The good news for Rick Santorum keeps on coming. Santorum now has surged to a modest two point lead over Mitt Romney in Pew Research national Republican primary polling. The poll was conducted from February 8-12 directly after Santorum’s three big wins last Tuesday.

We’re going to have to endure this misguided lines of argument from those savvy business reporters, and CNBC’s Diana Olick is at the head of the pack. So we might as well take on her poor arguments about the foreclosure fraud settlement directly.

In an impressive bit of caving, the House Republican leadership has given up on finding offsets for the payroll tax cut, proposing a bill that would extend the current cut to the end of the year without any funding. However, the other two pieces that were tied to the overall legislation at the end of last year, extended unemployment benefits and the “doc fix” to avoid a reset of Medicare reimbursement rates, would not be included.

The residents of Detroit may get to vote this summer on a city ballot initiative that would remove all city-based criminal penalties for possession of up to an ounce of marijuana for people over 21. Voters had been denied the chance to vote on this in 2010, but last Friday in a 2-1 decision the Michigan Court of Appeals concluded the city acted inappropriately in keeping the measure off the ballot.

The Obama budget is proposing to tax dividends for high-income taxpayers as ordinary income. This is not a change on capital gains, it’s on dividends, the money earned through corporate payouts of profits to shareholders. The capital gains tax rate would rise to 20% from 15% under the Obama proposal, consistent with prior years.

It’s a big week in the Bull City as the campaign to defeat the marriage discrimination amendment brings together multiple coalitions to educate voters and students about the harms of the amendment on our state on Friday. LGBTs and allies at historic black institution North Carolina Central University as well as Duke University are playing a huge role in Race to the Ballot’s “Running of the Bulls”.

Lots of people were angered by Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker’s announcement that he would use money gained from the foreclosure fraud settlement to plug his budget hole. I suspected that a lot of states with a budget gap would go this route. And that apparently includes Missouri, a state with a Democratic Governor and a Democratic Attorney General.

Rick Santorum’s surprise triple win last week in Colorado, Minnesota and Missouri has proven to be an amazing shot in the arm to his campaign. His polling numbers have skyrocketed both nationally and in the upcoming primary states. Santorum is surging in Michigan, where he now holds a 15 point lead over Mitt Romney.

The FY 2013 budget that the Administration will release today is, in the long run, a meaningless document in substantive terms, so I don’t want to spend that much time on it. But I was a little surprised with the pushback I received about my assessment that it reflects a shift in tone rather than policy. It’s a simple fact that the Administration has wanted a deficit deal for some time, and that this budget will build in a deficit deal. They’re going about it in a smarter way with a higher bid in the negotiations.

Conservatives are ready to suffer to avoid taxes on themselves and others. My advice: stop listening to right-wing radio. Those people make you feel bad about yourself, when the problems aren’t your fault.