BUSH: Lindsey Graham to The Hill, per GOP 12: “It’s up to Gov. Romney but if I had to recommend a single person it would be Jeb."
CHRISTIE: “Over the weekend, Chris Christie told Kentucky Republicans that Barack Obama was the ‘most ill-prepared person to assume the presidency in my lifetime,’” GOP 12 notes. And he said this: "He has sat in the Oval Office and cared more about posing and preening and making partisan politics the rule of the day in Washington D.C. than he's cared about progress."
The Lexington Daily Herald: “New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie didn't mince words about President Obama in a Saturday night appearance before Kentucky Republicans in Lexington. ‘This country's problems are too serious to spend another day with a bystander in the Oval Office,’ Christie said.”
Bob McDonnell’s not the only one with ads running in favor of his statewide agenda: “A deep-pocketed group that supports Gov. Chris Christie’s agenda rolled out a new television ad today and announced a $1.6 million campaign to blanket the airwaves from New York to Philadelphia over the next three weeks,” the Star Ledger writes. “It is the fourth TV spot underwritten by the Committee for Our Children’s Future since the group was formed in September, said its spokesman, Brian Jones. The issues-advocacy organization, which is not required to disclose its donors, has now spent more than $4.8 million on TV and Internet ads trumpeting Christie’s victories in the Statehouse and drumming up public support for his plans.”
“The authors of a Chris Christie biography set for release on June 5 argue that the New Jersey governor would be a ‘productive vice president’ if presumptive GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney were to choose him as his running mate for a winning ticket in November,” Daily Caller writes.
“The administration of New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie is taking a hard line on power plant pollution near his state’s border, backing an Environmental Protection Agency order for strict reductions in sulfur dioxide emissions from a GenOn-owned plant in eastern Pennsylvania,” Politico writes.
JINDAL: Not everyone’s impressed with Jindal. The New Orleans Times-Picayune’s James Gill: “When a House committee voted to abolish the state inspector general's office, Gov. Bobby Jindal promised to put up a fight. That was only to be expected, given that Jindal never tires of criss-crossing the country to explain how he single-handedly transformed corrupt old Louisiana into a model of square government. No, of course you haven't noticed.”
MCDONNELL: NBC 12’s Ryan Nobles: “It is the last of a string of controversial measures in the explosive 2012 Virginia General Assembly and today Governor Bob McDonnell is ready to put it behind him. The Governor signed into law a measure that will tighten the requirements to prove your identification when you cast a ballot in an election in Virginia.”
“Mr. McDonnell also took the bold step of issuing an executive order directing the State Board of Elections to send new voter-registration cards to every active voter in the state, which could help blunt charges that the legislation is aimed at suppressing the vote of the poor and minorities - groups that traditionally vote Democratic and could help deliver the state to President Obama once again,” the Washington Times writes. “That move, however, is a costly one - to the tune of $1.36 million.”
“The GOP-backed voter ID legislation was one of several passionate partisan flash points in a sometimes bitter 2012 General Assembly, particularly in the 40-member Senate where Democrats and Republicans each hold 20 seats. Republicans act as a Senate majority by virtue of Republican Lt. Gov. Bill Bolling’s tie-breaking vote,” the Washington Post writes. “It was Bolling’s decisive vote that broke a party-line deadlock that advanced the measure to final passage this year.”
PORTMAN: Portman and former opponent Lee Fisher (D) were together at an event in Cincinnati. Fisher spoke glowingly of Portman and his chances at being Romney’s veep pick. He called him "a conservative with common sense ideas” and added, "I've always liked him and always respected him."
Of his chances at being veep, Portman said, “I don't think people vote for vice president, they vote for president.” And: “Asked about descriptions of him in vice president speculation as ‘boring,’ he smiled and replied that he thinks that might be a description for someone in Washington who is ‘not out there throwing partisan jabs. ... I like to work across the aisle and get things done.’”
RUBIO: He said of Obama: “We have not seen such a divisive figure in modern American history as we have over the last three and a half years.”
The DNC fired back at Rubio.
“For freshman Sen. Marco Rubio, a rising GOP figure seen as a possible Mitt Romney running mate, questions about whether potential vulnerabilities in his personal and political background might hold him back,” AP writes.
Or alternatively Politico’s Vogel writes: “Mitt Romney isn’t very far into the vice presidential selection process. But according to a dedicated band of conspiracy theorists, the pick is all but a lock: Sen. Marco Rubio. That’s the current thinking among a worldwide collection of activists who are obsessed with the secretive Bilderberg Group, an alternating roster of global power players who loom as large — if not larger — in the online fever swamps of the fringe as the Trilateral Commission or the Council on Foreign Relations.”
RYAN: Did Ryan undercut his party’s negotiating power if Obama’s reelected by saying on Meet the Press -- “The country will choose, and I think that will largely decide what happens in the lame duck.”
Politico: “But he ducked three separate attempts by moderator David Gregory to own the logical conclusion of his own assertion, which is that Mitt Romney losing should then mean Republicans are willing to allow some tax hikes on the rich.”
Paul Ryan’s budget, which many would call austere, said on Meet the Press House that it would actually "prevent” austerity.
