Last night was rough for Mitt Romney.

In addition to losing Missouri's "beauty contest," he came in third in Minnesota and lost Colorado, a state he expected to win handily—after all, he carried the state with 60 percent of the vote in 2008.

That comes on top of new polling that confirms Democrats are more excited about the November elections than Republicans. That can't be good for the Republican Party's prospects—or Romneyland's in particular.

But the past months have proved that it shouldn't be surprising that enthusiasm is cratering for the GOP and for Romney. Primary voters have been confronted with a field of deeply flawed candidates who offer nothing new and who want to double down on the failed economic policies that tanked our economy in 2008.

And GOP primary voters and general-election independents are now turning away from their party's frontrunner, Romney, a candidate who will say anything to get elected—so much so that he cannot be trusted to lead. His private-sector experience has rapidly gone from a plus to a liability: Laying off people and bankrupting companies to line your own pockets is not what Americans think when they think of free enterprise.

Boston, you have a problem.

But don't take it from us. Here's a sample of what they're saying.

Jon Ward wrote in the Huffington Post today:

"It was a very bad night for Mitt Romney Tuesday, no matter which way you sliced it, another harsh blow undermining his argument that he is the strongest Republican candidate for president.

"It happened in Iowa on Jan. 3. It happened Jan. 22 in South Carolina. And on Tuesday night, Romney was again rejected by a large portion of the Republican electorate, this time in Missouri, Minnesota and Colorado. …

"No amount of spinning by the Romney campaign about delegate counts could obscure what the night made crystal clear: their candidate remains unable to excite passion in the GOP and remains a long way from closing the deal with voters."

Taegan Goddard at Political Wire wrote:

"An emerging theme is that Mitt Romney can't win any state unless he's able to hammer his opponents with negative ads."

And Talking Points Memo's Benjy Sarlin tweeted:

@BenjySarlin: So while Missouri doesn't count, not a good sign that 100,000+ Republicans came out just to say they don't want Romney

In his State of the Union Address, President Obama spoke about the “generation of heroes who returned home from combat” after World War II who “built the strongest economy and middle class the world has ever known.” He called for a new Veterans Job Corps that would provide funding to communities, so they can hire veterans to serve as first responders. This would put veterans to work restoring our parks, forests, and natural resources.

The President outlined his plan on February 3^rd with specific details that will be included in his FY13 Budget. Communities that recruit and hire post-9/11 veterans to be police officers and firefighters will benefit from $166 million added to the Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) Hiring Grant, and $320 million added to the Staffing for Adequate Fire and Emergency Response (SAFER) grants in 2012. Our veterans have proved their commitment to making the world a safer place, and through the Veterans Job Corps they will be able to continue their commitment in their local communities.

The Veterans Job Corps will also feature a conservation program that aims to put 20,000 veterans from any era to work in our federal, state, and local parks by “providing visitor programs, restoring habitat, protecting cultural resources, eradicating invasive species, and operating facilities.” Veterans in the conservation program would also help repair roads, levees, trails, and recreation facilities.

Lastly, the President hopes to expand the entrepreneurship training opportunities for veterans made possible by the partnership between the Departments of Defense and Veteran Affairs and the Small Business Administration. This includes the development of a two-day entrepreneurship program open to all service members and veterans. The Small Business Administration will also develop an intensive entrepreneurship boot camp for veterans and will offer an 8-week online training program that teaches the keys to small business ownership to over 10,000 veterans annually.

President Obama said, "When you’re in the thick of the fight, you rise or fall as one unit, serving one nation, leaving no one behind.” The President has proved that he believes the same rules apply at home, and as veterans return home to a continuously recovering economy, his latest policies help make sure veterans are in the front of the line for employment in the country they served so selflessly already.

Barack Obama is a bold, courageous president who has addressed the huge issues facing the American people. He came into the White House in January 2009 under the worst political and economic conditions since the Great Depression—two wars, the loss of 750,000 jobs a month, Wall Street on the verge of collapse, and an inherited trillion-dollar deficit. 

In his first two years in office, President Obama secured major legislative victories, the likes of which have not been seen since President Lyndon Johnson. In his first two years, he successfully enacted the Recovery Act, which created more than 3 million jobs and saved two of the Big 3 automakers. He passed education reform with Race to the Top and invested in our infrastructure. 

The President passed health care reform, overhauled the financial sector to help protect consumers, repealed "Don't Ask, Don't Tell,” passed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, and secured a New START Treaty. The President ended the war in Iraq, helped allies overthrow a dictator in Libya, expanded SCHIP—the child's health insurance program—to include 4 million new kids, and he put two women on the Supreme Court who we can all be proud of.   

The miracle is that he accomplished these legislative successes with either little or no help from the Republican Party, the party that put us on the brink in the first place. It's been difficult to move legislation throughout the Republican-led House, but his accomplishments in the first three years of his administration more than exceed the records of presidents who have served longer terms. What President Barack Obama has done in his first term deserves to be rewarded—with a second term.

To read more of the President’s accomplishments, click here.

Democratic National Committee Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz released the following statement tonight on the results of the GOP primary in Missouri, as well as the Republican caucuses in Colorado and Minnesota:

“Tonight was a bad night for Mitt Romney, plain and simple.  What should have been a night where he began to consolidate Republican support instead has shown that Republicans are reluctant to get behind him.   Republicans are giving the field of candidates another look, demonstrating that the more people get to know Mitt Romney, the less they like him.  They know he'll say anything to get elected, and they don't want a candidate they can't trust.

"Also alarming for Republicans is the lack of enthusiasm and low turnout we're seeing in these contests. In state after state, turnout among Republican voters is lower than it was in 2008, and they are increasingly dissatisfied with their choice of candidates.

“No candidate embodies that dissatisfaction more than Mitt Romney, who hasn't managed to lock this nomination up. The presumed front runner of the GOP field lost two of tonight’s contests so far – that math speaks for itself.  He is losing support from independent voters nationally, and tonight we saw he's not gaining the favor of Republican primary voters either. They clearly don't appreciate being ignored as Mitt Romney did to Minnesota and they know his failed record as Governor of Massachusetts on the key issue of jobs, his background as a corporate raider, and his economic proposals would leave the middle class behind."

Mitt Romney's latest line of attack against President Obama is that the administration is "using Obamacare to impose a secular vision on Americans who believe that they should not have their religious freedom taken away." He's launched a petition against the administration's new regulation requiring employers and insurers to offer coverage for women's contraception.

Romney's attack has been called an "outright lie"—and it certainly doesn't square with his own record as Massachusetts governor, when he stood behind a state law that required all FDA-approved contraception, including emergency contraception, must be covered.

In other words, Romney is attacking President Obama for providing women with the very same access to contraception and preventive care that Romney did as governor of Massachusetts. It's another breathtaking example of Romney's hypocrisy—and his willingness to do and say whatever he thinks it takes to get elected.

This infographic shows that the Massachusetts law and the federal law are nearly identical. Share it widely.

White House senior advisor Valerie Jarrett released this statement today commemorating National Black HIV/AIDS Awareness Day:

On this, the 12th annual National Black HIV/AIDS Awareness Day, I remember my sister-in-law’s fight with the disease. Tragically, she did not win that fight—she left behind a devastated husband and five-year-old daughter. But it is in her memory, and the memory of all the friends and loved ones we have lost, that we vow to keep working toward the day when HIV/AIDS is history.

Read Valerie Jarrett’s entire statement here. For more information about National Black HIV/AIDS Awareness Day and this administration’s efforts to fight HIV/AIDS in the black community, visit http://www.aids.gov.

President Barack Obama addressed the 60^th annual National Prayer Breakfast on Thursday, February 2^nd, with a message about his own personal Christian faith and a vision for our nation anchored in the values that enable us to face our challenges and move forward greater together. “We can’t leave our values at the door,” the President said. “If we leave our values at the door, we abandon much of the moral glue that has held our nation together for centuries, and allowed us to become somewhat more perfect a union. Frederick Douglass, Abraham Lincoln, Jane Addams, Martin Luther King, Jr., Dorothy Day, Abraham Heschel -- the majority of great reformers in American history did their work not just because it was sound policy, or they had done good analysis, or understood how to exercise good politics, but because their faith and their values dictated it, and called for bold action.”

The President spoke about the ways in which the values of fairness, compassion, and shared responsibility have guided him not just in his private life, but in his public life and leadership of our nation. “I’d be remiss if…my values were limited to personal moments of prayer or private conversations with pastors or friends. So instead, I must try – imperfectly, but I must try – to make sure those values motivate me as one leaders of this great nation.” His actions back up his words. The President’s White House Office of Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships has been busy at work empowering religious and community organizations to improve low-income schools, create social networks to help people find jobs, increase access to vital healthcare and nutrition services, ensure our veterans are employed and promote strong fatherhood. President Obama has also increased funding to Catholic charity organizations and provided grants to organizations like World Vision, American Jewish World Service and Islamic Relief for life-saving aid across the world.

President Obama’s values greatly inform his prioritization of policies that augment the impact of faith-based and community organizations throughout the country. His values also guide his approach to issues like expanding opportunity for all, protecting the most vulnerable, and making sure our housing and financial sectors are working for Americans rather than against them. The President reiterated this in his remarks. "Treating others as you want to be treated.  Requiring much from those who have been given so much.  Living by the principle that we are our brother’s keeper.  Caring for the poor and those in need…Today, with as many challenges as we face, these are the values I believe we’re going to have to return to in the hopes that God will buttress our efforts.”

The President closed by reflecting upon a moving personal encounter with The Reverend Dr. Billy Graham: “I have fallen on my knees with great regularity since that moment -- asking God for guidance not just in my personal life and my Christian walk, but in the life of this nation and in the values that hold us together and keep us strong.  I know that He will guide us.  He always has, and He always will.  And I pray his richest blessings on each of you in the days ahead.”

Over at barackobama.com, Obama for America campaign manager Jim Messina has written this post on the campaign's decision to support Priorities USA to counter the outsize influence of Republican super PACs:

In 2010, the Supreme Court's decision in the Citizens United case opened the door to a new wave of so-called Super PACs—non-candidate political committees that can receive and spend unlimited money from special interests. For the first time, these committees could accept money from corporations, not just wealthy individuals.

The decision has accelerated a dangerous trend toward a political system increasingly dominated by big-money interests with disproportionate power to spend freely to influence our elections and our government.

It's a trend the President has fought against, coming into office with a mission to limit special-interest influence in Washington. He put in place the most sweeping ethics reforms in history to close the revolving door between government and lobbyists. And he's overseen the most open administration ever—reversing Bush-era policies designed to limit Freedom of Information Act requests and disclosing White House visitor records so that Americans can see how their government works.

The President opposed the Citizens United decision. He understood that with the dramatic growth in opportunities to raise and spend unlimited special-interest money, we would see new strategies to hide it from public view. He continues to support a law to force full disclosure of all funding intended to influence our elections, a reform that was blocked in 2010 by a unanimous Republican filibuster in the U.S. Senate. And the President favors action—by constitutional amendment, if necessary—to place reasonable limits on all such spending.

But this cycle, our campaign has to face the reality of the law as it currently stands.

Over the last few months, Super PACs affiliated with Republican presidential candidates have spent more than $40 million on television and radio, almost all of it for negative ads.

Last week, filings showed that the Super PAC affiliated with Mitt Romney's campaign raised $30 million in 2011 from fewer than 200 contributors, most of them from the financial sector. Governor Romney personally helped raise money for this group, which is run by some of his closest allies.

Meanwhile, other Super PACs established for the sole purpose of defeating the President—along with "nonprofits" that also aren't required to disclose the sources of their funding—have raised more than $50 million. In the aggregate, these groups are expected to spend half a billion dollars, above and beyond what the Republican nominee and party are expected to commit to try to defeat the President.

With so much at stake, we can't allow for two sets of rules in this election whereby the Republican nominee is the beneficiary of unlimited spending and Democrats unilaterally disarm.

Therefore, the campaign has decided to do what we can, consistent with the law, to support Priorities USA in its effort to counter the weight of the GOP Super PAC. We will do so only in the knowledge and with the expectation that all of its donations will be fully disclosed as required by law to the Federal Election Commission.

What this change means practically: Senior campaign officials as well as some White House and Cabinet officials will attend and speak at Priorities USA fundraising events. While campaign officials may be appearing at events to amplify our message, these folks won't be soliciting contributions for Priorities USA. I should also note that the President, Vice President, and First Lady will not be a part of this effort; their political activity will remain focused on the President's campaign.

But here's what this doesn't change: the fact that ordinary people stepping up to take control of the political process is essential to our strategy.

This decision will help fill a hole on our side. But it's only one part of the overall effort.

Supporting Priorities USA means that our side will not concede the battles on the air in the months to come, but we continue to believe that this election will be won on the ground. Super PACs haven't opened offices. They haven't hired organizers. They haven't registered voters. They haven't knocked on doors or made the kind of personal contact with voters that we know is the single most effective way to persuade people and turn them out on Election Day.

And this is where we have the advantage. It will be up to us—the grassroots organization, funded by an average donation of $55—to win this election.

It's a point of pride that 98 percent of all our donations are $250 or less. Mitt Romney won't reveal that number about his own campaign, but filings show that just 9 percent of the Romney campaign's money in the fourth quarter of last year came from people giving less than $200.

Americans across the country are supporting the most extensive neighbor-to-neighbor, grassroots organization in history.

It's my hope that by making this decision and doing what we can to neutralize the onslaught of special-interest money, we can ensure that the decisive factor in this election won't be an unprecedented flood of special-interest spending, and the outcome will be back in the hands of ordinary Americans.