

Turning to the General Election, Romney Escalates His Tit-For-Tat Campaign

Matthew Healey / UPI / LANDOV

With the Republican primaries effectively over, the real war has begun. And while the next six months will be marked by talk of tactical shifts, all reports suggest that Mitt Romney‘s campaign has settled on an initial strategy. Romney HQ will not be picking its battles. It intends to fight them all. 

Handicapping the Veepstakes: Romney’s Rules of the Road

Darrell Sapp / Pittsburgh Post-Gazett / ZUMAPRESS

We’ve spent a lot of pixels analyzing some of Mitt Romney’s vice presidential options. There’s a reason for this, and it’s not simply because surveying the field and weighing the candidates’ strengths and weaknesses is a popular parlor game. Romney’s choice of running mate matters.

Handicapping the Veepstakes: Tim Pawlenty Makes More Sense Than You Might Think

Jim Young / Reuters

Pawlenty’s life story formed the narrative core of his ill-fated presidential run last year. Pawlenty was born into a pro-union household in a working-class enclave of South St. Paul. His father was a truck driver who served stints at a meatpacking plant; his mother died of cancer when Pawlenty was a teenager. The first in his family to attend college, Pawlenty put himself through the University of Minnesota by working in a grocery store.

Handicapping the Veepstakes: Why the Clamor for Christie May Go Unheeded

Mel Evans / AP

A native Garden Stater, Christie grew up middle-class and graduated from the University of Delaware before earning a law degree at Seton Hall. While working in private practice, he first waded into politics as a county freeholder in the 1990s. In 2002, he became the state’s top federal prosecutor and burnished his credentials by taking tough stances on corruption, terrorism and white-collar crime.