A new Pan Atlantic SMS poll in Maine shows Angus King (I) way ahead in the U.S. Senate race with 50%, followed by Charlie Summers (R) at 24% and Cynthia Dill (D) at 12% with another 14% still undecided in the race.

A new Esquire/Yahoo! News poll finds that Americans would trust President Obama more to look after their dog when they’re out of town than Mitt Romney, 52% to 27%.

“I think it’s fair to say I was just too polite.”

— President Obama, quoted by the Huffington Post, on why he didn’t do well in the first presidential debate.

The Heritage Foundation eviscerates the Obama administration in a brutal video highlighting the inconsistencies in it’s timeline on what happened during the attack on the U.S. consulate in Libya.

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BuzzFeed finds interesting search results for “completely wrong.”

A pretty amazing video.

Josh Marshall: “I think with a few more sharp cuts and some of that foreboding voiceover work something like this could be a pretty lethal campaign ad for the Obama folks.”

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“A pro-life, family-values congressman who worked as a doctor before winning election as a Tea Party-backed Republican had an affair with a patient and later pressured her to get an abortion,” according to a phone call transcript obtained by the Huffington Post.

Rep. Scott DesJarlais (R-TN) “was trying to save his marriage at the time, according to his remarks on the call, made in September of 2000. And, according to three independent sources familiar with the call and the recording, he made the tape himself.”

First Read: “While vice-presidential debates typically don’t have much bearing on the presidential contest, tomorrow night’s Joe Biden-vs.-Paul Ryan showdown has put pressure on both sides. Team Obama NEEDS a strong performance from Biden to make up for last week and change the subject; another bad outing by a member of the ticket and the Democratic handwringing could turn into a full-fledged panic. Meanwhile, Team Romney needs a solid outing from Ryan to keep up the momentum.”

“As we wrote last week, consider tomorrow night Game 2 of a baseball playoff series. After ace Romney beat ace Obama in Game 1, Democrats are looking for their No. 2 starter, Biden, to even the score. And Republicans are looking to go 2-0. That’s what at stake Thursday, and that’s why there’s more pressure on Biden than on Ryan.”

The Week The most important vice presidential debate ever?

The big political story of the day may be Rep. Darrell Issa’s (R-CA) House Oversight and Government Reform hearing on the attack on the U.S. consulate in Libya.

First Read: “How concerned is the Obama administration about today’s hearing, which starts at noon ET? Concerned enough that the State Department — after weeks of near-silence — yesterday gave a tick-tock of what happened in Libya, and that tick-tock doesn’t even remotely match what UN Ambassador Susan Rice said in the days after the attack (that it was sparked by that anti-Islam video and that it wasn’t premeditated). Of course, the Obama administration has since revised its story, and it’s better to be late than never. But there’s no doubt that today’s hearing is going to be – at the very least — a headache for the White House.”

Interestingly, the Washington Post reports Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will not appear at the hearing. The State Department “will instead send a trusted career diplomat along with three security officials.”

Nate Silver: “The forecast model is not quite ready to jump on board with the notion that the race has become a literal toss-up; Mr. Romney will need to maintain his bounce for a few more days, or extend it into high-quality polls of swing states, before we can be surer about that.”

“But we are ready to conclude that one night in Denver undid most of the advantage Mr. Obama had appeared to gain in September.”

A Bloomberg analysis finds that Democrats hold the registration advantage over Republicans in four of six battleground states that will play a key role in the presidential election.

“Democrats have the edge over Republicans in Florida, Iowa, Nevada and North Carolina. In Colorado and New Hampshire, Republicans outnumber Democrats, according to the analysis of state data. Three other battlegrounds — Ohio, Virginia and Wisconsin — don’t report registration statistics by party.”

Mitt Romney told the Des Moines Register that he has no plans to push for legislation limiting abortion, an abrupt switch for a candidate who has said he would appoint Supreme Court justices who would overturn Roe v. Wade.

Said Romney: “There’s no legislation with regards to abortion that I’m familiar with that would become part of my agenda.”

Spokeswoman Andrea Saul later walked back the comment telling the National Review that Romney “would of course support legislation aimed at providing greater protections for life.”

Mark Halperin: “If the Obama campaign has cracked the code on how to make Mitt Romney pay a political price for his late rush to the center on tone and emphasis, we haven’t seen them execute their full plan yet. That might be the central tactical question in the presidential contest right now.”

“That’s my party: Irrational overconfidence followed by irrational despair.”

Democratic consultant Jim Jordan, quoted by Politico, on the growing angst among Democrats as Mitt Romney surges in the polls.

BuzzFeed: “In the blur of well-heeled good looks and generic charisma that defines the public perception of the Romney brood, it’s easy for outside observers to differentiate among them, and to miss the increasingly active role being seized by the candidate’s eldest son. But over the past two months, Tagg has emerged not only as his father’s most motivated surrogate, but also as his most trusted ally and key political adviser.”

Politico looks at the unusual TV-buying strategy by the Romney campaign.

“Unlike other presidential campaigns, which typically outsource their ad reservations and placement to specialized firms with large teams that know how to make the most of the complicated FCC payment procedures, Romney does all his TV buying in-house through a lean operation headed by a single chief buyer.”

“The campaign rarely buys cable ad time, focusing overwhelmingly on broadcast television. Romney places his commercials on a week-to-week basis, rather than booking time well in advance, and typically pays more so that his ads don’t get preempted and to spare his campaign the hassle of haggling over time as prices rise.”

First Read: “If Obama ends up winning the presidential contest, it could very well
come down to this: Team Obama has a tactical advantage over Team Romney,
and that’s especially true when it comes to advertising strategy.”