In the wake of Rick Santorum's three-state sweep earlier this week, Sen. Jon Kyl tells Politico that “there is not exactly Romney-mania right now”:

Kyl, who like DeMint has not endorsed in the 2012 race, launched into a sharp critique Wednesday on the matter, saying Romney’s support for indexing the minimum wage to inflation is something that “every conservative knows [is] a bad idea.”

And that’s the crux of the concern over Romney — that he’s simply not conservative by instinct and therefore has inherent difficulties with the right.

“People instinctively can sense how fervently you believe in things by the way you talk about them, by what you choose to talk about,” Kyl said. “And I think to some extent, Mitt can do a little better job to responding to that political fact. Second, he has stepped on his message so many times.”

Kyl added: “Every time he defends his health care action in Massachusetts and every time he says something like [indexing minimum wage], conservatives wonder whether he has the instincts to usually take the conservative position on issues. You don’t just want a transactional president, you want one with a very fixed view of what’s right or wrong, what the good solutions to problems are — and while you always have to end up making accommodations to get things done in politics, you at least instinctively know what direction you ought to be headed in. I think conservatives need to be persuaded that Mitt has a pretty firm fix on where the conservative lodestar is.”

• Bicycling Magazine's gear editor, Andrew Bernstein, tweeted this photo from Mt. Lemmon.

Check out this jaw dropping video of road bike riders doing tricks.

Ever wonder what the 24 Hours in the Old Pueblo course looks like? Watch all 16 miles here.

Local BMX shop Craycroft Cycles is expanding. Find out where they are headed.

• Photo Ryn Gargulinski/Sticker by Emilyscookies00
• The evidence

Random pizza menus jammed in the doorjamb and satellite TV offers dangling from the doorknob are bad. But one Tucson solicitor sank to an even lower low by sticking a permanent sticker in the middle of an otherwise pristine front door.

To take matters down another notch, the solicitor was selling Girl Scout cookies. While the thought of Girl Scout cookies would normally leave a warm, cozy feeling in the belly — especially the thin mints — they now instead leave bile in the back of the throat.

Perhaps that’s how dad always felt when forced to coerce his coworkers into buying cookies just so little Emily could get a free subscription to Ranger Rick magazine. I never got the free subscription, by the way.

In any event, the bile rose and the tempers flared when my guy and I tried to pry the sticker from the iron security door of the condo he’s trying to rent. It would not budge.

Most would agree a scummy sticker stuck to the front of the door does not make a good first impression. Unless, of course, the potential tenant wanted to buy Girl Scout cookies.

Sure, they're cute now, but at some point, they'll get together and team up against humanity. Enjoy their adorableness while it lasts.

[HT: The Awl]

As part of our series "Let's run YouTube video on the blog featuring the Project White House candidates", here's a clip from Kip Dean, who explains why he's running for president, filmed at the Borderland Brewing/Project White House beer summit.

While it didn't make it on air, Jimmy Fallon house band The Roots and Justin Vernon of Bon Iver rocked out a eight-plus minute long version of "Perth" from his latest album. It is quite pretty, albeit your opinion might be determined by your feelings about AutoTune.

Bon Iver is coming to AVA Amphitheater with Feist on April 23rd. Tickets go sale tomorrow, but we'll also have a pair to give away a little closer to the show itself.

Full disclosure: I once managed a soccer team with an unicorn in its logo, so perhaps I'm biased, but this ad for Tucson tattoo shop Magic Fun Store, which I don't think will ever appear anywhere other than online, might be the greatest single thing on YouTube ever. Kind of makes me want to get a tattoo, although I will not be getting the one seen at the end of the video.

[HT: Reddit Tucson]

I get what Pizza Hut is doing with this $10,010 proposal package (and I'm helping, I suppose, by writing about it), but what's frightening is that someone will probably actually take them up on the offer. So, if you're not terribly bright, don't understand women at all, and have a little over $10k to burn, email Pizza Hut now!

• JD Fitzgerald
• Ron Barber and Gabrielle Giffords met with rancher Warner Glenn shortly before Giffords resigned from Congress

Ron Barber made it official this morning: He’s going to run as a Democrat in the June 12 special election to complete the term of Gabrielle Giffords in Southern Arizona's Congressional District 8.

"It took me a little while to wrap my head around the idea, but now that I have, I'm going full bore,” says Barber, who has served as district director for Giffords’ office since she was first elected in 2006.

Barber said Giffords and her husband, former astronaut Mark Kelly, asked him to get into the race. Earlier today, Mark Kelly posted a fundraising appeal on his Facebook page to help Barber build a campaign warchest.

Barber was shot twice on Jan. 8, once in the face and once in the upper thigh. Doctors nearly had to amputate his left leg, which remains numb below the knee because of nerve damage. He now walks with a cane and has to wear a brace to support his foot.

But he said he wouldn’t let his physical problems slow him down.

"I've checked myself both physically and mentally and I'm ready to get into this thing 100 percent with family support," Barber said. "I'm ready to do it."

Barber says there are a number of reason why he got into the race.

"I'm really concerned—as most people are—about what's going on Washington, with all the name-calling and bickering and gridlock," Barber said. "I've done what I can over the last year to promote the idea of civility and respect in political discourse and certainly one of the things I hope I can do in both running and hopefully being elected and going to Washington, is to bring both that tone and that attitude to what we're trying to do."

Barber said that if elected, he would be able to "prevent any break to the continuity" of the work being done by the current Congressional District 8 staff. He wants to continue the office's work on foreclosure cases, assist seniors with their government benefits and assist veterans returning from Iraq and, in the future, Afghanistan.

"I want to continue to help those people as we've helped them over the last five years," Barber said. "We have to work very hard so that veterans get a fair shake, both in terms of medical services and getting back into the work force."

Barber returned to work six months after the shooting, although his doctors insisted he limit his schedule to four hours a day.

In the wake of the shooting, he also founded the Fund for Civility, Respect and Understanding, which is designed to combat bullying in schools, support programs for the mentally ill and encourage civility in politics.

He’s thrown several rock ’n’ roll concerts to support the fund, including a star-studded event headlined by Jackson Browne and Alice Cooper at the Tucson Convention Center last March and a Ben Folds concert at the Fox Theatre last month.

Barber spent most of his career heading up the state’s Southern Arizona Department of Developmental Disabilities—a job he quit in order to help Giffords get elected.

Barber's entry into the race will most likely clear the Democratic field in the special election, with potential candidates instead setting their sights on the regular election for the new Congressional District 2 later this year.

Barber said he hadn't yet decided whether he'd be running for the new Congressional District 2 seat.

"I think it's kind of presumptuous to get out ahead of myself," Barber said. "I've really got to be smart and focus on what's immediately in front of me and that's what I'm going to do. The decision on whether to run for CD2 will come in time, but not now."

Meanwhile, five Republicans are now set to battle it out in the April 17 GOP primary: 2010 GOP nominee Jesse Kelly; state Sen. Frank Antenori; businessman and sports broadcaster Dave Sitton; former A-10 Thunderbolt II fighter pilot Martha McSally; and political newcomer John Lervold.

Here’s more on Barber, from a TW story last March:

New Talking Comics drinking game: line up some shots and drink one every time Eric frames a sentence with "Yeah [pronoun] did" or "Yeah [pronoun] is".

Also, they discuss Secret Avengers, in which Captain America sounds sort of like Bill O'Reilly.