That's it in a nutshell. The title is so good, it barely needs explaining. If Congress doesn't pass a completed budget on time -- both the budget blueprint and the 12 appropriations bills necessary -- then when the new federal fiscal year dawns on the first of October, they stop getting paid. Their paychecks halt until the budget is complete, and they are not allowed to (later on, under the cover of night) award themselves retroactive pay for this period.

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OK, quite obviously, I had to put that subtitle in quote marks, since I do not actually possess a uterus. The quote marks indicate I'm just suggesting it as a slogan for others (those of the female persuasion, of course) to utilize. Just to clear that up, in case you were wondering. But we'll get to all of that in a moment, because first we must attend to our primary chores.

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Rather than micro-examine Super Tuesday's results or predict what will happen in any of the upcoming primary contests this month (you're probably already maxed out on such analysis by now, right?), instead I'd like to take a longer view, and contemplate where the Republican Party will be headed after the 2012 election. There are three major scenarios as to how this could play out, if you'll join with me in what is admittedly some way-way-too-early speculation.

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President Barack Obama's job approval numbers are back "above water" (where his approval rate is higher than his disapproval number), continuing an impressive rise in the polls which began in November of last year. This is the longest run of improved public job approval Obama has managed since he got elected. Obama posted a gain of almost two full percentage points in his approval rate in February, the third-best month he's ever had in this respect (and one of the two months he posted bigger gains in was the bounce he got from Osama Bin Laden's death). He wound up the month with his approval rating a full percent better than his disapproval rating, the best numbers he's seen since last June. But this trend could be flattening out, as he ended the month of February by slipping back a bit. So in the midst of plenty of good news on the polling front for Obama, there is reason for caution as well. Call it the dark lining to a very silver cloud, if you will.

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"When the going gets weird," Hunter S. Thompson famously said, "the weird turn pro."

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While this may -- as a direct result of a very successful mythmaking campaign -- be almost universally true today, it was not when the flesh-and-blood man (not the myth) held office as the new nation's first "Chief Magistrate" (as it was referred to back then). Yes, even Washington had his media critics.

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President Barack Obama certainly had an impressive week, getting from Congress exactly what he demanded in the State Of The Union message -- a payroll tax holiday extension for the rest of the year... with "no drama."

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Is the Tea Party faction of the Republican Party becoming irrelevant?

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In other news, the Obama White House had rather a bad week... but again, we'll get to that in a moment.

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Mitt Romney's gaffe last week (reproduced in full, above) is going to wind up the "gaffe that keeps on giving" for Barack Obama and the Democrats in this election cycle. Because the more Romney's comment is examined and dissected, the worse it looks for him. This could, in fact, be the defining moment for Mitt Romney as a national political presence. That phrase is often bandied about in politics, but I use it here in the full literal sense of "defining moment" -- a point in time which absolutely cements an image in the public mind of who you are and what you stand for as a politician. The image, quite obviously, is not a good one for Romney.

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