The Obama re-election team is distancing the president from comments made by a key surrogate on Tuesday.

During a cable television interview Rep. Jim Clyburn, a Democrat from South Carolina, said "There's something about raping companies and leaving them in debt and setting up Swiss bank accounts and corporate businesses in the Grand Caymans. I have a serious problem with that."

The Obama campaign's response to Clyburn's comment was terse. "We strongly disagree with Congressman Clyburn's choice of words- they have no place in this conversation," said Obama Campaign spokeswoman Lis Smith.

However the Obama Camp isn't backing off the Bain Capital line of attack. Smith added, "But we do believe that Mitt Romney should come clean about his record as a corporate buyout specialist and how, contrary to his claims of creating jobs, his focus was on reaping quick profits for investors at the expense of workers and middle class families."

Private equity and Mitt Romney's time as the CEO of Bain Capital has been dominating the presidential campaign trail lately. On Monday President Obama defended attacks on Mr. Romney's time at Bain Capital, saying the subject "is not a distraction. This is part of the debate that we're going to be having this election campaign."

Both President Obama and Mitt Romney saw their fundraising numbers drop in recently. President Obama's re-election campaign raised $25.7 million in April, almost $10 million less than he raised in March.

Mitt Romney's team raised $11.7 million in April, down from more than $13 million in March.

However, President Obama has a staggering lead when it comes to cash on hand; Mr. Romney has $9.2 million while President Obama has $115 million.

Both of the Super PACs supporting the campaigns also had a lackluster April. Restore Our Future, which supports Mr. Romney raised $4.6 million for the month which is down from $8.7 million in March.

Meanwhile, the pro-Obama political action committee Priorities USA raised only $1.6 million in April.

Federal Election Commission records show that Newt Gingrich ended his presidential campaign with a little more than $800,000 in cash on hand and nearly $4.8 million in debt.

Both sides agree the 2012 presidential election has the potential to be a nail biter. In such a contest ground game efforts often prove to be a critical, sometimes even a deciding, factor.

To that end the Republican National Committee is getting out into the crucial battleground states early with a National Volunteer Day this Saturday. RNC officials say they expect to make contact with tens of thousands of voters in each of 12 states this weekend.

The states in question are familiar ones to political reporters and operatives: Ohio, Florida, Virginia, Colorado, Iowa, Michigan, Missouri, North Carolina, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Nevada and New Mexico.

The RNC is also pushing their volunteers to new Facebook app that works as a go-to hub for event information.

The idea is to identify voters, Republican, Democrat or Independent and use that information to come up with an equation about in which states and counties to focus the most attention and effort this fall. RNC officials say they also use that information to get out absentee ballots and early voting sites to Republicans and track them throughout the process. (read more)

President Obama has completed what he called his "evolution" on the issue of gay marriage. During an interview with ABC News on Wednesday, Obama openly endorsed same-sex marriage.

But while this decision will play well to an important part of his base, it also poses some risks for Obama in his re-election efforts.

Following Tuesday's election results in North Carolina, there are now 30 states that have constitutional amendments and/or laws banning same sex marriages.

These states combined represent a total of 309 electoral votes.

Perhaps more importantly, there are also seven critical battleground states among this group: Florida, Ohio, Virginia, Colorado, Pennsylvania, Michigan and North Carolina. These states account for 114 electoral votes.

To put that in context, that number alone is more than 40 percent of the 270 electoral votes a candidate needs to win the presidency.

Just because states have provisions barring gay marriage doesn't mean their voters would reject Obama in the fall on that single issue.

Senior administration officials, though, have told Fox News they simply don't know how Obama's endorsement will play, since this is unchartered territory for a sitting president.

Chief White House Correspondent Ed Henry contributed to this report.

Ron Paul has been a thorn in the side of Mitt Romney's presidential run for years, but a new poll suggests that should the Texas congressman launch an independent candidacy it would actually help Mitt Romney.

The Rasmussen survey of a hypothetical three-way race for the White House shows Romney with 44%, President Obama with 39% and Ron Paul with 13%.

Ron Paul has not pulled out of the race for the GOP presidential nomination, although his chances of capturing the nomination are becoming increasingly remote.

The national survey of 1,000 Likely Voters was conducted on May 6-7, 2012 by Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence.

During a campaign rally in Cleveland a woman in the audience was asking Mitt Romney a question, but also commented that she thought President Obama should be tried for treason.

Romney answered the woman's question about the US Constitution but did not address her assertion that President Obama should be tried for treason.

After the event Romney answered a reporter's question on the subject by shaking his head and saying "no, of course" President Obama should not be tried for such an offense.

President Obama's re-election team suggests Romney's original silence on the matter spoke volumes. "Time after time in this campaign, Mitt Romney has had the opportunity to show that he has the fortitude to stand up to hateful and over-the-line rhetoric and time after time, he has failed to do so," said Obama Campaign spokeswoman Lis Smith.

Fox News Producer Nicole Busch contributed to this report.

Gingrich officially dropped out of the presidential race at an event in northern Virginia on Wednesday but refrained from actually endorsing the GOP's presumptive nominee Mitt Romney.

"Today I am suspending my campaign. However, suspending the campaign does not mean suspending citizenship." Gingrich went on in a long speech to talk about numerous subjects, including his infamous moon colony comment. However, the one subject he steered away from for the most part was Mitt Romney.

"This is not a choice between Mitt Romney and Ronald Reagan," said Gingrich, in what was not exactly a full throated endorsement. "This is a choice between Mitt Romney and the most radical leftist president in American history."

However, Gingrich has said that he is committed to help the effort to oust President Obama

The Obama Campaign is out with a new web ad asking the question, "Newt Gingrich is throwing his support behind Mitt Romney?" The ad goes on to show numerous times during the campaign when Gingrich attacked Romney, including one on-camera instance where the former House Speaker was asked if he was calling Romney a liar, to which Gingrich answered simply, "Yes." (read more)

A GOP official tells Fox News Mitt Romney will visit the Republican National Committee headquarters in Washington on Wednesday.

The Romney campaign has been coordinating with RNC officials but this will be the first time Mr. Romney himself has visited the building and addressed staffers as the presumptive nominee.

Mitt Romney said "of course" he would have ordered Usama Bin Laden killed.

Romney made the comments while speaking to reporters in Portsmouth, New Hampshire.

"Even Jimmy Carter would have given that order," added Romney.

President Obama's re-election campaign has questioned Romney's willingness to take bin Laden out.

It was one year ago this week that Obama authorized the U.S. military raid in Pakistan that led to bin Laden's death.

The Romney campaign announced Friday that it raised $12.6 million in primary funds during the month of March and now has $10 million of cash on hand.

The Republican National Committee recently started coordinating with the Romney camp and brought in $13.8 million during the same period, the committee's best fundraising month since 2008.

However, Romney and the RNC still have a major fundraising task in front of them over the next six and a half months. President Obama and the DNC, by comparison, raised $53 million dollars in March and are sitting on $85 million dollars of cash on hand.

Romney has not tapped into his own vast personal wealth at all during this presidential cycle, whereas in 2008 he pitched in around $45 million.