US Presidential Election 2012

[Count Bobulescu]

Poll of Polls

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epo...bama-1171.html

State by State polls.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epo...lls/president/


Watch the debate either at 9pm eastern Livestream or recorded later here.

http://www.2012presidentialelectionn...bate-schedule/


COUNTDOWN: 21 days. The election is three weeks from today.

The Hill: Race tightens for swing states 
By Jonathan Easley
Mitt Romney’s debate victory has tightened the presidential race in the dozen or so states that will determine the winner.
http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/...r-swing-states

The Washington Post: Surge in ad purchases being driven by Romney, allies
 By Dan Eggen and T.W. Farnam
They are banking heavily on a high-risk, high-reward media strategy in the final weeks of the campaign.http://www.washingtonpost.com/politi...2a7_story.html


The New York Times: Voter rolls are called vulnerable to hackers in 2 states
 By Nicole Perlroth
Computer security experts have found weak points in the voter databases in Maryland and Washington State, raising concerns about the ability of hackers to disenfranchise voters.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/13/us...ases.html?_r=0


BETTER WORLD CAMPAIGN says 3 in 4 voters will be influenced by foreign policy: A comprehensive bipartisan poll from Public Opinion Strategies and Hart Research, conducted the weekend before last, found that 47% don't think the candidates are talking enough about foreign policy - the topic of the third debate. They asked open-endedly for respondents to say what they'd like to hear the candidates talk about. What came up most: Ending the war in Afghanistan/bring troops home, the impact of our relationship and support of Israel, How to address the development of nuclear weapons in Iran, What to do in the Middle East, Our continuous involvement in wars, About our aid to other countries, Dealing with terrorism, Our economic involvement and dependence on China/Asia; and border security. 2-page press release from the Better World Campaign: http://goo.gl/rYgNk. 6-page memo from the pollsters: http://goo.gl/FXb6L.

--N.Y. Times col. 1, "CAMPAIGNS MINE PERSONAL LIVES TO GET OUT VOTE: EXTENSIVE USE OF DATA -- Subtle Techniques Try to Influence Habits on Election Day," by Charles Duhigg : "In the weeks before Election Day, millions of voters will hear from callers with surprisingly detailed knowledge of their lives. These callers - friends of friends or long-lost work colleagues - will identify themselves as volunteers for the campaigns or independent political groups. The callers will be guided by scripts and call lists compiled by people - or computers - with access to details like whether voters may have visited pornography Web sites, have homes in foreclosure, are more prone to drink Michelob Ultra than Corona or have gay friends or enjoy expensive vacations. ... [W]hen ... targeted voters open their mailboxes or check their Facebook profiles, they may find that someone has divulged specifics about how frequently they and their neighbors have voted in the past. Calling out people for not voting, what experts term 'public shaming,' can **** someone to cast a ballot. ...http://nyti.ms/UX2VcY


Race for president remains close nationally
Dan Balz and Jon Cohen
A new Washington Post-ABC News poll portrays an electorate that remains deeply divided along partisan lines and locked in its views.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politi...rc=nl_politics


Concerned that the Libertarian presidential candidate Gary Johnson could hurt the Romney campaign, Republicans across the country have been working to keep him off the ballot.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/15/us...ef=todayspaper


CAMPAIGNS CRITIQUE THE MODERATOR. Disturbed by the active role CNN’s Candy Crowley has said she would like to play in the town hall-style debate on Tuesday, both presidential campaigns expressed concern to the Commission on Presidential Debates, Time reports. The two campaigns have called on Crowley to follow the debate rules that the campaigns set with the bipartisan commission earlier, arguing that the questioning should be driven by the audience members, rather than the moderator. Crowley, however, was not part of that agreement. Read more
http://nationaljournal.com/2012-pres...ebate-20121015

DOES FACT-CHECKING MAKE A DIFFERENCE? The explosion of both independent and partisan fact-checking this cycle helps keep voters informed and politicians accountable, partisans say. But the candidates don’t seem to be changing their tunes when challenged on the facts, and their supporters don’t seem to care. In the presidential debates, the candidates have pulled out conflicting data points that are part-truth, part-spin, but not all independents and undecided voters may be motivated enough to figure out who’s right. Read more

http://www.nationaljournal.com/polit...id=site_search


POLL: RACE STILL TIED AS GOP ENTHUSIASM JUMPS. A new ABC News/Washington Post poll released early Monday shows rising Republican enthusiasm following the first presidential debate, but GOP nominee Mitt Romney does not gain ground on the ballot test, as the percentage of voters who say the nation is on the wrong track fell to its lowest point in nearly three years. Read more

http://www.nationaljournal.com/polit...jumps-20121015


HOW TONIGHT'S QUESTIONERS WILL BE CHOSEN : Depending on the final studio configuration, 80 to 84 voters will join the town-hall format presidential debate, at 9:30 p.m. at Hofstra University in Hempstead, N.Y., on Long Island. The Commission on Presidential Debates is once again using Dr. Frank Newport and the Gallup Organization to pick the audience: All will be uncommitted, registered voters from Nassau County who say that they plan to vote, and that there is a chance they could vote for either candidate. The sample, reached using both landlines and cellphones, will include a variety of incomes, races and political persuasions. (Although Republicans aren't sure how many evangelical hunters will turn up in Nassau County.) A few extra are picked to account for no-shows.

The audience will arrive at Hofstra in the morning. People who want to ask a question write the identical question on two cards: one to keep, and one for the moderator, CNN's Candy Crowley. She screens the questions for topic variety (will include foreign and domestic), to eliminate duplication, and to include a mix of genders and ages. In the past, 12 to 16 people have asked questions. Because this year's rules include a little longer time for the candidates to discuss each topic, the number will likely be at the lower end of that range.

--HANDCUFFS FOR CANDY? TIME's Mark Halperin : "[T]he Romney and Obama campaigns have expressed concern to the Commission on Presidential Debates about how the moderator of the Tuesday town hall has publicly described her role ... While an early October memorandum of understanding between the Obama and Romney campaigns and the ... commission ... suggests CNN's Candy Crowley would play a limited role in the Tuesday-night session, Crowley, who is not a party to that agreement, has done a series of interviews on her network in which she has suggested she will assume a broader set of responsibilities. As Crowley put it last week, 'Once the table is kind of set by the town-hall questioner, there is then time for me to say, "Hey, wait a second, what about X, Y, Z?"' ...

.. But if the Obama and Romney campaigns agreed to such terms, there is no evidence that Crowley did - or was ever asked to do so. ... Crowley referred all questions about the debate format to the Commission." http://ti.me/RZbLTF



HIGH-STAKES DEBATE. The 90-minute town-hall debate at Hofstra University tonight will feature questions from uncommitted Nassau County, N.Y., voters selected by Gallup. Moderator Candy Crowley is tasked with selecting which of the 80 voters' questions will be asked, and following up after each candidate’s two-minute response. Both domestic and foreign issues are fair game. Here are National Journal’s primers on what is at stake and the issues likely to dominate.

CANDIDATES CAN EXPECT QUESTIONS ON LIBYA. Republicans are clamoring for answers after the death of four Americans in Libya. At the vice presidential debate, Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., accused the White House of changing its story and failing to provide adequate security for the U.S. ambassador, who was killed. With State Department, FBI and Congressional investigations ongoing, here are four questions President Obama and Mitt Romney could face during tonight’s second presidential debate. Read more
http://www.nationaljournal.com/polit...id=site_search

BEHIND THE CURTAIN : TIME's Mark Halperin posts the 21-page debate agreement between Bob Bauer of the Obama campaign and Ben Ginsberg of the Romney campaign. The stipulations for tonight: "The moderator [CNN's Candy Crowley] shall select the questioners, but she may not 'coach' the questioners. ... [Q]uestioners shall not be allowed to make statements, speeches or comments. They must ask their question ... and make no other comments. ... The moderator will not ask follow-up questions or comment on either the questions asked by the audience or the answers of the candidates during the debate or otherwise intervene in the debate except to acknowledge the questioners from the audience or enforce the time limits ... The audience members shall not ask follow-up questions ..., and the audience member's microphone shall be turned off after he or she completes asking the questions." http://bit.ly/RAtfXc

BATTLEGROUND BRIEFING-THE PATH TO 270:

THE 3 STATES THAT MATTER MOST - OHIO, VIRGINIA, FLORIDA: "In these big three, home to a combined 60 electoral votes, Obama and Romney are spending both the most money and the most time," Jonathan Martin writes in the story leading our site. "The logic behind the candidates homing in on the trio is simple: The way Republicans see it, Romney will have a much steeper climb winning the presidency without taking back all three from the Democratic column. And in the eyes of Obama's team, they can all but ensure a second term if they win just one of the battlegrounds. Obama's high command is convinced that without a sweep of Virginia, Florida and Ohio, Romney can't make up the difference further west to reach the needed 270 electoral votes. 'Romney needs an inside straight, he has to have all three,' said Obama campaign manager Jim Messina." http://goo.gl/j2DA9
5 myths about political polling

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/...pisrc=nl_pmfix


Gallup shows Romney pulling ahead in swing states

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/...pisrc=nl_pmfix


8 deep(ish) thoughts on the Washington Post-ABC poll

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/...pisrc=nl_pmfix


Why the early vote looks good for Democrats

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/...pisrc=nl_pmfix


Elizabeth Warren raised $12.1 million in third quarter

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/...pisrc=nl_pmfix

Obama’s ‘honest and trustworthy’ advantage — and what it means for the second debate

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/...pisrc=nl_pmfix


The Hill: Team Romney banks $170M in September, trails Obama by $11M
By Justin Sink
Mitt Romney's campaign raised $170 million in September, nearly matching President Obama's $181 million haul and far surpassing his previous record, an August effort that brought in just under $112 million.
http://thehill.com/homenews/campaign...s-obama-by-11m


LIGHTER CLICKS -

SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE opened with this 8.5-minute parody of the VP debate: http://goo.gl/H3HuQ.

"ARIANNA HUFFINGTON" appeared on SNL's "Weekend Update" to comment on Martha Raddatz's performance. 4-minutes: http://goo.gl/XZC1a.

STEPHEN COLBERT talked with David Gregory. Fun 17-minute interview: http://goo.gl/c4ZhZ.

ROSIE PEREZ attacks Romney for saying that he'd have a better chance of becoming president if he was Latino in a 2-minute video. It's the first in a series that will be released by American Bridge and the Jewish Council for Education and Research: http://goo.gl/ylL7l.

JEN PSAKI, the Obama campaign's traveling press secretary and a College of William & Mary alum, sent POLITICO a list of 10 things to do in Williamsburg (where Obama's doing debate prep). It's a pretty solid clip-and-save list for your next trip down there: http://goo.gl/vBErl.

MARRIOTT'S are a mainstay for the Romney campaign. The Post's Jason Horowitz looks at the relationship: http://goo.gl/rta54.

[DCon]

TV3 are showing the Big Debate tonight

[Dr. FIVE]

Very good in fairness

http://www.romneytaxplan.com/

[PaddyJoe]

Very good in fairness

http://www.romneytaxplan.com/

[Saoirse go Deo]

Staying up for it... for some reason.

[Count Bobulescu]

Well, so far both the pundits and the pundints seem to give this one to Obama. He was much improved.

There were few memorable lines, but the one that will likely be most repeated was a misstatement by Romney on the issue of affirmative action when Romney said that as Governor he told his senior staff to hire more women and in response he said they came back with “Binders full of Women”. The Twitters were not amused.

Romney was also shown up to have gotten his facts wrong in realtime about comments he attributed to Obama with respect to the attack on the US Embassy in Benghazi.

[TotalMayhem]

Unpretty in pink...

[Kev Bar]

Funny take on vox pops



[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9UrOmhH2PeI&feature=plcp"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9UrOmhH2PeI&feature=plcp[/ame]

[Count Bobulescu]

As noted above “Binders full of Women” is the hot new meme.

http://bindersfullofwomen.tumblr.com/


Obama and Romney went head-to-head in last night’s town hall debate. Here’s what you need to know.

“A far more aggressive President Obama showed up for his second debate with Mitt Romney on Tuesday, and at moments their town-hall-style engagement felt more like a shouting match than a presidential debate. The two men insistently challenged each other on the facts, talked over each other and stalked each other across the stage…

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politi...10/16/1b57bffe

The Fix’s Chris Cillizza explains: Winners and losers from the second presidential debate.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/...wpisrc=nl_wonk

A debate, or a squabble? “He waited all of 45 seconds to make clear he came not just ready for a fight but ready to pick one…He tried to talk right over Mr. Romney, who tried to talk over him back. The president who waited patiently for his turn last time around forced his way into Mr. Romney's time this time. At one point, he squared off with Mr. Romney face to face, almost chest to chest, in the middle of the stage, as if they were roosters in a ring.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/17/us...c=nl_wonk&_r=0

Both candidates placed a strong focus on female voters. “[Romney and Obama are ] competing for a shrinking sliver of undecided voters, many of them women…

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/17/us...wpisrc=nl_wonk

Survey says…Obama won the second debate. “Instant polls by CNN and CBS both found that President Obama came out ahead of Mitt Romney in the second presidential debate. CNN surveyed registered voters and found that 46 percent thought Obama won, while 36 percent thought Romney won. A CBS instant poll of undecided voters found 37 percent gave the advantage to Obama, while 30 percent sided with Romney. The remainder — 33 percent — thought it was a tie.

”

http://www.politico.com/politico44/2...wpisrc=nl_wonk

SIMON: Obama snaps back hard. “As well as Barack Obama did in his second presidential debate — and he did very well, indeed — you still have to ask yourself one question: Why didn't he do it in his first debate? If, 12 days ago at the University of Denver, Obama had delivered the same high-energy, on-target, putdown of Mitt Romney as he did at Hofstra University Tuesday night, think of where he would be today. He would not be trailing in the polls. He would not have the media circling over his head like vultures eyeing their next meal. He would not be trying to climb out of a hole, but would be moving forward instead.” Roger Simon in Politico.

http://www.politico.com/news/stories...wpisrc=nl_wonk



The Hill: Aggressive Obama and Romney exchange blows in second debate
 
President Obama and Mitt Romney traded heavy verbal blows Tuesday night in their second face-to-face confrontation, repeatedly approaching each other like prize fighters and trying to talk over each other's answers.
http://thehill.com/homenews/campaign...-second-debate


The Hill: Obama eases Democrats' worries with sharp performance against Romney
 
President Obama on Tuesday evening righted a Democratic ship that had been listing since his desultory performance in the first presidential debate on Oct. 3.
http://thehill.com/homenews/campaign...rp-performance

The Hill: Moderator Crowley helps Obama rebut Romney on Libya 
President Obama had the help of moderator Candy Crowley during Tuesday's second presidential debate when rebutting an argument from Mitt Romney about his administration's response to last month's attack in Libya.
http://thehill.com/blogs/global-affa...bate-moderator


The Hill: Obama saves attack on Romney's '47 percent' remarks for last 
President Obama closed the second presidential debate by slamming Mitt Romney for his recorded comments that 47 percent of Americans "believe that they are victims" who are dependent on government aid.

http://thehill.com/blogs/on-the-mone...ercent-comment



Analysis: Obama Scores the Most Debate Points, but Verdict Uncertain
Bottom line: Obama and Romney scored points while turning off independent voters with their point-scoring. Democratic and Republican partisans will find reason to celebrate the debate, but it likely did nothing to reshape the closely fought race.

http://www.nationaljournal.com//2012...0121016?page=1

DEBATE: A FIGHT WITH NO KNOCKOUT. Both President Obama and Mitt Romney came to fight in Tuesday night’s debate, but neither put the other down for the count, writes National Journal’s Ron Fournier. They tangled on taxes, Libya, immigration, and the economy. Obama scored more points—and led post-debate polls—but the larger contours of the race remain largely unchanged. That shapes up next week’s final debate, in battleground Florida, as even more important than before. Read more

http://www.nationaljournal.com//2012...0121016?page=1

OBAMA MAKES IT A RACE. In Tuesday’s debate, Obama finally showed the nerve demanded in an election when most voters think the country is on the wrong track, writes National Journal’s Beth Reinhard. After a workmanlike speech at his nominating convention and a listless first debate against Romney, the president showed confidence and even swagger while touting first-term accomplishments and delivering some surprising blows to his opponent. Read more

http://www.nationaljournal.com/polit...-race-20121017

CANDIDATES INFLICTED PAIN, BUT DID NOT FEEL IT. The second presidential debate served up a battery of chances for Mitt Romney to prove he understands the problems facing average Americans. But the Republican presidential nominee may remember it more for missed opportunities than for successes, and President Obama wasn’t much better. Still, a Milwaukee-area focus group of 20 “Walmart moms” felt more favorable toward both candidates at the end of the 90-minute exchange. Read more

http://www.nationaljournal.com/polit...nflicting-pain-but-not-feeling-it-20121017

OBAMA, ROMNEY WENT DEEP ON DOMESTIC ISSUES . President Obama and Republican nominee Mitt Romney sharpened their approaches in their second debate, and the result was the meatiest discussion yet on domestic issues before a mass audience on national television. College costs, gas prices, immigration, workplace gender discrimination, trade policy, and more. But, as National Journal’s fact checkers found, they did not always get the details right. Read more

http://www.nationaljournal.com/polit...ssues-20121016


LIBYA A HEATED TOPIC DURING PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE. Mitt Romney accused President Obama of taking two weeks to admit that the fatal attacks in Benghazi were an act of terrorism. National Journal's fact check found the president did refer to “acts of terror” when he delivered his first public remark on the death of four Americans at the U.S. diplomatic facility in Benghazi on Sept. 11, but Obama’s language at his Sept. 12 Rose Garden press conference was somewhat ambiguous. The fight continued on Wednesday as Vice President Joe Biden and Rep. Paul Ryan took to television to argue over the response to Libya. Read more
http://nationaljournal.com/politics/...0121016?page=1


THE EMERGING CONSENSUS ON LAST NIGHT: The president dominated the stage and reenergized his base. Romney did not lose, per se, but he missed some real opportunities and sounded too much like he wanted to win the night - not the election. "Obama seemed to come out ahead in the second debate, though not by the emphatic margin that Romney did in the first," http://goo.gl/OIS7C

POST-DEBATE SNAP POLLING gives Obama a SLIGHT edge-
CNN national poll shows 46 percent think Obama won and 39 percent think Romney. They talked to 457 registered voters. "The president's edge on the question of who won the debate appears to be the result of his much better than expected performance and his advantage on likeability. BUT the poll also indicates that debate watchers said Romney would do a better job on economic issues. And the two candidates were tied on an important measure - whether the showdown would affect how the debate watchers will vote. Nearly half said the debate did not make them more likely to vote for either candidate, with the other half evenly divided between both men." http://goo.gl/hLAoI

CBS gives Obama a slight edge, with 37 percent saying he won, 30 percent picking Romney and 33 percent calling it a tie. "The survey polled 525 voters who are undecided or who may still change their minds. Most of these uncommitted voters are not affiliated with a political party: 56 percent describe themselves as politically independent, 21 percent identify as Republicans, and 23 percent are Democrats. In a similar poll taken immediately following the first presidential debate, uncommitted voters agreed 2-to-1 that Romney was the winner." http://goo.gl/wdmiU
.
WHO WON AT HOFSTRA?

Time's Mark Halperin gave Obama a "B-" and Romney a "C": "If voters have retained their deep affection for the President, Obama's confident energy and relentless attack on his opponent might be enough to convince them to give him another term; if voters are truly fed up, the lack of specifics may win Romney some weary new supporters. But Hofstra puts a full stop to the reverberations of Obama's Denver disaster that were still echoing, giving the incumbent an undeniable win." Blog post: http://goo.gl/UnhTW . On Morning Joe today, Halperin added that Obama did NOT lay out a second-term agenda - "and that is where he's weakest": http://goo.gl/aFAla.

Fox News' Brit Hume thinks Obama will be seen as winner because of Denver underperformance: "Mitt Romney was basically the same Mitt Romney we saw in Denver...Because the president raised his game to some extent from the first time around, obviously he's going to look better by comparison than he did, he'll probably be declared the winner of this on most cards." http://goo.gl/Z53cU

National Journal's Ron Fournier hedges: "Obama scores the most debate points, but verdict uncertain." http://goo.gl/uIlzs

Christian Broadcasting Network's David Brody calls it "dead even": "Overall though, a TIE for Romney is a good night." http://goo.gl/P8gWE

LIBERALS loved the Libya exchange-

The New York Times' Andrew Rosenthal: "When George H.W. Bush looked at his watch in a 1992 debate with Bill Clinton and Ross Perot and absolutely bungled a question about how the national debt had affected him personally, he cemented the impression that he was out of touch with real Americans' lives," the editor of the New York Times editorial page writes. "When Gerald Ford denied in 1976 that there was any "Soviet domination" of Eastern Europe, he cemented the impression that he was out of touch with pretty much everything. Tonight, Mitt Romney may have had a similar moment, during a back-and-forth about the attack on the Benghazi Consulate." http://goo.gl/ojAG8
The Daily Beast's Andrew Sullivan: "Obama dominated Romney tonight in every single way: in substance, manner, style, and personal appeal. He came back like a lethal, but restrained predator. He was able to defend his own record, think swiftly on his feet, and his Benghazi answer was superb. He behaved like a president... And Romney? Well, he has no answers on the math question and was exposed. He was vulnerable on every social issue, especially immigration. And he had no real answer to the question of how he'd be different than George W Bush." http://goo.gl/2rk5M


LIGHTER CLICKS -

DANA BASH reported on CNN that Romney practiced sitting on a bar stool in advance of the debate because he's a Mormon and doesn't drink. Gawker, and a lot of that cool-kid crowd online, had a field day: http://goo.gl/a1oCi.

ROMNEY tapped a sign that said "Clear Eyes, Full Hearts, Can't Lose!" (from "Friday Night Lights") before taking the stage last night. Photo from his body man: http://goo.gl/2jzx1.

SOME SUPER PACS have sprung up to raise money off popular candidates (e.g. Allen West), but then these outside groups use very little of the money to actually help the candidates. A cautionary tale for donors: http://goo.gl/qCxAz.

JON STEWART mocked Paul Ryan's visit to a soup kitchen: http://goo.gl/ZnGpb.

HONEY BOO BOO told Jimmy Kimmel that she supports Obama: http://goo.gl/OZ3Od.

CANDY CROWLEY practices transcendental meditation every morning and evening. She talked about it with Prevention Magazine: http://goo.gl/XHybU.

LARRY KING has agreed to moderate a debate of the third party candidates: http://goo.gl/Kvg2h

WOODY JOHNSON, the owner of the New York Jets and a national finance co-chairman of the Romney campaign, has this advice for bundlers: "Don't send e-mails because 'that's a warning.' Just cold call, and tell your friends that Mitt Romney needs their help." http://goo.gl/Q2y6x


CODA - QUOTE OF THE DAY: 'You know, Barack doesn't have a big ego." - Michelle Obama on CNN http://goo.gl/yD1qz

[Count Bobulescu]

Springsteen Endorses Obama .............again.

The endorsement begs two major questions: 1) Where does his endorsement fit on the Fix Endorsement Hierarchy and 2) What songs will Springsteen play at the event in Parma?

(Our guess on the answer to question two: “Land of Hope and Dreams”, “The Rising” and “We Take Care of Our Own” and “Promised Land”. Update as of 2 pm.… Springsteen played: “No Surrender”, “Promised Land”, “Youngstown”, “We Take Care of Our Own”, “This Land is Your Land” and “Thunder Road”.))

As for the first question, it’s somewhat more complicated than it seems at first glance.

For the uninitiated – there may still be a few of you out there (sigh) — the Fix Endorsement Hierarchy is our attempt to rank the various sorts of endorsements from the utterly meaningless to the genuinely important. (Yes, it is a blatant ripoff of Bill Simmons’ Levels of Losing.) You can see the full list — in order of importance — at the bottom of this post.

On its face, the Springsteen endorsement is quite clearly a celebrity endorsement — a middle of the pack endorsement in terms of influence on our Hierarchy.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/...archy/?hpid=z3

PARMA, Ohio — President Obama brought the big guns — Bubba and the Boss — to Ohio Thursday to shore up his slim edge in the key battleground state.
Former President Bill Clinton and Bruce Springsteen spoke — and in one case sang — before a crowd of 3,000 in a gymnasium at Cuyahoga Community College just outside Cleveland, with 700 more in an overflow area.

It was a far cry from 2008, when 80,000 attended a downtown rally for Obama with Springsteen on the eve of the election. But there’s still time for that kind of mass event — Thursday’s gathering was a more intimate affair.
It was Springsteen’s first event of this election cycle for Obama, after indicating that he would likely not get involved in this year’s campaign. After stumping for John Kerry in 2004 as well, Springsteen had said he did not want to be a “professional campaigner.”
But following up on a lengthy and emphatic statement posted to his Web site Wednesday night, Springsteen told the Ohio crowd that he'd spent three decades “writing about the distance between the American dream and the American reality” and that he believed Obama represented a better choice to close the gap between them

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politi...y.html?hpid=z2


Analysis: The Four Ls and Four States: What's Next in the Obama-Romney Duel
From now until the third and final presidential debate and quite probably even after that, President Obama and Mitt Romney will fight on the ground, over the airwaves, and in social media over the four Ls and four swing states, writes National Journal's Major Garrett.

http://www.nationaljournal.com//poli...0121017?page=1

The Hill: Team Romney won't rein in GOP nominee during third debate
 By Justin Sink
Mitt Romney's campaign indicated Wednesday they have no plans to rein in the GOP nominee during the third and final presidential debate.

http://thehill.com/homenews/campaign...in-gop-nominee

The Hill: Obama, Romney sharpen arguments for rematch over Libya 
By Julian Pecquet 
The Obama and Romney campaigns are preparing their candidates for the next campaign clash over last month's terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya — a political battle set to unfold Monday in the final presidential debate.

http://thehill.com/blogs/global-affa...ch-over-libya-

The Hill: Obama hopes second debate performance stopped the bleeding
 By Amie Parnes 
A day after their bruising second presidential debate, President Obama and Mitt Romney claimed momentum heading into the final three weeks before Election Day.

http://thehill.com/homenews/campaign...d-the-bleeding


The Hill: Viewership down slightly in second presidential debate
By Daniel Strauss
More than 65 million viewers watched the second presidential debate between Mitt Romney and President Obama, according to Nielsen Ratings on Wednesday.

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefi...dential-debate


PRESIDENTIAL RACE DOWN TO EIGHT STATES. After this week’s debate, President Obama raced to Iowa and Ohio and Mitt Romney scurried off to Virginia. They were wooing voters in states totaling only 22.7 million residents, but as National Journal’s George E. Condon Jr. reports, their clout is bigger than their numbers. Voters in these states— along with those in Colorado, Florida, Nevada, New Hampshire, and North Carolina—are Campaign 2012. Read more

http://www.nationaljournal.com/polit...omney-20121018



BATTLES AND SWOONS OVER WOMEN. A pitched battle over women’s issues in the second debate between President Obama and Mitt Romney escalated into a full-scale war on Wednesday, with both sides taking to TV, Twitter, conference calls, and the campaign trail to launch a barrage of cutting and frequently personal accusations aimed at winning over the largest group of persuadable voters still on the table less than three weeks before the election. Women could easily determine the Election Day winner of a race that will be decided in a handful of closely fought swing states. That’s why, coming off a debate that dwelled on women’s issues, all four major candidates hit the campaign trail with pitches tailored to women voters. Read more

http://nationaljournal.com/2012-pres...ebate-20121017

OBAMA ELECTION-NIGHT CHICAGO RALLY MOVED INDOORS. The Obama campaign is choosing a new Chicago location for its election-night rally this year, moving from the outdoor Grant Park to the indoor McCormick Place convention center, the Chicago Tribune reports. After hosting the NATO summit in Chicago earlier this year, the White House decided to go with the smaller venue because of its boosted security measures. Although it won’t be the show it was four years ago, with 240,000 thousand people cheering with the Windy City skyline in the background, the change also prevents any last-minute logistical nightmare caused by weather. Read more

http://nationaljournal.com/2012-pres...doors-20121018


YOUNG-VOTER ENTHUSIASM LOW. Young voters back Obama, but they’re not very enthusiastic about actually voting for him, according to a new poll from the Harvard Institute of Politics. While likely young voters favor Obama by a 19-point margin, only 48 percent say that they plan on definitely voting this November. “On every issue, from economy to immigration to health care to foreign affairs, young voters said they trusted the president more than Romney. Nonetheless, the Romney supporters appear to be more enthusiastic,” National Journal’s Naureen Khan reports. Read more

http://www.nationaljournal.com/2012-...erday-20121017

ROMNEY SON: I WANTED TO ‘TAKE A SWING’ AT OBAMA DURING DEBATE. Tagg Romney, the eldest of Mitt Romney's five sons, said on Wednesday that he wanted to “take a swing” at Obama during Tuesday night’s debate, BuzzFeed reports. Speaking on a local North Carolina radio station, Romney was asked about hearing “the president of the United States call your dad a liar.” Tagg joked back: “You want to rush down to the stage and take a swing at him.” Read more

http://nationaljournal.com/2012-pres...ebate-20121018


NEXT ADMINISTRATION: NJ’S A-LIST FOR CHIEF OF STAFF. The election is weeks away, but Washington is already playing everyone’s favorite parlor game, “Who’s going to be in the next administration?” On Friday, National Journal will release potential candidates, and today we're previewing A-listers for Chief of Staff. Click here for a peek at our list and to start putting an Obama dream team together
http://influencealley.nationaljourna...cond-obama.php

and click here to see Romney A-listers and vote for your pick.

http://influencealley.nationaljourna...e-in-a-rom.php


THE WAR OVER WOMEN FLARED UP AGAIN YESTERDAY ON THE TRAIL-Second-day debate stories are mostly about the gender question. All the candidates focused on women on the trail yesterday.

Los Angeles Times-"Obama and Romney fight for the female vote; Obama touts antidiscrimination legislation and attacks Romney for targeting Planned Parenthood, while Romney says women have suffered under Obama." http://goo.gl/p2LUC

New York Times-"Debates moves women to fore in race for the White House." http://goo.gl/JvfS5

Wall Street Journal - "Candidates zero in on women voters": "Obama wore a pink, breast cancer awareness bracelet on his wrist as he campaigned..." (http://goo.gl/p6UBv). The headline du jour about the debate came on another WSJ story: "Squabbles viewed as a turnoff for undecided." http://goo.gl/sCtrm

GALLUP FINDS WOMEN IN SWING-STATES HAVE GENDER-SPECIFIC PRIORITIES: "Women in the 12 key swing states have starkly different responses from men when asked in an open-ended format to name the most important issues for their gender in the 2012 election. A plurality of female registered voters offered abortion (39%) as the most important issue for women, followed by jobs, healthcare, the economy, and equal rights. In contrast, men see jobs (38%) and the economy (37%) as the two most important issues facing men." http://goo.gl/a1FJ1

SO MUCH MONEY-$807 MILLION SPENT ON PRESIDENTIAL TV ADS: "According to NBC News analysis of data provided by ad-buying firm SMG Delta, ad spending in the presidential campaign ... is on pace to reach or come close to $1 billion," Domenico Montanaro reports. "The Obama campaign is one ad buy away from reaching $300 million by itself. But with outside money factored in, 'Team Romney' (the campaign plus outside groups supporting him or attacking the president) is outspending 'Team Obama' $455 million to $352 million.

The Romney campaign, which has come on since Labor Day, is now the second-biggest spender at $164 million. Following the Romney campaign are the combined Karl-Rove backed Crossroads groups -- American Crossroads and Crossroads GPS [$124 million]...Other big spenders: Restore Our Future (pro-Romney) $69 million, Priorities USA (pro-Obama) $48 million, Americans for Prosperity (pro-Romney) $46 million, the Republican National Committee (pro-Romney) $24 million, and late-comer Americans for Job Security (pro-Romney) $9 million."

Top states for spending this year: Florida, $166 million; Ohio, $160 million; Virginia, $126 million; Colorado, $72 million; North Carolina, $69 million; Iowa, $62 million; Nevada, $49 million; New Hampshire, $34 million; Wisconsin, $32 million.

Top markets for spending this week: 1. Green Bay; 2. Denver; 3. Cincinnati; 4. Columbus; 5. Madison; 6. Toledo; 7. Cleveland; 8. Orlando-Daytona Beach; 9. Las Vegas; 10. Reno. http://goo.gl/GppSR

OUTSIDE GROUPS HAVE SPENT $213 MILLION IN OCTOBER: "It's enough to buy every resident of Flint, Mich., or Green Bay, Wis., a high-end LED flat screen television," Dave Levinthal notes. "Twenty-nine organizations, the majority of which are identifiably conservative, spent at least $1 million from Oct. 1 through Oct. 15 directly advocating for or against federal candidates, records show. During the second half of September, only 24 cracked the seven-figure spending threshold." List of the top 15 groups: http://goo.gl/XreHA.

LIGHTER CLICKS -

DENNIS MILLER opened for Romney yesterday. 7-minute video: http://goo.gl/smvXL.

JON STEWART praised Obama for showing up at the second debate: http://goo.gl/wQMHg.

STEPHEN COLBERT makes fun of Scott DesJarlais for calling himself pro-life on his web site, even though he once encouraged a mistress to get an abortion: http://goo.gl/SUc5t.

THE COLLEGE REPUBLICAN NATIONAL COMMITTEE parodies the 1950's hit "Great Pretender" in a 2-minute video criticizing Obama's economic record: http://goo.gl/a5VZ8.

THE DNC HOST COMMITTEE paid $896,000 to rent Bank of America Stadium for the closing night of the convention. Oops: http://goo.gl/NTim6. They also fell way short of their goal: http://goo.gl/HZgTs.

SHELDON ADELSON gave $5 million to the RNC's host committee, allowing them to exceed their fundraising goal: http://goo.gl/gwz3N.

AN ONLINE GAME lets you see how many women you can catch in a binder: http://goo.gl/20RNQ.

BINDERS OF WOMEN, of course, became a Tumblr: http://goo.gl/QXxoT.

ALEX WAGNER of MSNBC told Conan that she cries whenever she sees John Boehner crying: http://goo.gl/Qocqp.

JOHN KERRY joked that he'll need an exorcism next week to get rid of the Romney inside of him after the third debate: http://goo.gl/dsEGE.

BRISTOL PALIN was voted off "Dancing with the Stars": http://goo.gl/r1z9v.

CODA - QUOTE OF THE DAY: 'I recommend everybody go back and find that 'Saturday Night Live' deal they did. I have to admit, I laughed my head off watching the guy playing me. He is so good it scares me." - Joe Biden reacts to Jason Sudeikis spoof of his debate performance http://goo.gl/rShVj

[TotalMayhem]

The Romney Tax Plan

[TotalMayhem]

As noted above “Binders full of Women” is the hot new meme.

[Count Bobulescu]

the romney tax plan

Great

[Count Bobulescu]

Poll of Polls. (National)

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epo...bama-1171.html


State by State polls

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epo...lls/president/

Electoral College Map with no toss-up states.

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epo..._toss_ups.html


http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epo...e_changes.html



Watch Monday’s final debate which focuses exclusively on Foreign Policy issues, and should be of most interest to those outside the US at the link below. You can watch livestream, or come back when it suits you for a recorded version.

http://www.2012presidentialelectionn...bate-schedule/

--Bob Schieffer announces topics for final debate (Mon., Oct. 22, at Lynn University in Boca Raton, Fla.), per Commission on Presidential Debates release :

"not necessarily to be brought up in this order: America's role in the world ... Our longest war - Afghanistan and Pakistan ... Red Lines - Israel and Iran ... The Changing Middle East and the New Face of Terrorism [I and II]... The Rise of China and Tomorrow's World ...

six 15?minute ... segments, each of which will focus on one of the topics ... above. The moderator will open each segment with a question. Each candidate will have two minutes to respond. ... [T]he moderator will use the balance of the 15?minute segment to facilitate a discussion on the topic."

DRIVING MONDAY'S DEBATE - -- "CIA found militant links a day after Libya attack," by AP Intelligence Writer Kimberly Dozier : "The CIA station chief in Libya reported to Washington within 24 hours of last month's deadly attack on the U.S. Consulate that there was evidence it was carried out by militants, not a spontaneous mob upset about an American-made video ridiculing Islam's Prophet Muhammad, U.S. officials [said] ... It is unclear who, if anyone, saw the cable outside the CIA at that point and how high up in the agency the information went. The Obama administration maintained publicly for a week that the attack on the diplomatic mission in Benghazi that killed U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans was a result of the mobs that staged less-deadly protests across the Muslim world around the 11th anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks on the U.S. ...

"Now congressional intelligence committees are demanding documents to show what the spy agencies knew and when, before, during and after the attacks. The White House now says the attack probably was carried out by an al Qaida-linked group, with no public demonstration beforehand. ... Congressional aides say they expect to get the documents by the end of this week to build a timeline of what the intelligence community knew and compare that to what the White House was telling the public about the attack. That could give Romney ammunition to use in his foreign policy debate with Obama on Monday night." http://bit.ly/WHQEr6

Continuing the Electoral College Meme.


The Possibility of a Popular, Electoral Vote Split is Very Real

By Charlie Cook

Don’t be too surprised on Election Day if the popular vote goes one way and the electoral vote the other. Mitt Romney could win the popular vote but lose the Electoral College.

Although history and this column have argued that the popular vote and the electoral vote usually go in the same direction (that’s what happened in 53 of 56 presidential elections), today, Romney’s national popular-vote situation is different than his Electoral College challenge. Romney’s scar tissue in swing states—the damage inflicted on him by negative ads funded by the Obama campaign and Priorities USA, targeting Bain Capital, plant closings, layoffs, outsourcing, income taxes, and bank accounts in Bermuda, the Caymans, and Switzerland—is still a huge problem.

This is compounded by the fact that before the ads aired, voters knew very little about Romney; because of that, they had no positive feelings or perceptions to help him weather the assault. As a result, the attacks stuck as if he were covered in Velcro. Hence, the swing states, many of which have endured saturation advertising since June (73,000 ads in Las Vegas alone), behave differently than the fortysomething other states that have seen little advertising.
With a race this close, small but important factors will likely be key.

http://www.nationaljournal.com//colu...-real-20121018


Presidential race down to the wire in New Hampshire
Dan Balz
The state has only four electoral votes, but in a close election, that matters.

MANCHESTER, N.H. — New Hampshire is the smallest of the battleground states, with just four electoral votes, and for much of the fall it has seemed an afterthought to the candidates as they’ve campaigned across more prominent contested states.
That changed Thursday with the arrival of President Obama at a downtown rally on a brilliant fall day. His appearance, and the later kickoff of a 24-hour campaign swing through the state by his surrogates, underscored the state’s potential significance in the competition for the 270 electoral votes needed to win the White House in November.
Ohio, Virginia, Florida and some other bigger states may be seeing the candidates on a more regular basis, but over the next 19 days, the battle for New Hampshire will be waged with the same intensity as elsewhere. The Obama and Romney campaigns differ about where the race stands here, but both agree that in an election as close as this one appears to be, no electoral vote can be taken for granted

http://www.washingtonpost.com/busine...a34c91d4-1948-

PRESIDENTIAL AD SPENDING SET TO TOP $1 BILLION. President Obama, Mitt Romney and the outside groups supporting their campaigns have spent more than $881 million on television advertising since the general election began, according to sources watching the advertising market. With a little over two weeks to go, the two sides are on pace to top the $1 billion mark by Election Day, as Hotline’s Reid Wilson reports. Read more

http://nationaljournal.com/politics/...llion-20121019

-"BIGGEST DONORS -- DEMOCRATS," by AP's Jack Gillum: "No. 1: Jeffrey Katzenberg, 61, Hollywood film producer and chief executive of DreamWorks Animation. Total: $2.566 million ... No. 2: Irwin Jacobs, 78, the founder and former chairman of Qualcomm. Total: $2.122 million ... No. 3 (tie): Fred Eychaner, founder of Chicago-based alternative-newspaper publisher Newsweb Corp. Total: $2.066 million ... No. 3 (tie): Jon Stryker, 54, a Michigan philanthropist.Total: $2.066 million ... No. 5: Steve Mostyn, 41, a Houston-based personal injury attorney. Total: $2.003 million." http://hrld.us/RK91XK

--"BIGGEST DONORS - REPUBLICANS," by AP's Stephen Braun : "No. 1: Sheldon Adelson, 79, owner of the Las Vegas Sands casino empire. Total: $34.2 million ... No. 2: Harold Simmons, 81, owner of Contran Corp., a Dallas-based conglomerate worth an estimated $9 billion that specializes in metals and chemical production and waste management.Total: $16 million ... No. 3: Bob J. Perry, 80, head of a Houston real estate empire worth an estimated $650 million. Total: $15.3 million ... No. 4: Robert Rowling, 58, head of Dallas-based TRT Holdings. Total: $4.1 million ... No. 5: William Koch, 72, an industrialist whose South Florida-based energy and mining conglomerate is worth an estimated $4 billion. Total: $3 million." http://hrld.us/QA5qKQ

EXCLUSIVE - From an Obama campaign aide: Wed., the day after the town-hall debate, "was the biggest campaign fundraising day for the Obama campaign in history, including 2008."


OBAMA: LIBYA RESPONSE ‘NOT OPTIMAL.’ In an appearance on “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart,” Thursday night, President Obama said the administration’s response to the attacks in Libya were not up to par, according to CBS News. "Here is what I will say, if four Americans get killed it is not optimal," he told Stewart. "And we are going to fix it, all of it. And what happens during the course of a presidency, you know the government is a big operation at any given time, something screws up and you make sure you find out what's broken and you fix it." Republicans have begun attacking Obama on the phrase -- on Thursday, Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., called the comments "so inappropriate."


BATTLEGROUND BRIEFING-THE PATH TO 270:

OBAMA CAMPAIGN SAYS THEY'RE WINNING THE OHIO EARLY VOTE: National field director Jeremy Bird says in a memo that they're further ahead of where they were in 2008 and outpacing Romney. He makes three points: 1) All public polls show the president has a double-digit advantage among those who've voted. 2) Registration numbers strongly favor Obama. 3) Early vote numbers strongly favor Obama. "A greater percentage of Democratic primary voters than Republican primary voters have requested a ballot, have returned a mail ballot and have voted in person. Altogether, 145,880 Democratic primary voters have cast ballots, 28,013 more than Republican primary voters." The memo has more numbers: http://goo.gl/xB4wR.

OBAMA VISITS NEW HAMPSHIRE TO ADD MORTAR TO HIS FIREWALL: "Obama stepped away from the supersize battlegrounds Thursday to rally supporters on a warm fall day [in Manchester], a state with a mere four electoral votes for the taking," Jonathan Martin reports. "New Hampshire hasn't seen Obama or Romney for well more than a month - but suddenly seems as though it may punch above its weight in this election...

Obama is moving to bolster the states where his campaign thinks he has a lead and which Romney would need without Ohio...Public and private polling in New Hampshire indicate Romney has significantly closed the gap but is still narrowly behind. Republicans here and beyond believe that's chiefly because of his deficit with women voters...The president has made [gender] appeals a staple of his stump speech, but in his Manchester speech, he homed in on the topic by attempting to link Romney with New Hampshire's Republican Legislature." http://goo.gl/gdxdk

NYT A1 - CAMPAIGNS THINK LATINOS COULD DECIDE COLO., FLA., NEVADA: "Mr. Obama and his supporters have outspent Mr. Romney and his backers nearly 2-to-1 on advertising on Spanish-language television stations in three of the most closely contested states - Colorado, Florida and Nevada - including a new advertisement in which Mr. Obama makes a personal appeal for support, speaking entirely in Spanish," Adam Nagourney and Fernanda Santos report. "Mr. Romney's advisers have relied on a surge of ads across the television spectrum, saying that most Hispanics speak English and consider the economy, not immigration, the top issue. But if their strategies differ, both campaigns have determined that turning out Latinos in those three states is potentially critical. Mr. Obama is trying to roll up an outsize margin among Hispanics that could edge him to victory in those states, while Mr. Romney is seeking to hold down the president's numbers." http://goo.gl/zFl7u


MAN REGISTERING VOTERS FOR GOP ARRESTED IN VIRGINIA: "A man who was being paid to register voters by the Republican Party of Virginia was arrested Thursday after he was seen dumping eight registration forms into a dumpster," the LA Times reports. "The owner of a store in Harrisonburg, Va., told a local television station that he became suspicious when he saw a car with Pennsylvania plates dump an envelope in back of his store. He recovered the envelope and alerted authorities. 'He made a mistake and he's being charged with it, which we fully support,' said Sean Spicer, a spokesman for the Republican National Committee. The committee paid more than $3 million to state committees to finance the get-out-the-vote operation." http://goo.gl/bIKBd
Poll of Polls. (National)


LIGHTER CLICKS -

MAGGIE HABERMAN has the best Obama, Mitt Romney jokes from last night's white-tie Al Smith Dinner in Manhattan. Obama, on Tuesday's debate: "I felt really well-rested after the nice long nap I had in the first debate." Romney said his job is to come up with a strong vision for the country, and the media's "job is to make sure no one else finds out about it." http://politi.co/VbXtxl

JON STEWART interviewed Obama yesterday. 20-minutes: http://goo.gl/AMrBx.

SARAH SILVERMAN and LIZZ WINSTEAD make fun of Romney's "corporations are people" comment in a 2-minute video for American Bridge and the Jewish Council for Education & Research: http://goo.gl/6hGEu.

KIRSTEN GILLIBRAND and her Republican opponent were asked at their New York Senate debate Wednesday night whether they've read "Fifty Shades of Grey." Both said no: http://goo.gl/0Lbxy.

FIVE CAMPAIGN ADS that have stood out from the pack this year in Elizabeth Wilner's view: http://goo.gl/GCJ4w.

CODA - QUOTE OF THE DAY: "I can't stand whining. I can't stand the kind of paralysis that some people fall into because they're not happy with the choices they've made." - Hilary Clinton responds to Anne-Marie Slaughter's essay in an interview with Marie Claire. http://goo.gl/0MTZF

[Count Bobulescu]

A number of major regional newspapers endorsed a presidential candidate on Friday, with most of the endorsements going to President Obama.


The Denver Post, The Tampa Bay Times and The Salt Lake Tribune all endorsed him, same as they did in 2008.

But The Orlando Sentinel broke from its 2008 endorsement of Obama and picked Mitt Romney for president this time.

The most surprising was the Tribune's endorsement of Obama, given Romney's ties to Utah and its heavily-Mormon population.


But, in an editorial titled "Too Many Mitts," the paper lays out its reasoning:

From his embrace of the party’s radical right wing, to subsequent portrayals of himself as a moderate champion of the middle class, Romney has raised the most frequently asked question of the campaign: "Who is this guy, really, and what in the world does he truly believe?
The paper noted that its editorial board had hoped to endorse Romney, citing his leadership in the 2002 Olympic Winter Games:


http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefi...r-endorsements


Reuters: Democratic donors energize "Super PACs" as election nears

By Alina Selyukh and Patrick Temple-West 
Democratic donors gave unprecedented amounts of money in September to their party's three main "Super PACs," federal disclosures revealed on Friday, a reflection of how wealthy Democrats' reluctance to give to such groups has faded in the weeks before the November 6 election.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/...89J03K20121020

The New York Times: Romney as a manager: Unhurried and Socratic
By Michael Barbaro, Sheryl Gay Stolberg and Michael Wines 
Mr. Romney’s bid for the White House largely hinges on his own narrowly drawn image of himself as a chief executive: the data-splicing, cost-cutting turnaround expert. But dozens of interviews with those who have worked for him over the past 30 years offer a far more textured portrait of the management style that he might bring to the presidency.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/20/us...atic.html?_r=0

The Washington Post: Letting Joe be Joe on the trail

By Krissah Thompson 
The vice president’s edgy remarks can sometimes go off script, but they are generating attention from voters.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politi...00b_story.html

International monitors at US polling places draw criticism from voter-fraud group 
By Alexander Bolton

United Nations-affiliated election monitors from Europe and central Asia will be at polling places around the U.S. looking for voter suppression activities by conservative groups, a concern raised by civil rights groups during a meeting this week. The intervention has drawn criticism from a prominent conservative-leaning group combating election fraud.

The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), a United Nations partner on democratization and human rights projects, will deploy 44 observers around the county on Election Day to monitor an array of activities, including potential disputes at polling places.

Liberal-leaning civil rights groups met with representatives from the OSCE this week to raise their fears about what they say are systematic efforts to suppress minority voters likely to vote for President Obama.

The request for foreign monitoring of election sites drew a strong rebuke from Catherine Engelbrecht, founder and president of True the Vote, a conservative-leaning group seeking to crack down on election fraud.

Read the story here.
http://thehill.com/homenews/campaign...er-fraud-group


SHOT - From news release this a.m: "Last evening, Rep. Peter T. King (R-NY), Chairman of the House Committee on Homeland Security, called on President Obama to release Intelligence Community reporting that led Administration officials to initially characterize the assault on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya as a 'spontaneous reaction' to a film ... and ... to change its characterization ... to a 'terrorist attack.'" See the letter. http://1.usa.gov/RK6jBN

CHASER - David Ignatius column, "CIA documents supported Susan Rice's description of Benghazi attacks": "The Romney campaign may have misfired with its suggestion that statements by President Obama and U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice about the Benghazi attack last month weren't supported by intelligence, according to documents provided by a senior U.S. intelligence official. 'Talking points' prepared by the CIA on Sept. 15, the same day that Rice taped three television appearances, support her description of the Sept. 11 attack on the U.S. Consulate as a reaction to Arab anger about an anti-Muslim video prepared in the United States.

"According to the CIA account, 'The currently available information suggests that the demonstrations in Benghazi were spontaneously inspired by the protests at the U.S. Embassy in Cairo and evolved into a direct assault against the U.S. Consulate and subsequently its annex. There are indications that extremists participated in the violent demonstrations.'" http://wapo.st/TzyzpZ

WASHINGTON, INC. - N.Y. Times A1, below fold, "Strategizing for the President, and Her Corporate Clients, Too," by Eric Lichtblau and Eric Lipton : "As a confidante of President Obama and a senior campaign adviser, [Anita] Dunn has helped prepare him for the debates, ... plotted campaign strategy and acted as a surrogate ... She and her colleagues at SKDKnickerbocker, a communications firm, have built a growing list of blue-chip companies -- food manufacturers, a military contractor, the New York Stock Exchange and the Canadian company developing the Keystone XL pipeline -- willing to pay handsomely for help in winning over federal regulators or landing government contracts. ... SKDK executives said that Ms. Dunn ... was scrupulous about separating her political work from her corporate agenda, and that she followed White House ethics rules barring her from appealing on behalf of clients.
"What the firm offers, said Hilary Rosen, an SKDK partner who is also a high-profile Obama ally, is help in navigating the political landscape in Washington. 'It is not that people assume we can talk to the White House to influence them on policy,' Ms. Rosen said, 'but that we understand progressive Democrats, including the administration - how they communicate their own message, think about their message - and therefore we understand how things will play.' ...

... Incisive and sharp-witted, Ms. Dunn acts as a sounding board for Mr. Obama and his campaign. ... White House records show she has visited more than 100 times since leaving [as communications director] ... Sometimes the firm has been at odds with the Obama administration." http://nyti.ms/T6S5hs

By Dan Balz, Saturday, October 20, 12:48 PM

However else Campaign 2012 is chronicled, there is little doubt it will be remembered as the Year of Debates. Never have candidate debates played as important a role, from the start of the Republican primaries through the general election, as they have in this election.

Debates shaped the Republican presidential field during the fall of 2011 and played a critical role in determining the outcome of that contest last winter. Ask Rick Perry, Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum about that. The general election debates have shaken up the race and last week provided the most confrontational encounter of the modern era of presidential politics. Monday’s final debate could help decide who wins the election two weeks from Tuesday.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politi...y.html?hpid=z1


The Hill: Once-listless presidential race attracts intensity
By Justin Sink
The 2012 presidential race, once viewed as a dreary grind of a contest, has picked up a surprising amount of intensity this month

http://thehill.com/homenews/campaign...acts-intensity


The New York Times: For president, a complex calculus of race and politics

By Jodi Kantor
Since taking office, President Obama has attempted to balance two deeply held impulses: a belief in universal politics not based on race and an embrace of black life and its challenges.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/21/us...l?ref=politics

Los Angeles Times: Romney walks cautious line on foreign policy, Afghanistan

By Maeve Reston 
Romney's caution about delineating specific positions may rest on both a family history complicated by a prior war, and his imperative to balance the needs of a party that values displays of strength overseas with those of voters who are weary of war.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationwo...,6055859.story

Associated Press: Enough already: Voters hit with ads, calls, more

By Nancy Benac and Philip Elliott
All the attention that the presidential campaigns are funneling into a small number of hard-fought states comes at a personal price for many voters.

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories...10-20-22-08-05


BREAKING - Chuck Todd unveils NBC/WSJ national numbers on "Meet the Press": 47-47 among likely voters. Chuck to David Gregory : "Not all tied races are equal. The President sitting at 47, if this were the Sunday before Election Day, there would be a lot of concerns in Chicago. They want to be at 48 or 49. Sitting at 47 is a good number for a challenger, but not a good number for an incumbent. ... The gender gap: Among men, Romney - a 10-point lead. ... Women: ... President, an 8-point lead here. This is actually his smallest lead among women that we've had all year long. ... In the Midwest, Romney, a narrow lead, but way inside the margin of error. And among all the collective battleground states, a little bit of a lead for Mitt Romney. ... Colorado ... might be the closest in the country. But it's the Midwest - that is the ticket to 270 electoral votes."

--WSJ's Neil King Jr., "Romney Surges to Tie Obama in National Poll": "A late surge in support for Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney has put him in a dead heat with President Barack Obama with just over two weeks to go before the election, according to a new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll released Sunday. Among likely voters, the candidates are now tied, 47% to 47%, in a race that appears on track to be one of the closest in U.S. history. ... The poll found Mr. Romney with a wide lead among men, 53% to 43%, while Mr. Obama continues to maintain an advantage among women, 51% to 43%. Mr. Romney's edge among men has grown over the past month, while Mr. Obama's lead among women has slightly diminished."

--NBC Senior Political Editor Mark Murray: "In the last national NBC/WSJ poll, which was conducted before debate season began, the president held a narrow, three-point lead over his GOP challenger, 49 percent to 46 percent. But among the wider pool of all registered voters in this new survey, Obama is ahead of Romney by five points, 49 percent to 44 percent. ... The margin of error is plus-minus 3.1 percentage points for the sample of registered voters and plus-minus 3.43 percentage points for the sample of likely voters."

--David Axelrod to David Gregory on "Meet": "Every time I've visited with you, I've predicted that this would be a close race. But we feel good about where we are. We feel we're even or ahead in these battleground states. If you look at the early voting that's going on around the country, it's very robust and it's very favorable to us. And we think that's a better indicator than these public polls, which are frankly all over the map."



RYAN LIZZA in The New Yorker, "The Campaign Trail - THE FINAL PUSH: The Obama team's high-risk strategy": "The idea was to define Romney early, while he was recovering from the primary, racing around the country raising money to replace depleted funds. ... The decision to run an early negative campaign has worked well for other incumbents. ... [Campaign manager] Jim Messina, who pointed out that the campaign also spent thirty million dollars on positive ads boosting Obama, believed the early advertising was crucial, given the deluge of political ads that would hit voters in the fall. 'October TV matters less,' he said. 'We decided to make a grand bet.' ...

"Messina's bet was the first stage of a two-part strategy. ... [T]he summer airwave blitz would soften up the opponent in the eyes of voters, but victory would be carried home by Obama's volunteer army on the ground. '

"[A]s the electorate has become increasingly polarized , campaign tacticians have become focused more on getting their own voters to the polls than on persuading others to change their allegiance. ... The campaign press devotes a great deal of attention to the political voodoo of micro-targeting ... The Obama team's iPhone app pairs mapping software with public information about voters to guide a canvasser through a neighborhood ... " Online tomorrow

THE NEW YORKER ENDORSES OBAMA in a four-page editorial, "The Choice," by "The Editors," taking up the full "The Talk of the Town" space:
"Obama ... did not always prove particularly adept at, or engaged by, the arts of retail persuasion, and his dream of bipartisanship collided with the reality of obstructionism. Perhaps inevitably, the President has disappointed some of his most ardent supporters. Part of their disappointment is a reflection of the fantastical expectations that attached to him. ...
"The Romney-Ryan ticket represents a constricted and backward-looking vision of America: the privatization of public good. ... The reëlection of Barack Obama is a matter of great urgency. Not only are we in broad agreement with his policy directions; we also see in him what is absent in Mitt Romney - a first-rate political temperament and a deep sense of fairness and integrity.