US Presidential Election 2012

[Count Bobulescu]

MORNING MINDMELD: The October Surprise turns out to be a superstorm with the deceptively placid name of Sandy, raising the possibility of another asterisk election if power is out for much of the final week, or even on Election Day, in key parts of Virginia and/or Ohio. Just the frenzy around the forecast could disrupt this week's early voting, which probably hurts President Obama. But he also has an opportunity to be seen as president -- a commander-in-chief moment. So no one's sure, but it's a huge topic in Boston and Chicago. Here is the take from some of the smartest people in politics:

A top Democrat: "Anything that disrupts campaign/candidate schedules at this point in the race is significant. These events are important to the campaigns as a way of activating and energizing voters (even more important in early voting states). The earned media pieces can be made up in other ways (satellite interviews, etc.), but there is no substitute for candidate travel. ...

"Also, nothing galvanizes attention or sucks up more media bandwidth than a major weather event. The storm led all of the networks news broadcasts for the last three days and will do so for the next three, at least. I guess the net-net of that is that it helps freeze or solidify the race in place. If you believe that the President maintains a narrow but statistically important lead in the battleground states, anything that prevents Romney from getting traction or changing the dynamic is potentially important."

A Romney official: "The storm will help the Prez appear presidential but it's too late to move enough voters." An Obama official: "We remain confident in our ability to get our voters to the polls by Election Day. We had a big day on Saturday as in-person early voting started in Florida, with record turnout, and we expect that strong progress will continue ... into the week."

A Republican deeply involved in the campaign says that (literally) freezing the race may help Romney because "it diverts press attention [at a time when he has been portrayed as surging], but so much seems to be happening below radar now it might not matter."

Most clever take: 'Anyone who thinks they currently know who it helps/hurts is just making [stuff] up. This gives Chris Christie an opportunity to show leadership, and thereby help his reelect and [helps him] for 2016; unless it curtails Obama's [get-out-the-vote] operation in Virginia, in which case it helps Romney; unless it enables Obama to lead an effective federal government response, in which case it helps Obama; unless it takes Obama off the trail in Ohio, in which case it helps Romney.'

And a mischievous friend makes a devil's-advocate argument that it helps Romney: "Republicans are more motivated to vote than Dems. ... Low turnout favors Romney. The storm can do nothing but depress turnout in places like Virginia and Ohio. And even Pennsylvania. People emerging from a week of no power on Nov. 6 are going to be in a grumpy, foul mood -- not the kind of mood that screams 'vote incumbent.'

OBAMA RETAKES 1-POINT NATIONAL LEAD-With seven days to go until the election, President Obama has recaptured a narrow national lead, riding increased support from women and an edge in early voting. Our new POLITICO/George Washington University Battleground Tracking Poll - taken from last Monday through Thursday - shows Obama up 49-48, a 3-point swing from last week. Obama leads among women by 11 (54-43). Romney leads among men by 12 (55-43). My story: http://goo.gl/EIoMo.

Good news for Democrats: Obama enters the final full week of the campaign with a 50 percent job approval rating, 51 percent personal favorability rating and 54 percent expecting him to win regardless of who they are supporting. He's up 8 points among those who have already voted (53-45), with early voters already representing 15 percent of the electorate. Democratic analysis from Celinda Lake, Daniel Gotoff and Kristin Pondel (2 pages): http://goo.gl/2OrV0.

Good news for Republicans: Romney maintains a major intensity advantage: Among those who say they are "extremely likely" to vote, Romney's up 9 (53-44). The GOP nominee is winning independents by 10 (50-40). 54 percent disapprove of Obama's handling of the economy. Romney is favored by 5 points (51-46), both on which candidate will better grow the economy and create more jobs. GOP analysis from Ed Goes and Brian Nienaber (5 pages): http://goo.gl/Pv2v1.

BUT IT WILL PROBABLY COME DOWN TO OHIO-Romney spent yesterday in red and rural portions of the Buckeye State, trying to run up his margins with the base. But he also sharpened his closing argument, emphasizing his ability to work with Democrats. "I know there's good Democrats that love America just like we do," Romney said in the small town of Celina. "I want to reach across the aisle to them...We can't change course unless we change the way Washington's working." He even made an explicit play for 2008 Hillary voters. http://goo.gl/7wJqM

--WHY THE ROMNEY CAMPAIGN THINKS IT'S WINNING : "Mitt is credible as a bipartisan reformer because he is a pragmatist ... So some of the things that have worked against him, going back to 2007, are now helping with swing voters. ... Obama campaign is suddenly chasing news cycles, trying to spin process stories they used to ignore ... Gov. Scott Walker operation in Wisconsin ... Gov. Terry Branstad operation and Des Moines Register endorsement in Iowa ... polls over-weight D turnout ... bad jobs number Friday could give final lift ... When a team gets tight, they often make mistakes, particularly in the final quarter of a big game. People wrote us off a few weeks ago, and we're embracing being at this stage of the election in the position we're in. We're focused, but we're loose, unlike our friends in Chicago."

--WHY THE OBAMA CAMPAIGN THINKS IT'S WINNING : "What's remarkable about this race is how stable it has been for the past year and a half, with a small but important lead for the President in swing states that will get us beyond 270. ... The early vote numbers make clear that the right combination of diversity, female voters and young voters are showing up. In Iowa and Nevada, we're racking up 2-1 margins. ... The Romney campaign is not where they want to be a week out -- both literally, sending Romney to shore up the base in the Florida panhandle, and down in public polls [in key states] ... We're cutting their absentee margin in Florida, with big registration and early-vote numbers in North Carolina. ... Now they face a superior organization, which makes all the difference in a close election."

MORE FRESH POLLING-

WASHINGTON POST/ABC TRACKING: Romney up 1 (49-48) for the third day in a row. http://wapo.st/PBsdeR

GALLUP - ROMNEY LAUDED FOR BUSINESS ACUMEN, OBAMA FOR PERSONAL TRAITS: When voters are asked to volunteer them, Obama's perceived strengths are excellent speaking/communication skills (11%) and 'helping the less fortunate' or being 'for the people.' Romney's perceived strengths tend more toward his economic experience, including being a 'good businessman' (16%) and being 'good at handling finances/budgets' (4%). 11% cite his economic policies. http://goo.gl/BdmyT

PPP (D)-

FLORIDA: Obama up 1 (49-48). The poll also found that Romney is winning independents in the state by 7 points, 50-43. http://bit.ly/PBsyy8

NEW HAMPSHIRE: Obama up 2 (49-47). Obama holds onto an 18-point lead among women in the state, 57 percent to 39 percent. http://bit.ly/PBsBdh

PRIORITIES USA POLL IN VIRGINIA: Obama up 3 (49-46). http://politi.co/PBt4vT

FLORIDA - Lead story of Tampa Bay Times, "I-4 vote going to Romney, poll says: Given the importance of the corridor in state voting, it may be over for Obama in Florida," by Political Editor Adam C. Smith: "An exclusive Tampa Bay Times/Bay News 9 poll of likely voters along the Interstate 4 corridor [Tampa to Orlando to Dayton] finds Romney leading Obama 51 percent to 45 percent, with 4 percent undecided. 'Romney has pretty much nailed down Florida,' said Brad Coker of Mason-Dixon Polling and Research, which conducted the poll for the Times and its media partners. 'Unless something dramatically changes - an October surprise, a major gaffe - Romney's going to win Florida.'" http://bit.ly/Vwy55F

TRUTH BOMB: Obama doesn't NEED Florida. Romney DOES: Boston's internal debates about an Ohio path vs. a Nevada path vs. a Wisconsin path are ALL predicated on wins in Florida and Virginia.

OHIO - The Columbus Dispatch, banner, "Romney closes Obama's lead to split Ohio," by Darrel Rowland: "Boosted by a surge among male voters who think he's the best candidate to fix the economy, Republican Mitt Romney has come back to tie President Barack Obama in battleground Ohio. They are deadlocked at 49 percent in a new Dispatch/Ohio News Organization poll. Obama was ahead by 5 points in the same poll published on Sept. 16." http://bit.ly/SqqxmF

--(Cleveland) Plain Dealer, one-third of front page: "DEAD HEAT: 49-49 - Romney closes gap with Obama; few still undecided" ... Cincinnati Enquirer banner: "Tight race now even tighter: Our ongoing polls shows the president's numbers have shrunk"


The New York Times: A troubleshooting 'wingman' plotting Romney's trajectory 
By Michael Barbaro and Ashley Parker
Bob White, an in-house consultant for Mitt Romney’s campaign, has helped steady a wobbly candidacy and reverse its trajectory.

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blog...t-to-vote.html

The Washington Post: Obama, Romney aiming full arsenals at Ohio
By Dan Balz and Felicia Sonmez
As if the entire presidential campaign is being waged in this complex and sprawling state, the president and his Republican rival are engaged in a high-stakes battle for its 18 electoral votes.


Jeffrey Toobin in The New Yorker on the right to vote There's no constitutional right to vote—only lines about not restricting votes from certain people. So Republicans used the flexible language to install laws limiting the right to vote. But the Justice Department has been effective about challenging limitations. While the right to vote is not inherent, "once a state sets up rules, those rules have to treat everyone the same way." Limiting voting for some becomes unconstitutional.

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blog...t-to-vote.html

LA TIMES-VP HAS TAKEN A BACK SEAT AS MITT MOVED TO THE CENTER: "Ryan became less prominent as Romney's message shifted from conservatism to bipartisanship," Alana Samuels writes. http://lat.ms/QPAecZ


BATTLEGROUND BRIEFING-THE PATH TO 270:

AP SAYS OBAMA HAS ELECTORAL COLLEGE ADVANTAGE: "Obama is poised to eke out a victory in the race for the 270 electoral votes needed to win re-election, having beaten back Romney's attempts to convert momentum from the debates into support in all-important Ohio, according to an Associated Press analysis a week before Election Day," writes Tom Beaumont. "While the Democratic incumbent has the upper hand in the electoral vote hunt, Romney has pulled even, or is slightly ahead, in polling in a few pivotal states, including Florida and Virginia. The Republican challenger also appears to have the advantage in North Carolina, the most conservative of the hotly contested nine states that will determine the winner. While in a tight race with Obama for the popular vote, Romney continues to have fewer state-by-state paths than Obama to reach 270. Without Ohio's 18 electoral votes, Romney would need last-minute victories in nearly all the remaining up-for-grabs states and manage to pick off key states now leaning Obama's way, such as Iowa or Wisconsin." http://goo.gl/kxY6g

TIPPING POINTS-FIVE SMALL THINGS THAT COULD BE GAME-CHANGERS: "Lurking below the surface is an array of smaller, hidden factors - assets, liabilities, quirks, last-minute surprises - that could break the stalemate," Glenn Thrush writes. Here are his five: Latino enthusiasm in Colorado. The impact of the Des Moines Register Romney endorsement. Mitt's pitch to white ethnics in Cuyahoga County in Ohio. Same-day registration in Wisconsin allows Obama to push low-propensity voters to the polls. Does Minnesota attract Romney resources? Good read: http://goo.gl/bRc4S.

Could America ever delay a presidential election due to a natural event or other catastrophe?

The short answer is yes. The long answer is, well, long. In 2004, lawyer and Fordham and University of Pennslyvania law professor Jerry H. Goldfeder wrote an influential law review article in the Fordham Urban Law Journal titled "Could Terrorists Derail a Presidential Election?" Goldfeder's rationale and legal reasoning about such a doomsday scenario applies to natural disasters as well. I caught up with him via email on Monday afternoon, as he hunkered down in Manhattan to wait out Hurricane Sandy, to ask him to walk me through how it might all play out.

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/...ection/264254/

On August 31st, one day after the Republican National Convention ended in Tampa, a federal judge in Ohio issued a ruling that stymied an effort by Republican officials there to limit early voting dates for hundreds of thousands of registered voters. Citing the United States Supreme Court's Bush v. Gore ruling, the 5-4 decision which ended the 2000 Florida recount, U.S. District Judge Peter Economus wrote that Ohio lawmakers and bureaucrats couldn't, by "arbitrary and disparate treatment, value one person's vote over that of another."

Upon receiving word of the federal court order, the man responsible for implementing Ohio's election laws at first decided not to enforce it. Secretary of State Jon Husted, the Republican who had fought for years against voting rights advocates in and out of the courts as a lawmaker and, later, member of the executive branch, initially disregarded Judge Economus' order. Not just that. He defied it. He specifically ordered his county election boards not to restore the early voting hours the judge had endorsed.

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/...sident/264201/

[Andrew49]

Presidential candidate arrested in Texas!!!

No, not Romney for his 548th. lie, nor is it Obama for waffling.

Jill Stein, Green Party and Presidential candidate, has been arrested in Texas while attempting to resupply protesters camping out in trees to oppose the Keystone XL pipeline, according to anti-pipeline activists. *Stein was taken to the Wood County jail in Quitman, TX LINK

[Count Bobulescu]

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

State by State polls
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epo...olls/president

Watch What You Say About FEMA
Politicians decry the Federal Emergency Management Agency at their peril. They never know when they might find themselves shamefully explaining away a misstatement or even a snarky remark about the federal disaster assistance agency in the wake of a big storm. Like now, as National Journal's Fawn Johnson reports.
http://www.nationaljournal.com//poli...-fema-20121030

In the History of ‘October Surprises,’ There’s Nothing Like Hurricane Sandy
Hurricane Sandy has already disrupted early voting in some states, altered President Obama and Republican nominee Mitt Romney’s campaign schedules, and consumed the news cycle for days. There’s little precedent for a storm of this magnitude making landfall so close to a presidential election, though there is a history of surprise events shaking up an election in the days before voters head to the polls. National Journal's Sophie Quinton compiles a list of six others.

http://www.nationaljournal.com//poli...0121030?page=1


Obama Rebuts Romney's Jeep, Auto Claims in Ohio
The Obama campaign released a TV ad Monday aimed at halting a Mitt Romney offensive on the automobile industry in must-win Ohio. The new Obama ad challenges Romney’s claim in his own ad that he would “do more for the auto industry” than Obama, as well as the ad’s incorrect implication that Chrysler is moving Jeep production from Ohio to China, reports National Journal's Jill Lawrence.

http://www.nationaljournal.com//poli...-ohio-20121029


The New York Times: GOP turns fire on Obama pillar, the auto bailout
 By Jim Rutenberg and Jeremy W. Peters
Mitt Romney’s latest attempt to win votes in Ohio, by criticizing aspects of the auto industry recovery, has provoked a backlash.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/30/us...l?ref=politics


The Washington Post: Election attorneys are at the ready

By Bill Turque
Thousands of attorneys, representing the two major presidential candidates, their parties, unions, civil rights groups and voter-fraud watchdogs, are in place across the country, poised to challenge election results that may be called into question by machine failures, voter suppression or other allegations of illegal activity.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politi...978_story.html

The new Pew poll shows the race between President Obama and Mitt Romney a dead heat among likely voters -- what else is new -- but also provides plenty of other fascinating glimpses into the relative strengths and weaknesses of each man as well as the mindset of the electorate with election day just a week off.
We combed through the poll -- while sequestered in official Fix headquarters to wait out Hurricane Sandy -- and came up with seven takeaways. They are below.

1. A Republican intensity gap: More than three-quarters (76 percent) of Republican and lean Republican voters said they are likely to vote on Nov. 6 as compared with 62 percent of Democrats and lean Democratic voters. That double-digit intensity gap should be concerning for Democrats as, typically, the side whose base is more energized usually winds up winning.

2. Obama's huge "connection" edge: As has been the case in previous Pew data (as well as virtually every other polling conducted in the race) the new Pew survey shows a huge edge to Obama when voters are asked which of the two candidates better connects with "ordinary" Americans. Fifty nine percent of Pew's sample said Obama connects better while 31 percent say Romney does. (Worth noting: That 28-point gap was significantly smaller than the 43-point bulge Obama enjoyed over Romney on the question in mid-September.) If the election comes down to voters asking themselves which of the two men "gets" them better, President Obama will be re-elected.

3. Romney as the "ideas" candidate: Despite Democratic attacks that allege that Romney has offered nothing in the way of new (or specific) ideas on what he would do differently or better than Obama, voters -- at least in the Pew poll -- don't see things that way. Forty six percent say Romney has "new ideas" while 41 percent say the same of Obama. That gap grows to 16 points in Romney's favor when only swing voters are sampled in the Pew data. Romney's lead on the question is exhibit No. 1 on how difficult it is to run as the new/change/fresh face when you are the incumbent president of the United States.

4. First debate mattered more: When we tweeted that Romney's clear win in the first debate probably mattered more than Obama's narrow win in the second debate and less-narrow win in the final debate, liberals blanched. But, the Pew data suggest the first debate simply did matter more. Thirty six percent of people said that the three debates gave them a better opinion of Romney while just 18 percent said the same of Obama. Some of those numbers are explained by the fact that Romney was less well known than Obama going into the first debate and in his solid performance he effectively beat back the caricature the Obama team had crafted of him in their television ad onslaught. Regardless of the reasons though, the debates -- especially the first one -- are the reason Romney is as close as he is in the race today.

5. An overblown gender gap focus?: In the Pew data Romney is losing women by six points. If he keeps that margin on election day, Romney would lose the female vote by less than half the margin that John McCain lost them in 2008. (McCain lost women by 13 points.) In fact, if Romney fell short to Obama among women voters by just six points, it would be the narrowest loss for a Republican presidential candidate among females in more than 20 years. It's worth noting that many other national surveys suggest a wider gender gap than Pew but as we have noted before, the idea that Romney is headed toward anything like a historically large loss among women voters simply isn't born out by the data.

6. Romney overperforming McCain among the young and the old: In 2008, McCain lost 18-29 year olds by 34 points to Obama. In the new Pew poll, Romney is trailing Obama by 21 points among that youngest demographic. On the other end of the age spectrum, McCain beat Obama by 8 points among voters 65 and older in 2008 but Romney is ahead by 19 points in the latest Pew data. Among 30-44 year olds, Obama is running six points ahead of Romney -- exactly where he was in 2008 against McCain; same goes for voters age 45-64 among whom the two candidate are currently tied just as Obama and McCain wound up in 2008.

7. People still think Obama wins -- but less than a majority: We've long been fascinated with the disconnect between the horse race in national polls, which has tended to show the race extremely close, and the way that people respond to the question of regardless of who they support who they expect to win. In a March Pew poll, nearly six in 10 respondents (59 percent) said they thought Obama would win as opposed to just 32 percent. That gap has shrunk somewhat in recent months with 49 percent of people now saying Obama will win and 31 percent saying Romney will win. (It's amazing that roughly the same amount of people thought Romney would win in March as do today.) As Pew notes in a memo on their poll, approximately two thirds (64 percent) of Romney supporters actually think he will win while more than eight in 10 (82 percent) of Obama backers believe their guy will be the victor. That gap may be the reason why Romney has started to say things like "when I am president" at his campaign rallies -- in hopes of finally convincing his supporters who still doubt he will win.

"G.O.P. Tries to Chip Away at Democrats’ Edge in Early Voting" -- Michael Cooper and Jeff Zeleny, New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/30/us...&wpisrc=nl_fix


THE FIX: Why do people believe Romney is sure to win in Florida and Virginia?
A look at the polling data in both states suggest that while they've moved in his direction, neither are even close to over just yet. 
» Read full articl
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/...=nl_pmpolitics

Chance of Split Electoral-Popular Vote Very Real

By Charlie Cook

Despite the playing field pretty much agreed upon, when you get down to the last handful or so of states, the best polling firms from each party are coming up with widely disparate results, with very different turnout assumptions as the best explanation for the disparity.

With President Obama pulling 90 to 95 percent of the African-American vote, 70 percent of Latinos, and 60 percent of the 18- to 29-year-old vote, the turnout assumptions for each group make huge differences in a very close race. To the extent that any one, two or all three groups turn out in proportions similar to 2008, Obama would do significantly better than if each of the three votes in proportions more like 2000 or 2004 (adjusting for population changes in the three groups). It’s somewhat more complicated than that. For example, Obama is actually pulling larger shares of the Latino vote against Romney than against McCain in 2008, but their likelihood of voting appears less than before. Then again, there are 4 million more registered Latino voters than there were four years ago.

Obama campaign strategists argue that too much is made of the 2008 “Obama surge” in minority and younger voters, pointing to data showing that the increases were more a function of changing demographic and population trends in the country than of a one-time surge. They suggest that it’s improbable that there will be fewer Latino votes cast for Obama in 2012 than in 2008. Again, there are 4 million more registered Latino voters now.

http://www.nationaljournal.com//colu...-real-20121030



Analysis: The Statistical Significance of Sandy Could Alter Electoral, Popular-Vote Math

The ability of Philadelphia-area voters to navigate city streets and deal with the post-Sandy deluge may loom large in the battle for Pennsylvania and its 20 electoral votes, writes National Journal's Major Garrett.

http://www.nationaljournal.com//poli...-math-20121030


Analysis: Moving Election Day Could Be More Disruptive Than Sandy
Sandy has already wreaked all sorts of havoc on the Eastern Seaboard. But its destructive impact also now carries the potential to disrupt voting up to and on Election Day in several states, raising questions about whether voting procedures and maybe even dates should be altered, writes National Journal's Billy House.

http://www.nationaljournal.com//poli...sandy-20121030

Most likely voters — including both Democrats and Republicans — say the winner of the presidential election should be decided by popular vote, not the electoral college, according to the latest release of the Washington Post-ABC News tracking poll.

In the new national poll, 49 percent of likely voters back Republican Mitt Romney, while 48 percent support President Obama. It’s the fifth straight day that a single percentage point (or less) has separated the two candidates.

The presidency, of course, will be decided at the state level — with the overwhelming focus on a small set of swing states where polls also point to an extraordinarily competitive contest next week. But most voters wish that weren’t so: 56 percent of all likely voters say they would prefer the one who gets the most votes across the country to be the next president; 37 percent would want the one with more electoral votes to prevail.

A split verdict between the national vote and the electoral college has become a distinct possibility given the close competitiveness of candidates at both levels. If such a divided result were to happen, 59 percent of independents, 56 percent of Democrats and 51 percent of Republicans say they would prefer that the candidate with the higher popular vote tally win the White House

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

Nerds Rush to Nate Silver's Defense

The great war between people who write about politics for a living is not between liberals and conservatives, but between humanities majors and math nerds, and their battleground is currently the validity of Nate Silver's FiveThirtyEight election prediction model.The English majors have been writing that the presidential race is a total tossup-down-to-the-wire-nail-biter, and the math nerds, most prominently Silver, have been writing that actually, the race has been pretty stable and President Obama has a solid chance of winning. A 72.9 percent chance, in Silver's estimation. The week before Election Day, the English majors launched a major offensive against the math nerds, who pose a threat to fierce urgency of their headlines. "Nate Silver: One-term celebrity?" Politico's Dylan Byers asked Monday, chronicling the complaints of David Brooks, Joe Scarborough, and others whose livelihoods depend on people caring about their subjective feelings about elections saying they think Silver's overrated. On Tuesday, nerds rallied to the defense of their own.

http://www.theatlanticwire.com/polit...defense/58516/

[Count Bobulescu]

A few pieces devoted to the ongoing Nate Silver / FiveThirtyEight controversy.

http://blogs.clarionledger.com/samrh...r-nate-silver/

http://www.niemanlab.org/2012/10/dat...tion-coverage/

http://commentarymagazine.tumblr.com...when-hes-wrong

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/...6978_blog.html

THE TAKE: Things to watch in the final days
Conflicting polls, unexpected moves, and persistent spinning mark the time. 
» Read full article

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politi...=nl_pmpolitics


THE FIX: Why Mitt Romney can't, won't and shouldn't give up on Ohio
The release of new poll numbers this morning has occasioned some chatter that he should forsake the Buckeye State. 
» Read full article

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/...=nl_pmpolitics

WaPo-ABC tracking poll: High marks for President Obama on Hurricane Sandy response

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


Democrats set to win early vote, but GOP outperforms 2008

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

The 5 closest swing states

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


Why voter turnout in 2012 is likely to be down

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

Swing state polls show Obama up five in Ohio, four in Pennsylvania

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


Romney's expand-the-map strategy: Opportunity or necessity?

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


FIRST LOOK - MATT BAI essay in Sunday's N.Y. Times Magazine, "Still Waiting for the Narrator in Chief ": "Obama's ... supporters ... can be forgiven for wondering why he hasn't been better at promoting what is, by any standard, an impressive series of accomplishments. (As the comedian Chris Rock tweeted recently: 'Only Pres Obama could prevent a depression, end a war, get bin Laden, bring unemployment below 8 percent, then be told he can't run on his record.') In books and speeches before he became president, Obama showed himself to be an evocative storyteller ... All of which makes it even more baffling that Obama's presidential alter-ego, this grayer and more somber version of his literary self, spent the past four years immersed in legislative minutiae and marching out dull slogans - 'an economy built to last,' 'winning the future' and so on - while failing to advance any larger theory of the moment confronting the country and what it required. " http://nyti.ms/XRs7QL


The Hill: Polls show race tightening in Ohio, Florida, Virginia
 By Jonathan Easley
Polls show a tight presidential race is getting even closer just a week before Election Day.

http://thehill.com/homenews/campaign...orida-virginia


The Hill: Romney proves his mettle as a candidate
 By Christian Heinze
Less than a week until the election, Romney has again united conservatives and the mainstream media — this time, out of mutual surprise over just how good a candidate he’s proven to be.

http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/...as-a-candidate

The Hill: Outside cash trumps candidates’ in half a dozen tight races 
By Kevin Bogardus
 and Megan R. Wilson
Former President Clinton and Vice President Biden blasted Republican nominee Mitt Romney over a campaign ad that says Outside spending groups are making their presence felt in several tight House races, in some cases spending more than the candidates on the ballot
.
http://thehill.com/business-a-lobbyi...ht-house-races


The Hill: Both Romney, Obama supporters seek to score points with Jewish voters on Iran 
By Julian Pecquet 
Supporters of both candidates are seeking to raise doubts about their rival’s commitment to stand up to Iran in a last-minute appeal to Jewish voters in swing states.

http://thehill.com/blogs/global-affa...voters-on-iran


The New York Times: Ohio working class may offer key to Obama’s reelection
 By Jeff Zeleny and Dalia Sussman
With the 18 electoral votes of Ohio seen by both sides as critical, President Obama’s ability to prevent erosion among working-class voters may be his best path to winning a second term.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/31/us...=politics&_r=0


The Washington Post: For campaigns’ traveling press corps, social media has changed way game is played 
By Jason Horowitz
Reporters, not only those from big publications, have more power and control to shape election narrative.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politi...a24_story.html



THE CAMPAIGN ISN’T SUSPENDED. Obama might not be out on the campaign trail, but the Obama campaign’s television ads are still playing and Obama’s surrogates—most notably former President Clinton—are still holding rallies on his behalf. As for the Romney campaign, it is launching a tour with 100 surrogates on Friday expanding its ad buy into states Democrats feel should be solidly blue territory. Obama campaign manager Jim Messina protested the Romney campaign’s move in an e-mail statement: “They are throwing money at states where they never built an organization and have been losing for two years. Let’s be very clear, the Romney campaign and its allies’ decision to go up with advertising in Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Minnesota is a decision made out of weakness, not strength.” Read more

http://www.nationaljournal.com/white...gning-20121031


CLINTON, OBAMA’S MR. FIX IT. Bill Clinton is proving once again that he has no peers when it comes to political skill. In the closing days of the campaign, Obama is leaning on the former, two-term Democratic president to answer his critics and address tough issues like race in ways that only Clinton can. National Journal’s Beth Reinhard writes that Clinton’s most important role of all may be reaching certain demographic groups like white blue-collar voters who are slipping away from the Democrats in 2012. Read more

http://nationaljournal.com/2012-pres...loser-20121030

ROMNEY CASTS OBAMA AS BAD FOR AUTO JOBS. The Romney campaign is running a radio ad in Ohio that leaves impressions about the U.S. auto industry that fact-checkers, Chrysler, and General Motors have said are wrong, reports National Journal's Ben Schreckinger. The ad accuses Chrysler and GM of breaking promises to autoworkers in the state, but even Romney supporters agree the bailout saved the industry. The Romney campaign has spent $100,000 to run the new 60-second radio spot in Toledo and $124,000 to run it in Dayton, according to a Democrat familiar with the buys. Meanwhile, Romney’s ads landed him in hot water with Chrysler Group CEO Sergio Marchionne, who on Tuesday directly contradicted Romney’s claims in a letter in The Detroit News. A GM spokesperson said that we've entered a "parallel universe" and that the ads represent "politics at its cynical worst." Read more

http://nationaljournal.com/2012-pres...laims-20121030


Obama’s budget cuts FEMA by 3%. Romney’s budget cuts it, on its face, by 40%. “Under President Obama's 2013 budget proposal, FEMA's Disaster Relief Funds would be cut by $1 billion, bringing funding levels down to $6.1 billion from $7.1 billion in fiscal year 2012, a 14 percent cut. An administration official says the drop reflects decreasing tail-costs from Hurricane Katrina and stresses that the 2013 request is $500 million beyond the disaster fund's anticipated needs, according to a Congressional formula based on the cost of disaster aid…Romney has vowed to cut federal spending to less than 20 percent of GDP by 2016 without touching entitlements or defense. That means that non-defense discretionary spending--which includes FEMA aid--would have to be reduced by an eye-popping 40 percent. The Romney campaign won't say whether FEMA would be spared from those cuts but stresses that the necessary funding would be available.” Suzy Khimm in The Washington Post.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/...wpisrc=nl_wonk


THE GROUND WAR-

MOVEON WILL **** PROGRESSIVES TO VOTE BY HIGHLIGHTING VOTER HISTORY: MoveOn.org Civic Action will announce today that they are mailing voter report cards to 12 million potential voters in key states and districts. Each "Voter Report Card" tells the recipient how often he or she has voted in the past five elections, along with how that record stacks up against their neighborhood's average. MoveOn will then run online ads to draw attention to the project and the fact that outsiders can figure out whether you voted or not. Academic research shows this is an effective way to mobilize voters, but it is controversial because it relies on scaring and shaming voters. Campaigns themselves don't do it because of the high risk that it will backfire with negative media. Outside groups have done this before with some success.

IN NEW HAMPSHIRE, SUPER PAC HIGHLIGHTS DECLINING TAKE-HOME PAY: Ending Spending Action Fund, the super PAC backed by Joe Ricketts, takes out full-page ads in five New Hampshire newspapers today. The banner headline is: "America's huge debt could cost us 30% of our take-home pay. So, what will your family cut?" It's based on a recent report from the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research, which said that the 'average projected annual per family hit would be about 10, 17, and 30 percent of income by 2030, 2040 and 2050, respectively" if the national debt is 'left unchecked." See the ad: http://goo.gl/hBstr .

BATTLEGROUND BRIEFING-THE PATH TO 270:

PARALLEL REALITIES-EXPLAINING THE ROMNEY BUYS IN MINNESOTA, PENNSYLVANIA: "In the post-FEC limits era, when both candidates are free to raise and spend freely, money is not the object it has always been in campaigns. So with the dollars flowing in, Romney's high command can take a look at single-digit deficits in states like Minnesota and Pennsylvania and lay down some cash on TV there, as they have in recent days," Jonathan Martin writes in the story leading our site this morning. "The best-case scenario is that you goose the polling a little more and, if the wind blows heavily in your direction during the campaign's final days, you pull out a narrow win...

The worst-case scenario is that you've burned a few bucks you could afford to lose in a state you didn't need and made Obama drop his own cash in service of creating the perception that Democrats are on the defensive. 'It's like buying a cheap lotto ticket with a little extra money,' explained longtime GOP strategist Mike Murphy. 'Their day job is still, 'How do we win Virginia and Ohio and get one more?''"

"The real test of how serious Romney's team is taking Pennsylvania and Minnesota - how they spend their human capital. Will they take their candidate off the Ohio-Virginia-Florida treadmill and drop him into Minnesota or Pennsylvania?

... until Romney touches down in Minneapolis or Philadelphia, it's a neither-fish-nor-fowl scenario: He's neither so assured about the core seven states that he's willing to step away from them in the final week nor is he so downcast about the chief battlegrounds that he'd lurch for an alternative route to 270 by suddenly showing up on the Main Line." Story: http://goo.gl/jrBGK .


OBAMA GOING UP IN MICHIGAN: "Multiple media trackers told POLITICO that Obama had reserved airtime in the Detroit media market," per JMart. "Earlier in the day, Obama strategist David Axelrod hinted that a move might be in the works as a result of pro-Romney super PAC spending. Romney's campaign is not on the air in the state, but his super PAC has been airing spots for some time and public polls have showed a narrowing race." http://goo.gl/0njtI

SANDY WON'T AFFECT OHIO EARLY VOTING: "Though much of the state did experience a nasty fall storm as a result of Sandy, including areas of snow, rain and high winds that caused some damage and power outages in the Cleveland area, party and elections officials said they did not anticipate voting to be slowed," per the Washington Post. "Only one county-Erie County on the banks of Lake Erie-reported a power outage at its early voting site Tuesday morning. An election official said the start of voting for the day was delayed from 8 to 10:20 a.m." http://wapo.st/UfsNdS

AUTO COMPANIES PUSH BACK AGAINST ROMNEY: Auto giants GM and Chrysler are pushing back against recent ads from the Romney campaign, calling them misleading. From the LA Times: 'A GM spokesman defended the company and lashed out at Romney. 'We've clearly entered some parallel universe during these last few days,' spokesman Greg Martin told the Detroit Free Press. 'No amount of campaign politics at its cynical worst will diminish our record of creating jobs in the U.S. and repatriating profits back to this country.' The head of Chrysler, meanwhile, fought back against the implication that the bailout and restructuring overseen by Obama led the company to outsource production to China. ... 'I feel obliged to unambiguously restate our position: Jeep production will not be moved from the United States to China,' Chrysler Chief Executive Sergio Marchionne emailed employees.' http://lat.ms/PliaJr

[Count Bobulescu]

Michael Bloomberg endorses Obama

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg endorsed President Obama on Thursday, citing climate change as the primary factor and Hurricane Sandy as the event that impelled him to make a choice.

Bloomberg turned down an offer from Obama to visit New York City this week, saying he didn’t mean to “diss” the president but was simply too busy dealing with storm fallout.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/...obama/?hpid=z1


The Phantom Commission
A federal agency created to restore confidence in the election process in the wake of Bush v. Gore sits all but leaderless as the country approaches Election Day. Full Story
http://www.rollcall.com/issues/58_33...email&pos=epol

Total Cost of Election Will Exceed $6 Billion, Group Predicts
The total cost of the 2012 elections will exceed $6 billion, according to new projections released Wednesday by the Center for Responsive Politics. Full Story
http://www.rollcall.com/news/total_c...email&pos=epol


The Hill: For Obama and Romney, a ‘hard drive to the finish’ in closing days
President Obama and GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney are ratcheting up their campaign trail appearances to a new level of intensity. Both men will be on the stump virtually 24/7 until Nov. 6 dawns -- and the push begins now.

http://thehill.com/homenews/campaign...-to-the-finish

The Hill: Akin ad buy raises questions about GOP involvement in Missouri Senate race
Rep. Todd Akin (R-Mo.) and the Missouri Republican Party are going up in the last week of the campaign with a nearly $700,000 ad buy but the source of the funds is unclear.

http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/...op-involvement

The Hill: Romney aide: GM, Chrysler 'don't refute anything in our ads'
By Keith Laing
Mitt Romney's campaign pushed back Wednesday at complaints from Chrysler and General Motors that his ads are inaccurate.

http://thehill.com/blogs/transportat...ing-in-our-ads

The Hill: Biden already thinking about 2016
. 
Election Day 2012 isn't for another six days, but Vice President Biden is already thinking about 2016.
http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefi...for-me-in-2016

The New York Times: In dwindling days of the race, Romney takes a softer tack
By Michael Barbaro
The evolution of Mitt Romney’s stump speech illustrates his long journey from partisanship toward the middle of American politics.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/01/us...l?ref=politics

Analysis: Governing, Not Optics, Reign. The Danger of Homestretch Over-Analysis
When dozens of people are dead, power is gone, clean water is scarce and roads are impassable there are no optics. Pictures of politicians are tertiary to the actions of those in charge. In such times, Republicans and Democrats don't play bit parts in a media-contrived Neil Simon play, writes National Journal's Major Garrett.
http://www.nationaljournal.com/white...lysis-20121101


Analysis: Parties Wonder Which Side's Polls Reflect Reality
Whether it is the presidential contest or battles for critical Senate and House seats, the smartest pollsters in the business have spent the past three weeks looking at exactly the same data and coming to dramatically different conclusions, writes Hotline's Reid Wilson.

http://www.nationaljournal.com//colu...ality-20121101

Nate Silver: The state and national polls don’t match. “Mitt Romney and President Obama remain roughly tied in national polls, while state polls are suggestive of a lead for Mr. Obama in the Electoral College. Most people take this to mean that there is a fairly good chance of a split outcome between the Electoral College and the popular vote, as we had in 2000. But the story may not be so simple. For both the swing state polls and the national polls to be right, something else has to give to make the math work. If Mr. Obama is performing well in swing states, but is only tied in the popular vote nationally, that means he must be underperforming in noncompetitive states. But polls of noncompetitive states don't always cooperate with the story. Nate Silver in The New York Times.

http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes...wpisrc=nl_wonk

NYT’s Nate Silver Bets Scarborough on Obama Win
Nate Silver, of The New York Times, has taken some heat recently for his election predictions that show President Obama as the clear favorite in next week’s election. Now he’s telling one of his critics to put his money where his mouth is, reports National Journal's Matt Vasilogambros.
http://www.nationaljournal.com//2012...a-win-20121101

POLLS SAY OBAMA LEADS IN MICH., IOWA; CLOSE IN N.H ., WIS. Obama holds a 6-point lead over Romney in Michigan, according to a new Detroit Free Press/WXYZ-TV poll released on Wednesday. The poll shows Obama leading Romney 48 percent to 42 percent among likely voters, up from a 3-point lead after the first presidential debate, in which Obama's s flat performance sparked a Romney surge. New Wall Street Journal/NBC News/Marist polls also show Obama edging Romney by 6 percentage points among likely voters in Iowa, but with only narrow leads in New Hampshire and Wisconsin. Meanwhile, Obama is receiving high marks for his handling of Hurricane Sandy, showing that nearly 8-in-10 likely voters approved of his actions, according to a new Washington Post/ABC News tracking poll released on Wednesday. Read more

http://nationaljournal.com/2012-pres...-wis--20121101


Ohio moves back into the ‘toss up’ category on Fix electoral map

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/...rc=nl_politics


Obama leads Romney by eight in Wisconsin, poll shows

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/...rc=nl_politics

“Idealism Harder to Find From Young Volunteers” — Jesse McKinley, New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/01/us...rc=nl_fix&_r=0

“Some things to watch in the final days” — Dan Balz, Washington Post

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politi...?wpisrc=nl_fix

-SHOT -- MARK HALPERIN, on "Morning Joe": Republican "elites are starting to think, in the last 24 hours, that these [state poll] leads are, as the Obama campaign has said for a LONG time, small but persistent and consistent. ... There's a bit of a tipping point. Romney needs to go into the weekend, for his own sake, with the race TIED in the conventional wisdom."

--CHASER -- KARL ROVE on WSJ A15, "Sifting the Numbers for a Winner -- A crucial element: the mix of Democrats and Republicans who show up": "As of yesterday afternoon, there had been 31 national surveys in the previous seven days. Mr. Romney led in 19, President Obama in seven, and five were tied. ... My prediction: Sometime after the **** crows on the morning of Nov. 7, Mitt Romney will be declared America's 45th president. Let's call it 51%-48%, with Mr. Romney carrying at least 279 Electoral College votes, probably more."

MORNING MINDMELD: Both sides are nervous, but Republicans are MORE nervous. They don't find it particularly encouraging that Mitt Romney was in Florida yesterday and will be in Virginia today - two states the campaign would love to have put away by now. Is Romney's "expand-the- map" drive (WashPost 2-cool. lead, "GOP sees new hope in 3 states: SUPER PACS BUY ADS IN PA., MICH., MINN. -- Democrats scoff at claims of a bigger electoral map") a sign of confidence, or a Hail Mary frenzy because of trepidation about Ohio? The correct answer: It's mainly an effort to project confidence at a time when Republicans fear a slow-motion reversal of fortune.

Top Republicans are already hinting that if Romney loses, his people will blame the storm for stalling his momentum. But D.C. GOPers acknowledge that having some of the nation's top auto executives call you out, when you're the business guy born in Michigan, ain't helpful.
Boston continues to profess confidence about Ohio: "We're winning independents [in internals]. And if we win independents, we win.
"
NATIONAL POLLING-

WASHINGTON POST/ABC TRACKING: Obama, Romney tied at 49. The poll also finds that voters give Obama high marks on handling the hurricane aftermath: a full 78 percent had a positive view of his response, compared with just 8 percent who had a negative review. http://wapo.st/RttgZl

PEW SAYS NEITHER SIDE HAS GROUND GAME ADVANTAGE: "Voters nationally, as well those in the closely contested battleground states, report being contacted at about the same rates by each of the campaigns. And with a fifth of likely voters reporting already having cast their ballots, neither Obama nor Romney has a clear advantage among early voters. This is in sharp contrast to early voting at this point four years ago, which favored Obama by a wide margin." http://goo.gl/Q2rES

GALLUP PUTS OBAMA AHEAD ON FAVORABILITY: "Majorities of Americans hold generally favorable views of Obama and Romney, using Gallup's historical 10-point 'scalometer' question," Lydia Saad reports. "In the poll, conducted Oct. 27-28 -- before Hurricane Sandy struck the Eastern seaboard -- 62% of national adults rated Obama positively and 55% rated Romney that way. Among registered voters, it was slightly closer: 60% for Obama and 56% for Romney. Gallup's scalometer rating involves asking respondents to use a 10-point scale, ranging from +5 at the high end to -5 at the low end (and no neutral '0' score), to say how favorably or unfavorably they view each candidate. Gallup relied on this question routinely from 1956 to 1991 to measure public reaction to major national figures, and has since used it occasionally." Release: http://goo.gl/YbEBZ Gallup is not sure when they can restart the tracking polling after Sandy: http://politi.co/RtuB27.

NATIONAL JOURNAL: Obama 50, Romney 45. http://bit.ly/Rtx64q

FOX NEWS: Obama, Romney tied at 46. http://fxn.ws/RtxmQU

OBAMA TALKER-WSJ SAYS PLOUFFE TO BLAME FOR BOTCHED DEBATE: "No one in the White House, aside from the president, has more to lose than David Plouffe if Romney wins next week's election," Carol Lee writes in today's Wall Street Journal. "Mr. Plouffe's official title is senior White House adviser. Unlike others in President Barack Obama's small circle of advisers, he always has had just one job: to win Mr. Obama a second term. Mr. Plouffe crafted the campaign's focus on the middle class and its early attacks on Mr. Romney's policy positions that propelled the president to early leads in polls...Mr. Plouffe was a leading adviser on the president's widely panned strategy of not aggressively challenging Mr. Romney in the first debate in Denver, people familiar with the process said. He also didn't anticipate that Mr. Romney would use the event to make a move to the center, they said. Those miscalculations gave the Republican nominee a burst of momentum that closed some of the president's polling edge." http://goo.gl/w3n11

BATTLEGROUND BRIEFING - THE PATH TO 270-

IN OHIO, GOP WINS PROVISIONAL BALLOT COURT FIGHT: "Ohioans cannot vote anywhere in their county Tuesday and still have their tallies in major races counted, a federal appeals court ruled today," the Columbus Dispatch reports. "The 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals granted Secretary of State Jon Husted's request to put an emergency hold on an injunction from a lower federal court, which allowed the broader voting rights...Counting votes from anywhere in a county, Husted said, creates 'incentives to show up at the wrong place and take a chance of getting past a harried poll worker. That is especially so in the day's final hours, when it is tempting-especially for political operatives rounding up every last voter-to go to the nearest polling place and see what happens.' The lower court's injunction, in a lawsuit brought by the Service Employees International Union, would have allowed Ohio voters to cast a ballot anywhere in their home county." http://goo.gl/jOibx

TEAM ROMNEY DEFENDS SPENDING IN PENNSYLVANIA, ADMITS N.M. A STRETCH: Jonathan Martin reports on a conversation that Romney officials, including pollster Neil Newhouse and political director Rich Beeson, had with Washington supporters. " Rich Beeson made clear that they only making a foray into Pennsylvania after the rest of their swing state ads and field programs were funded. Explaining why they thought it was worth testing the waters in Pennsylvania, Beeson explained that 96% of the Keystone States voters would cast ballots on Election Day, meaning that, unlike states with early voting, they could be susceptible to a late push. On New Mexico, where Romney's super PAC has started airing ads, Beeson noted that there has been little presidential action on the airwaves but conceded the state was even more of a stretch than Pennsylvania." http://goo.gl/1UJK5

[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/

Poll: Presidential contest as close as close can be
The race for the White House remains steadily and extraordinarily competitive in its final days, with President Obama and Mitt Romney continuing to run neck-and-neck in the Washington Post-ABC News tracking poll. 
» Read full article

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/...=nl_pmpolitics

Analysis: The Best $25 Billion Obama Ever Borrowed (Politically)
Democrats call it a rescue. Republicans call it a bailout. However you prefer to describe President Obama’s decision to pump money into General Motors and Chrysler at a time of severe financial duress, one thing is clear: It is proving to be the most politically important economic policy Obama implemented, writes National Journal's Jim Tankersley.

http://www.nationaljournal.com//poli...ally--20121101

The Voting 'Shame Game' Goes Online
How a person votes is his or her own business, but whether or not a person votes is public information. For the first time, that public information will be shared using the velocity of the Internet and the reach of social networks, reports National Journal's Adam Mazmanian.

http://www.nationaljournal.com//tech...nline-20121101

Mitt Romney’s most likely path to 270 electoral votes

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

President Obama’s most likely path to 270 electoral votes

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

Nate Silver in yet more trouble.
“

Anybody that thinks that this race is anything but a tossup right now is such an ideologue, they should be kept away from typewriters, computers, laptops and microphones for the next 10 days, because they’re jokes.”
The above words are those of Joe Scarborough, host of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” program. He’s talking about Nate Silver, the statistics wizard whose FiveThirtyEight blog is licensed by The New York Times, and who writes for The Times frequently online as well as in print. Mr. Silver also has a desk in The Times’s newsroom.
As the presidential campaign veers around the clubhouse turn and zooms into the homestretch, Mr. Silver is very much in the public eye.

http://publiceditor.blogs.nytimes.co...wrong-defense/

I am a huge fan and admirer of the new NYT public editor Margaret Sullivan. But I think she has made her first mistake and is picking the wrong fight in criticizing the now-embattled Nate Silver of FiveThirtyEight for placing a (mainly symbolic) charitable-donation bet with Joe Scarborough over who has a better model of how the election will turn out. In fact the arrivals of Mr. Silver and Ms. Sullivan each at the NYT constitute good news. They are both forces for improvement in journalism.

http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/


Voting Amid the Devastation From Sandy
By Niels Lesniewski
Hurricane Sandy has a real chance of affecting turnout and ballot counting in the New York metropolitan area, where several competitive House and Senate races will be decided. Full Story

http://www.rollcall.com/news/Voting-...email&pos=epol


The Hill: Shift in white, minority vote could decide Obama-Romney race
 By Niall Stanage 
The ethnic mix of this year’s electorate could decide the winner of the race between President Obama and Republican challenger Mitt Romney.

http://thehill.com/homenews/campaign...eepless-nights

The Hill: Obama, Romney open the final chapter in 2012 White House race
 By Amie Parnes, Justin Sink and Jonathan Easley 
President Obama and Mitt Romney were on the attack in swing states amid national polls showing a virtual tie.

http://thehill.com/homenews/campaign...he-white-house

The New York Times: Campaigns brace to sue for votes in crucial states
 By Ethan Bronner
Thousands of lawyers from both presidential campaigns will enter polling places next Tuesday with one central goal: tracking their opponents and, if need be, initiating legal action. It will be a kind of Spy vs. Spy.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/02/us...states.html?hp

The Washington Post: Obama, Romney claw for edge in razor-tight vote
 By Philip Rucker and Jerry Markon
The presidential candidates grasped for momentum Thursday in the closing days of a hard-fought race, with President Obama returning to the campaign trail after a three-day hurricane hiatus while Mitt Romney launched a last-minute effort to snatch away vote-rich Pennsylvania.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/politi...d93_story.html

Cook Report: Obama Can Thank Early Negative Ads for His Advantage

Thanks to an early barrage of negative ads, the president has a clearer path to victory than Mitt Romney, as The Cook Report's Charlie Cook writes for National Journal.


America faces two general elections. One is occurring in seven or so swing states, where voters have experienced saturation advertising—mostly negative—since mid-June. The total-immersion process in these states has made this a very different campaign from that experienced by voters in the 40-odd other states who have witnessed this election from afar, largely through national news. It should be no surprise that voters in those two distinct groups should be behaving differently.
In the states that have experienced the minimalist campaign, the popular-vote numbers are even or maybe up for Republican nominee Mitt Romney by a bit. For people who live there, the campaign effectively started with the first debate. Many undecided voters were pleasantly surprised by Romney, who presented himself as moderate, reasonable, intelligent, and earnest. He also came across as more of a problem-solver than the ideological robot voters had seen earlier in the campaign through their binoculars.

EARLY-VOTE TRENCH WARFARE DEFINES FINAL WEEK. The presidential campaigns are duking it out over early voting, but it’s hard to say which is winning. “For Mitt Romney, the closing strategy is built around a strong early-vote push and an undying belief in a sea change in voter sentiments for Romney and against President Obama in the campaign’s final days,” National Journal’s Major Garrett reports. “Obama’s is a cold, bloodless, data-driven operation. It relies on the permanent predictive power of that data.” Obama for America campaign manager Jim Messina “conceded to NJ that the only way Obama loses is if everything his campaign knows is wrong,” Garrett writes. Read more

http://nationaljournal.com/member/ma...oters-20121101

OBAMA, ROMNEY TEAMS TOP $1 BILLION ON TV ADS. Obama, Romney, and their allies have spent a staggering $1,057,276,151 on television advertising during the general election. That's nearly twice as much as was spent during the 2008 general election, according to a Hotline analysis of advertising spending data. And a Republican edge has been the story of the cycle. Though the Obama campaign has spent far more than Romney's campaign—$379 million to $218 million—outside groups have more than made up the difference. American Crossroads and Crossroads Grassroots Policy Strategies alone have spent $160 million on television advertisements, while pro-Romney super PAC Restore Our Future has added another $86 million. Read more

http://www.nationaljournal.com/polit...nding-20121102

BOTH CAMPS CLAIM A MATHEMATICAL ADVANTAGE. Both presidential campaigns are trying to make the case that their guy has more momentum, and they’re pointing to competing statistics to do it. Obama for America spokeswoman Jen Psaki told reporters on Thursday that the president has an advantage among early voters in Colorado and Nevada and that minority turnout has increased since 2008. The same day, pollster Neil Newhouse e-mailed Romney supporters to say that the Republican nominee is winning the early vote in Florida so far and has an advantage among independents nationally. The truth is that nobody knows who has more momentum; both parties are basing their polling on different assumptions, The Hotline’s Reid Wilson reports. Read more

http://www.nationaljournal.com/colum...ality-20121101

PUERTO RICANS COULD HOLD KEY TO FLORIDA. Puerto Ricans are swing voters within a swing group in the nation’s largest swing state. Unlike the Republican stronghold of Cuban-Americans in Miami, Puerto Ricans are concentrated in central Florida, and they do not strongly identify with either party. They favored former Gov. Jeb Bush and his brother, former President George W. Bush, both Republicans, but this year’s polls show most support Obama, writes National Journal’s Beth Reinhard. Interviews in Orlando turned up disenchantment with Obama but also found widespread suspicion of Romney because of his hard line against illegal immigration. Read more
http://www.nationaljournal.com/magaz...paign-20121101

WHATEVER HAPPENS TUESDAY, HALF OF AMERICA WILL BE UPSET. Anyone touring Ohio, the epicenter of Campaign 2012, is confronted not only with the visceral passion, but the cavernous divisions that this election has provoked, writes National Journal’s Ronald Brownstein. Here, and in all likelihood nationally, Obama and Romney are assembling coalitions that are inimical in their demography and priorities yet almost equal in size. Uniting Americans behind any common purpose after an election that appears certain to divide them that deeply looms as a daunting, perhaps insurmountable, challenge for whichever man wins next week.

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

“In 5 Great Lakes states, some hotly contested terrain in presidential campaign” — Joel Achenbach and Michael S. Williamson, Washington Post

http://www.washingtonpost.com/nation...&wpisrc=nl_fix


“A Different Poll Question: Who Do You Think Will Win?” — David Leonhardt, New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/02/us...rc=nl_fix&_r=0


“Romney Advance Team Works Every Angle in Pursuit of Visual Perfection” — Ashley Parker, New York Times

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/02/us...&wpisrc=nl_fix

KRUGMAN: The blackmail caucus. ”If President Obama is re-elected, health care coverage will expand dramatically, taxes on the wealthy will go up and Wall Street will face tougher regulation. If Mitt Romney wins instead, health coverage will shrink substantially, taxes on the wealthy will fall to levels not seen in 80 years and financial regulation will be rolled back…[A]re we ready to become a country in which ‘Nice country you got here. Shame if something were to happen to it’ becomes a winning political argument? I hope not. By all means, vote for Mr. Romney if you think he offers the better policies. But arguing for Mr. Romney on the grounds that he could get things done veers dangerously close to accepting protection-racket politics, which have no place in American life.” Paul Krugman in The New York Times.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/02/op...wpisrc=nl_wonk


BROOKS: The final reckoning. ”Four years ago, Obama went to the White House with a Team of Rivals — big figures with big voices. Now the circle of trust is much smaller and political. The mood has contracted. The atmosphere of expansive hope has often given way to a mood of aggrieved annoyance…Most of all, the vision has contracted. The arguments he made in his inaugural address were profoundly true. We are in the middle of an economic transition, a bit like the 1890s, with widening inequality, a corrupt and broken political system, an unsustainable welfare state, a dangerous level of family breakdown and broken social mobility. The financial crisis exposed foundational problems and meant that we were going to have to live with a long period of slow growth, as the history of financial crises makes clear. If Obama had governed in a way truer to his inauguration, he would have used this winter of recuperation to address the country's structural weaknesses.” David Brooks in The New York Times.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/02/op...wpisrc=nl_wonk

Study: Whom voters want to win is less predictive than whom they expect to win. ”A new paper by Microsoft's David Rothschild and University of Michigan's Justin Wolfers suggests that reading by those numbers is a mistake…They compared state-level polls of voter intentions ("whom are you voting for?’) to polls of voter expectations (‘whom do you think is going to win?’) to see which gives a more accurate prediction of an election's outcome. Their surprise conclusion was that voter expectations polls are more useful than voter intention polls in predicting those results…For 80.9 percent of the time, voter expectations polls correctly guessed the winner of the state in the elections charted below, while voter intention polls did so only 69.3 percent of the time.” Dylan Matthews in The Washington Post.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/...wpisrc=nl_wonk

[Count Bobulescu]

President Obama is now better than a 4-in-5 favorite to win the Electoral College, according to the FiveThirtyEight forecast. His chances of winning it increased to 83.7 percent on Friday, his highest figure since the Denver debate and improved from 80.8 percent on Thursday.

http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes...ically-biased/

If you are following some of the same people that I do on Twitter, you may have noticed some pushback about our contention that Barack Obama is a favorite (and certainly not a lock) to be re-elected. I haven’t come across too many analyses suggesting that Mitt Romney is the favorite. (There are exceptions.) But there are plenty of people who say that the race is a “tossup.”
What I find confounding about this is that the argument we’re making is exceedingly simple. Here it is:
Obama’s ahead in Ohio.

http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes...-the-favorite/

SNEAK PEEK-ROMNEY CAMP ON WHY THEY'LL WIN IOWA: Romney strategist David Kochel exudes confidence that they will carry the Hawkeye state. "With absentee ballots, Democrats lead in both requests and returns, as they have every cycle. And while Democrats have increased their AB and early-vote performance by 119 percent overall, Republicans have increased ours by 131 percent. So their raw-vote lead isn't nearly as important as the dramatic slippage in margin," David writes in a memo. "In combined absentee and in-person voting, their lead is barely 12 percent. That's well within the margin Republicans need to be able to win on Tuesday, given our historic advantage among Election Day voters. In fact, the current Democratic margin is below the margin they held ahead of George W. Bush's reelection in 2004, the first Republican to carry Iowa since Reagan." http://goo.gl/V7lIM

OBAMA CAMP ACCUSES GOP OF PLANNING VOTER SUPPRESSION: "Reports that the Romney campaign has trained volunteers to disseminate misinformation to voters in both Wisconsin and Iowa should not surprise observers who have followed the Republican assault on voting rights," Obama campaign general counsel Bob Bauer writes in a 6-page memo. "This is an assault with deep roots in the party's history and politics. While over the decades the tactics have changed, the overall strategy to impede or obstruct access to the polls by targeted populations of voters has remained the same. The Republican National Committee has led the way, aided by organizations closely associated with the party and its goals, such as True the Vote. The Romney for President campaign's plans to mislead voters have to be viewed in this context: not as extraordinary, but instead a sadly predictable contribution to the Republican Party's institutionalized policy and practice of vote suppression." http://goo.gl/aNlHb

THIRD WAY SHOWS INDEPENDENT REGISTRATION UP: The center-left group has been studying voter enrollment in presidential battleground states for a year now. In their final analysis of the numbers in the 8 presidential battleground states with partisan voter registration since 2008, they find: Democratic registration is down 372,827, or 2.5%; Republican registration is up 158,037, or 1.3%; and independent registration is up 969,589, or 14.4%. Democrats have registered more than 400,000 in the last few months. First look at their 7-page memo: http://goo.gl/KMvB1.




BATTLEGROUND BRIEFING-THE PATH TO 270:

TOP 10 STATES FOR SPENDING THIS WEEK, via NBC's Domenico Montanaro:
1. Ohio ($30m)- Team Romney $18.5m/Team Obama $11.4m
2. Florida ($22m)- Team Romney $13.7/Team Obama $8.4
3. Virginia ($19.7m)- Team Romney $13.4m/Team Obama $6.3m
4. Pennsylvania ($13.7m)- Team Romney $10.8m/Team Obama $2.9m
5. Wisconsin ($10.8m)- Team Romney $7.8m/Team Obama $3m
6. Iowa ($9.8m)- Team Romney $6.7/Team Obama $3m
7. Colorado ($8.9m) - Team Romney $5.5m/Team Obama $3.3m
8. Nevada ($8.5m)- Team Romney $5.6/Team Obama $2.9m
9. New Hampshire ($7m)- Team Romney $4.7m/Team Obama $2.3m
10. Michigan ($5.7m) - Team Romney $5.2m/Team Obama $500k http://goo.gl/a53R3

SWING STATE HEADLINES-

DRUDGE BAIT-Denver Post: "Obama canvasser charged with groping Loveland woman's breasts." http://goo.gl/HNnzB

Union Leader: "Rubio in NH boosting Romney." http://goo.gl/s1Tsj

Boston Globe: "Romney pushes hard for rural vote." http://goo.gl/onDZy

Denver Post: "GOP cites voting machine errors; Colorado among six states getting letter from RNC chief counsel." http://goo.gl/3H8T3

Miami Herald: "Gov. Rick Scott not likely to extend early voting hours." http://goo.gl/VjxKa

Tampa Bay Times: "Is his base enough to deliver Fla to Obama?" http://goo.gl/skqBR

Des Moines Register: "Top aides reveal 10 reasons why their candidate will win on Tuesday." http://goo.gl/c4hPt

NYT: "In Wisconsin, real battleground is rural." http://goo.gl/ccRht

Richmond Times Dispatch: "In Richmond, Romney stops by Bills Barbecue." http://goo.gl/dCZui

Cleveland Plain Dealer: "Ann Romney, Bill Clinton wow supporters Thursday in Northeast Ohio." http://goo.gl/At5pD

Columbus Dispatch: "Clinton talks alternative energy, Jeep at Ohio campaign stop." http://goo.gl/dvP48

USA Today: "Starbucks CEO will support Obama for another term." http://goo.gl/uFZdh

MORNING MINDMELD: For all the coverage of the President Obama's ground superiority, there has been much less attention to the degree to which he is dominating the airwaves. Kantar Media's CMAG, counting every presidential ad aired from Oct. 24 to Oct. 30, found the Obama campaign aired TWICE as many spots as Romney - 35,731 to 17,277, with estimated spending of $24 million for Obama and $11 million for Romney.

But, but, but ... what about the outside groups? Even adding in the outside groups, the total Democratic message had 79,089 spots (Obama + outside groups), to 64,945 for Republicans. Spending, though, was at parity: $55 million for each side. Republicans will argue they are targeting more precisely, and had to buy later, more expensive time because of the primaries. Nevertheless, Democrats can claim more spot for the buck.

FINISH STRONG, FELLAS: For CMAG's week ending Tuesday, 99% of Romney ads were scored as having a negative tone. (The 1% were some lingering Spanish-language ads, and a spot showing Romney's women cabinet members praising him.) Obama ads were 85% negative. Among outside groups, Republicans were 89% negative and Democrats were 87% negative.


STRONG ROMNEY ENDORSEMENT -- Charles Krauthammer, "The Choice": "An Obama second term means that the movement toward European-style social democracy continues ... Should they summon the skill and dexterity, Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan could guide the country to the restoration of a more austere and modest government with more restrained entitlements and a more equitable and efficient tax code. Those achievements alone would mark a new trajectory - a return to what Reagan started three decades ago. Every four years we are told that the coming election is the most important of one's life. This time it might actually be true. At stake is the relation between citizen and state, the very nature of the American social contract." http://wapo.st/ThafuL

TEPID ROMNEY ENDORSEMENT -- David Brooks, "The final reckoning ": "When people say they wish Obama had embraced the Simpson-Bowles deficit-reduction plan, they don't mean the specific details of that proposal. They mean the largeness that Obama's inauguration promised and the Simpson-Bowles moment afforded. They mean confronting the hard choices, instead of promising more bounty for everyone with no sacrifice ever. ... No one is fair to President Obama. People grade him against tougher standards than any other politician. But his innate ability justifies that high standard. These are the standards he properly set for himself. If re-elected, he'd be free from politics. It'd be interesting to see if he returns to his earlier largeness." http://nyti.ms/TXTiUI

TEPID OBAMA ENDORSEMENT -- The Economist (cover is: "Which one?"): "America could do better than Barack Obama; sadly, Mitt Romney does not fit the bill ... [T]his election offers American voters an unedifying choice. Many of The Economist's readers, especially those who run businesses in America, may well conclude that nothing could be worse than another four years of Mr Obama. We beg to differ. For all his businesslike intentions, Mr Romney has an economic plan that works only if you don't believe most of what he says. That is not a convincing pitch for a chief executive. And for all his shortcomings, Mr Obama has dragged America's economy back from the brink of disaster, and has made a decent fist of foreign policy. So this newspaper would stick with the devil it knows, and re-elect him. http://econ.st/YsJ7fG

STRONG OBAMA ENDORSEMENT -- Mayor Michael Bloomberg on Bloomberg View, "Vote for a President to Lead on Climate Change ": "[O]ver the past four years, President Barack Obama has taken major steps to reduce our carbon consumption, including setting higher fuel-efficiency standards for cars and trucks. ... I believe Mitt Romney is a good and decent man, and he would bring valuable business experience to the Oval Office. ... If the 1994 or 2003 version of Mitt Romney were running for president, I may well have voted for him because, like so many other independents, I have found the past four years to be, in a word, disappointing. In 2008, Obama ran as a pragmatic problem-solver and consensus-builder.

"But as president , he devoted little time and effort to developing and sustaining a coalition of centrists, which doomed hope for any real progress on illegal guns, immigration, tax reform, job creation and deficit reduction. And rather than uniting the country around a message of shared sacrifice, he engaged in partisan attacks and has embraced a divisive populist agenda focused more on redistributing income than creating it. ... Presidents Bill Clinton and Ronald Reagan both found success while their parties were out of power in Congress -- and President Obama can, too. If he listens to people on both sides of the aisle, and builds the trust of moderates, he can fulfill the hope he inspired four years ago and lead our country toward a better future for my children and yours. And that's why I will be voting for him." http://bloom.bg/QaBsCB

BACKSTORY: Vice President Biden's gift for reading people played a role in the endorsement. He and Bloomberg have been friendly for years, and have played golf together. The V.P. had called the mayor over the weekend, and the had talked several times this week about Sandy. Then yesterday morning, Biden was in Davenport, Iowa, about to go to church for All Saints' Day. Finally, he made the ask, nudging Bloomberg toward the endorsement: "Mike, there's too much at stake. We really need you to do this." And the mayor did.

THE BATTLEGROUNDS:

--N.Y. Times A11 (second story on "Election 2012" dress page), "In Shift, Romney Campaign Approaches Pennsylvania With a New Urgency," by Jeremy W. Peters in Philly: "[T]he Romney campaign has decided to invest its most precious resource - the candidate's time - in a serious play to win Pennsylvania. Mr. Romney's appearance here on Sunday could be a crafty political move to seriously undercut President Obama, or it could be a sign of desperation. ... [O]vernight the race here became the most expensive test yet of whether Republicans and their armies of cash-flush outside groups could unsettle the race at the last minute. ... Pennsylvania has voted for the Democratic presidential nominee in every election for the last 20 years. Independent pollsters have called it the Republicans' white whale. ...

"But there is a tangible sense - seen in Romney yard signs on the expansive lawns of homes in the well-heeled suburbs, and heard in the excited voices of Republican mothers who make phone calls to voters in their spare time - that the race is tilting toward Mr. Romney. If ever there were a place where a last-ditch torrent of money could move the needle, this is it. For the last couple of months, there has been a void of presidential ads in Pennsylvania. So when Republican strategists looked for places where their money could go the furthest, they set their sights here, reasoning that a dollar spent in Erie or Altoona would have a greater impact than in a place like Las Vegas or Cleveland, where political commercials have clogged the airwaves." http://nyti.ms/SB2VeY

--L.A. Times 2-col. lead, "Romney has his back to the wall in Florida: In a must-win state for the Republican where he once held an edge, polls are now even and Latino votes vital," by David Lauter in Tampa: "[T]he outcome ... in the nation's largest swing state, now seems very much in doubt. Mitt Romney moved into a lead here after the first presidential debate, and since then, aides have insisted that Florida, with its 29 electoral votes, sat solidly in their column. But with several polls showing President Obama's fortunes improving here and Democrats performing well in early voting- as of Thursday morning, they led by about 59,000 out of more than 3 million absentee and in-person early votes - Romney has had to devote precious hours to defending his position in the state.

"With polls now in a dead heat, Romney campaigned in Florida on Saturday, returned Wednesday for rallies in Tampa, Miami and Jacksonville, and is expected back over the weekend, when Obama also is scheduled to campaign here. For Obama, victory in Florida is a prize; for Romney it's a necessity. Debates about whether Romney can carry Ohio or other Midwestern states become moot without a win here."

[Kev Bar]

Excuse me Count if you have this already. Didn't see it. And it's pretty devastating climate change attack on Mitt.

http://grist.org/politics/the-most-b...this-election/

[Count Bobulescu]

Excuse me Count if you have this already. Didn't see it. And it's pretty devastating climate change attack on Mitt.

http://grist.org/politics/the-most-b...this-election/

Yep, that, and variations on it have been playing all week.

[Captain Con O'Sullivan]

The most money spent this week. Isn't it lovely to see democracy backed by such amounts of money.

Almost restores one's faith in fellow man (and any Angry Bicycling Lesbians who happen to be about).

[DCon]

Pady Power paying out on an Obama victory

With still more than two days to go before America votes, bookmaker Paddy Power is paying out to punters who backed President Obama to win the US election.

Despite the national polls showing voters remain largely undecided with nothing more than a sheet of ballot paper between the two candidates, the bookmaker believes it is a done deal and that Obama is a "nailed-on certainty" to win a second term.

http://www.irishexaminer.com/breakin...ry-572945.html

[Count Bobulescu]

Pady Power paying out on an Obama victory

http://www.irishexaminer.com/breakin...ry-572945.html

That's both crazy and stupid.

[Count Bobulescu]

DES MOINES-Mitt Romney just made his last stop in Iowa as a candidate. Might he be president the next time he returns? We're motorcading to the airport for a flight to Cleveland, Ohio-the state likeliest to determine the answer to that question.

This morning's COLUMBUS DISPATCH puts Obama up just 2 in OHIO (50-48), within the margin of error: "The 'Ohio firewall' precariously stands for President Barack Obama, but a strong Republican turnout could enable Mitt Romney to tear it down on Election Day." http://goo.gl/pI5TZ

THE RACE IS TIED NATIONALLY: A POLITICO/George Washington University Battleground Poll out this morning shows a 48-48 dead heat. Independents split 44-43 for Obama. The parties tie 46-46 on the generic congressional ballot. Romney and Obama are now at parity on likability. Democrats continue to have an advantage on early voting, but Republicans closed the gap somewhat over the past week. 27 percent of those surveyed said they've already cast their ballot. Of them, Obama leads 50 to 48 percent. Another 58 percent who have not voted yet described themselves as "extremely likely" to vote. Of them, Romney leads 49 to 46 percent. Obama continues to be perceived as the frontrunner. Regardless of who they're supporting, 53 percent of voters say they believe the nation's first African-American president will win a second term. Story: http://goo.gl/JRGG3

The Hill: GOP ad firm defends anti-Obama texts as protected speech
By Brendan Sasso
The company's president says unsolicited texts denouncing the president's "radical social agenda" are an effective, legal campaign tool.

http://thehill.com/blogs/hillicon-va...otected-speech

BREAKING-CHRIS CHRISTIE WAS ROMNEY'S FIRST CHOICE FOR VP: "The strong internal push for Christie, and Romney's initial instinct to pick him for vice president, reflects how conflicted the nominee remained about choosing a running mate until the very end of the process," Mike Allen and Jim VandeHei scoop, offering a detailed insider's account. "Romney switched from Christie to Ryan in a span of about two weeks, according to a detailed inside account provided to POLITICO. Romney was so close to picking Christie that some top advisers at the campaign's Boston headquarters believed the governor had been offered the job. The campaign made tentative plans to announce a pick in late July, just before Romney headed off on his overseas trip, starting with a stop at the London Olympics...In fact, Christie was never the final choice. Romney hit 'pause' on the possibility shortly before his trip to the Olympics. Then he settled on Ryan the day after returning. Romney formally offered him the job within a week, leaving Christie hanging until shortly before the official announcement a week later." http://goo.gl/FGs7e

SHOT-MITT HAD HIS BIGGEST RALLY OF THE CAMPAIGN LAST NIGHT: He and Paul Ryan fired up the Republican base in John Boehner's home town of West Chester, Ohio. On a frigid fall night - you could see your breath in the air, and organizers handed out fleece blankets and hand warmers to the press - 100 GOP all-star surrogates gathered on a stage. It was an awesome visual. Those appearing with Romney and Ryan included former GOP rivals Rick Santorum and Rick Perry, and Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio and New Hampshire Sen. Kelly Ayotte. There's no question that this was Romney's biggest rally of the campaign - but just how many people turned out is unclear. The campaign announced that 30,000 people attended, but Secret Service sources said just 15,000 went through metal detectors. And local law enforcement counted the crowd at 18,000. Story with Juana Summers: http://goo.gl/0hYlB.

CHASER-Joe Biden last night at an Obama field office in Aurora, Colo.: "The ground operation which you guys represent ... is THE best in the history of presidential politics." http://goo.gl/VOa5X

LATEST POLLS-

CNN of OHIO: Obama up 3 (50-47): http://ow.ly/eZ0JdP.

NBC/WSJ/Marist posted at midnight-
OHIO: Obama up 6 (51-45). 70 percent of likely voters in both states approved of the president's handling of post-Sandy storm response. NBC's Mark Murray reports that Obama is winning the early vote in both states: http://nbcnews.to/RChtrG. Florida: http://on-msn.com/RChuM7. Ohio http://on-msn.com/RChrjB.

FLORIDA: Obama up 2 (49-47).
Tampa Bay Times/Bay News 9/Miami Herald of FLORIDA: Romney up 6 (51-45). Both the Herald and NBC/WSJ polls were conducted Tuesday through Thursday. Marc Caputo story credits crossover Dems: "Romney's crossover appeal is fueled by strong support in rural North Florida, a conservative bastion where a relatively high percentage of Democrats often vote Republican in presidential election years." http://hrld.us/PMzHvr

Denver Post of COLORADO: Obama up 2 (47-45): Romney led by 1 in a poll from last month. The poll also has Obama up 3 for those who have already voted (49 to 46). http://bit.ly/PrOREX

League of Conservation Voters of COLORADO: Obama up 4 (50-46). http://politi.co/PLvubk

New England College Poll of NEW HAMPSHIRE: Obama up 5 (49.5-44.4) http://bit.ly/SDh2RX

Washington Post/ABC Tracking Poll: Romney up 1 nationally (49-48) Obama was up 1 on Thursday's tracking poll, and was tied on Wednesday. http://wapo.st/RC7VNj

SANDY LATEST-

KARL ROVE SAYS HURRICANE HURT ROMNEY: "If you hadn't had the storm, there would have been more of a chance for the [Mitt] Romney campaign to talk about the deficit, the debt, the economy. There was a stutter in the campaign. When you have attention drawn away to somewhere else, to something else, it is not to his [Romney's] advantage," the Architect told The Washington Post in a story that went up Friday night. He also adds: "It's the October surprise ... For once, the October surprise was a real surprise." http://wapo.st/RC66jj

NEW JERSEY MILITARY VEHICLES COMING TO THE POLLS: "State election officials will use military trucks and vehicles as makeshift polling stations for the upcoming presidential election, as the state and the rest of the Eastern Seaboard recover from the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy," The Hill's Carlos Munoz reports. http://bit.ly/RCm3pC

AFTER BLOOMBERG CANCELED THE NYC MARATHON-Rupert Murdoch's advice for Christie, via Twitter: "Thanks Bloomberg right decision. @Now Christie, while thanking O, must re- declare for Romney, or take blame for next four dire years." http://bit.ly/RChZWp

AIR WAR-

OUTSIDE GROUPS SPEND MORE THAN HALF BILLION IN OCTOBER: POLITICO's Dave Levinthal reports that American Crossroads leads the way, spending $71.64 million last month: "All groups spent more than $526 million in total last month - a significant chunk of the $6 billion the Center for Responsive Politics predicts all federal-level candidates, parties and committees will spend during the 2012 election." http://politi.co/RCjkww

MORE THAN A MILLION ADS AIRED: Count of general election ads aired passes 1 million, according to the Wesleyan Media Project: "As of October 29, the two candidates, their party committees, and supporting interest groups had sponsored 1,015,615 ads since June 1, a 39.1% increase over 2008 (730,041) and a 41% increase over 2004 (720,064), during the same period." http://bit.ly/Sh9pgr

OBAMA TALKER-HE NEVER REALLY TALKS ABOUT CLIMATE CHANGE: ABC News's Abby Phillip writes about how, despite Bloomberg's endorsement highlighting the president's stance on climate change, the issue rarely if ever comes up. It's "in stark contrast to 2008 when Obama and ... John McCain could agree that cap-and-trade legislation was a necessary step to address global warming." http://abcn.ws/RCedwr

EARLY VOTING-

DOES OBAMA HAVE EDGE? POLITICO's Lois Romano reports that Obama is leading "an unprecedented voting push" but "... whether the intense efforts give the edge to Obama or Romney - wiser after Obama's 2008 success with early voting - remains to be seen." http://politi.co/RCcc39

GOP AHEAD OF 2008 EARLY VOTE IN KEY SWING STATES: POLITICO'S Charlie Mahtesian report: "According to data compiled by the United States Election Project and POLITICO, in Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Nevada and North Carolina, Republicans are running several points ahead of their 2008 pace, while Democrats are running several points behind, in percentage of early votes cast." http://politi.co/RCcE1o

SWING STATE HEADLINES-

Cleveland Plain Dealer lists the "5 events that shaped the presidential race" in the Buckeye State: The prolonged primary season brings a GOP primary to Ohio, Romney bypasses Portman for VP, Obama campaign wins legal fight for final-weekend voting, Romney stalls Obama's Ohio momentum by winning first debate, Sandy freezes the final week of the campaign. http://goo.gl/7oh5w

The Wisconsin State Journal, which endorsed Obama in 2008, backs Romney this morning: http://goo.gl/h5f4b.

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: "Presidential battle in Wisconsin similar to pivotal '04 race." Craig Gilbert: http://goo.gl/INJX2.

Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: "Ryan begins 11th hour campaign bid to Pennsylvania voters." http://goo.gl/e9u9B

Richmond Times-Dispatch: "Obama exhorts Prince William crowd: 'It's up to you.'" http://goo.gl/95BXH

Toledo Blade: "Ryan begins final sprint across Ohio to woo voters." http://goo.gl/l9kI9

Toledo Blade: "First Lady, Mrs. Biden rally Ohio voters; Wives crisscross state for Democratic ticket." http://goo.gl/nH6nf

Miami Herald: "About 4 million early FL ballots cast-and growing. Ds leading Rs by 104,000." http://goo.gl/RGouO

Tampa Bay Times: "Final day of early voting brings record numbers in Hillsborough and Pasco." http://goo.gl/XdeMK

Pueblo Chieftain: "Biden's message hits home." http://goo.gl/xGjDr
NYT A1: "In Ohio, a study in contrasts as 2 campaigns get out the vote." Lots of color: http://goo.gl/bRZql.

WSJ: "Both sides get-out-the-vote efforts have kinks." http://goo.gl/qA6JY
Washington Post offers a state-by-state analysis of key races in their pre-election pullout section: http://goo.gl/EW0BL.

CHOOSE YOUR OWN REALITY:

--Tampa Bay Times, 5-col. lead, "Romney remains on top: In our poll of likely Florida voters, the Republican challenger has a 6-point advantage over Obama," by Alex Leary: "Florida continues to look good for Mitt Romney. The Republican holds a 6-point lead in the state essential to his hopes of defeating President Barack Obama, according to a new Tampa Bay Times/Bay News 9/Miami Herald poll. The poll shows slight tightening, with Romney's 51-45 lead down 1 percentage point from the Times' statewide poll a month ago. Other Florida surveys show a tighter contest and both campaigns are blanketing the state with appearances geared toward scraping together every last vote.

"Still, nearly every key indicator in the Times' pre-Election Day poll reveals Romney's advantage in a state Obama won four years ago. Florida voters trust Romney more to fix the economy and give him an edge, 50 percent to 48 percent, on who will look out more for the middle class - a stark turn from past months when Obama and his allies unleashed a barrage of TV ads portraying Romney as an out-of-touch corporate raider. Romney even has a slight advantage on foreign policy." http://bit.ly/SiSvxZ

--WSJ A5, "Obama Holds Lead in Florida and Ohio Polls," by Neil King Jr.: "The Wall Street Journal/NBC News/Marist Poll surveys of likely voters released Friday show Mr. Obama maintaining a foothold little changed from four weeks ago, when the Journal surveyed voters in both states just after Mr. Romney's strong debate performance in Denver. The surveys found the two battling neck-and-neck in Florida, with Mr. Obama drawing 49% support among likely voters to Mr. Romney's 47%. Mr. Obama held a firmer lead in Ohio-51% to 45%, unchanged from mid-October."

INSIDE THE CAMPAIGNS

--"Christie was Mitt's first choice for VP," by Mike Allen and Jim VandeHei: "Romney was so close to picking Christie that some top advisers at the campaign's Boston headquarters believed the governor had been offered the job. The campaign made tentative plans to announce a pick in late July, just before Romney headed off on his overseas trip, starting with a stop at the London Olympics. 'Mitt liked him because he saw him as a street fighter,' a Romney official said. 'It's the kind of political mentality that Romney doesn't have, but admires. He wanted someone who could play the Chicago game [like Obama headquarters] on its own terms.' In fact, Christie was never the final choice. Romney hit 'pause' on the possibility shortly before his trip to the Olympics. Then he settled on Ryan the day after returning." http://politi.co/TARxkl

--"Obama's demographic gamble," by Alexander Burns in Las Vegas : "Obama is a solid favorite to carry Nevada on Tuesday - for reasons that illuminate not only how the president may win reelection Tuesday, but also why an Obama victory could offer a Democratic electoral template for decades to come. Obama is likely to get blown out among white voters on Election Day, narrowly lose independents nationwide and yet still win, based on historic margins among groups that often lean Democratic, but don't necessarily vote at high rates: Latinos, African-Americans, young people and unmarried women. Obama's campaign message reflects its faith in demographic and social destiny: the president has campaigned hard on immigration reform ... Democrats have pummeled Republicans for their opposition to abortion rights and funding for Planned Parenthood ... Obama touts accomplishments that appeal to a younger, socially liberal age group, such as repealing the 'Don't Ask, Don't Tell' ban on gays in the military.

"GOP leaders ... recognize that Democrats have an important edge in the composition of the electorate, and that winning here - both now and in the future - means appealing to a broader spectrum of voters than Romney has done this year." http://politi.co/SGS18u

"EARLY VOTING UPDATE," by AP's Stephen Ohlemacher: "More than 27 million people have already voted in 34 states and the District of Columbia, either by mail or in person. No votes will be counted until Tuesday but some key states are releasing the party affiliation of those who vote early."
--Colorado -- Votes: 1.6 million ... Democrats: 35 percent ... Republicans: 37 percent
--Florida -- Votes: 3.9 million ... Democrats: 43 percent ... Republicans: 40 percent
--Iowa -- Votes: 614,000 ... Democrats: 43 percent ... Republicans: 32 percent
--Nevada -- Votes: 628,000 ... Democrats: 44 percent ... Republicans: 37 percent
--North Carolina -- Votes: 2.5 million ... Democrats: 48 percent ... Republicans: 32 percent
--Ohio -- Votes: 1.6 million ... Democrats: 29 percent ... Republicans: 23 percen

[C. Flower]

Thanks for the great updates, Count.

Personally I find it hard to get any enthusiasm up for this process, with two firmly establishment options, but would still, if I was there with a vote, would have to drag myself out to vote against Mitt.

[Kev Bar]

Mitt on Mormonism...wild stuff.


http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1112/83310.html