Miscellany

• Congressional Republicans and Democrats begin their fiscal cliff gambits.
• Pressure builds on the right for Romney to release more tax returns.
• He says he doesn’t want to be attacked for what’s in them.

• The Bain story puts Romney at risk of over-correction.
• The Obama carpet-bombing continues apace:

[youtube=http://youtu.be/uMo5pykT4uw]

• Romney says two tax returns are enough, he won’t disclose more.
• Pawlenty is getting a serious look for vice president, and the decision may already have been made.
• Adviser Ed Gillespie swoops in to clear up the Bain timeline: Romney “retired retroactively.” Oh.
  
• Horse race update: Yep, still close.

• I’ll accept this premise and its coinage: Swift-Yachting is mostly about getting at Romney’s tax returns.
• Bain documents back up the story that he ceded management in 1999.
• Obama’s above-board favorability ratings may help neutralize disapproval of the job he’s doing.
• He says his biggest mistake in his first term was caring too

…

• Romney stayed longer than he claimed at Bain.
• His answer to Obama’s outsourcing attacks: The President is a liar.

[youtube=http://youtu.be/L6b9F9IiAZw]

• Michael Kinsley sticks up for outsourcing.

• Presidential horse race update: Its still close.
• Tom Junod considers the moral implications of Obama’s lethal foreign policy.
• Republicans continue to look for the limits of the rule barring campaign-super PAC coordination, and have yet to find any.
• Texas’ conservative Senate candidate now marred by

• Outside Romney’s fabulous weekend fundraiser in the Hamptons, the donors speak their minds. (So do the protesters.)
• Obama will propose extending all but the top-tier of the Bush tax cuts for one year, seek contrast with Romney.
• A sequel to the big Supreme Court leak story: Conservative Justices, still angry!