Mike Huckabee: Newt Gingrich ad ‘not authorized’

Mike Huckabee doesn’t want to be in ads, the DCCC outraised the NRCC, Gingrich is still up in national Gallup polling and Rick Santorum’s biggest backer has an open checkbook.

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WHAT YOU MIGHT HAVE MISSED:

* Former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee condemned the use of his words in an ad from former House speaker Newt Gingrich attacking former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney. Huckabee said in a statement that the ad was ”not authorized, approved, or known in advance by me” and added on Fox News that he’d “love for” Gingrich to take the ad down. Huckabee also distanced himself from a Romney web ad that quoted him earlier this month.

* The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee outraised the National Republican Congressional Committee significantly in December, $5.3 million to $2.7 million. House Democrats also raised more for the year, $61.4 million to $54.5 million. However, the Republican committee has more cash on hand, $15.24 million to $11.6 million, because they entered the cycle with less debt.

* Gingrich may have fallen behind in Florida, but he’s still in the lead in national Gallup polling, and his margin over Romney has actually been expanding. He beats the former Massachusetts governor 32 percent to 24 percent in Friday’s daily tracking poll.

* Puerto Rico Gov. Luis Fortuno (R) endorsed Romney today, as was rumored Thursday. Puerto Ricans, who make up 28 percent of Florida’s voting-eligible Hispanic population, tend to vote Democratic, unlike Cuban-Americans. But there is a Republican Puerto Rican population.

WHAT YOU SHOULDN’T MISS:

* Sen. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.) is recovering “more rapidly” from the stroke he suffered from last weekend. “He is alert, responding more rapidly to questions and the swelling in his brain has stabilized,” Neurosurgeon Richard Fessler said in a statement.

* Businessman Foster Friess, the biggest donor to former Pennsylvania senator Sen. Rick Santorum’s campaign, told Bloomberg News today that he has an “open checkbook” for “anybody who will run against Obama.”

* None of the Nebraska GOP Senate candidates are lighting the fundraising world on fire, but state Rep. Deb Fischer’s fourth quarter numbers are particularly bad. She raised only $66,727 in the last three months of 2011. Attorney General Jon Bruning raised over $400,000 in the fourth quarter but he burned through three of every four dollars he raised. State Treasurer Don Stenberg raised only $252,000, but he’s getting fundraising help from Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.).

* Former Rep. Heather Wilson (R-N.M.) raised a little over $375,000 in the fourth quarter of 2011 and has $1.1 million on hand. Not a huge haul, but it’s not a very expensive state. Rep. Martin Heinrich (D) raised $483,000 in the last three months of the year.

* Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett (R) has endorsed businessman Steve Welch in the crowded GOP primary to take on Sen. Bob Casey (D). The field should narrow this weekend when the state GOP committee makes its endorsement on Saturday; Welch is considered the establishment choice.

THE FIX MIX:

Skunk sweat.

With Aaron Blake