This afternoon, to stir up some online enthusiasm over Thursday's big Presidential campaign launch event, Mitt Romney launched a little Twitter hashtag fun. It didn't really go so well.

From his @MittRomney account, the would-be President Tweeted:

I believe in America & look forward to sharing my vision with the country.

Robert Haynes, one of the most influential and controversial figures in the state's labor movement, is stepping down as President of the Massachusetts AFL-CIO, the Phoenix has learned. Although the exact timing of his departure is not immediately clear, he is up for re-election this October and is informing board members that he will not seek re-election at that time.

The Romney campaign wakes up today to find two in-depth, balanced, historical overviews of his creation of the Massachusetts health care reform plan, written by top-notch journalists: Brian Mooney in the Boston Globe and Ryan Lizza in the New Yorker.

Hard to say whether this helps or hurts him, but it certainly gives the staff something to read over breakfast.

Hey, who wants to offer productive, positive suggestions for the betterment of our democracy? C'mon! It'll be fun.

I recently posted a lengthy rant of sorts on the topic of academia vs. journalism in the coverage of politics -- spurred by some efforts by political-science academics to tackle the issue. And some of those types have riffed off my comments, including John Sides

So, here's my suggestion: everybody take pictures of any politician they see at any Memorial Day event this weekend -- parades of course, but anything -- and post the pics to Twitter. Tag it #twitpicparade.

Pols and their staff are welcome to post their own. I even promise not to make too many mean snarky comments!

I'm just the kind of goofball who enjoys Memorial Day, enjoys parades, and enjoys politics, so I think it's fun to see pols out there doing their thing this three-day weekend.

Maintaining consistent policy positions when running for President is really, really hard. Seriously. Sure, it's tempting to paraphrase the old line about truthfulness vs. lying, and say that you never need to remember what positions you've taken, if you always just say what you believe. But it's not that simple.

Not only do times and events change, and new information or evidence appears, but there are political realities.

New York Times executive editor Bill Keller, in this weekend's Sunday Magazine, submits his contribution to the genre of Stupid Ruminations About Computers Making Us Stupid. A hint: if you find yourself typing the phrase "I don't think I'm a Luddite," your essay is almost certainly in that category.

I don't want to be too harsh; we have all been down that road at one time or another, in conversation if not in print.

I've been trying to understand what exactly the Herald is complaining about today, but whatever it is or isn't, it's now circulating everywhere in the conservative media as an Obama outrage. I like and respect Hillary Chabot, and I'm always keen on hitting the White House for its disdain for the media, but I don't see any there there on this one.

As my regular readers know, I believe that the 2010 "Year of the Republican Woman" was a bust, and a huge missed opportunity for the GOP. Others disagree with me. OK -- now what next?

The 2012 Presidential race is not going to say much on the topic -- Michelle Bachmann will run, and we'll see how that goes. At the US House level it will be interesting to see whether the 2010 hoopla encourages more and better Republican women to run in 2012, but it's too early to tell.

Today the first legally wed same-sex couples celebrate their seventh anniversary. Congratulations!

Amazing, really, how little attention is paid to this date -- even the Bay Windows web site doesn't seem to have any prominent mention at the moment, and I haven't heard anything about either celebrations or protests.

Mike Huckabee won't run for President this time around, which is no great surprise. My prediction: he will endorse Tim Pawlenty, either shortly before or shortly after the August 13 Ames Straw Poll.

I think it's pretty clear he intends to endorse at some point, which makes sense. First of all, doing so -- and going through a period of deciding who to endorse -- plays up the perception of his importance in the party.

I'm having trouble wrapping my head around the strategic thinking behind the decision to put Mitt Romney out front on the health care issue, by having him give a hyped-up, self described "important" speech on the topic this afternoon in Ann Arbor, Michigan. There must be a strategy, whether I think it's wise or not -- this campaign does nothing without careful deliberation.

Mitt Romney has a new op-ed in USA Today outlining the health care plan he'll talk about in his big speech tomorrow, and I have one question. Well, more than one, but here's one.

Here is "Step 2" of Romney's plan:

Reform the tax code to promote the individual ownership of health insurance. The tax code offers open-ended subsidies for the purchase of insurance through employers.

Our former governor, the once and future Presidential candidate, has decided to take the bold step of giving a big, self-promoted "important" speech on health care tomorrow. This has pretty predictably prompted a lightning-round of "haul out yer Romney clips."

Our lovable local liberal bloggers Blue Mass Group came up with a good one, if dated: Mitt backing federally mandated health coverage back in his 1994 US Senate campaign.

For years I have observed a significant difference in the ways that white liberals and white conservatives view their movements' black political figures: white liberals have a psychological desire to support black political figures of the left, while white conservatives have a pathological desire to support black political figures of the right.