Oh good heavens, it looks like we've got some trouble in Mittens Land. The presidential candidate formerly known as Willard Romney has been yapping to anyone who'll listen that President Obama made the recession "worse" since coming into office. This is a defensible line under the loose standards of Republican primary campaign rhetoric; he could argue that Obama's policies on net hampered what would've been a quicker recovery. Could. So is this a line that he egregiously lied about ever saying yesterday? It's tricky!

The Mitt Romney campaign released a web video this morning about young Ryan King, a recent college graduate from destitute Midland, Michigan, who drives around the local trash and destruction all day, just lookin' for a job. He has $3 and only eats bologna sandwiches. Why won't President Obama let him get a job? He is a failed leader.

There are many great moments in the "Well-Meaning Mitt Romney Nevertheless Struggles to Interact with Human Beings" genre. But this latest one, involving a child craftsman, ranks right near the top — perhaps a notch or two below the infamous "Who Let the Dogs Out?" incident of Martin Luther King Jr. Day 2008. But maybe we shouldn't get ahead of ourselves.

Tonight in New Hampshire, seven Republican candidates for president in 2012—including Michele Bachmann who just announced her candidacy—shared the stage for the primary season's first debate. The showdown was moderated by CNN's John King, who asked tough questions like "American Idol or Dancing with the Stars?"

In 2008, presidential candidate Mitt Romney spent $2.5 million to buy a win at the Iowa straw poll (an August event that "is one of the landmark events of the nominating contest"), and then, hilariously, lost the caucuses a few months later, because he doesn't love fetuses enough and may have once seen two men kissing. So, this time around, he's just going to skip the stupid poll! This lessens his chances of winning in Iowa, but it helps Romney position himself as a pragmatic business-golfer-pleated-pants type who will create jobs, rather than a bible-thumping-intense-gaze type who will ban MTV, or whatever Republicans are into these days. Good luck creating jobs while buying into the liberal conspiracy known as "global warming," Mitt! [WSJ; image via AP]

Mitt Romney was a bad Republican last week. We'll tell you what he did, but first, send your children into the other room. Ready? He gave a big old bear hug to Science, by casually acknowledging that climate change may exist and humans may play some role in that. This is a calamitous "gaffe," and now everyone else in the GOP is trying to destroy him anew.

Mitt Romney is kicking off his second presidential campaign later on Thursday, and — according to published excerpts from the afternoon's big speech — he'll do it with a healthy dose of fear-the-coming-socialist-tide rhetoric.

Willard "Mittens" Romney is nothing if not America's most generous and dedicated philanthropist, always searching for the newest health research institutes, arts centers, and presidential campaigns for himself to dump all of his old Pratt-Romney family fortune into. Actually, we have no idea if he's a philanthropist. But he did send some leftover pizza to the Obama Campaign yesterday, so that's something, right?

No one wants to run for president anymore, can you believe it? Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels decided not to run over the weekend, following the exits of Mike Huckabee, Donald Trump, Haley Barbour, and some other people. This means, according to our news media, that there are only three "serious" — as in, capable of beating Barack Obama — Republican candidates remaining. Let's briefly discuss them so you can make your pick, right here and now!

Mitt Romney brought all of his closest buddies to Vegas for a big party today! Meaning they sat at tables all day making fundraising calls. But the phonebanking raised $10.25 million, about enough to run an Iowa primary campaign.

This is a video of Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney telling an audience in New Hampshire on Wednesday that Republicans are "going to hang" Barack Obama—and then immediately catching himself. So you see: Romney only wants to hang Obama metaphorically. Which is, sad to say, a good thing, insofar as it's uhm, nice (?) to see a prominent Republican use racially problematic language by mistake, and not in a deliberate, cynical pandering strategy. And he actually seemed pretty embarrassed! Mitt Romney 2012: Not a Completely Cynical Scumbag. [via TPM]

The first debate of the 2012 Republican presidential primary season is on May 5. That's but one se'en-day away! Fox News is sponsoring, live from South Carolina. The setting has all the trappings of a lively Republican political discussion about our nation's future. But as of now, only a handful of potential candidates plan on showing. What's up with all the other losers?

On tonight's Report—after poking fun at Haley Barbour's pre-entrance exit from the 2012 presidential race—Stephen Colbert defended candidate Mitt Romney against charges that he'd gaffed by suggesting America was in a "peacetime" state. Among other things, Colbert explained, "Congress never officially declared war on any of these countries, so technically, Romney is right—our soldiers are just spending a semester abroad!"

Pity Newt Gingrich, the unpopular politician from the 1990s who now wants to be president. He raised only $53,000 in the first quarter of 2011. Michele Bachmann and Mitt Romney, for perspective, raised $2.2 and $1.9 million respectively.

Presidential candidate Mitt "Willard" Romney ceded tremendous ground to his main rival, pretend candidate and bloated carnival act Donald Trump, on CNBC yesterday, telling Larry Kudlow that he is not a Birther.

Mitt Romney surprised no one yesterday when he announced that he's running for president in 2012. What does this mean for some of the other prospective candidates, like Michele Bachmann and Donald Trump? On tonight's Daily Show, Jon Stewart broke it down for us.

Not twelve hours after its announcement and serious, damaging questions are already being raised about the campaign of former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney. Specifically: Did Romney steal Aquafresh's nurdle?

You guys won't believe this, but Willard "Mitt" Romney is running for president! Not that he ever really stopped. But consider today's launch of a presidential exploratory committee an official reboot of the popular plastic Mittens brand.

New Hampshire's Republican voters will have so many wonderful candidates to choose from in the first 2012 presidential primary, but two of them rise above the field.

We wouldn't want to give the top conservative intellectuals too much credit, but the establishment Republicans' endless trashing of Sarah Palin may be doing the trick. A new Washington Post-ABC News poll shows that her usually astronomical favorability rating among Republicans is crashing. Even Mitt Romney has a higher rating. And literally no one on Earth likes Mitt Romney!