Unemployment is down in swing states, which means support for Barack Obama is up. Recent polls show the president has an advantage over Republican candidate Mitt Romney. And it's still the economy, stupid.

Ted Nugent is standing by the anti-Obama rhetoric that earned him an upcoming visit from Secret Service agents.

The endorsement of ex-relevant-person Ted Nugent has unsurprisingly resulted in some distracting backlash for GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney, who was forced to respond today through spokeswoman Andrea Saul to a quasi-threat the rocker made over the weekend on President Obama's life.

Two Sundays ago, the New York Times ran an article about Mitt Romney and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. The two have known each other for about 35 years. They went through Boston Consulting Group's "boot camp" together. They "can almost speak in shorthand." They finish each other's sentences and once accidentally ate from opposite ends of the same long strand of spaghetti. Their lives are an endless geopolitical meet-cute: Romney wants to run the nuclear big-box store of the United States, but he has enough love in his heart that he'd never crush the beautiful Middle Eastern shop around the corner.

It's not just the dog: assuming he's the Republican presidential candidate, Mitt Romney will go into the election with more people viewing him unfavorably than favorably.

What follows is a dispatch from Joe Muto, otherwise known as the Fox Mole. It was to be the third in a series of anonymous columns Muto was planning on writing for Gawker from inside Fox News. After being discovered yesterday evening, Muto was fired by Fox effective today. Soon he will write a fuller accounting of his time at Fox and why he chose to leave in the way that he did.

The Washington Post reports that Rick Santorum has officially suspended his presidential campaign, which essentially concedes the GOP nomination to wealthy talking hairpiece Mitt Romney. Santorum lost to Romney in Wisconsin, Maryland, and D.C. over the past three weeks, and his campaign (as well as Romney's approach to his most formidable opponent) has shifted in recent weeks in the wake of his three-year-old daughter's illness.

Yes, Newt Gingrich is still vying for the Republican presidential nomination, but that didn't stop him from essentially admitting he has no chance. On Fox News Sunday, Gingrich called Romney "far and away the most likely" nominee.

Now that Mitt Romney has basically sealed the Republican nomination, you'd think the other candidates might concede defeat and offer their support. And indeed, Newt Gingrich is open about the fact that he's not going to be the Republican candidate — but that doesn't mean he's going to stop campaigning.

Ann Romney, who does not consider herself wealthy but who does know her way around Pinterest, wants to unzip Mitt's huge personality and let. Him. Out.

Governor Rick Perry is a moron, by almost any account. But a far more dangerous personal affliction may have doomed him from the start: an inability to pee without singing folk songs. An exclusive excerpt from Politico's upcoming e-book Inside the Circus reveals a devastating bathroom anecdote that could capsize Perry's political career:

For a brief moment, Google News' top story was "Romney Drops Out of Race, Endorses Santorum." This is decidedly untrue — but hey, it was published by Forbes, so it must be worth something, right? Nowhere did it say this was a prank: although it should be obvious to most, we live in a country where actual people believe Onion headlines. And it's not as though this is that much more ridiculous than the Republican primary has been thus far.

Is Mitt Romney the Republican presidential nominee yet? Well, not quite. Appearing on NBC's Meet the Press, Rick Santorum acknowledged that the Wisconsin primary will send a "strong signal" as to where the campaign is headed. Even so, a Santorum loss will not be enough for him to drop out — not when we're all having so much fun.

Two days ago, a representative for GOP Congressional candidate Matt Doheny swore that photos of him kissing campaign consultant Monica Notzon were totally innocent. The photos were "out of context," Monica protested.

Here's a clip of Rick Santorum speaking at the Armory in Janesville, Wisc. on March 27, stumbling over a word that sounds a lot like the n-word. What on earth could he have been trying to say? Maybe he meant to call him "bleaugh"?

After losing a Congressional race by 1,995 votes two years ago, Matt Doheny went back to his home in New York's 21st District to recharge. He asked long-time girlfriend Mary Reidy to marry him (she said yes, "of course") and announced he would re-challenge Democratic Rep. Bill Owens in 2012.

As John Edwards learned the hard way, the camera is always on. It was certainly on in the bowels of Fox News' dark tower last November as failed presidential candidate Newt Gingrich's icy wife-bot Callista prepared him for an interview with Bill O'Reilly. She brushed him like a horse, sprayed him like Cher, and locked down his hair with dead-eyed precision. Then O'Reilly said he looked like Justin Bieber. Burn.

For many of us, getting a photo taken with Newt Gingrich isn't on the bucket list, but some people would pay good money for a snapshot with the Republican presidential candidate. And they'll have to, because as of today, Gingrich is charging $50 for photos at public speaking events.

Apologies if you've just barely digested your breakfast, but the economy is dying, you unfeeling bastard, and a murdered bunny* is the only way to truly understand it.

For those who haven't seen it, here's Rick Santorum's spooky "Obamaville" spot. Alas, this is just a political ad and not a trailer for a controversial horror film — but hey, maybe with enough funding we'll get the feature-length version. Be sure to look out for the split-second shot of Ahmadinejad's face becoming Obama's. If you dare.