CHRISTIE: "Gov. Chris Christie said today he was not budging in his opposition to same-sex marriage, a day after President Obama’s stunning announcement that he supported gay unions," The Star Ledger writes. "My position is really clear on it," Christie told a town hall audience in Franklin Township, Somerset County. "It’s not going to change. I just do not believe that marriage should be between anyone but a man and a woman."
"Gov. Christie rejected a key provision of President Obama's health care plan on Thursday, becoming the second governor in the country to veto a bill that would have set up a state-run exchange to allow consumers to collectively shop for health insurance. The decision was immediately panned as political by Democrats but welcomed by tea party conservatives, who had expressed alarm in recent days that the Republican governor would allow "Christiecare" in New Jersey," The Philadelphia Inquirer reports.
JINDAL: "Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal took aim at President Barack Obama during a speech here Thursday, telling an audience of state Republicans that it’s time for change in the White House. “He’s the most liberal president in my lifetime, and the most incompetent president since Jimmy Carter,” Jindal said. “Other than that, he seems to be a decent man.” Jindal was the keynote speaker at a fundraising dinner for the Alabama Republican Party. He spoke to an audience of about 100 inside an aircraft hangar at the USS Alabama Battleship Park," The Press-Register in Mobile, Alabama writes.
PORTMAN: "Sen. Rob Portman will return to his old U.S. House district to campaign in southern Ohio with the new Republican nominee. Portman planned a five-county swing Friday across the 2nd House District with Brad Wenstrup. The podiatrist and Iraq War veteran upset Republican incumbent Jean Schmidt in the March primary and will face little-known Democrat William Smith in November," AP reports.
RUBIO: "Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) said the White House is trying to sabotage his version of the DREAM Act by “ordering” activists not to work with him so that President Obama can maintain his hold on the Latino vote in the 2012 election," The Hill writes. “One of the things that already been documented is that the White House has been — the articles that have been written, two or three by now, the White House has been calling in DREAM Act advocates and asking them, almost ordering them, not to work with me on this issue,” Rubio said Thursday on the Laura Ingraham radio show. “They have been counting on using this issue as a wedge issue in October to drive up turnout.”