CHRISTIE: The New Jersey governor (R) and Newark Mayor Cory Booker (D) made a video for the Press Association Legislative Correspondents Club, making light of Booker’s heroics and Christie’s potential to be veep. In the end, Booker takes a call from (supposedly) Mitt Romney, who’s asking him to be VP. Christie, looking serious, takes the phone from Booker and says, “I got this.”
New Jersey voters don’t think Christie would be happy as VP, per Quinnipiac. Voters say that by a 52%-36% margin. Republicans, though, think he would.
But here’s really the key from the poll: “Christie gives no measurable boost to the Republican presidential effort in the Garden State as a ticket of former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney with Gov. Christie running for vice president trails President Barack Obama and Vice President Joseph Biden 50 - 42 percent. In an Obama-Romney matchup, with no running mates named, the Democrat wins 49 - 39 percent…”
JINDAL: He went on the attack (which is what a veep is supposed to do) for Romney on FOX: "President Obama simply cannot run on his record. The reality is 23 million Americans [are] unemployed, underemployed, or simply have left the workforce. President Obama cannot ask the American people 'Are you better off than you were four years ago'? He's going to have to savagely attack Mitt Romney. We've seen the start of that this week." (h/t: GOP 12.)
MARTINEZ: Despite her denials, the Deseret News notes that the veep buzz continues around the New Mexico governor. Her PAC raised $77,800.
In Santa Fe, “New Mexico Governor Susana Martinez's administration said it suspended two finance officials this week in an embattled city where a state audit found public money had paid for prostitutes for two other city officials,” Reuters writes.
PORTMAN: Margaret Carlson dubs him, “The Best of the Boring White Guys.”
RUBIO: On what’s really behind Obama’s support of gay marriage, per GOP 12: "I think it’s part of a broader effort by the president to distract from his record on the economy. I think every week he tries to come up with something else he can talk about that keeps the issue off of how the economy has done under the years of his presidency."
RYAN: “Asked what he would be willing to give up to address the U.S. debt crisis, Rep. Paul Ryan stood his ground Tuesday and insisted it was Democrats who needed to cede ground,” CNBC writes. Ryan said on Kudlow: “I’m not interested in negotiating with myself on television. It’s futile, in my opinion… The Senate has chosen not to pass a budget in three years,” he said. “The president has chosen to disavow the fiscal commission, to not put a budget that attempts to deal with any of these issues. We have passed solutions.”
It should be noted that Ryan himself voted against the fiscal commission’s recommendations.
“Rep. Paul Ryan (R., Wisc.), who is chairman of the House Budget Committee and is a Republican pointman on fiscal policy, downplayed the idea that a comprehensive fiscal plan could be ironed out after November's high-stakes presidential and congressional elections. Instead, he said House Republicans plan to use the coming months to lay out their vision on issues such as tax overhaul,” the Wall Street Journal writes. “‘I don't think you'll see some long-term massive solution,’ Ryan said of the prospects for the pre-Christmas legislative session.”
