Maine on Tuesday became the latest state to fall victim to the caucus bug, with a local report noting that the state GOP declared Mitt Romney the winner of a close race without many localities reporting votes in the totals, including some that had submitted their results and some whose caucuses were set for later this month.

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Former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum is out with his first ad in the Rust Belt state, a positive spot arguing that he’s best positioned to take on President Obama.

But polling suggests the two sides have essentially fought to a draw.

In California, a federal appeals court struck down the state’s ban on same-sex marriage, declaring it unconstitutional.

The ad is more evidence that Michigan is the most important of the three contests on Feb. 28, when Arizona and Washington also vote. A pro-Romney super PAC has put $600,000 into Michigan ads.

When it comes to President Obama’s reelection, the actual economic situation is less important than how people perceive it.

The Club, which generally endorses against one or two GOP incumbents every election cycle, has made Lugar its first incumbent target of the 2012 election cycle.

The good news is that they’re about to find out more.

Newt Gingrich’s campaign is rolling out Callista in an effort to revive the former House speaker’s flagging campaign. And as the chart below demonstrates, interest in Callista on Google exceeds that of even Ann Romney, who has taken a much more active role in her husband’s campaign.

He’s fighting a losing battle right now.

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For the “Mini Tuesday” results, we asked for the winner of each contest. No one predicted former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum’s three-state sweep, so we took the answer that came closest to former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney’s Colorado total.

But there will be other opportunities in the weeks ahead.

The final results from Maine showed Paul losing to Mitt Romney by fewer than 200 votes. His campaign is crying foul over one county having postponed its caucus, but the result seems set in stone.

Gallup also found a statistical tie between the two.

Conventional wisdom often has it that Romney’s position shifts are a known quantity from his 2008 run — they are “baked into the cake,” so opposition research and negative ads are unlikely to change voters’ perceptions much. This survey suggests otherwise.

The GOP presidential candidate has long had an uneasy relationship with the mainstream conservative press in general and National Review in particular, and he will likely dismiss the editorial as “establishment” meddling.