Florida senator Marco Rubio slammed President Barack Obama in a South Carolina speech delivered last night to a large gathering of Republicans. 

“For all the policy disagreements that we may have with the president, it is hard to understate how much he inspired people across this country four years ago, with his promises to unite America and lift it up,” Rubio said about Obama, referring to his 2004 DNC speech and 2008 presidential run.

Former World Wrestling Entertainment CEO Linda McMahon has won the endorsement of the Connecticut Republican party in the race for the U.S. Senate. The New Haven Register reports:

This story got me thinking about the GOP's complicated relationship with the big banks:

Crossroads GPS, a conservative-aligned outside group backed by Karl Rove, is on the air in Nebraska with an ad attacking former Sen. Bob Kerrey (D-Neb.) for supporting the bank bailout.

The tide sweeping from Greece across Europe and into the United States is washing away support for austerity, in some cases reinforcing opposition to it, largely from the left. President Obama is delighted at this support for his refusal to cut spending in the face of mounting deficits, and the Republicans are feeling beleaguered at what they see as the disinternment of the body of works of John Maynard Keynes.

St. Cloud, Minn.
Kurt Bills, a high school economics teacher and state representative, is the enodrsed Republican for U.S. Senate in Minnesota. Bills won 64 percent of the delegates on the second ballot at the state convention Friday afternoon.

Milwaukee news radio station WTMJ reports:

Law enforcement officials are angered and looking for answers after Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett did not attend two separate law enforcement recognition ceremonies this week, including one that recognizes Milwaukee police officers killed in the line of duty.

Massachusetts Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren was criticized by a fellow Democrat over her inability to explain the recent controversy over Warren's disputed Native American heritage.

St. Cloud, Minn.
State representative Kurt Bills earned 53 percent of the vote of the delegates at the Minnesota Republican party convention on the first ballot.

President Obama's deputy campaign manager, Stephanie Cutter, admitted at a Harvard Kennedy School of Government event in Massachusetts that "The economy, you know, will continue to be a challenge."

In a report called, "Messina dismisses doubts about Obama chances of winning North Carolina," the Hill has this to say about Obama campaign manager Jim Messina: 

Secretary of Energy Steven Chu, a recipient of the Nobel Prize for Physics, takes to Facebook today to review the Avengers, a movie about a bunch of superheroes banding together to save the world, “which focuses on a new, limitless clean energy source called ‘The Tesseract,’” according to Chu.