Since Rick Santorum’s triple win last week the state of the Republican primary has changed dramatically. In the past 24 hours four major national polls have found Rick Santorum slightly leading or effectively tied with Mitt Romney. In addition the polls found Newt Gingrich’s support has falling significantly since his January peak.

A new poll from Quinnipiac shows Mitt Romney’s lead over Gingrich in Florida has grown to nine points from just a two point lead earlier in the week. The size of the Romney lead in the Quinnipiac poll is nearly identical to the lead three other recent polls released yesterday found.

At the GOP debate on Thursday will Wolf Blitzer ask Mitt, Newt, Rick or Ron any question with the tenaciousness we see on display in this video at a European Central Bank press-conference in Ireland?

Last Friday we pointed out that Andrew Breitbart’s yappy little purse-nitwit Dana Loesch, of the ironically titled Big Journalism, went totally TMI on the air when she expressed her deepest darkest fantasy: tinkling on dead people. Fearing the loss of her job as the resident Teabagger rodeo clown on CNN, she’s instructed her staff to go all Dana all the time.

So there I was, surfing around the intertoobz this morning when I came across this headline at CNN: “Stop vilifying venture capitalists.”

I have to admit, I was a bit taken aback at the headline as it surely did not reflect anything I had read.

So here we are, the week between Christmas and New Years. This is a slow news time (as David Dayen noted here), yet it is a classic time for “take out the trash” type news dumps.

Barring some incredibly unusual developments, Mitt Romney is on track to win big in the New Hampshire primary. All recent polls give him a massive double digit lead.

Depending on which polling firm you ask, the leader in Iowa with only days until the caucus is either Ron Paul or Mitt Romney. According to CNN/ORC poll Romney is in first place followed by Paul.

The national climate is quickly turning against Newt Gingrich. Two new national polls indicate Gingrich’s lead has slipped noticeably since earlier this month. A new CNN/ORC poll finds Gingrich went from a 4 point lead over Mitt Romney to being tied. Gallup shows Gingrich slipping a point a day.

The individual mandate, a requirement in the Affordable Care Act that individuals buy private health insurance or pay a fine, is still very unpopular according to the newest Kaiser Family Foundation poll. According to the poll 63 percent have a somewhat or very unfavorable opinion of the individual mandate, while only 35 percent have a very or somewhat favorable opinion of it.