Between the Lines: By Mark Halperin

Rick Santorum’s multiday run of homilies questioning President Obama’s faith, the morality of prenatal testing and the government’s fundamental role in education weaken him as a general-election candidate in the eyes of Obama-campaign staffers, who see the former Senator’s words as extreme and ill advised…Those same comments helped rally the conservative grassroots and right-leaning media to Santorum in a way Mitt Romney has never been able to match…If Romney loses the Feb. 28 primary in his home state of Michigan, he will be humbled but will remain the favorite to win the Republican nomination…On the other hand, if Romney wins the Michigan primary, he will continue to struggle to get the majority of delegates he needs to lock up the GOP nod, and it won’t happen anytime soon…Romney has three aces his rivals lack: his super PAC, which continues to take in checks in excess of $100,000; Ron Paul’s campaign, which has run loads of negative TV ads against Santorum in Michigan and remains consistently and conspicuously friendly toward Romney; and Romney’s own vast checkbook, which he has yet to open. In 2008 he poured more than $40 million in personal wealth into his campaign, but a repeat of that move is something the Romney family has resisted so far.

Mitt’s awkward tribute to Michigan’s trees, lakes and cars in a recent campaign speech was seen by some as a notable confirmation of his robotic, verbally graceless persona…Obama partly recovered from his misstep concerning contraception and the Catholic Church by delivering a signature statement making clear that the government must balance competing principles of religious liberty and reproductive health…If Republicans don’t correct course and follow the President’s example, their loss of support from female voters could cost them the election in November.

Is Copper the New Green?

Copper is hot: thieves are stripping it from trolleys in Connecticut, streetlights in California and air conditioners in Georgia and Illinois. The conductive metal can easily be resold to scrap yards for near $3.75 per lb., so states are cracking down. A bill pending in West Virginia would make it illegal to purchase burned or stripped wire, and Florida’s Pasco County wants to require scrap dealers to track sales through a computer program.

THE LATEST COPPER-THIEF LOG BOOK

Feb. 10

Bolingbrook, Ill.

A spool of copper wire valued at $5,000 was snatched from a fenced lot

Feb. 13

Sacramento, Calif.

Thieves stole copper wire from neighborhood street lamps

Feb. 16

Rome, Ga.

Copper was cut from air-conditioning units

Feb. 18

Hartford, Conn.

Thieves stripped copper from trolleys at the Connecticut Trolley Museum

Feb. 19

Buffalo, N.Y.

The historic Palace Theatre suffered $15,000 in damages from stolen copper wires and pipes

STATS 17

Number of avalanche deaths in the U.S. so far this season. While startling, the figure remains below the annual average of 28.8 avalanche deaths over the past 10 years. Colorado has had six deaths this winter; Washington, four; Montana and Utah, three each; and Wyoming, one. A woman survived a Feb. 19 incident thanks to an avalanche air bag.

BUZZ

And Now a Caffeine Inhaler?

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration will soon decide whether inhalable caffeine is safe or tempts teens to overdose. AeroShot, the puffable product in question, contains 100 mg of caffeine powder–about as much caffeine as there is in a cup of coffee–and is on the market as a dietary supplement in New York and Massachusetts.

[The following text appears within a map. Please see hardcopy or PDF for actual map.]

Percentage of newly married couples that are interracial

4%–10%

10.1%–15%

15.1%–25%

25.1%–42.4%

SOURCE: PEW RESEARCH CENTER

LOVE

The New Marriage Boom

Fully 15% of all new marriages in the U.S. in 2010 were between partners of different races or ethnicities, says a Pew Research Center report, nearly twice the rate of 30 years earlier. The most common matchups were white and Hispanic (43%), followed by white and Asian (14.4%) and white and black (11.9%).