SOMERVILLE, Mass. (AP) – Gov. Deval Patrick has formally endorsed Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren.

Patrick met on Wednesday with a couple hundred Warren campaign volunteers at her Somerville headquarters.

The meeting and endorsement comes days before the Democratic state convention in Springfield on Saturday.

Patrick urged the volunteers to step up their canvassing on behalf of Warren, the most likely Democrat to take on Republican incumbent Scott Brown in November.

But Warren could face a primary challenge from Marisa DeFranco, an immigration attorney from Middleton, who needs support from 15 percent of the convention delegates to win a spot on the September primary ballot.

Copyright 2012 The Associated Press.

Listen to Jon’s commentary:

Remember just a couple of months ago when a number of pundits were in a lather over how badly Romney’s campaign was faltering, seriously discussed the prospect of a brokered GOP convention this summer, debated how badly Romney had been damaged by the primary fight, and predicted arch-conservatives would never rally behind him?

If you can, try to make a note of who said that, because they didn’t know what they were talking about.

And if you have somehow convinced yourself that Romney can’t go on to win the presidency this fall, better think again.

He prevailed in his 2002 run for governor in a much more hostile environment for wealthy conservative Republicans, for some of the same reasons why he is competitive in this race.

Massachusetts voters ten years ago were anxious about a faltering economy and suffering from a crisis of confidence in a political establishment that had bungled the budget and the Big Dig.

They were looking for someone from the outside with honesty and solid managerial skills to come in and restore confidence, and Romney fit the bill.

And for the first half of his term here, Romney delivered.

He worked well with the legislature to stabilize the budget mess, took steps to restore professionalism to parts of the government that had descended into chaos, and promoted creative policies like smart growth that continue to this day.

But after the 2004 midterm elections, Romney lost interest in the job.

He started running for president, and gave up on trying to deal with a Democratic majority increasingly uninterested in working with him.

Would he be a good president?

Better than the one we have now?

I don’t know.

But whatever you do, don’t think Romney can’t win this thing.

The man just proved he knows how to win, even when the pundits say he can’t.

You can listen to Keller At Large on WBZ News Radio every weekday at 7:55 a.m. and 12:25 p.m. You can also watch Jon on WBZ-TV News.

According to the Associated Press count, Romney surpassed the 1,144 delegates needed to win the nomination by winning at least 88 delegates in the Texas primary.

The former Massachusetts governor has reached the nomination milestone with a steady message of concern about the U.S. economy, a campaign organization that dwarfed those of his GOP foes and a fundraising operation second only to that of his Democratic opponent in the general election, President Barack Obama.

“I am honored that Americans across the country have given their support to my candidacy and I am humbled to have won enough delegates to become the Republican Party’s 2012 presidential nominee,” Romney said in a statement.

“Our party has come together with the goal of putting the failures of the last three and a half years behind us,” Romney said. “I have no illusions about the difficulties of the task before us. But whatever challenges lie ahead, we will settle for nothing less than getting America back on the path to full employment and prosperity.”

Romney must now fire up conservatives who still doubt him while persuading swing voters that he can do a better job fixing the nation’s struggling economy than Obama. In Obama, he faces a well-funded candidate with a proven campaign team in an election that will be heavily influenced by the economy.

“It’s these economic indicators that will more or less trump any good or bad that Romney potentially got out of primary season,” said Josh Putnam, an assistant political science professor at Davidson College who writes the political blog Frontloading HQ.

Romney spent Tuesday evening at a Las Vegas fundraiser with Donald Trump, who has been renewing discredited suggestions that Obama wasn’t born in the United States. Romney says he believes Obama was born in America but has yet to condemn Trump’s repeated insinuations to the contrary.

“If Mitt Romney lacks the backbone to stand up to a charlatan like Donald Trump because he’s so concerned about lining his campaign’s pockets, what does that say about the kind of president he would be?” Obama’s deputy campaign manager, Stephanie Cutter, said in a statement.

Asked Monday about Trump’s contentions, Romney said: “I don’t agree with all the people who support me. And my guess is they don’t all agree with everything I believe in.” He added: “But I need to get 50.1 percent or more. And I’m appreciative to have the help of a lot of good people.”

Trump told CNN in an interview Tuesday that he and Romney talk about other issues — jobs, China, oil and more — and not about the place of Obama’s birth or the validity of his birth certificate. Asked how he viewed Romney’s position that the president was indeed born in the U.S., Trump said: “He’s entitled to his opinion, and I think that’s wonderful. I don’t happen to share that opinion and that’s wonderful also.”

Republicans won’t officially nominate Romney until late August at the GOP national convention in Tampa, Fla. Romney has 1,174 convention delegates.

He won at least 88 delegates in Texas with 64 left to be decided, according to early returns. The 152 delegates in Texas are awarded in proportion to the statewide vote.

Texas Republicans also voted in a Senate primary to choose a candidate to run for the seat being vacated by Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison. Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst led state Solicitor General Ted Cruz and Dallas Mayor Tom Leppert in early returns.

If no one gets more than 50 percent of the vote, the top two finishers will go to a runoff in July. The nominee will be strongly favored to win in November in heavily Republican Texas.

Romney, 65, is clinching the presidential nomination later in the calendar than any recent Republican candidate — but not quite as late as Obama in 2008. Obama clinched the Democratic nomination on June 3, 2008, at the end of an epic primary battle with Hillary Rodham Clinton. Four years ago, John McCain reached the threshold on March 4, after Romney had dropped out of the race about a month earlier.

This year’s primary fight was extended by a back-loaded primary calendar, new GOP rules that generally awarded fewer delegates for winning a state and a Republican electorate that built up several other candidates before settling on Romney.

Rick Perry, Herman Cain, Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum and Trump — all of them sat atop the Republican field at some point. Minnesota Rep. Michelle Bachmann peaked for a short time, too. But Romney outlasted them all, even as some GOP voters and tea party backers questioned his conservative credentials.

The primary race started in January with Santorum, the former Pennsylvania senator, narrowly edging Romney in the Iowa caucuses. Romney rebounded with a big win in New Hampshire before Gingrich, the former House speaker, won South Carolina.

Romney responded with a barrage of negative ads against Gingrich in Florida and got a much-needed 14-point win. Romney’s opponents fought back: Gingrich called him a liar, and Santorum said Romney was “the worst Republican in the country” to run against Obama.

Gingrich and Santorum assailed Romney’s work at Bain Capital, the private equity firm he co-founded, saying the firm sometimes made millions at the expense of workers and jobs. It is a line of attack that Obama has promised to carry all the way to November.

On Feb. 7 Santorum swept all three contests in Missouri, Colorado and Minnesota, raising questions about Romney’s status as the front-runner. After a 17-day break in the voting, Romney responded with wins in Arizona, Michigan and Washington state before essentially locking up the nomination on March 6, this year’s version of Super Tuesday.

Romney has been in general-election mode for weeks, raising money and focusing on Obama, largely ignoring the primaries since his competitors dropped out or stopped campaigning. Santorum suspended his campaign April 10, and Gingrich left the race a few weeks later.

Both initially offered tepid endorsements of Romney, but on Sunday Gingrich gave a full-throated defense of Romney’s campaign, saying on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that he was “totally committed to Romney’s election.”

Texas Rep. Ron Paul said on May 14 he would no longer compete in primaries, though his supporters are still working to gain national delegates at state conventions.

Rich Galen, a Republican strategist who has been unaligned in the 2012 race, said the long, sometimes nasty primary fight should help Romney fine-tune his campaign organization so it can operate effectively in the general election. Galen doesn’t, however, think it was relevant in toughening up Romney for the battle against Obama.

“Romney’s been running for president for six years. He is as good a candidate as he’s ever going to be,” Galen said. “Whatever you say about him, he was better than everybody else in the race.”

___

Associated Press writer Steve Peoples contributed to this report from Colorado.

Copyright 2012 The Associated Press.

BOSTON (CBS) – In the Massachusetts Senate race, incumbent Scott Brown launched a new ad that plays up his image as a man of the people.

Brown’s latest ad is shot in a diner, one of his preferred settings. “It’s a local spot in Wrentham, right down the street from my house,” says Senator Brown. And the image of Brown as a familiar townie, morning coffee in hand, is in calculated contrast with his likely opponent, Elizabeth Warren.

“You know, my favorite breakfast place is at home, I eat at home,” Warren told Jon Keller.

“I’m not really focusing on what she isn’t,” says Brown. “I’m focusing on who I am and what I’ve done.”

“I’m from here, my kids were born here, I was married here, I’ll probably die here, not too soon I hope,” says Brown. “I think it matters because I lived and breathed Red Sox, Bruins, Celtics, Patriots, and I care very deeply about where our state’s going.”

But while Brown may trump her 20 years of local residency, Warren says the issue isn’t who’s a bigger townie, but who’ll do more to stick up for local interests.

“It’s been about Wall Street and helping Wall Street out,” says Warren. “That’s the part of America that Scott Brown has really been taking money from, developing a close personal relationship with.”

In her current TV ad, Warren fights back with a diner stop of her own and testimonials from regular folks with Boston accents, a sign of concern over Brown’s effort to define this self-styled outsider as the wrong kind of outsider.

Referring to the hooded academic robe that civil rights leader Hubie Jones received at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth commencement on Sunday, the Democrat said “you now have a hoodie you can wear and no one will shoot at you.”

The comment drew nervous laughter and groans from the crowd.

Martin was the Florida teen who was wearing a hoodie when he was shot and killed by a neighborhood watch activist.

Frank says he made the same joke at his own expense at three other graduation ceremonies.

He says it was meant to “ridicule the notion that a hooded sweatshirt is somehow sinister.”

Jones says he didn’t think Frank meant any harm.

Copyright 2012 The Associated Press.

Many of us vowed that we would never again allow ourselves to become complacent about foreign affairs, about the sponsorship of mass murderers by rogue states that created a safe haven for Al Qaeda to plot its attacks on us.

We wouldn’t look the other way, many of us said, while barbarians slaughtered civilians, just because it wasn’t happening on American soil. And we wouldn’t shrink from bringing America’s unequaled clout to bear on unacceptable violence elsewhere, even when we were tired of the financial and human cost taking that role entails.

Here we are a little more than ten years later, and we’re doing everything we said we wouldn’t do.

For more than a year, the government of Syria has been systematically suppressing a civilian uprising against decades of oppression by the Assad regime by indiscriminately massacring civilians. Syria, Iran, North Korea, Iraq under Saddam Hussein, they’re all cut from the same mold, dictatorial regimes lining their pockets as they decimate their economies and brutalize religious minorities and political dissenters.

But now Syria, with military assistance from Iran and political protection within the toothless UN from Russia and China, has upped the ante by ignoring a cease-fire and sending a message to those who would challenge Assad’s fascism by going door to door and executing the most vulnerable innocents, one by one, with this past weekend’s slaughter of dozens of women and children in Homs being only the most recent and vivid example.

As always, Europe prefers to look away. Arab states that detest and fear Iran and Syria as much as anyone won’t act; they’re too busy peddling the absurd myth that Israel is the bad guy.

That leaves us as the only nation capable of arming the rebels, bringing the Russians to heel, and prodding the rest of the allegedly civilized world to grow a spine and act. But so far, we’ve done nothing, and it’s likely any action will have to wait until after election day.

No, we didn’t remember the lesson of 9/11, that it’s a fatal blunder to let the most violent tyranny fester. So now it seems we’ll have to be taught it all over again.

DARTMOUTH (CBS) – Congressman Barney Frank made some controversial comments during the commencement ceremony at UMass Dartmouth on Sunday.

UMass gave awards to both Frank and civic leader Hubert Jones, who is black. When the congressman congratulated Jones for his honorary degree, Frank referenced the deadly shooting of Trayvon Martin in Florida.

“I’m particularly pleased that Hubie got an honorary degree today,” said Frank. “You know when you get an honorary degree they give you one of these and Hubie, I think now you have a hood you can wear and no one will shoot at you.”

The comments were followed up with some nervous laughter from the crowd along with some cheers.

Trayvon Martin was wearing a hooded sweatshirt when he was shot by a neighborhood watchman.

Rep. Brandon Giuda had threatened to release documents showing that Bettencourt, a Republican, falsely claimed he completed an 11-week internship at Giuda’s law office, according to the Concord Monitor. Giuda said Bettencourt only showed up once and did an hour of work.

Bettencourt graduated last weekend from the University of New Hampshire School of Law and is getting married next week.

Bettencourt was the youngest House Majority Leader in New Hampshire history when he was elected to the position before the 2011-2012 session at the age of 26.

He said Friday his departure from the Legislature will allow him to focus on his new job as executive director of the New Hampshire Legal Rights Foundation, a nonprofit legal advocacy group.

(TM and © Copyright 2012 CBS Radio Inc. and its relevant subsidiaries. CBS RADIO and EYE Logo TM and Copyright 2012 CBS Broadcasting Inc. Used under license. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)

But, don’t forget about the other Republican candidate, Brookline psychologist Elizabeth Childs, who just served on the Brookline school committee.

Childs, who was the state’s former commissioner of mental health under Gov. Mitt Romney, said she’s running for Congress because she’s “disgusted with the finger-pointing on both sides of the aisle.”

Watch Part 1:

Watch Part 2:

You can listen to Keller At Large on WBZ News Radio every weekday at 7:55 a.m. and 12:25 p.m. You can also watch Jon on WBZ-TV News.

The Massachusetts Prevention Alliance wants the Supreme Judicial Court to change the wording of the ballot question. They claim the current wording hides major parts of the proposed law, such as the network of marijuana dispensaries that would have to be created to comply with it.

But on Friday, Coakley’s office filed a motion to dismiss the petition. Her office says the alliance’s petition failed to offer a valid way for the court to grant its request, such as by proposing another way to write the ballot question.

(© Copyright 2011 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)

Brown said Friday the school may have violated federal guidelines by making the claim on mandated diversity statistics in an apparent reference to Democratic rival Elizabeth Warren.

Warren has said she wasn’t aware Harvard was promoting her as Native American, but the Boston Globe reports the statistics are typically based on how employees describe themselves.

Warren says her mother told her of her Native American heritage, but her campaign has been unable to offer direct documentary proof.

WBZ NewsRadio 1030′s Mark Katic reports

Harvard didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Copyright 2012 The Associated Press.

The Attorney General still needs to approve the new bylaw and it likely wouldn’t go into effect until next Spring.

But already, a group of residents say they aren’t about to wait around to see that happen.

Several local landscapers, including Joe Cusce of Black Diamond Landscapes are leading the charge to overturn the bylaw.

“It didn’t pass by much. But there wasn’t enough opposition to turn down the vote,” Cusce said. “That’s why we have taken efforts to call for a special election in town and allow the voters of the town to decide what they want to do.”

WBZ NewsRadio 1030′s Lana Jones reports

The group delivered more than 1200 signatures to Town Hall calling for a special election.

Once the town certifies at least 840 of those signatures, a special election is triggered.

Cusce says overturning the bylaw would save homeowners time and money.

“If we had to still rake everything, it would be unreasonable. It wouldn’t work,” he said.

In order for the bylaw to come off the books, 20 percent of residents would need to show up to vote in that special election and a majority of them would have to vote to overturn it.

The state Senate passed 55 of 250 budget amendments they discussed Wednesday and resumed debate on the remaining proposals Thursday. They recessed shortly before 11:30 p.m. and will continue discussions Friday morning. It’s unclear when the chamber will vote on the bill.

Sen. Marc Pacheco said no one ever gets exactly what they want in the budget.

The Taunton Democrat pointed to the amendment that would keep the Taunton State Hospital open by maintaining 72 beds. The proposal passed, despite efforts by Gov. Deval Patrick and the state’s House of Representatives to close the over 150-year-old facility.

“Though it’s not everything I would like, we now have a proposal I can support,” Pacheco said.

In January, the Patrick administration announced it was closing the hospital, saying it was antiquated and not cost effective. The House and governor have suggested moving most of its patients to a new state hospital opening in Worcester.

The Senate’s original budget plan calls for one-time revenues and some spending cuts to close a projected $1.4 billion gap between spending and revenues in the next fiscal year, and would tap the state’s reserve fund, commonly known as the “rainy day” fund, for $290 million.

During the debate, senators passed a proposal to provide $1 million in new funding for the Metropolitan Council for Educational Opportunity Inc. grant program — a voluntary education initiative that brings inner-city children to suburban school districts.

They also approved an amendment sending $4 million to community colleges to help them create a system that makes it easier for graduates to transfer credits to four-year schools.

Despite this, Republicans raised concerns over the financial impact some amendments would have on the bill.

“The dollars and cents in this budget are very, very tight,” said Sen. Michael Knapik, R-Westfield.

Other measures attached to the bill include an amendment that allowing schools to allocate funding to implement suicide and violence prevention efforts for gay and lesbian students and a proposal that would create a “pretrial diversion program” to educate and deter first-time offenders caught soliciting or engaging in prostitution.

Meanwhile, an $11.3 million proposal to reimburse cities and towns for providing school transportation for non-resident homeless children did not pass, despite support from multiple senators. The proposal, which would have funded a school transportation mandate, was included in the House of Representatives’ budget proposal.

Additionally, Senate put aside an effort to expand the state’s bottle deposit law to include plastic water bottles and other types of non-carbonated beverage containers, voting to study the issue further.

They rejected a similar amendment from Newton Democrat Cynthia Creem calling to ban the sale of plastic water bottles unless they were made subject to the deposit law.

The House’s plan included no new taxes and called for a larger withdrawal of $400 million from the rainy day fund.

Once the Senate completes its work, a six-member conference committee will be appointed to iron out differences between the chamber and the House of Representatives, which passed its version of the budget last month.

Before it can be signed into law, the final version of the state’s budget must be approved a final time by both chambers and sent to the Democratic governor.

The current fiscal year ends June 30.

Copyright 2012 The Associated Press.

Senators instead voted during budget debate on Wednesday to study the issue further.

Weymouth Republican Robert Hedlund sponsored the amendment to expand the current redemption law. Backers said it would improve the environment by reducing the number of discarded containers littering roadsides and clogging landfills.

Senators also rejected a separate amendment from Newton Democrat Cynthia Creem calling for a ban on the sale of plastic water bottles unless they were made subject to the deposit law.

Critics said expanding the list of beverages subject to deposit would amount to a consumer tax that would hurt smaller businesses that would have to handle increased returns.

Copyright 2012 The Associated Press.

BOSTON (CBS) – A new Suffolk University poll shows just how tight the race for the U.S. Senate is in Massachusetts.

WBZ NewsRadio 1030′s Don Huff reports.

In February polling, Sen. Scott Brown held a 49-40 lead, but Democrat Elizabeth Warren has apparently closed the gap.

The new poll shows Brown with 48 percent and Warren with 47 percent. Five percent were undecided.

According to the poll, a recent controversy involving Warren does not seem to be on voters’ radar screen.

The Brown campaign brought up the fact that Elizabeth Warren listed “Native American” as part of her ancestry on documents. Critics alleged Warren did this to perhaps benefit on her “minority” status.

But, the new numbers show that apparently hasn’t hurt her.

On the ancestry issue, 69 percent of likely voters said that the fact that Warren listed her Native American heritage on school forms and resumes is not a significant story to them, while 27 percent said that it is.

Warren has said that only the Brown campaign cared about that issue.

Warren has insisted that listing her status as minority had nothing to do with being recruited for teaching jobs she has held in the past.

Around 49 percent of likely voters said Warren was telling the truth about her ancestry, while 28 percent thought she made it up and 23 percent said they weren’t sure.

The Senate voted in favor of adopting the measure during their Wednesday morning debate on the budget.

The amendment would create a “pretrial diversion program” to educate and deter first-time offenders caught soliciting or engaging in prostitution.

Individuals charged with human trafficking or participating with an underage victim would not be eligible for the program, which would educate first-time offenders on the effect commercial sex and trafficking has on victims, as well as the associated health risks.

Charges would be dropped against individuals who successfully complete the program.

Supporters say the program will weaken demand and kill supply for prostitution and sex trafficking in Massachusetts.

Copyright 2012 The Associated Press.

BOSTON (CBS) – After taking a break to deal with a family tragedy, Joseph Kennedy III is back on the campaign trail.

The rookie politician is running for Congress with a famous name and a lot of expectations.

After two months of low-profile campaigning across the 4th Congressional District, Tuesday was a day of firsts for the newest Kennedy candidate. It was his first weekday event with time set aside for the media, and his first one-on-one TV interview.

Kennedy spoke with WBZ’s Jon Keller about where he stands on the issues.

Vice President Joe Biden argued Tuesday that Romney’s experience doesn’t make him any more qualified to be president than it does to make him a plumber.

“That doesn’t mean that private equity guys are bad guys — they’re not,” Biden said at New Hampshire’s Keene State College. “But that no more qualifies you to be president than being a plumber. And, by the way, there are an awful lot of smart plumbers. All kidding aside, it’s not the same job requirement.”

Romney argues that his business experience with the Boston-based firm Bain Capital makes him best suited to fix the economy and create jobs.

Biden’s fourth trip to New Hampshire this year was an acknowledgment of the state’s battleground status in the upcoming election.

Though he briefly criticized Romney on social issues such as contraception and touched on Romney’s lack of foreign policy experience, most of his speech was devoted to echoing what Obama has been saying this week — that Romney’s success making money for investors at Bain Capital is not reason alone to be elected president.

The Romney campaign has called such criticism a distraction, an affront to free markets and a misreading of the firm’s success. The campaign released a Web video last week featuring workers from an Indiana company that benefited from Bain’s involvement.

Democrats have been focusing on the companies that Bain took over only to close them or let them fail. In addition to running ads and Web videos, the Obama campaign has been sending Biden to battleground states to press the issue.

In New Hampshire, Biden argued that when companies fail, it costs taxpayers in unemployment benefits and costs businesses that end up paying into a fund that helps laid-off workers recover their pensions. Like Obama, however, Biden stopped short of criticizing profit-making in general.

“That’s their job. It’s legitimate. But folks, making money regardless of the consequences for the workers at the companies they acquire or the communities that get wasted is another question,” he said.

Biden said voters have an easy choice between what he described as the Obama administration’s “commonsense approach” to a Republican philosophy that he asserted advocates “no rules for the big guys” and “no accountability when the fail.”

“We will not go back to the ’50s on social policy, to the Cold War on foreign policy, and the policies of our last administration on our economic policies,” he said. “We will not do it their way again.”

Copyright 2012 The Associated Press.

But now, the Sixth District congressional campaign of Richard Tisei (R-Wakefield) has done just that.

The survey of 400 likely voters conducted in early May by veteran GOP pollster John McLaughlin, which gave Tisei a seven-point lead over incumbent John Tierney, has been disparaged by some for allegedly oversampling Republicans, who make up 22% of the survey sample but only 11.3% of registered voters statewide.

The Tisei campaign argues that’s not such a distortion in the 6th CD, which is one of the more fertile areas in the state for the GOP, breaking big for the Charlie Baker/Tisei ticket in the 2010 governor’s race and going huge for Scott Brown in the January 2010 US Senate special.

Take it with a half-cup of salt, as you should do with any poll, but here are some of the survey’s more intriguing findings, limited to results where the gap is well into double-digits to help allow for any distortion:

* Only 32% believe the US is “going in the right direction; 61% say we’re “on the wrong track”;

* “Since Barack Obama became president, are you and your family better off today than you were four years ago?” Yes: 28%; No, 64% (!)

* Scott Brown’s very/somewhat favorable rating: 67%; very/somewhat unfavorable: 21%. Elizabeth Warren’s favorable/unfavorable: 36%/37%.

* “Would you vote to re-elect Tierney, or is it time to give someone else a chance?” Re-elect: 29%; someone else, 50%.

* “Are you aware or unaware of the legal problems facing John Tierney’s family regarding the illegal offshore gambling empire they ran in Antigua?” Aware: 72%; unaware: 26%

The group of fishermen, environmentalists and regulators was formed by national and regional fishery managers to deal with the massive cut, which went into effect May 1.

Low catch limits on the yellowtail prevent fishermen from going after the more lucrative or plentiful fish swimming among yellowtail.

Fishermen have said the recent cut will devastate the regional fleet of fishermen who chase bottom-dwelling groundfish, such as cod, haddock and flounder.

Fishermen have already asked regulators to transfer hundreds of thousands of pounds of the yellowtail quota from the scallop fleet to fishermen. That’s because recent projections indicate scallopers will catch far less yellowtail this year than previously thought.

Copyright 2012 The Associated Press.

Debbie DiMasi says the family was shocked and saddened to learn that DiMasi was diagnosed last month with a rare form of cancer.

An unidentified family friend tells the Boston Globe that DiMasi was diagnosed after he discovered a suspicious growth.

WBZ NewsRadio 1030′s Kim Tunnicliffe reports

Debbie DiMasi could not be immediately reached for comment Saturday.

The 66-year-old DiMasi was convicted in June of using his political clout to steer two lucrative state contracts to a software firm in exchange for payments of $65,000.

DiMasi may be treated at a medical facility at the federal correctional complex in Butner, N.C.

Copyright 2012 The Associated Press.

HILLSBOROUGH, N.H. (AP) — Republican presidential challenger Mitt Romney on Friday criticized a restored 19th century bridge as another “Bridge to Nowhere” and a fresh symbol of the waste he says is rampant in President Barack Obama’s economic stimulus plan.

From the parking lot of a Ford dealership, Romney pointed to the nearby stone bridge that straddles the Contoocook River and called it a boondoggle. The town of Hillsborough received $150,000 in federal stimulus money to repair the Sawyer Bridge as part of a new park project designed to put people to work installing new benches, lights and visitor parking.

WBZ NewsRadio 1030′s Bernice Corpuz reports

Those additions have not happened.

“This is the absolute Bridge to Nowhere if there ever was one. That’s your stimulus dollars at work. A bridge that goes nowhere,” Romney said.

Indeed, the freshly repaired bridge with its new concrete surface and black iron pedestrian rails stops just as it reaches the other side. The road it once served has shifted a few hundred feet and a replacement bridge connects the two sides of the central New Hampshire town.

Hillsborough’s application for money from Obama’s $800 billion stimulus program claimed the new bridge would be the centerpiece of a park for residents to walk or bike. But the town hasn’t completed its portion of the project, leaving the bridge ready for visitors but still inaccessible to the public.

Romney seized on it as part of a plan that was “without question, the largest, one-time, careless expenditure of government money in American history.”

Obama’s campaign rejected the assertion and said the president’s policies have helped create millions of jobs.

“When President Obama took office, we were in the midst of an economic crisis and losing 750,000 jobs a month,” said Obama campaign spokeswoman Lis Smith. “The president’s policies, policies that Mitt Romney criticizes, helped bring the economy back from the brink of another Depression and we’ve now seen over 4.2 million jobs created over the last 26 months.”

Romney didn’t much care who had come up short. He blamed the Obama administration.

“The bad news is that’s not just wasteful spending. It’s wasteful borrowing, as well. Because we’re still going to be paying on that debt for years and years and years,” he said in a state where fiscal conservatism runs deep among voters of all stripes.

New Hampshire does not have a state sales or income tax. Any suggestion of tax increases spells political disaster, and allegations of wasteful spending help — or hurt — politicians from both parties.

Obama and Romney are expected to fight over New Hampshire. While it offers just four of the 270 electoral votes it takes to win the presidency, activists from both parties note that had Democrat Al Gore carried the state in 2000 he would have won the White House despite losing Florida to Republican George W. Bush.

Romney allies defended his criticism of the stimulus even though its money paid for part of the project.

“Should we be borrowing money from China to fund projects like that? Does that make any sense? No. It does not make any sense,” said Republican Sen. Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire, a Romney supporter.

Romney aides contend the project added to the federal deficit and diverted dollars away from worthwhile infrastructure programs that would have been completed, such as bridges that actually carry vehicles.

Copyright 2012 The Associated Press.

State senators passed the controversial measure late Thursday night. It now heads to the House of Representatives.

Under the legislation car makers would be mandated to allow vehicle owners and independent mechanics to purchase access to repair and diagnostic codes.

Supporters say it would bring savings and convenience. But opponents argue the bill doesn’t guarantee savings for consumers and say the information is already available to owners and mechanics.

Art Kinsman, of the Massachusetts Right to Repair Coalition, said his organization is working to gather signatures to ensure the measure will be on the November ballot if it fails to pass in the Legislature.

Copyright 2012 The Associated Press.

Listen to Jon’s commentary:

Last time I checked, his job approval rating was comfortably over 50-percent; his personal approval was even better. And the significant minority of voters who don’t like him, really don’t like him.

And what with the governor spending more time on the road campaigning for his pal the president and laying the groundwork for his own future, whatever that may be, it wouldn’t surprise me to see people starting to tune him out more and more as his final term in office wears on.

Which would be a bit of a shame, because for my money, Deval Patrick is just beginning to get interesting.

Not that he wasn’t an intriguing figure before.

When you consider that six years ago he was a successful but obscure downtown Boston lawyer with zero political experience, who went on win a historic upset victory in 2006, win a second term, and become a national figure in his own right, that’s not a bad mid-life resume.

But now that he no longer faces re-election, Patrick is starting to speak out more bluntly, with less calculation than before, as he did when we sat down with him for an extended interview yesterday morning.

I raised an eyebrow when he defended government involvement in subsidizing private industry by citing his work at Texaco, and the importance of subsidizing big oil, even if it means occasionally drilling dry wells.

I raised the other eyebrow when he suggested those who want to get tougher on crime by illegal immigrants are willing to inflict the death penalty for a speeding ticket.

And when I asked him how we should react to a recent survey of CEOs who named Massachusetts the fourth-worst state to do business in, he said we should “stop paying attention to that survey.”

I don’t necessarily agree with any of this, but I do find it interesting.

Politicians often become much more interesting when they feel freed from the constraints of running, and Deval Patrick may turn out to be one of those guys.

Bring it on, governor!

Nothing you can say would be worse than saying nothing.

You can listen to Keller At Large on WBZ News Radio every weekday at 7:55 a.m. and 12:25 p.m. You can also watch Jon on WBZ-TV News.

BOSTON (CBS) – Job creation is going slowly in Massachusetts. Only 2,500 new jobs were added during April, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The local economy was the main topic when political analyst Jon Keller sat down with Governor Deval Patrick for an exclusive interview.

Patrick responded to a recent survey by hundreds of CEOs that ranked Massachusetts as the fourth worst state to do business in.

“We need to stop paying attention to that survey,” he said. “The fact of the matter is that today permitting is smoother and simpler and more predictable, which is something I undertook because the business community asked us to.”

Patrick also discussed the Secure Communities program and the “hatred” that he says he sees towards illegal immigrants.

“I think there is an awful lot of hate for people who are vulnerable, frightened,” says Patrick. “People sometimes ask me whether I don’t understand that illegal means illegal. You bet your life I understand illegal means illegal, but I also understand the difference between the death penalty for a speeding ticket.”

Listen to Jon’s commentary:

But the history CNN made wasn’t good news, if you’ll pardon the expression.

The lynchpin of the network’s prime-time lineup, “Piers Morgan Tonight,” didn’t do very well in the ratings. In fact, in the crucial demographic of viewers aged 25 to 54, good old Piers drew only 39,000 viewers, the lowest rating in that demographic and time slot CNN has had in 15 years.

There were mitigating circumstances.

The broadcast networks had blockbuster shows up against them. And Morgan’s guests, Jane Lynch from the TV show “Glee” and Ted Williams, the homeless man with the golden voice whose comeback from poverty was big news a couple of years ago, weren’t exactly big draws.

But CNN has been lagging in the ratings for some time now, not just with the unfortunate Mr. Morgan. Fox News and MSNBC regularly beat CNN like a drum.

And I want to know if that means people no longer care to have their news delivered straight down the middle?

I’m sure CNN has its lapses into bias, but for the most part they do try to play it straight, even emphasizing one of my least favorite formats, the he-said she-said battle of the dueling partisans.

By contrast, MSNBC and Fox take political bias to a whole new level, unabashedly so.

And more and more I see in my travels and my e-mail the signs of people who have completely tuned out diverse points of view, and just want their pre-conceived notions reinforced by whatever they’re watching.

It’s gotten so bad, I question whether the two sides are even listening to each other at all anymore, while we lapse into a political culture of near-permanent standoff.

I suspect most of you are here because that is precisely what you don’t want, and if true, that’s encouraging.

Because the less we listen, and challenge ourselves, the more intellectually lazy and politically calcified we are doomed to become.

You can listen to Keller At Large on WBZ News Radio every weekday at 7:55 a.m. and 12:25 p.m. You can also watch Jon on WBZ-TV News.

“That’s not been a topic of discussion,” Romney campaign adviser Kevin Madden said when asked if the former Massachusetts governor would compete in the heavily Democratic state.

Aides say there are other ways he can win the White House and deny President Barack Obama a second term without banking on Massachusetts’ 11 electoral votes.

That political reality illustrates the degree to which Romney’s efforts to curry favor with conservative Republicans in the primaries has alienated the moderate base that launched his political career.

If Romney were lose Massachusetts and still defeat Obama, he would be the first presidential candidate elected without carrying his home state since 1916, when Democratic President Woodrow Wilson retained the White House despite New Jersey’s absence from the win column.

In 2000, Democrat Al Gore, who had spent years in Washington as a senator and vice president, fell short of winning Tennessee in his losing White House bid. Other notable home-state losers include Democrats Hubert Humphrey of Minnesota in 1968 and Adlai Stevenson of Illinois in 1952 and 1956. Republicans need to go back to 1936 to find a nominee who didn’t carry his home state: Kansas Gov. Alf Landon.

Romney aides argue that it would be a waste of money to run TV ads and compete in a state Obama carried by 25 percentage points in 2008.

Some Massachusetts residents agree, feeling that Romney used the state as a springboard for his national political ambitions. Some seem to resent him for it.

“He doesn’t know where he lives,” said Mike Egan, a retired independent sitting at a Dunkin’ Donuts in Belmont, near Romney’s home.

While Romney’s permanent address is the home he keeps in this upscale Boston suburb, he spends considerable time, including holidays and vacations, at his homes in California and New Hampshire.

Egan and others say Romney seemed to have his eye on the White House as soon as he arrived at the Massachusetts State House in 2003.

The following year, he made his first trip to Iowa, home of the leadoff presidential caucuses, to speak at the state GOP’s fall banquet some weeks before President George W. Bush’s re-election.

He would visit Iowa three times in 2005 and nine times in 2006. That year, Romney spent 212 days outside of Massachusetts. One trip included a visit to Iraq and Afghanistan to enhance his international credentials, just as his state grappled with a devastating flood.

“By the time he left, it became clear to everybody that he was committed to national politics,” said Massachusetts Republican Sheldon Binder, a retiree who supported Romney, as he sat near Egan.

Republicans had held the governorship for 12 straight years by the time Romney took office in 2003.

Voters were comfortable supporting candidates with right-of-center fiscal profiles. Romney’s moderate profile, including support of abortion and gay rights, fit in with other Republicans.

But some in Massachusetts were turned off by what they saw as Romney’s effort to project a more conservative profile on hot-button issues, in part to prepare to court socially conservative activists in states such as Iowa that hold early nominating contests in election years.

Romney reversed his position on abortion while in office. After advocating full equality for gay and lesbian couples, he publicly condemned the Massachusetts Supreme Court decision in 2003 to allow gay marriage.

“He’s a moderate. He’s not a conservative Republican in the true sense of the word,” said Matt Walsh, a 36-year-old advertiser from Mansfield who sat with his mother at the doughnut shop. “That’s why he played well at first. He won the voters in the middle.”

Romney was elected governor with 50 percent of the vote. His approval ratings, while never soaring, topped 50 percent in public opinion polls at times during his one term. But by the October before he left office in 2007, Romney’s approval had dipped to 34 percent in a Boston Globe poll.

With Massachusetts apparently out of reach, Romney aides are trying to claim his native Michigan as the campaign’s home turf. But while Obama can bank on winning his home state of Illinois, Michigan is no lock for Romney.

Romney, 65, was born in Detroit and grew up nearby in Bloomfield Hills, but hasn’t lived in Michigan since he was a teenager. Despite Michigan being viewed as competitive in recent campaigns, no Republican has carried the state since George H. W. Bush in 1988.

What’s more, Obama and other Democrats have criticized Romney for opposing the 2008 federal bailout of Detroit-based automakers Chrysler and General Motors. Romney favored allowing the companies to go through bankruptcy without taxpayer help.

Obama frequently highlights his decision to extend the companies a lifeline and their return to profitability as one of the successes of his administration.

Still, Michigan is more within Romney’s reach than for any Republican in nearly a quarter century.

His family name, made by his father, George, once a governor and an automotive executive in Michigan, still resonates in the state. Romney also has influential contacts in the state, which he reminded voters about at every stop while campaigning for Michigan’s GOP primary in February, which he won.

Michigan also has trended Republican in recent state elections, including a 2010 GOP sweep of statewide offices. Detroit, the dominant force for Democrats, has seen its population shrink amid the auto industry’s troubles, while its suburbs and western and northern Michigan have kept their GOP complexion.

“The climate is much more ripe for a Republican victory in 2012,” said Jeff Timmer, a former Michigan Republican Party director. “When you add to that he does have home-state roots and an established presence, it adds an element to Michigan that no other candidate has brought to this state in a long time.”

So while Michigan may also be a stretch, it rates higher than Massachusetts on Romney’s priority list, according to former New Hampshire Gov. John Sununu.

Of Romney’s chances in Massachusetts, Sununu said: “I wouldn’t rule it out completely — even though it’s No. 50 on the list.”

Copyright 2012 The Associated Press.

The one-hour special news interview program airs once a month and will always be live with an in-studio guest.

You can follow Joe on Twitter @Joe MathieuWBZ.

Here’s the audio from the interview:

Part One – Budget Recommendations 

Part Two – Job Losses, Local Aid, Taunton Hospital

Part Three – EBT Cards

Part Four – Cigarette & Sugar Taxes, Reconciliation, Amendments

Part Five – Universal Health Care, MBTA Woes

Part Six – Re-Election Bid, Open Checkbook, Deadlines

DeLeo has published an open letter on the Menlo Park Patch website touting the virtues of setting up shop in the Bay State.

Facebook was founded in Zuckerberg’s Harvard dorm room.

DeLeo said a lot has changed since Zuckerberg left Massachusetts for California in 2004.

The Winthrop Democrat points to a jobs bill he’s pushing he says will strengthen the state’s innovation economy.

The speaker also takes a jab at California, pointing out the state faces a multibillion dollar deficit while Massachusetts has continued to pass balanced budgets.

DeLeo’s letter comes as Facebook prepares sell stock as part of an initial public offering that could be worth more than $100 billion.

Copyright 2012 The Associated Press.

Listen to Jon’s commentary:

That’s what the political class does, and make no mistake about it, there’s money in spinning. I see no one who does it for a living showing signs of undernourishment.

But that doesn’t mean any of it has more than a distant relationship with the truth.

Let’s start with the overall “shock” value of the poll, which found that Governor Romney has a three-point lead over President Obama. A clear sign of Rom-mentum, says the right, or at least of anti-Obama backlash.

But wait a second.

The survey’s margin of error is four percent.

So, Romney might have as much as a seven-point lead, or Obama might be ahead.

And out of six times this poll has been taken since January, the two men have only been separated by more than four percent once, Obama by six back in February.

“Shock” value?

There is none.

But still, the Obama campaign wants to knock down the poll entirely, claiming it’s using a scientifically corrupted sample. False, and beside the point.

The poll finding seems entirely plausible. It’s a 50/50 country, has been for years, and a virtual tie at this point makes perfect sense.

The Democrats also don’t like the lack of a gender gap in this poll, but it makes sense that their ginned-up “war on women” rhetoric wouldn’t work. Do they really think women care more about contraception than they do about their family’s economic future?

And the Republicans are crowing about the finding that 25% say they’re less likely to vote for Obama because of his position on gay marriage, but they shouldn’t. Seventeen percent said the same of Romney’s position, and by November, few voters will care either way.

Sorry, spin doctors; I’m suing for malpractice on this one.

You can listen to Keller At Large on WBZ News Radio every weekday at 7:55 a.m. and 12:25 p.m. You can also watch Jon on WBZ-TV News.

BOSTON (CBS) – It’s been 18 years since Massachusetts elected a Republican to the U.S. House, but that may change in November.

It looks like six-term incumbent John Tierney has a fight on his hands.

Former State Senator Richard Tisei is actually leading Tierney in a poll commissioned by his campaign.

The Tierney camp says their polling shows the incumbent well ahead, but dueling polls aside, an exchange over same-sex marriage illustrates how difficult it may be for Tierney to shake off his challenger this time around.

Tisei, a politically moderate former State Senator who also happens to be openly gay, could be Tierney’s worst nightmare.

His support of same-sex marriage has helped win him the endorsement of the Gay and Lesbian Victory Fund, and the Pro-Gay-Marriage Log Cabin Republicans.

But, when the president issued his gay-marriage endorsement last week, Tierney (who wasn’t available for an interview Tuesday) claimed Tisei would enable House Speaker John Boehner in a right-wing battle against marriage equality.

“Richard Tisei embraces the Republican agenda on Capitol Hill, and John Tierney has been a consistent fighter on behalf of the middle class, and that’s what matters to the people of this district,” said Tierney spokesperson Grant Herring. “Richard Tisei will be a fighter for the Tea Party, and the Republican agenda.”

“I want to work with the leadership to help solve the problems the country has right now, but I’m not gonna be a rubber stamp. Our current Congressman (Tierney) votes 99% of the time with the party leadership,” said Tisei.

Normally, the presence of an acceptably-moderate Republican wouldn’t matter that much in a Massachusetts
Congressional race.

But, Tierney’s image took a hit during his wife’s recent legal problems, and redistricting made the terrain in the sixth district more friendly for Tisei.

WBZ NewsRadio 1030′s Carl Stevens reports.

The Secure Communities program, which shares arrestee fingerprints with the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security, was activated statewide Tuesday.

Supporters say it will help identify illegal immigrants arrested for crimes in Massachusetts.

But the Democratic governor has expressed concerns of it opening the door to racial profiling. Patrick said the program will result in increased fear in minority communities.

According to a spokesman from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, 44 states and Puerto Rico have now implemented the information sharing program.

Federal officials have said the program doesn’t authorize local police departments to enforce immigration law.

Copyright 2012 The Associated Press.

The governor told a gathering of business leaders on Tuesday that that he loves his job, adding: “I’m not going anywhere.”

Patrick has said many times before that he plans to remain at the Statehouse through his current term, which ends in January 2015. But speculation has persisted that Patrick might be in line for a top federal post in Washington if his close friend, President Barack Obama, wins re-election in November.

The governor told the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce that he planned on making the traditional farewell walk down the Statehouse steps at the end of his term.

He also repeated that he would not run for a third term.

Copyright 2012 The Associated Press.

Listen to Jon’s commentary:

A reporter asked Stern to comment on the $15,000 fine they laid on the coach of the Indiana Pacers for claiming, quite accurately, that his opponents, the Miami Heat, were “the biggest flopping team in the NBA.”

For those who don’t know, flopping refers to what players often do when they make incidental contact with an opposing player, which they try to turn into a foul against the opponent by flinging themselves to the floor as if the other guy had driven a truck into them.

Stern says the league punished that coach because he was trying to manipulate the refs, which is frowned on.

But he went on to say he thought it was time for the league to crack down on phony flopping. “It’s only designed to fool the referee,” noted Stern. “It’s not a legitimate play.”

I couldn’t agree more.

But countless players throughout the league do it, including a few Celtics (yes, Paul Pierce, this means you), because they can get away with it and it gives their team an edge.

Stern says a few years ago he brought up the idea of fining and suspending repeat offenders, but was vetoed by the team owners.

Still, there’s no reason why we the people can’t set up our own penalty system for candidates who practice the political equivalent of phony flopping.

I’m talking about partisans who file ethics complaints against their enemies on spurious grounds; candidates who claim their opponent is “ducking” questions, when it’s really just that the answers are not to their liking; electoral hopefuls who claim they’re gaining momentum and insist they’ll carry the fight all the way to the convention, seconds before they pull the plug on their hopeless campaigns; and so on.

For each phony political flop like this, what if we docked these folks a week’s worth of campaign donations?  Proceeds to charity.

But who would take on the task of sorting through all this political flopping?

I’d volunteer, but there are only so many waking hours in a given day.

You can listen to Keller At Large on WBZ News Radio every weekday at 7:55 a.m. and 12:25 p.m. You can also watch Jon on WBZ-TV News.

BOSTON (CBS) – The Chief Investment Officer of JP Morgan Chase stepped down Monday after risky investments recently cost the nation’s largest bank $2 billion.

JP Morgan CEO Jamie Dimon admitted his bank failed to monitor itself properly. This debacle is now an issue in the Massachusetts Senate race.

Democratic candidate Elizabeth Warren wants to paint incumbent Senator Scott Brown as part of an establishment that’s failed to put teeth in new banking regulation laws. The tactic plays to the strength of Warren’s resume, but puts her somewhat at odds with her own party leadership.

For Warren, campaigning Monday at Casey’s Diner in Natick was a welcome chance to showcase her record as a financial-industry critic and contrast it with Scott Brown.

“He was described as someone who really delivers for Wall Street,” says Warren. “I’ve been out there fighting the big financial institutions long before I ever got into a political race.”

But Warren’s pitch has a problem: Dimon is a Democrat who’s been publicly praised by President Obama. He was talked about as a possible Treasury Secretary in the administration.

“All I can say is for me, this has never been about party politics, it’s really been about who stands on the side of the people,” says Warren.  “Jamie Dimon has led the charge to delay, to slow down, to put more loopholes into the implementation of Dodd-Frank.”

In a statement late Monday, Senator Brown called for a full investigation of the Chase fiasco, and if it reveals wrongdoing or risk to taxpayers, “Dimon should resign, because the buck stops with him.”

Jeff Fitzgerald used “I’m Shipping Up to Boston” as his walk-on song at the Wisconsin Republican Party convention Saturday.

That got back to the band Sunday and they blasted Fitzgerald on their Facebook page with this statement:

The stupidity and irony of this is laughable. A Wisconsin Republican U.S. Senate candidate – and crony of anti-Union Governor Scott Walker – using a Dropkick Murphys song as an intro is like a white supremacist coming out to gangsta rap!

Fitzgerald: if you and your staff can’t even figure out your music you might wanna give up on the politics!!!!!

We stand beside our Union and Labor brothers and sisters and their families in Wisconsin and all over the U.S!

On Monday, Fitzgerald told the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel he’ll stop using the song.

“I can’t believe it caused the stir that it did,” he said. “I won’t use it again.”

Listen to Jon’s commentary:

We’ve always been a country that applauded financial success and gorged on the details of the lifestyle of the rich and famous.

But being rich hasn’t been so popular since greed-crazed speculators on Wall Street blew a big hole in the economy, with the little guy, as always, taking the worst of it.

All of a sudden, resourceful entrepreneurs who went from rags to riches went from being cultural icons to being, at best, slightly suspect, at worst, the reckless heavies of many an Occupy movement sidewalk skit.

And from Washington to Europe, jacking up taxes on the one-percent is the political slogan of the day, a guaranteed applause line everywhere in America – except the Republican Congressional caucus room.

That slogan was the essence of the campaign of Francoise Hollande, the newly-elected president of France.

Back in February he called for a 75-percent tax on millionaires, and in case anyone misses the point, has called the financial industry his “greatest enemy” and says flatly: “I do not like the rich.”

Can he get an amen?

But guess what has happened as a result of the new president’s class warfare?

According to the New York Times, there has been a growing exodus of both the already-wealthy and educated young people “attracted by better job prospects everywhere.”

Belgium, Britain, and Switzerland have drawn thousands of so-called “tax exiles” with New Hampshire-style sales pitches.

They’re leaving, as one young entrepreneur told Bloomberg News, “I don’t share the values that emerged during the election, the rejection of ambition and success…. I need to believe for me and my descendents that the sky is the limit.’’

Of course, they’re also leaving because they can.

We’ll see if the French find a reasonable balance between taxation and spending that salvages their economy.

In the meantime, what’s happening there is a caution to us that while reviling the rich may feel good and at times be deserved, it’s not a substitute for smart fiscal policymaking.

You can listen to Keller At Large on WBZ News Radio every weekday at 7:55 a.m. and 12:25 p.m. You can also watch Jon on WBZ-TV News.

BOSTON (CBS) – Pundits are dissecting the political implications of President Obama’s statement this past week that he supports same-sex marriage.

On Face The Nation Sunday morning, Gov. Deval Patrick said the move is about moral convictions and not politics.

“We don’t have to agree on everything before we work together on anything. People get that this is about human dignity, and I applaud the president for standing up for human dignity. That is an American value, and it’s a real indication of this president’s leadership,” said Gov. Patrick.

Meanwhile on Saturday, Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney gave the commencement address at the nation’s largest evangelical college, Liberty University, in which he declared that marriage should be only between a man and a woman.

WASHINGTON (CBS/AP) — President Barack Obama honored the nation’s top police officers on Saturday, paying tribute to their sacrifices and “quiet courage” in the line of duty.

Obama, joined by Vice President Joe Biden, praised the winners of a national police association award at a White House ceremony that honored 34 officers who showed valor in an assortment of tense standoffs, shootings and rescues.

“They are representative of the sacrifices and that quiet courage that exists among law enforcement officers all across the country and their families,” Obama said in a Rose Garden ceremony.

Among those honored was Woburn Police Officer Mark Gibbons. Gibbons helped saved the life of fellow officer Robert DeNapoli when he returned fire on a robbery suspect last September.

Other recipients included 15 members of the Detroit Police Department who confronted a gunman who opened fire in a local precinct station; five Las Vegas officers who stopped an assailant who shot an officer at a Wal-Mart; and five New York City police detectives who rescued two cadets at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point who had become disoriented while rock climbing.

In addition, other award winners hailed from Los Angeles; Miami; Chicago; Paramus, N.J.; Copley, Ohio; and Chattanooga, Tenn.

It was Obama’s first joint appearance with Biden since the vice president, according to aides, apologized to the president for pushing gay marriage to the forefront of the presidential campaign and inadvertently pressuring Obama to declare his support for same-sex unions.

Obama and Biden were all smiles as they walked to the sun-splashed ceremony together. Introducing Obama, Biden credited the president’s commitment to law enforcement and the two quickly embraced before Obama spoke.

The president lauded Biden as “somebody who has been fighting on behalf of law enforcement all his life.” Biden, the former chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, was a leading advocate of a community policing program when he served in the Senate.

Obama and Biden later played golf together at Andrews Air Force Base, accompanied by Biden’s son, Hunter, and White House aide Marvin Nicholson.

The officers were invited to the White House as part of the National Association of Police Organizations’ annual TOP COPS awards.

(TM and © Copyright 2012 CBS Radio Inc. and its relevant subsidiaries. CBS RADIO and EYE Logo TM and Copyright 2012 CBS Broadcasting Inc. Used under license. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)