You For President: Normally we stay as far away from presidential horse race politics as we can, but today was a weird day. First up, the guy everyone was so fired up about six months ago, Texas Governor Rick Perry dropped out of the race (even though he’s on the D.C. ballot). Erik Wemple ranks the reasons the local punditry gave for Perry’s flameout from 10 to 1. Then Newt Gingrich‘s second wife claimed he wanted an open marriage (insert schadenfreude over the Defense of Marriage Act’s biggest defender wanting to step outside of his own marriage). Then, businessman and pizza man Herman Cain endorsed…wait for it…You. You for president. Yeah. We don’t even know, but thanks for the warm fuzzies. +2

Let It Slush: Unlike the surprise snowstorm last week, it looks like we’ll at least have some notice for the next one. Flurries may develop tonight with some wintry mix tomorrow. The “winterless winter” isn’t likely to get much colder than this, though, at least if historical averages hold true. And we’re not complaining: An extended spring is always welcome. +3

Hitting The Numbers: The two Metro employees arrested and charged with stealing thousands of dollars in change from fare machines apparently used that money to purchase lottery tickets. Which displays a serious lack of understanding of the laws of probability, and also serious ambition. The real question: If they’d won, and then quit their jobs, would they still have taken Metro to get around the city afterwards? -2

What’s $0.20 Among Friends? Virginia lawmakers are proposing a 20-cent bag tax in the state. The steep price isn’t going over well, though one of the state’s representatives says, “Responses on my blog ran about 64 percent of the people were perfectly fine with a nickel.” On! His! Blog! That’s social science for you. Here in the District, of course, the bag tax is a mere 5 cents. +5

Yesterday’s Needle rating: 33 Today’s score: +8 Today’s Needle rating: 41