Politico says Mitt Romney's not doing Donald Trump's debate:

“I’m not participating in that," he said, per POLITICO's Juana Summers, adding that he had talked to The Donald and said, "I indicated that we just can’t make this debate; we’ll focus on the other two that we’ve got.”

So far the only two candidates who have agreed to the Trump debate are Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum. Bachmann is on the edge, and nobody knows if Rick Perry is alive or dead*. Association with Donald Trump is probably not good for a candidate's popularity in the general election, but I'm not sure if Mitt Romney should be backing out of any opportunity to make his case directly to voters right now. His rise-above-it-all strategy simply isn't working.

* Seriously, has anyone seen Rick Perry? He hasn't made a joke about his own stupidity in at least a week. I'm worried. Just go knock on his door or something. Tell him you were on your way to the store and you wanted to know if he needed anything.