Inside Politics: GOP Senate candidate blames Romney for drop

Former Wisconsin governor and current U.S. Senate candidate Tommy Thompson says his declining poll numbers in recent days are due partly to Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s lack of momentum on the presidential campaign trail.

Mr. Thompson, a Republican, was considered a favorite as recently as last month in his Senate race against Democratic Rep. Tammy Baldwin, but a poll released Wednesday by Marquette University Law School shows him trailing Ms. Baldwin by 9 percentage points.

A CBS/New York Times/Quinnipiac University poll released this week showed the race as tied at 47 percent. A Marquette poll last month showed Mr. Thompson with a 9-point lead.

Mr. Thompson downplayed the gap in an interview with WKOW-TV in Madison, Wis., but said his declining numbers have been caused in part by the Romney campaign’s negative momentum in recent weeks.

WHITE HOUSE

Obama joins the chorus: Let Teddy win

It seems President Obama wants Teddy, one of the Washington Nationals baseball team’s four oversized presidential mascots, to finally be allowed to win a race at the ballpark.

The Teddy Roosevelt character has never won, or at least not legitimately, in the nightly race against oversized George Washington, oversized Thomas Jefferson and oversized Abe Lincoln.

Fans in Washington have taken up Teddy’s cause, chanting for the team to let nation’s 26th president have one win — operating under the undoubtedly correct belief that the races are fixed.

In a tongue-in-cheek interview with ESPN, Sen. John McCain, Arizona Republican, said it was time to let Teddy claim victory, and on Thursday Mr. Obama’s spokesman chimed in and said the First Fan agrees.

“This is an outrage. I agree with Sen. McCain, I’m comfortable saying my boss agrees with Sen. McCain,” press secretary Jay Carney told reporters traveling on Air Force One.

CAMPAIGN

Professors are big stuffers of an Obama campaign fund

The fundraising committee through which President Obama solicits his largest campaign donations relied overwhelmingly on professors from elite universities last month.

The top donors, measured by frequency of donation, were Duke University, the University of Michigan, University of California, University of Washington and Stanford University, and Mr. Obama’s alma maters of Columbia and Harvard.

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