Massachusetts: Mitt Romney

Here are a few items of interest about some of the folks on my latest Top 25 ranking of GOP 2012 Presidential Nominees. (Also, please note that my latest rankings cleverly included two #18s, but no #23. Oops. Please mentally renumber to compensate.)

--USN&WR's Washington Whispers informally surveyed Republican leaders for long-shot 2012 nominees, and gave a top four of my #1 Tim Pawlenty; #3 Mark Sanford; #7 Jon Huntsman, and #13 Eric Cantor. Also mentioned: #5 John Thune, #21 Jeb Bush, and unlisted Richard Burr.

--#2 Jim DeMint and #10 Rick Perry held what they dubbed "Tea Party 2.0," via teleconference yesterday... which is kind of like if the colonists had protested by sitting in their homes spilling tea on their floors.

--John Tobin tells me that he will not run for the state senate seat being vacated by Marian Walsh. He also ruled out a stab at an at-large seat. "I am running for re-election in my district," he says emphatically. So far, it looks like rep. Michael Rush has the way cleared to graduate to the upper chamber, but there are still potential candidates in the suburban parts of the district making up their minds. An intriguing rumor making the rounds is that former Allston-Brighton district councilorJerry McDermot, who now lives in Westwood, might be giving it a look.

--Interesting gender gap in that Suffolk U/Ch.

Mitt Romney is still the man, at least among the mostly young, mostly rabid conservatives at CPAC; he won the conference's straw poll for the next Republican Presidential nominee with 20 percent of the vote. That's three years in a row for Mitt.

As CPAC closes out to the dulcet tones of the right's dear leader, Rush Limbaugh, I have decided to update my ranking of the 25 most likely people to win the 2012 Republican Presidential nomination, made two months ago. I'll get to that below.

Just to wrap up for now about CPAC, however... The message from what I've seen is: Republicans -- and particularly George W.

You can always find something that'll raise your eyebrows.

• Brian Mooney has an interesting story on the state legislature's magic trick of "cutting" $11 million from its budget without actually, you know, cutting anything.  It's complicated (and I'm not sure I completely get it), but basically, it appears that the vast majority of the "cuts" came from a reserve fund (I believe "slush fund" is the technical term), and that reductions in spending from the reserve fund will not revert to the general fund to be used for other purposes (like helping towns buy fire trucks).  Go read the whole thing, and if you can clarify the details for us, please do so.