Just published: Elephant in the Room: Washington in the Bush Years by Paul Glastris and Steve Benen.

The book explores why, despite efforts to airbrush him out of today’s political conversation, George W. Bush remains central to it.

First Read: “We noted yesterday the importance of Ohio in this presidential election and to Romney. But it’s hard to overstate it – this may be the make-or-break week for the campaign in the state. If this week’s bus tour doesn’t move the needle, as the Romney campaign might say, they very well could decide to all but write off the Buckeye State. They won’t say it explicitly; they’ll go through the motions, but they may have no choice than to try and shore up or make in roads in places like Wisconsin, Colorado Florida, and Virginia.”

Alex Burns: “Ohio isn’t the only reason why national Republicans are so pessimistic
about Romney’s campaign right now, but it is one of the big reasons, and
it’s why the Romney campaign’s continued references to national
tracking polls are wide of the mark. Even if Romney managed to move the
national campaign 2 to 3 points in his direction, it would probably
leave him short of a win unless he improved his position in Ohio by a
bigger margin.”

“This guy has gotten more free passes than a 12-year-old boy at a fair.”

— Rep. Mike Kelly (R-PA), in an interview with the Washington Post, on President Obama.

New York Times: “Mr. Obama was scheduled to attend a reception for world leaders
at the United Nations on Monday night. But a campaign adviser
acknowledged privately that in this election year, campaigning trumped
meetings with world leaders. ‘Look, if he met with one leader, he would
have to meet with 10,’ the aide said, speaking on the condition of
anonymity.”

President Obama “is running as the kind of careful, poll-watching politician he disdained the first time he ran for president,” Politico reports.

“Obama 2012 has become the silver-templed soul of caution, embracing Napoleon’s dictum of ‘never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake’… In doing so, Obama’s campaign team is seeking to take advantage of Romney’s own well-chronicled reluctance, at least so far, to release a slate of policy proposals comparable to the detailed blueprints put forth by Obama and other candidates four years ago.”

Mitt Romney’s campaign “may be struggling, but his transition operation is moving full steam ahead,” Politico reports.

“The transition effort — while necessary and appropriate for a GOP nominee so close to the election — is a jarring contrast to a campaign that appears on the ropes to many Republican strategists. Receiving no bump from the Tampa convention, Romney is plowing ahead with a methodical approach to staffing his would-be administration, despite the fact that his campaign is said by some to need a radical makeover.”

Glenn Reynolds interviews Dr. Jill Stein, Green Party candidate for president.

“Even Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson — in no danger of overexposure — is drawing much more press attention than she is. Stein puts that down to fear that if she got more attention, her candidacy would pull votes from the clear favorite in the race for many in the press, President Obama.”

“We had a bad week — if the election were going to be held tomorrow that
would be a problem, but there’s a lot of ground to cover in the next 42
days.”

— New Jersey Governor Chris Christie (R), quoted by Bloomberg, on the state of Mitt Romney’s campaign.

A new USA Today/Gallup poll finds that voters in 12 key swing states trust President Obama over
Mitt Romney to address issues facing the Medicare system,
50% to 44%.

Obama holds a slightly larger advantage on this issue among
voters nationally, 51% to 43%.

The Los Angeles Times reports Mitt Romney spoke about the concern he had for his wife when her plane had to make an emergency landing Friday because of an electrical malfunction.

Said Romney: “I appreciate the fact that she is on the ground, safe and sound. And I don’t think she knows just how worried some of us were. When you have a fire in an aircraft, there’s no place to go, exactly, there’s no — and you can’t find any oxygen from outside the aircraft to get in the aircraft, because the windows don’t open. I don’t know why they don’t do that. It’s a real problem. So it’s very dangerous. And she was choking and rubbing her eyes. Fortunately, there was enough oxygen for the pilot and copilot to make a safe landing in Denver. But she’s safe and sound.”

Saturday Night Live interviews people who are still undecided in the presidential election.

[Read more…]

Peter Beinart: “The more honest discussions take place behind closed doors, in the
innumerable private fundraisers that Romney and Obama do with their big
givers. Honesty, in fact, is part of what those donors are paying for.
No one shells out $50,000 to listen to the same platitudes that Joe and
Mary Six-Pack hear at a 5,000-person rally in Akron, Ohio. In the
“skybox” society (in Michael Sandel’s parlance) in which we live, the
super-rich don’t simply stand in different lines at the airport; they
experience a different presidential campaign.”

Nate Silver finds that of the 19 presidential candidates who led at this stage of the race since 1936, 18 won the popular vote (Thomas E. Dewey in 1948 is the exception), and 17 won the Electoral College (Al Gore lost it in 2000, along with Mr. Dewey).”

Also important: “There has not been any tendency, at least at this stage of the race, for the contest to break toward the challenging candidate. Instead, it’s actually the incumbent-party candidate who has gained ground on average since 1936. On average, the incumbent candidate added 4.6 percentage points between the late September polls and his actual Election Day result, whereas the challenger gained 2.5 percentage points.”

Here are the today’s swing state polls, updated as needed throughout the day:

Colorado: Obama 51%, Romney 45% (Public Policy Polling)

Florida: Obama 50%, Romney 45% (American Research Group)

Iowa: Obama 51%, Romney 44% (American Research Group)

Michigan: Obama 54%, Romney 42% (Rasmussen)

North Carolina: Obama 49%, Romney 45% (Civitas)

Nevada: Obama 51%, Romney 44% (American Research Group)

Wisconsin: Obama 53%, Romney 41% (We Ask America)