If former North Carolina senator Elizabeth Dole thought she headed into her fateful 2008 re-election campaign with low approval ratings, what would she think about Sen. Richard Burr's (R-N.C.) numbers? A new PPP poll finds just 36% approving of the job Burr is doing as senator -- not much change from previous polls.

Tested against newly-announced Democratic challenger Kenneth Lewis, Burr leads 45%-31%, with a quarter of voters still undecided.

"It's pretty clear that Richard Burr is very vulnerable," said Dean Debnam,
president of North Carolina-based Public Policy Polling. "The only question is whether Roy Cooper is going to run, and what top tier candidate will be recruited if his answer to that question ends up being no."

Expanding the party base to include more minorities was a leading topic at the Republican National Committee meeting in January, when members gathered in Washington to elect a new party chairman. It's also one of the calling cards of Michael Steele, the party's controversial new chief.

Well, population estimates released today by the U.S. Census Bureau prove GOP leaders were on the right track in identifying a key to electoral success in the future. Minority voters are quickly becoming a dominant force in politics.

With two stinging national losses fresh in mind, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell in January discussed at length the party's need to reach out to Latino voters. One committeeman told RealClearPolitics that the GOP could "soon lose Texas" if something isn't done. (Texas has voted Republican in the last eight presidential elections.)

Sure enough, today's Census release shows increasing minority populations in vital electoral states. In 2008, Florida's Orange County -- the 35th largest county in America -- became a majority-minority county, meaning more than half of its residents are non-white. In 2008, two of the three House Republican incumbents in Orange County's three congressional districts were defeated.

Two counties in Texas were also among the six nationally to become majority-minority last year. Since 2000, 56 counties have become majority-minority, bringing the total to 309, or 10% of the nation's counties.

Census estimates show that minorities now account for 34% of the U.S. population, as well as 47% of children under the age of five. If the last election wasn't a loud enough wake-up call for the GOP, perhaps these numbers will be.

With less than three weeks to go before the Republican gubernatorial primary in New Jersey, former U.S. Attorney Chris Christie still holds a tenuous lead over former Bogota Mayor Steve Lonegan, according to a new Rasmussen poll. Note that nearly one-third of likely voters surveyed have yet to make up their mind.

Likely Primary Voters
Christie 39
Lonegan 29
Undecided 29

Among these Republican voters, Christie has a slight edge on favorability, with a net +63 rating compared to Lonegan's +55. The survey was conducted May 12, the day of the first of four debates that will be held before the June 2 election.

Christie, who has the support of most of the Republican establishment, has seen an early double-digit advantage shrink in recent weeks. Lonegan's campaign recently touted its own survey showing the race down to two points. The Christie campaign stepped up attacks on Lonegan, including a series of YouTube videos that use documentary footage to portray him in a negative light.

Rick Klein has the goods on Nancy Pelosi's statement at a press briefing this morning detailing what she knew about EIT's and when she knew it. The short version is that Pelosi accuses the CIA of lying to her in the original briefing:

In her first public comments on the matter since an intelligence report contradicted her recollections, Pelosi, D-Calif., told reporters today that she was never told about the fact that waterboarding had been used on a terrorist suspect, even though terrorist suspect Abu Zubaydah had been waterboarded a month before she was briefed on the subject in Sept. 2002.

“The only mention of waterboarding at that briefing was that it was not being employed,” Pelosi said, reading from a prepared statement. “Those briefing me in Sept. 2002 gave me inaccurate and incomplete information.”

“At the same time, the Bush administration was misleading the American people about the threats of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq,” she added. “The CIA was misleading the Congress. At the same time, the administration was misleading the Congress on weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.”

Pelosi dismissed any suggestion she was "complicit" in the decision to waterboard terrorist suspects and reiterated her longstanding commitment to human rights and opposition to "torture."

The Governor of Alaska is back in the news, wading into the Miss California brouhaha.  Palin released a statement saying:

The liberal onslaught of malicious attacks against Carrie Prejean for expressing her opinion is despicable.

Carrie and I spoke soon after the attacks started; I can relate as a liberal target myself. What I find so remarkable is that these politically-motivated attacks fail to show that what Carrie and I believe is also what President Obama and Secretary Clinton believe - marriage is between a man and a woman.

I applaud Donald Trump for standing with Carrie during this time. And I respect Carrie for standing strong and staying true to herself, and for not letting those who disagree with her deny her protection under the nation's First Amendment Rights.

Our Constitution protects us all - not just those who agree with the far left.

Meanwhile, Chris Matthews commented on the other piece of Palin-related news - that she's signed up with Harper Collins to write a memoir - calling it "an embarrassment." I believe it's safe to assume Matthews will not get any thrills up his leg when the book comes out.

UPDATE: Matthews still thrilled by Obama.

Newt Gingrich will be writing a weekly column for the Washington Examiner, starting tomorrow.

Senator Lindsey Graham today with CNN's Wolf Blitzer:

BLITZER:  You support the president's decision to try to block the release of these photos, although he himself says they're not really all that damaging, certainly not as bad as the photos of Abu Ghraib that all of us have seen over these years, so why is this a good decision?

GRAHAM:  Well, it's more of the same.  I think here's what the president did.  He got some legal advice from the Department of Justice about the lawsuit, and he did something that is a sign of a good commander-in-chief.  He asked people what he should do that are fighting the war.

He got on the phone to General Petraeus and General Odierno and talked to Secretary Gates.  And they believed -- and I think they're right to believe this -- if you release these photos, which are more of the same, you're going to inflame the public in the Mideast, where our troops serve, and you're going to put some young men and women at risk who did nothing wrong.

And it's not in our national security interest to do that, so I applaud the president.  He chose being a commander-in-chief over politics, and that's a good thing for the country.  He stood up for the troops.  I think that's what motivated him.  He listened to his commanders.

A bit later Graham added that "what [Obama] did with the photos is a sign of a president who listens and is able to adapt and change his mind when necessary."

I agree. Regardless of the rationale behind Obama's initial decision, he should get credit for having the courage to stand up after listening to others and in effect say he got it wrong, before any damage was done.

UPDATE: As expected, liberals have risen up against Obama's reversal. Chris Cillizza has a round up of reactions from the blogosphere.

Watch the Vice President of the United States tell a classroom full of kids that Barack and Joe will pay for their college. During the Democratic primary campaign I thought John Edwards' "College for Everyone" plan pushed the envelope of the nanny state a wee bit far - even if he did deserve credit for honesty in advertising.

But even Edwards's plan required a minimal commitment from kids (10 hours of work per week) in return for Uncle Sam picking up the tab for their first year of tuition and books. So far as we can tell,  Biden is suggesting Uncle Barack will pick up the tab for the whole four years for free.

Watch more video clips on the RCP Video Page.

The Politico's Ben Smith reports that former Vice President Cheney surfaced in New York to warn about a conspiracy to impede American efforts to disarm Iran:

The former Vice President characterized the Iranian goal in negotiations on ending that country's nuclear program as mere stalling for time, and the Europeans as trying to "restrain the U.S." from military action."Everybody's in a giant conspiracy to achieve a different objective than the one we want to achieve," Cheney said.

The negotiations are "bound to fail unless we are perceived as very credible" in threatening military action against Iran, he said.

"Most of the other nations out there are willing to live with a nuclear-armed Iran" he said, citing France, Germany and the United Kingdom in particular.

I think the term "conspiracy" is a tad strong here, but I suspect the former VP is correct in assuming that at the end of the day, most of America's allies would rather see Iran go nuclear if the only alternative left is to wage war against Iran. I also suspect that the same holds true for the current administration and perhaps a majority of the American people. At the end of the day, containing a nuclear Iran will likely be viewed as the lesser of two evils when stacked up with the prospect of launching a second war in the Persian Gulf.

(Cross posted at RCW's The Compass.)

Florida's Chief Financial Officer, Alex Sink, announced today that she will join what is now an open-seat race for governor. Sink's campaign Web site as recently as yesterday indicated she was planning to seek a second term to her current post, though the switch was not unexpected in the wake of Charlie Crist's decision to run for the U.S. Senate.

In a statement, Sink says she's heard from Floridians that they "need leaders committed to protecting the middle class, strengthening our economy and giving our families a fighting chance. As a businesswoman and working mom, I couldn't agree more."

Sink was elected to the CFO post in 2006, the only Democrat to win a statewide election that year. In her four years Sink says she's seen that "Tallahassee's tired old ways of doing business just aren't enough to answer the urgent new challenges we face. And a state government influenced by narrow special interests cannot put the best interests of everyday Floridians first."

The 60-year-old North Carolina native had previously served as president of Bank of America. Her husband, Bill McBride, lost to incumbent governor Jeb Bush in the 2002 election. An early poll showed her neck-and-neck with Bill McCollum, the state attorney general and a likely candidate for governor in 2010.