Justin Sullivan/Getty Images(MADISON, Wis.) -- Embattled Gov. Scott Walker is getting a little help from his friends ahead of the recall election in Wisconsin on June 5.

Over the next two weeks, three GOP governors will flex their political muscles and campaign with Walker as the Republican Governors Association (RGA) makes a concerted effort to boost his standing in Wisconsin less than two weeks before the recall vote.

Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal is slated to campaign with him on Thursday, while Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell, who is also the chairman of the RGA, will be with Walker on Tuesday, and South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley will join him next Friday.

“This is not about Wisconsin.  This is about our country.  This is about the fact that a governor went into his state and did exactly what he promised to do,” Haley said in a Fox News interview with Greta van Susteren Wednesday evening.  “If he loses this, it will take the spine out of every governor across this country.  If he wins this, we will see more power and strength across the governors across this country than we’ve ever seen before.”

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who serves as the vice chairman of the RGA, already campaigned with Walker in Green Bay, Wis., in early May, saying he traveled to the state to “stand with two incredible friends” -- Walker and his wife, Tonette.

Mike Schrimpf, communications director for the RGA, told ABC News that the RGA has invested more than $6 million in the Wisconsin race to support Walker and launched its seventh television ad on Wednesday.

Without coordination with the RGA, former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty hit the trail with Walker at a manufacturing facility in La Crosse, Wis., earlier this week.

One thing each of these governors helping Walker has in common is that they all sit on many potential vice presidential lists.  Each of the governors, except for Jindal, who initially backed Texas Gov. Rick Perry, also has campaigned with Romney.

While the presumptive Republican nominee has not campaigned with Walker, Romney has voiced his support for the Wisconsin governor.

“Gov. Walker is, in my opinion, an excellent governor,” Romney said during a tele-townhall in March, “and I believe that he is right to stand up for the citizens of Wisconsin, and to insist that those people who are working in the public sector unions have rights to effect their wages, but that these benefits and retiree benefits have fallen out of line with the capacity of the state to pay them, and so I support the governor in his effort to reign in the excesses that have permeated the public sector union and government negotiations over the years.”

The effort to recall Walker emerged after he pushed to strip public employee unions of their collective bargaining powers.  A recent poll shows Walker leading in Wisconsin by six points over his opponent, Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett.

Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio

TOBY MELVILLE/AFP/Getty Images(PHOENIX) -- The state of Hawaii has confirmed the birth of President Obama in the state, so now his supporters in Arizona who wish to vote for him will get their chance.  Arizona Secretary of State Ken Bennett, who earlier this month threatened to keep the president off the Arizona ballot and called for more information about the president's birth certificate, said Wednesday that Hawaii had provided the confirmation he was seeking.

"Late yesterday, our office received the 'verification in-lieu of certified copy' from officials within the Hawaii Department of Health that we requested in March.  They have officially confirmed that the information in the copy of the Certificate of Live Birth for the President matches the original record in their files," Bennett said in a statement Wednesday.

Birthers believe President Obama is not a natural-born U.S. citizen and have sparked debate about his eligibility to be president.  Bennett has insisted that he is not a birther, but defended his request Wednesday, saying that it was his "responsibility to certify the ballot to the state's 15 counties."

"At the request of numerous constituents, I merely asked Hawaiian officials to verify the information contained within President Obama's original both certificate.  They have complied with the request and I consider the matter closed," Bennett said.

Bennett has not confirmed whether he will request a formal verification of presumptive Republican nominee Mitt Romney's Michigan birth certificate.

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SAUL LOEB/AFP/Getty Images(WASHINGTON) -- The Obama administration said once again Wednesday that technology is high on its priority list. It said it is launching a new initiative that aims to make government services more available to consumers through mobile apps.

The president has ordered each major federal agency -- the Department of Energy, Department of Commerce, etc. -- to make key government services, ones “the American people depend on,” available as mobile apps within the next year.

“Americans deserve a government that works for them anytime, anywhere, and on any device,” President Obama said in a statement. “By making important services accessible from your phone and sharing government data with entrepreneurs, we are giving hard-working families and businesses tools that will help them succeed.”

The administration is also working to make large amounts of government data more accessible to developers so they can “innovate new services and mobile applications,” the administration said in a press release.

View the full memo sent from the president to the heads of executive departments and agencies here.

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Alex Wong/Getty Images(COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo.) -- At a fundraiser for his re-election campaign in Denver Wednesday night, President Obama set out to upend conventional Republican wisdom that his administration has been defined by excessive government spending.

“I’m running to pay down our debt in a way that’s balanced and responsible. After inheriting a $1 trillion deficit, I signed $2 trillion of spending cuts into law,” he told a crowd of donors at the Hyatt Regency. “My opponent won’t admit it, but it’s starting to appear in places, like real liberal outlets, like the Wall Street Journal: Since I’ve been president, federal spending has risen at the lowest pace in nearly 60 years. Think about that.”

Obama was referring to an analysis released this week by Rex Nutting, a reporter for CBS MarketWatch who is also affiliated with the Wall Street Journal. Nutting concluded that Obama has presided over the slowest growth in federal spending in decades.

“Government spending under Obama, including his signature stimulus bill, is rising at a 1.4 percent annualized pace -- slower than at any time in nearly 60 years,” Nutting wrote, citing data from the Congressional Budget Office, Office of Management and Budget and an independent financial firm.

“The big surge in federal spending happened in fiscal 2009, before Obama took office. Since then, spending growth has been relatively flat,” he wrote. “Over Obama’s four budget years, federal spending is on track to rise from $3.52 trillion to $3.58 trillion, an annualized increase of just 0.4 percent. There has been no huge increase in spending under the current president, despite what you hear.”

The Obama campaign circulated Nutting’s article by email and posted it on its website Tuesday.  The president picked up on the theme again Wednesday to hammer the point home.

“I just point out it always goes up least under Democratic presidents. This other side, I don’t know how they’ve been bamboozling folks into thinking that they are the responsible, fiscally-disciplined party. They run up these wild debts and then when we take over, we’ve got to clean it up.

“They point and say look how irresponsible they are. Look at the facts, look at the numbers. And now I want to finish the job -- in a balanced way,” he said, referring to his plan to reduce the deficit through a combination of spending cuts and tax hikes.

The Romney campaign noted that more than $5 trillion has been added to the debt during Obama’s first term, though in 2008 Obama called the $4 trillion added under Bush ”unpatriotic.”

The Republican National Committee pointed out that while growth of spending and debt may have slowed, Obama has overseen the three largest deficits in U.S. history.  (They also pass along fact-checker Politifact’s 2011 designation of Obama as the “undisputed debt king” of the last five presidents.)

Obama spoke in Denver following his appearance at the U.S. Air Force Academy commencement ceremony in Colorado Springs earlier in the day.  He then headed to California and Iowa for four more money events.

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JIM WATSON/AFP/Getty Images(WASHINGTON) -- President Obama is marking Gay Pride Month with a concerted push to mobilize lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender voters, who his re-election campaign believes are a key constituency in hotly contested swing states.

In a new five-minute, documentary-style campaign video, Obama appeals to his supporters by casting himself as the most progressive U.S. president on gay rights issues in American history.  He also reflects personally on how he was inspired to become an advocate through relationships with LGBT friends and family, U.S. military service members, and the mother of anti-gay hate crime victim Matthew Shepard.

“Meeting people like Judy Shepard, and not only hearing the heartbreaking tragedy of Matthew but also the strength and determination she brought to making sure that never happens to young people anywhere in the country again,” is what he says moved him.

Obama also said the stories of gay and lesbian service members who have fought and died for the country also “made me passionate.”

“I don’t think there was a single moment LGBT issues became important to me. It was an accumulation of a lifetime of friends, family and people I’ve met who have helped me understand how the fight for LGBT rights is consistent” with America, he said.

The film is narrated by actress Jane Lynch, who stars in the hit show Glee and is openly gay.

“That passion drove him to make more significant advances for LGBT Americans than any other president who came before him,” Lynch says.

Earlier Wednesday, the Obama campaign also kicked off a grassroots organizing campaign specifically targeting gay voters. “LGBT Americans for Obama” will focus on enlisting volunteers and turning out votes in Pennsylvania, Colorado, Nevada and Michigan, the campaign said.

Obama campaign strategists believe the president’s achievements in gay rights, coupled with his newfound support for same-sex marriage, is one of the strongest selling points of his first term.

They regularly declaim the repeal of “don’t ask, don’t tell,” signing the Hate Crime Prevention Act into law, ceasing a defense of the federal Defense of Marriage Act, and executive actions to prohibit discrimination based on gender identity in the federal government.

Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio

Joe Raedle/Getty Images(WASHINGTON) -- Speaking before a crowd of Latino business leaders, Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., lamented the state of politics, accusing politicians of fostering a culture of partisanship and campaigning on a message of division.  Without mentioning President Obama by name, Rubio swiped at the president for failing to deliver on his promise of “hope” that both sides of the aisle craved.

“The one that’s troubled me the most is this deliberate division of the American people against each other.  Last three and a half years after our elections, irrespective of how you felt about how they turned out, we all had hope that this nation would embark at a new moment, where somehow we would rise above the petty politics of the moment and have a real honest societal wide conversation about what kind of country we want to be, what kind of role we want to play in the world, and what kind of role we want our government to play in our lives. Well any hope of that is now gone,” Rubio said during his keynote address at the Latino Coalition’s Small Business Summit in Washington, D.C., Wednesday afternoon. “What you have today is nothing less than a wholesale effort to pit one group of Americans against each other on issue after issue.”

In recent weeks, Rubio has picked up his forceful criticism of President Obama. Last Saturday, Rubio called Obama the most “divisive figure in modern American history.” He previously has accused the president of using issues like same-sex marriage and student loan rates to “divide one group of Americans against another group of Americans for the purposes of getting him reelected.”

Rubio criticized politicians who stray from debating their opponents on the basis of merit and instead launch personal attacks at a time when the Obama and Romney campaigns are embroiled in a series of fights.

“We will never solve the issues that we face if all people want to do is debate how bad the other guy is as opposed to debate whether their ideas have merit or not, and whether your ideas are better than their ideas,” Rubio said.

Rubio, who was elected to the Senate in 2010, also critiqued Congress’ unwillingness to present meaningful policy proposals that could ease the burdens facing the country.

“I ran because I was frustrated by the political process.  Nothing has happened over the last year and half to change that frustration unfortunately,” he said. “Too often times, in the United States Senate especially, most of the votes we take are nothing but messaging points.  Bills are brought to the floor that people know are not going to pass for one purpose alone and that’s to give people talking points on the Sunday evening shows.  Our people deserve better. It’s not like we don’t have major issues to confront but they are not being confronted.  The only thing that’s being done in the Senate these days is creating material for television commercials in the fall, and it’s sad.”

Rubio spoke to the Latino business crowd hours after presumptive Republican nominee Mitt Romney addressed the same group, and Rubio, who often shares his personal story of using student loans to pay for college and law school, praised Romney’s efforts to lead in expanding access to affordable education.

“There also is our education system.  I understand that Governor Romney spoke to you about it earlier today.  The federal government has a limited role to play when it comes to education,” Rubio said.  “Education, the ability to learn a skill, in this century is indispensable.  There are going to be no jobs in the 21st century, literally, there will be no new jobs in the 21st century for people who do not have advanced education of some form.  We have to provide access to that as well as affordability, and I’m glad that the nominee of my party has taken the lead in that regard.”

As he outlined issues currently plaguing the country, from the debt to stifling energy policies, Rubio voiced his belief that optimism pervades the American way of life.  Rubio, whose own parents emigrated to the United States from Cuba, reached out to the immigrant community by sharing how their daily struggles reflect the hope ingrained in this country as they provide a better future for their children.

“The greatness of America can be seen in the people who served you your lunch today, who have children somewhere else in school even as we speak and if you ask them, they’ll brag to you about how their son’s going to be a lawyer, and their daughter’s going to be a doctor.  They are proud to work with their hands, they are proud to serve you your lunch and your dinner because they know that their sacrifice is paving the way for someone that they love,” Rubio said to a loud round of applause from the crowd.

As he departed the Chamber of Commerce, Rubio ignored questions from reporters about whether he would consider being vetted for the vice presidential position if asked.

Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio

Brendan Hoffman/Getty Images(WASHINGTON) -- Former Wyoming Senator Alan Simpson sent an fiery letter filled with expletives to the California Alliance for Retired Americans for a flyer the group sent out slamming the Bowles-Simpson commission report for proposed cuts to Social Security as one way to deal with the long-term deficit.

“Your little flyer entitled 'Bowles! Simpson! Stop using the deficit as a phony excuse to gut our Social Security!' is one of the phoniest excuses for a 'flyer' I have ever seen,” said Simpson in a letter obtained by Politico.

The flyer from the group argues that Social Security is in no risk of going bankrupt.

“Even the most pessimistic forecasts say Social Security’s $2.5 Trillion surplus will fund 100% current benefits until 2037, and 78% current benefits forever, even if nothing is done,” it read.

Simpson doesn’t agree with the group’s positive outlook and goes on to call the group’s message an irresponsible slap in the face to young people.

“What a wretched group of seniors you must be to use the faces of the very people that we are trying to save, while the ‘greedy geezers’ like you use them as a tool and a front for your nefarious bunch of crap.”

The Bowles-Simpson commission, also known as National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, was established by President Obama in late 2010 to establish a long term plan for dealing with the Nation’s $15 trillion debt.  Read their report here.

One of their proposals calls for gradually raising the Social Security eligibility age and an increased payroll tax.  The commission also calls for a progressive benefits based system that would reduce benefits for higher income seniors.

Not everyone agrees with the Bowles-Simpson assessment on Social Security.  Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., is one of the most powerful defenders of the current system declaring that the program, while in trouble, is not headed for a crisis.

Indeed many critics of Social Security cuts argue that the program itself is sound but has suffered recent fiscal challenges thanks to Congress extracting money from the Social Security trust fund. Congress and President Obama took $100 billion in short-term revenue from Social Security when they passed the Payroll Tax Holiday back in February.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., raised eyebrows among progressives a few weeks ago after expressing support for Bowles-Simpson but then later clarified on ABC’s This Week that she is interested dealing with Social Security as a separate issue.

Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio

Mario Tama/Getty Images(WASHINGTON) -- Mitt Romney unveiled his education plan on Wednesday, vowing to make sweeping changes to the public education system by expanding school choice by assigning federal money to low-income students who will then, in turn, be able to take that money to a school of his or her choice or use it for tutoring or digital education.

“I’ll be blunt,” Romney said during an address to The Latino Coalition’s Annual Economic Summit. “I don’t like the direction of American education, and as president, I will do everything in my power to get education on track for the kids in this great land.”

Romney, who said students in the U.S. are receiving a “third-world education” where “minority children suffer the most,” outlined Wednesday for the first time the specific steps he would take toward education reform.

“As president, I will pursue a very bold policy of change that will restore the promise of our nation’s education system,” he said, standing in front of a banner that read, “A Chance for Every Child.” “For the first time in history, federal education funds will be linked to the student, so that parents can send their child to any public or charter school of their choice.”

Romney outlined that states would have to provide students with “ample school choice” and that digital schools could not be barred from receiving the federal funds.  Students would be able to take the money to a school outside his or her district, but schools would have to be empowered to address capacity issues should they arise.

Mentioning the Bush-area education plan known as “No Child Left Behind,” Romney said that the legislation “helped our nation take a giant step forward in bridging the information gap,” but was “not without its weaknesses.”

“As president, I am going to break the political logjam that has prevented successful reform of the law,” said Romney.   “I’ll reduce federal micro management, but I’m going to redouble efforts to ensure that schools are held responsible for results.”

Romney’s plans will shift the responsibility of school report cards from the federal level to the state level in an attempt to give parents a clearer understanding of their child’s education. Additionally, Romney said he would consolidate the more than 80 federal programs that focus on teacher evaluation and provide incentives to states that “regularly evaluate” their teachers and reward those who are the most successful in the classroom.

“As president, I will make it my goal to ensure that every classroom has a quality teacher,” Romney said.

In a briefing call prior to Romney’s speech, the campaign’s domestic policy director, Oren Cass, said that the education plan would not involve any new spending.

Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio

Chris Keane/Getty Images(WASHINGTON) -- Republicans are trying to capitalize off a recent video featuring a South Carolina AFL-CIO leader bashing a piñata bearing the face of South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley.

Haley sent out a donation request via Twitter, calling on people to stand with her against what she calls “bullying” from union leaders.

“Stand with me and help fight back now against the bullying of Liberal unions. Donate here,” Haley tweeted along with a link to a fundraising page featuring the video.

And the Republican Governors Association released a one minute video called “Does President Obama Condone This?” linking Obama to the incident.  The video features a clip of President Obama from March when he condemned the controversial comments Rush Limbaugh made about Sandra Fluke, a Georgetown law student and contraception activist, inter-spliced with footage of the piñata smashing incident.

“I thought about Malia and Sasha and one of the things I want them to do as they get older is to engage in issues they care about…and I don’t want them attacked,” the clip shows President Obama saying, followed by video of Donna Dewitt, the outgoing S.C.  AFL-CIO president, wailing away at the piñata as someone shouts, “Wait till her face comes around and whack her.”

“Or called horrible names because they’re being good citizens,” the clip of Obama continues. “Being a part of a democracy involves argument and disagreements and debate and we want you to be engaged and there’s a way to do it that doesn’t involve you being demeaned and insulted.”

The video ends with the phrase “Does President Obama condone this kind of behavior from union bosses?” emblazoned across the screen as Dewitt continues to pound the Haley piñata.

Dewitt told ABC News Tuesday that there was “no ill intent” behind the incident.

“We’ve been the brunt of her comments now for two years and that’s what the whole thing was.  She’s been whacking at us over the last two years,” Dewitt, who has been president of the South Carolina AFL-CIO for the past 16 years and will retire at the end of June, continued. “Anyone that knows me knows there was no ill intent at all.  Our folks don’t go to speeches with guns and things like that.  We have very loving people in our unions who will take up money for people or a vet.  We just heard these comments by the governor for over the two years.  They were using a memoir of the last two years I’ve lived under her leadership.”

“Kids use piñatas all the time,” she added.

The piñata bashing incident occurred on Saturday during a state AFL-CIO staff retreat in Columbia, S.C.  The video was posted on Sunday but circulated widely on Tuesday.

An AFL-CIO official denounced the actions in the video Tuesday.

“By now many of you have seen the video of the outgoing president of the South Carolina AFL-CIO. While it was meant as fun, there is absolutely no place for that kind of joke in a conversation that is extremely serious about how to rebuild our middle class and our country. There’s plenty to talk about in Gov. Haley’s awful record. We do not believe that’s an appropriate joke — working people deserve a better conversation,” Alison Omens, director of media outreach at AFL-CIO, said in an e-mail.

Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio

Justin Sullivan/Getty Images(WASHINGTON) -- While Mitt Romney brushed off a question regarding the attacks on his experience at Bain Capital Wednesday morning, one of his senior advisors did respond, saying that the campaign “likes” that the discussion is focused on the economy and will continue to drive the conversation in that direction.

“We’re happy to compare Gov. Romney’s record of success both at the state house in Massachusetts and as a businessman for 25 years in the private sector to the lack of real world economy experience of President Obama,” said senior advisor Eric Fehrnstrom during a conference call with reporters ahead of Romney’s speech to the Latino Coalition’s 2012 Small Business Summit Luncheon.

"At Bain capital during the period of time that Mitt Romney was leading that company, Bain invested in approximately 100 companies, many of them are big brand names that your familiar with like Staples and Sports Authority and some of them were struggling and some of them could not be saved,” said Fehrnstrom. “That’s the nature of our free enterprise system."

"But we like the fact that the discussion is centered on jobs and the economy and we intend to continue to talk about the plight of 23 million Americans today who are faced with either no employment or they’re stuck in part-time jobs when what they really want is full-time work,” he added. The economy has undoubtedly been the pillar of Romney’s campaign since it was launched last spring.

Earlier Wednesday, Romney was asked about the Bain attacks aboard a charter flight to Washington D.C., to which he did not respond.  

The candidate has not spoken publicly since President Obama said earlier this week that his time at Bain is “not a distraction” and is “what this campaign is going to be about,” releasing only a written statement condemning the president’s remarks.

Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio

ABC News(WASHINGTON) -- RYAN ON ROMNEY: HE WILL ‘SAVE THIS COUNTRY’ Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., made his first speech at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, Calif. Tuesday night and spoke of Mitt Romney’s ability to change the course of the country, ABC News’ John R. Parkinson reports:

“During a Q&A session following his address, the moderator wasted no time before he asked Ryan the million-dollar question on everybody’s mind: Would Ryan accept an offer from Mitt Romney to join him on the GOP’s ticket this fall,? ‘Next question,’ Ryan answered to laughter. ‘You know, that is someone else’s decision months away, and you know, that’s a question I would have to have with my wife before I have it with all of you. I like what I’m doing, I’m doing what I’m doing. Don’t underestimate how important Congress is.’ Asked what his sense of Romney is and whether he could be a great president, Ryan praised the presumptive nominee, predicting he will defeat President Obama this fall and Republicans will ‘save this country.’”

RUBIO GIVES ROMNEY LITTLE BOOST IN FLA. – A new Quinnipiac Poll released Wednesday morning shows that Sen. Marco Rubio, R- Fla., only gives Mitt Romney a slight boost with voters in Florida.  Adding Rubio to the ticket brings Romney to 49 percent over Obama at 41 percent among Florida voters.  Without taking a running mate into consideration, Romney already has a 6 percentage point lead at 47 percent over Obama’s 41 percent. Rubio’s approval rating in Florida sits at 54 percent and his favorability rating is 44 percent.

RUBIO TO SPEAK TO LATINO GROUP: Rubio will deliver the keynote address at the Latino Coalition’s 2012 Small Business Summit at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in Washington, D.C., Wednesday afternoon.  Romney will speak at the same event at noon.

CHRISTIE HELPS HAUL IN $5 MILLION FOR ROMNEY: N.J. Gov. Chris Christie helped haul in $5 million for Romney by attending a fundraiser at the Park Hyatt Ballroom in New York City Tuesday evening, according to the pool report.  “We’re here tonight to let everybody know we need to do everything we can together to make sure that this November we show Barack Obama the door, and we open the door for Mitt and Ann Romney to the White House, and your support here is extraordinarily important,” Christie said. “Governor Romney needs to make sure he has every dollar that he can to get his message out to the people of this country.”

PORTMAN READY FOR VP SPOT? Real Clear Politics’ Erin McPike examines why Rob Portman’s resume and experience makes him a potential VP contender who would be ready to step into the job on day one.  “Rob Portman has been preparing for this for years,” McPike writes.” Although the Ohio senator offers the standard line that he doesn’t expect to be picked as Mitt Romney’s running mate, the trajectory of his career and his political conduct in Washington have made nearly everyone in politics almost certain that he’ll be plucked for this year’s Republican presidential ticket.”

THUNE EYES JUMP UP LEADERSHIP LADDER: Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., sits on several potential VP lists, but the South Dakota senator has his eyes set on moving up the leadership ladder in the Senate, Roll Call reports: “Sen. John Thune may have just been elected Senate Republican Conference chairman in January, but he is still eyeing a move up the leadership ladder this year with either a run for whip or for National Republican Senatorial Committee chairman. When asked Tuesday about his plans to pursue either position this fall, the South Dakota Republican said: ‘I haven’t ruled any options in or out. We’ll make a determination at some point, probably after the election.’”

AFL-CIO LEADER BASHES HALEY PIÑATA: South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley’s unpopularity with some union leaders showed Tuesday when a video surfaced of Donna Dewitt, the state AFL-CIO president, using a baseball bat to smash a piñata bearing Haley’s face.  Dewitt said there was “no ill intent” behind the action but instead was an example of the frustration they have with Haley’s stance on unions.  “She’s been whacking at us over the last two years,” Dewitt told ABC News, adding later, “Kids use piñatas all the time.” Haley reacted to the video on twitter, sending out a link to the video with the message: “Wow. I wonder if the unions think this kind of thing will make people take them seriously. Check this out.” You can see the video here.

Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio

Win McNamee/Getty Images(WASHINGTON) -- Are “job destroyers” sitting on President Obama’s jobs council? There could be, if you believe the argument from Democrats and the Obama campaign that private equity executives are profit seekers who often run roughshod over workers, companies and communities.

Two Obama-appointed members of the White House Council on Jobs and Competitiveness, an advisory committee, are leading figures in the private equity industry.

Richard Parsons, chairman of Citigroup, is a senior advisor at Providence Equity Partners, “a leading private equity investment firm, specializing in media, communications and information companies,” according to his bio on the White House website.

He joined the firm in 2009 shortly after it completed what news reports describe as the “biggest leveraged buyout in history,” the $51 billion acquisition of Bell Canada.

Mark Gallogly, the co-founder of Centerbridge Partners and formerly with Blackstone Group, the nation’s largest private equity firm, also sits on the panel.  He served on Obama’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board, his official bio states.

Gallogly is also a major Obama campaign contributor and fundraiser, collecting more than $500,000 for the 2012 race.

Obama’s inclusion of these men on his Jobs Council highlights a potential sticking point in his case against GOP rival Mitt Romney, a former private equity executive who says his 15-year experience in the industry qualifies him as a “job creator,” a claim that is a cornerstone of his campaign.

While neither Gallogly nor Parsons is running for office, Democrats and the Obama campaign have sought in some ways to demonize the industry itself, part of an aggressive effort to discredit Romney’s top selling point.

They have highlighted Bain investments that led to layoffs and outsourcing and devastated some communities. One Obama campaign TV ad attacking Romney’s record called him a “job destroyer.”

“If your main argument for how to grow the economy is ‘I knew how to make a lot of money for investors,’ then you’re missing what this job is about,” President Obama said of Romney on Monday.

“It doesn’t mean you weren’t good at private equity, but that’s not what my job is as president,” he said. “My job is to take into account everybody, not just some. My job is to make sure that the country is growing not just now, but 10 years from now and 20 years from now.”

Independent industry experts agree that private equity executives are focused on wealth creation, not job creation, but insist politics have clouded a more nuanced view of the industry that Obama himself seemed to accept in appointing Parsons and Gallogly to his jobs council.

“All of those guys on the jobs council want a stronger economy. They know a lot about what it means to transform businesses and also to create a new enterprise and create more jobs,” said Colin Blaydon, director of the Center for Private Equity and Entrepreneurship at Dartmouth College’s Tuck School of Business.

“That’s why a lot of these guys are on government commissions – because they understand what it takes to build companies, to transform companies and know what the outcomes mean,” he said.

Moreover, academic studies on the impact of private equity investing are ambivalent at best on measuring the overall direct impact on jobs – something both the Romney and Obama campaigns have sparred over.

“What all those studies do is measure for the particular company being affected, what happens to those jobs. They do not try to assess whether a company had not been improved and made more competitive, what would have happened to those jobs,” said Blaydon.

“And very possibly the story would have been a lot worse for the employment picture but there wouldn’t have been anyone to point the finger at other than the incumbent management,” he added.

Obama seemed to acknowledge as much Monday during his press conference in Chicago, saying, “there are folks who do good work in that area, and there are times where they identify the capacity for the economy to create new jobs or new industries.”

A senior White House official, who asked to speak on condition of anonymity, also noted the point of the jobs council was to have a group of only job creators but an independent, outside advisory board that represented all the different sectors of the economy.

Bottom line, say sources on both sides of the debate, it’s Romney’s record in private equity that will remain a primary focus of debate and is largely fair game.

“I think that the Bain record as a whole is fair game,” said Romney surrogate and former New Hampshire Gov. John Sununu on Tuesday – provided it be considered as a whole and not “cherry picked,” he said.

“No one aside from Mitt Romney is running for president highlighting their tenure as a corporate buyout specialist as one of job creation,” said Obama campaign spokesman Ben LaBolt said.  "The president has support from business leaders across industries who have seen him pull the economy back from the brink of another depression.”

But Romney “made profit at any cost for himself and his partners by outsourcing jobs and bankrupting companies,” he said.

There are signs, however, that when it comes to Bain Capital and private equity most voters don’t care. The latest ABC News/Washington Post poll found just 21 percent of voters say Romney’s Bain experience is a reason to support him. An equal number called it reason to oppose him. In the poll, 54 percent of voters said Bain wasn’t a major factor.

Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio

Emmanuel Dunand/AFP/Alex Wong/Getty Images(WASHINGTON) -- With the rise of super PACs, big-dollar donors and celebrity and Wall Street fundraisers, the 2012 presidential campaign is the most cash-driven in history.  On Wednesday, Hank Brown, a former U.S. senator from Colorado and a Romney backer, called the amount of money in politics a “national scandal.”

On a conference call sponsored by the Republican National Committee,  Brown at first criticized President Obama for attending a fundraiser in Denver, but when asked about team Romney’s fundraising in his state, including a $500 a plate event  that Ann Romney held last Friday, also  in Denver, Brown said the “explosion in campaign donations was a tragedy.”

Mitt Romney spent the past three days raising money in Connecticut and New York, and according to his National Finance Chairman Spencer Zwick, the campaign was expected to bring in $15 million, up from the original estimate of $10 million. The campaign earned $5 million at a Tuesday evening fundraiser in New York City alone, and at least $3 million in one day in Connecticut.

“If you look at historic records, the amount of money we’re looking at is astronomical,” Brown told reporters on the call. “And I think part of the reason is not that political leaders are that much more charming these days than they used to be. The reason is government has expanded so much that many people have come to believe their economic success in this world is dependent on government. … But the explosion in campaign donations is a tragedy because it reflects the fact that people feel they have to donate to survive economically. That’s really not what you want America to be all about. ”

The conference call was intended to focus on education, not campaign fundraising, to coincide with Obama’s commencement address at the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs Wednesday. Brown took the opportunity to blast the president for rising college tuition costs, and the college graduates now struggling to find jobs in the current economy.

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Jeff Fusco/Getty Images(WASHINGTON) -- Sarah Palin abandoned her tendency to go with the Tea Party choice, instead backing six-term incumbent Sen. Orrin Hatch over state Sen. Dan Liljenquist in the Utah Senate GOP primary and calling him “Mr. Balanced Budget for Utah” in a Facebook post Tuesday night.  Liljenquist is backed by several Tea Party groups including FreedomWorks and the Club for Growth.

“Orrin Hatch is part of the 1 percent,” the statement reads.  “No, not that 1 percent you’ve heard about.  He’s part of the 1 percent of national politicians who I think should be re-elected.  Orrin Hatch is a life-long conservative whose dedication and devotion to the conservative cause and to his beloved and beautiful state of Utah is well documented.”

“Orrin was a Utah state campaign chairman for a fledgling and failing presidential candidate deemed ‘too conservative’ and ‘unelectable’ by the media.  Ironically, that candidate was the man who restored our country to be a ‘shining city on a hill’ -- Ronald Reagan,” the statement went on to say.

The photo with the endorsement is of a young Hatch with Reagan.

Palin praised Hatch in the post, writing “long before the issue of debt was on the forefront of Americans’ minds, Orrin Hatch knew our government would face insolvency if we did not get our budget under control.”

“We know he will use his seniority and influence to dissuade politicians from continuing to raise the debt ceiling without any plan to balance the budget and end these dangerously unsustainable deficits,” Palin says.

Palin has been on a mini-streak of backing upstart candidates over the establishment choices, including the Tea Party’s Richard Mourdock over Sen. Dick Lugar in Indiana (Lugar lost) and Deb Fischer’s surprise primary win in Nebraska.  She has also backed the underdog in the Texas Senate GOP primary, Ted Cruz.

But not this time.  In her post, she writes that perhaps Hatch can show them around the Senate, if they all get there.

“We need Orrin’s conservative Reagan-like leadership -- and our new crop of conservative senators Richard Mourdock, Deb Fischer, and Ted Cruz might need some friendly advice finding their way around the Senate,” Palin writes.

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Justin Sullivan/Getty Images(WASHINGTON) -- Mitt Romney will speak to the Latino Coalition’s annual economic summit in the nation's capital Wednesday afternoon, the latest attempt by the presumptive Republican nominee to make inroads into the country’s fastest-growing voting bloc.

He’s got his work cut out for him.  The latest polls show Romney trailing far behind President Obama among Latino voters.  In an ABC News/Washington Post poll taken earlier this spring, 73 percent of Latinos supported Obama compared with 26 percent for Romney.  If  Obama can get Latinos to head to the polls in droves and back him by that type of margin, the White House will almost definitely be his for another four years.

Even members of his own party acknowledge that Romney faces an uphill battle with Latinos.  Only months after he mentioned New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez, a Republican, as a possible running mate, Martinez said Latinos “have been alienated” over the course of the GOP campaign this past year, even taking aim at Romney’s immigration policy of “self-deportation.”

”Self-deport?  What the heck does that mean?” Martinez told Newsweek.  “I have no doubt Hispanics have been alienated during this campaign.  But now there’s an opportunity for Gov. Romney to have a sincere conversation about what we can do and why.”

Whether or not Romney will seize that opportunity after doing so much damage to his standing with Latinos during the primary is a real question.  The former Massachusetts governor vowed to veto the Dream Act, praised Arizona’s controversial new anti-immigrant law and touted the endorsement of controversial activist Kris Kobach. 

If Romney cannot boost his standing among Latinos to around 40 percent support, then according to Republican strategist Ana Navarro, “he can kiss the White House goodbye.”

Wednesday’s speech, scheduled for noon, could help.  So too could the attack dog work of Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., a possible VP pick for Romney, who has aggressively gone after Obama in recent weeks.

Rubio is expected to hammer Obama’s record when he addresses the Latino Coalition hours after Romney.

Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio