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WASHINGTON -- Mitt Romney hits Winnetka on Tuesday to scoop up, I've learned, $2.3 million at a fund-raiser as key figures are emerging from Illinois bolstering his White House drive.

Romney's fund-raising dinner is at the home of insurance mogul and civic activist Pat Ryan and his wife, Shirley; between 50 and 60 people will attend, with the minimum donation $25,000. Romney returns to the Chicago area on June 14 for an event with a sliding price tag, from $2,500 to $75,000. Proceeds will be divided between the Romney campaign, the Republican National Committee and several state GOP parties.

Key Illinois players include:

◆ Kenneth Griffin and his wife, Ann. Griffin is chief executive of Citadel LLC, a hedge fund and one of the nation's biggest SuperPAC donors this election cycle. On March 26, Griffin gave $850,000 to Restore Our Future, the pro-Romney SuperPAC. Restore Our Future's ads slamming Newt Gingrich played an important role in helping Romney clear the path to the GOP presidential nomination. In 2011, Griffin gave $300,000 to American Crossroads, another GOP-allied SuperPAC.

◆ On the direct Romney campaign fund-raising front, Susan Crown and her husband, William Kunkler, are part of Romney's National Finance Committee and co-chair his Illinois Finance Committee. Crown, a member of the Crown family, one of Chicago's wealthiest, is a vice president of Henry Crown & Co. and a major philanthropist -- the chairman and founder of SCE, the Susan Crown Exchange. Crown was one of the speakers at Romney's March 21 Illinois primary victory night event. Kunkler is a co-chair of CC Industries.

◆ Attorney Ty Fahner, a former Illinois attorney general and partner at Mayer Brown, also is an Illinois finance co-chair and national fund-raiser. Another important Illinois figure for Romney fund-raising is Goldman Sachs managing director Muneer Satter. Reeve Waud is also in the major fund-raising ranks for Romney. The founder of Waud Capital Partners -- with deep family roots in the Illinois business community -- was scheduled to host a fund-raiser for House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) on Tuesday night at Waud's Lake Forest home.

◆ Lisa Wagner, Romney's Midwest finance director.

◆ Illinois State Treasurer Dan Rutherford chairs the Illinois Romney campaign and delivered Illinois for Romney. He is also on the national finance committee. Now Rutherford -- who backed Romney in his 2008 presidential bid and is a former executive at ServiceMaster -- brings his government (in Obama's home state) and business experience to the 2012
contest as one of the
Romney campaign's surrogates.

◆ Richard Williamson, an attorney and former diplomat, is a foreign policy adviser for the Romney team and a surrogate: He was on CNN earlier this month representing the campaign in a discussion about foreign policy around the globe. Williamson was tapped by former President George
W. Bush for ambassador posts at the United Nations and as the president's special envoy to Sudan from 2007 to 2009.

◆ Rep. Aaron Schock (R-Ill.) -- the youngest member of the House -- is another Romney surrogate who is being used to help with the youth vote. Schock last month was one of the featured speakers on a Romney campaign national conference call to highlight "the Effect Of President Obama's Failed Economic Policies On Young Adults."

WASHINGTON--The Obama for America campaign in a new ad running in five battleground states rips into Mitt Romney's boast that he can create jobs because he did while the chief at Bain Capital. The spot, running in Iowa, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Colorado and Virginia features people who once worked at a steel plant, closed down after it was acquired by Bain. Romney is running on his resume--and the Obama team, since the January Iowa caucus--has been featuring former employees of companies shuttered by Bain.

(My January "Bain-in-the-butt" post is HERE.)

Meanwhile, team Romney is attacking President Barack Obama this week for not keeping promises about reducing government spending.

Romney campaign spokesman Andrea Saul, reacting to the Obama spot in a statement, said "We welcome the Obama campaign's attempt to pivot back to jobs and a discussion of their failed record. Mitt Romney helped create more jobs in his private sector experience and more jobs as Governor of Massachusetts than President Obama has for the entire nation."

She also tried to change the subject by bringing up the Solyndra loan made by the Obama administration:

"President Obama has many questions to answer as to why his administration used the stimulus to reward wealthy campaign donors with taxpayer money for bad ideas like Solyndra, but 23 million Americans are still struggling to find jobs. If the Obama administration was less concerned about pleasing their wealthy donors and more concerned about creating jobs, America would be much better off. "

Saul said about the firm, GST Industries: "The Bankruptcy And Layoffs At GS Industries All Occurred AFTER Governor Romney Had Left Bain Capital in February 1999."

And Saul reminded, "Fact Checkers Have Stated That The Facts "Exonerate Romney" From Allegations Relating To Any Bain Deals In The Early 2000s. "We've gone over this problem with the Obama campaign before, awarding three Pinocchios to a January memo the team released blaming Romney for job losses and bad deals that took place after the former executive had stopped working for Bain. These facts essentially exonerate Romney from allegations that he was responsible for any outsourcing, bad deals and layoffs that occurred with Bain's companies in the early 2000s." (Josh Hicks, "Does Mitt Romney Love Outsourcing?" Washington Post, 5/4/12)"

The Obama folks hold a press call at 10:45 a.m. Monday on their new ad.
UPDATE Obama for America deputy campaign manager Stephanie Cutter was asked in the conference call about whether it was fair holding Mitt responsible for GST since he left Bain before the layoffs. Cutter said Mitt "set this in motion"--loading up the company with debt, high Bain fees and made the point Mitt still stood to make a profit from the deal. END UPDATE

WASHINGTON--Mitt Romney's campaign this week wants to shine a spotlight on President Barack Obama's failure--in their eyes--to reduce government spending. Romney will make this point in Iowa on Tuesday. Meanwhile, the Obama for America campaign goes up with an ad attacking Romney's resume--attacking his role while at Bain, the private equity firm. You may recall--that's a line of attack former GOP rival Newt Gingrich made in the primary.

"For the last three-and-a-half years, President Obama's liberal policies of wasteful spending and skyrocketing debt haven't lived up to his own promises to control our nation's mounting deficits. As president, Mitt Romney will finally change Washington and stop passing our financial burdens on to the next generation." -Andrea Saul, Romney Campaign Spokesperson.

WASHINGTON -- With the American public -- and presumptive GOP nominee Mitt Romney -- focused on the economy, President Barack Obama may not have much at stake politically if there are diplomatic flaps at the NATO Summit in Chicago.

And since Obama already signed a "Strategic Partnership Agreement" with Afghanistan to have most U.S. troops out in 2014 -- he flew to Kabul for the May 1 signing -- there may not be much of a price to pay domestically if pressure comes from the new president of France and other NATO partners in Afghanistan to shorten the timetable.

And if all heck breaks loose in Obama's hometown from protesters? Well, a riot in a president's hometown at a global summit is obviously not good. But the ramifications may not be far reaching. As political time goes, the presidential election is light-years away.

"Nobody in November will remember what happened," an Obama team source told me. It will be a short news cycle on the cable outlets "and a month in the [Chicago] papers."

Romney's team headquartered in Boston is hardly paying attention to the NATO gathering and was not, when I visited on Friday, sizing it up as an obvious political opportunity for them because they want an almost exclusive focus on the economy.

The rapidly expanding Romney operation (overlooking the Charles River) on Friday was ramping up the "message of the week" theme for this week -- on government spending. Romney hits the Chicago area on Tuesday for a fund-raiser at the Winnetka home of Pat Ryan -- the insurance mogul and civic activist -- and his wife, Shirley.

The Romney campaign could mull commenting on some policy difference that emerges -- but that would depend on the specifics and if strategically it paid for them to go off message. Same goes if protests get ugly or it there is some serious security incident. It all depends on the situation, I'm told.

Obama's biggest diplomatic stake

The biggest diplomatic stakes for Obama are the package of issues surrounding Afghanistan, made more complex because of the election of a new French president.

Three announcements are expected at the Chicago NATO Summit: When in 2013 the combat mission in Afghanistan shifts to supporting the Afghan National Security Forces; how much support, financial and otherwise the "ANSF" will get from NATO partners; and agreement on a "roadmap" for NATO's post-2014 role in Afghanistan.

France's new president, Francois Hollande -- a Socialist -- will be sworn in on MondayTuesday. He campaigned on a platform to pull out French combat troops by the end of 2012.

During a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on the Chicago NATO Summit on Thursday, Assistant Secretary of State Philip Gordon was asked by committee chair Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) about Hollande.

Obama at the last NATO Summit -- in Lisbon, Portugal, in 2010 -- got the Afghanistan partners to agree to the 2014 timetable, Gordon noted.

"The French assure us that they are committed to our common success in Afghanistan, and I'm sure we'll find a way forward that ensures that common success. All I can do is speak to our own view, which is that this principle of 'in together, out together' remains critical," Gordon said.

Mayor Rahm Emanuel has much more at stake in the summit -- as Obama's former chief of staff, he grabbed the Summit, seeing it as a terrific opportunity to showcase Chicago. But he neglected to get buy-in from rank-and-file Chicagoans who see the inconveniences more than the advantages.

Emanuel has just one portfolio for the NATO Summit as host mayor. Though he once did while in the White House, Emanuel this week doesn't have to worry about the future of NATO, transatlantic security, ballistic missiles, Russia, free and fair elections in Afghanistan and how to make NATO allies take on their fair share of financial responsibilities and spend two percent of their gross domestic product on defense.

Obama wanted the summit to be in Chicago in part because he wanted to show off for foreign leaders a city that relishes it diversity -- with almost every ethnic group that is part of NATO and its partners.

The last U.S. NATO Summit was in 1999; this is the first outside of Washington.

"In addition to the opportunity to showcase one of our nation's great cities, our hosting of the summit in Chicago is a tangible symbol of the importance of NATO to the United States. It is also an opportunity to underscore to the American people the continued value of this alliance to security challenges we face today," Gordon said at the Senate hearing.

Emanuel, on the other hand, wanted the summit to drum up business for Chicago.

My thought is Emanuel far more than Obama owns the summit if things go wrong -- and will likely bear the brunt even though the Secret Service is taking the lead coordinating security.

Emanuel will find it harder to change the subject if there are horrible demonstrations. Obama, working off a national and global stage -- will be able to move on if all that goes wrong are protests.

"Foreign policy in the minds of the American people right now is not nearly as important as it has been in past elections," Brookings Institution scholar William Galston told me. "... They are focused almost exclusively on the economy."

Former White House Chief of Staff Bill Daley noted when we talked that demonstrations at world summits "are not unique to Barack Obama or to America today.

"Demonstrations happen every time there is a big gathering now of any leaders of the world anywhere," Daley said.

I asked Daley if the fact the summit is in hometown Chicago raises the stakes for Obama.

He said no. "Just cause it was his hometown people would say, 'boy, he could not control his home therefore we are not going to vote for him as president.' ... I don't see it. ... Obviously, it wouldn't help. But I don't see the American people holding him responsible for what may or may not happen by demonstrators who come from all over the country and all over the world to the city."

WASHINGTON--After years of "evolving" on whether to back gay marriage, President Barack Obama on Wednesday said he is for same-sex couples getting married, with the Obama team giving the scoop to ABC News Robin Roberts.

The Obama team--thrown off message this week by the gay marriage issue--touched off on Sunday with supportive comments from Vice President Joe Biden--decided to not wait any longer and have Obama say where many saw he was headed: "I think same sex couples should be able to get married."

Link to the ABC clip of Obama talking about gay marriage HERE.

WASHINGTON--President Barack Obama is expected to speak out on gay marriage on Wednesday afternoon in an interview with ABC News Robin Roberts. I'm told the interview was recently booked with the expectation Obama would be asked about gay marriage. The interview at the White House is set for about 3 p.m. est.

My guess: Obama will back allowing civil gay marriage. Government has no control over religious marriage ceremonies, of course.

This comes as gay marriage has been in the news this week-- throwing the Obama team off message. Vice President Joe Biden on NBC's "Meet the Press" on Sunday offered supportive comments about gay marriage and Education Secretary Arne Duncan said Monday he was for it when asked.

Obama at present is against gay marriage. He has been saying for some time he is "evolving" on the issue. White House press secretary Jay Carney cancelled his Wednesday briefing--after questions about gay marriage dominated the Tuesday briefing.

WASHINGTON -- A University of Chicago Medicine's health program -- once headed by First Lady Michelle Obama when it was created, now run by Dr. Eric Whitaker, close friend of the First Couple -- was awarded a $5.9 million grant by the Department of Health and Human Services.

The grant was announced on Tuesday; the U. of C.'s Urban Health Initiative was one of 26 programs winning federal Health Care Innovation grants -- funded through President Barack Obama's Affordable Care Act.

The grant will be used to create an electronic database, called a "Community Rx system," to assist potentially about 200,000 South Side residents -- on Medicare, Medicaid or who gets health insurance through the State of Illinois -- get linked up with doctors and clinics and other health services near where they live. About 90 jobs are expected to be created through the program for residents of the area.

When Mrs. Obama was an executive at the U. of C. medical center, one of her projects was to find ways to steer uninsured neighborhood patients away from the U. of C. hospital emergency room who were using it for health problems treatable at community health centers.

At the time, in 2006, a public affairs firm founded by David Axelrod -- who, wearing another hat was already a top strategist for then Sen. Obama -- was hired to help generate local support for the project. Mrs. Obama's project evolved into the Urban Health Initiative now run by Whitaker.

Susan Sher, former chief of staff for the first lady, is now the executive vice president for corporate strategy and public affairs at the U. of C. Medicine.

HHS said in a release that one of the hoped-for outcomes was "fewer avoidable visits to the emergency room with estimated savings of approximately $6.4 million."

Cheryl Reed, director of strategic communication for the U. of C. Medicine said, "This grant wouldn't have been possible if the University hadn't already created a health network that links people on the South Side to primary care doctors at 32 different community clinics."

WASHINGTON--A detail about President Barack Obama's Chicago NATO visit: Obama will
travel to Chicago on Saturday May 19 for the NATO summit and leave Monday May 21. The Summit is May 20-21 at McCormick Place.

Sen. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.)--not heard from himself since his stroke in January--speaks out for the first time in a video released Tuesday by his office. The video features scenes of Kirk at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago learning to walk and direct shot of Kirk talking about how anxious he is to get back to work in the Senate--and his goal of being able to walk those 45 steps to his office.

Sun-Times political reporter Abdon M. Pallasch has the story HERE.

WASHINGTON --President Barack Obama made a quick trip to Afghanistan on Tuesday to sign an agreement with Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai about the future of the nation once troops leave in 2014 -- with many details to be filled in at the upcoming Chicago NATO Summit.

"This month, at a NATO Summit in Chicago, our coalition will set a goal for Afghan forces to be in the lead for combat operations across the country next year," Obama said in a speech made from the Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan.

". . . In Chicago, we will endorse a proposal to support a strong and sustainable long-term Afghan force," Obama said. And in Chicago, "the international community will express support for this plan and for Afghanistan's future," he said.

The summit, May 20-21 at McCormick Place, has three broad issues on the agenda:

† Supporting Afghanistan as the nation is transitioning to take control of its own security.

† Bolstering NATO's defense capabilities -- including the use of unarmed drones and missiles.

† Strengthening and showcasing NATO partnerships -- within NATO and with allies who are not members of NATO.

The cast in this summit -- NATO's biggest -- includes about 60 global leaders with their teams of defense and foreign ministers, top military brass and ambassadors.

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization, the world's strongest military and political alliance, has 28 members. The Chicago summit also includes 22 members of the International Security Assistance Force -- known as ISAF -- NATO plus non-NATO countries supporting the military operation in Afghanistan.

On May 20, the NATO members will meet among themselves.

On May 21, the session will include NATO/ISAF partners and other invitees, including representatives from the European Union, World Bank and the United Nations. This meeting also will include Russia and other central Asian states contributing to the NATO/ISAF mission by supporting supply lines in and out of Afghanistan running through those countries.

"There is so much activity taking place at major summits like this, with different groupings and configurations, that it almost feels like multiple rings of a circus. But in the end, we find real substantive outcomes that bring the Alliance together to move forward on key priorities," Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall, senior director for European affairs at the National Security Council, told the Sun-Times.

In the runup to the Chicago summit, NATO officials have been holding series of meetings to reach consensus on the issues to be discussed in Chicago -- Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta were at NATO headquarters in Brussels with their counterparts last month.

NATO is expected to produce one major declaration or communique at the end of the summit.

"That is something that is being negotiated in real time as we are working through all those 'deliverables,' " Sherwood-Randall said.

The issue of Afghanistan's future has a variety of components -- including forging agreements for paying for assistance because Afghanistan is not ready to stand on its own.

NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen, discussing the summit on Thursday with British Prime Minister David Cameron, underscored the point about everyone chipping in: Rasmussen "made clear that the NATO allies and partners will pay their fair share to finance sufficient and sustainable Afghan forces after 2014."

One U.S. pre-summit goal already has been met: Last week, Obama and Karzai signed a Strategic Partnership Agreement. Several other countries signed similar agreements with Afghanistan. Those agreements are broad, by intent; the summit will create a game plan, goals and timelines.

Clinton, speaking last month to the World Affairs Council about the NATO summit and Afghanistan, said "in Chicago, we will work to define the next phase in this transition, in particular, we will look to set a milestone for 2013, when the ISAF will move from a predominantly combat role to a supporting role, training, advising and assisting the Afghan National Security Forces while participating in combat operations when necessary."

The second agenda issue is about a smarter use of NATO military muscle, tailored to the threats of this era -- a far different time than when NATO was created, in 1949, at the beginning of the Cold War.

The approach also deals with the financial realities -- nations are strapped for cash and NATO is pushing for more pooled resources.

"In Chicago, we will take the next steps, by approving a specific set of commitments and measures, and embracing the new approach we call Smart Defense," Rasmussen said.

Sherwood-Randall, in an April 30 speech to the Center for Strategic and International Studies previewing the summit, said the NATO nations leaders are expected to approve a "Deterrence and Defense Posture Review" that will "identify the approximate mix of nuclear, conventional and missile defense capabilities that NATO needs to meet 21st century security challenges."

Expanding NATO part­nerships is an issue as the alliance has taken on operations -- such as in Afghanistan and Libya that are out of the geographical area of NATO members -- to deal with threats to NATO members.

Said Clinton: "In Chicago, we will build on these partnerships. . . . We'll recognize the operational, financial ad political contributions of our partners across a range of efforts to defend our common values in the Balkans, Afghanistan, the Middle East and North Africa."

WASHINGTON -- I'm not sure what's more remarkable, that Education Secretary Arne Duncan gave a candid answer when asked about gay marriage on Monday. Or that he was able to do it in three words.

Duncan was asked by Mark Halperin on MSNBC's "Morning Joe," "Do you believe that same-sex men and women should be able to get legally married in the United States?"

"Yes, I do," Duncan said. And with that he jumped in the fray -- unwittingly -- over whether President Barack Obama will budge from his current position on gay marriage. Obama supports civil unions, but not gay marriage.

Obama's position is that he is "evolving" on the subject. At a news conference in December, 2010, Obama said, "I think this is something that we're going to continue to debate and I personally am going to continue to wrestle with going forward."

For some weeks now, the matter of gay marriage has been bubbling near the surface because Obama is facing some pressure from within his Democratic base -- to finish evolving already.

There is some talk about a gay marriage plank at the upcoming Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, N.C. This in turn prompts reporters to ask Democratic officials and office holders about their positions on gay marriage.

Duncan's pithy reply came the day after Vice President Joe Biden was asked about gay marriage by David Gregory on NBC's "Meet the Press." The answer Biden gave went further than where the boss is.

"Look, I just think that the good news is that as more and more Americans come to understand what this is all about is a simple proposition -- who do you love? Who do you love? And will you be loyal to the person you love? And that's what people are finding out is what all marriages, at their root, are about. Whether they're marriages of lesbians or gay men or heterosexuals," Biden said.

Gregory asked, "And you're comfortable with same-sex marriage now?"

"I am vice president of the United States of America. The president sets the policy. I am absolutely comfortable with the fact that men marrying men, women marrying women, and heterosexual men and women marrying, are entitled to the same, exact rights -- all the civil rights, all the civil liberties and, quite frankly, I don't see much of a distinction beyond that."

But by going so far -- and so passionately -- Biden elevated the gay marriage debate, propelled it into the conversation -- not one the Obama re-election team had been looking for at this time. They couldn't have been surprised about the issue, though, not with all the major gay donors the Obama team is wooing for campaign cash.

Now Obama has a strong record to show on LGBT issues: repeal of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," not defending the Defense of Marriage Act anymore, extending hospital visiting rights for gay families. In recent weeks, the Obama administration may have disappointed some by declining to move on an executive order to prevent anti-gay discrimination in federal government contracting.

Questions about gay marriage dominated much of the briefing White House Secretary Jay Carney conducted on Monday, such as this: "The vice president appears to have evolved on the issue, but the president is still evolving -- is that a fair characterization?"

Biden and Duncan were not telegraphing any strategy shift. But after the election -- I wouldn't be surprised if Obama finished that evolution -- and, like Duncan simply said, will also say "Yes, I do," when asked whether he backs gay marriage.

Mayor Rahm Emanuel makes his first mayoral visit to Springfield on Tuesday.