Massachusetts U.S. Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren (D) announced that she raised $8.67 million in the last quarter, "more than she has raised in any previous quarter and $1.7 million more than she raised in the first three months of the year," the Boston Globe reports.

"Warren is already the nation's leading congressional fundraiser and the latest figures are likely to widen her lead."

The Note: "One of the first rules of politics is to define yourself before your opponent does it for you. The Obama campaign has made this its mantra with a relentless focus on making Mitt Romney out to be something of a cross between Gordon Gekko and George W. Bush."

A new poll for The Hill found 56% of likely voters believe President Obama's first term "has transformed the nation in a negative way, compared to 35% who believe the country has changed for the better under his leadership."

Bloomberg Businessweek: "In the lexicon of political insults, accusing somebody of raising taxes ranks up there as one of the worst. So it's easy to see why Barack Obama and Mitt Romney have spent the past week twisting themselves into semantic contortions over whether the Supreme Court's decision to uphold the Affordable Care Act's insurance mandate because it's a tax means that the mandate is, in fact, a tax (Romney), or that it's still a penalty being called a tax (Obama)."

"Amid all the sniping in the Land of Make-Believe, it's easy to forget that in the real world, it doesn't matter. Whatever you call it, there's zero difference between a tax, a penalty, a fine, or a fee."

ScotusBlog has a fascinating, second-by-second analysis of how the media reported the recent Supreme health care ruling, specifically focusing on how some got it right while others got it so wrong, like Fox News and CNN.

"With the prospective vice presidential candidates fanning out as campaign-trail surrogates, Romney and his closest counselors have entered the final stages of selecting the ultimate surrogate -- a running mate," the Washington Post reports.

"There are seven weeks remaining until the Republican National Convention in Tampa, and Romney has a few important strategic decisions to make before then: not only who to name as a vice presidential nominee, but also when and how to do so."

Wall Street Journal: "ESPN has come up with a way to sell a bigger portion of its ad time to political campaigns. The sports network has struck a deal with a middleman that will result in more political ads appearing on ESPN programs, including NFL and college football games, in October and November--the critical period before the general election."

Said one top ESPN executive: "There is 'great demand' for ad time from 'political parties and the super-PACs."

If you missed the Sunday political talk shows, the Democratic National Committee put out a 75-second video with clips of Obama surrogates attacking Mitt Romney on his offshore bank accounts.

First Read: "This was clearly a coordinated assault -- and a reminder that when the economic news is not good, the Obama campaign has little choice but to go down this road. For now, the Romney response is simply, 'They are trying to distract from the bad economy,' which has the added benefit of likely being true... But the other fact is these relentless attacks by Team Obama on Romney's business career have started to take a toll. Will the attacks on his personal wealth also take a toll before the Romney campaign figures out a better way to respond?"

"With a torpid job market and a fragile economy threatening his re-election chances, President Obama is changing the subject to tax fairness, calling for a one-year extension of the Bush-era tax cuts for people making less than $250,000," the New York Times reports.

"Obama plans to make his announcement in the Rose Garden on Monday... The ceremony comes as Congress returns from its Independence Day recess, and as both parties and their presidential candidates head into the rest of the summer trying to seize the upper hand in a campaign that has been closely matched and stubbornly static... by calling for an extension for just a year, Mr. Obama hopes to make Republicans look obstructionist and unreasonable."

Former New York Gov. Mario Cuomo said that his son, Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D), is "the best governor in modern times," the New York Times reports.

He also suggested the younger Cuomo might someday "have an opportunity to serve at a higher level, to serve the people of the United States."

"The moment was striking because -- despite widespread discussion in political circles that Andrew Cuomo could be a strong contender for his party's nomination in 2016 -- the younger Mr. Cuomo has repeatedly sought to tamp down such talk. He has done so not because of any absence of ambition, but because he has carefully studied the presidential flirtation of the politician he knows best: his own father...."