Joe Klein: “Over the past week, everyone’s been asking me who’s going to win. Beats me. I really don’t know. The polls seem stalled, hilariously inconclusive…. So we’re in the quiet eye of the election. And I promise you, this thing can spin either way when we emerge. There will be a jobs report this Friday. There may be other surprises. But anyone who claims to know who is going to win is blowing smoke.”

Greg Sargent reports the Mitt Romney campaign has now put a version of his controversial television ad on the radio in Toledo, Ohio — the site of a Jeep plant. The buy is roughly $100,000.

“The move seems to confirm that the Romney campaign is making the Jeep-to-China falsehood central to its final push to turn things around in the state. The Romney campaign has explicitly said in the past that it will not let fact checking constrain its messaging, so perhaps it’s not surprising that it appears to be expanding an ad campaign based on a claim that has been widely pilloried by fact checkers.”

First Read: “Now with Sandy moving away from the East Coast, the real impact begins today — assessing the damage, realizing what happened, and the government (federal, state, and local) beginning the recovery. And this is the true high-wire act for President Obama and his administration: making sure the recovery and relief begins immediately and as smoothly as possible. Every hiccup could get amplified; that’s the real political danger for the president. Then again, he has the bully pulpit and a job to do. Already, the late-night calls to Republican Gov. Chris Christie are public (thanks to Christie, not the president, by the way).”

Mike Allen: “As the presidential campaigns gingerly navigate the post-landfall environment, Mitt Romney has the more awkward and hazardous path. President Obama has been doing his day job, has a natural platform and can command a national audience at any moment. Romney, who felt he was surfing a wave of momentum, has to find a way to keep campaigning in states that weren’t affected, without looking cheap or opportunistic. At 11 a.m., per Romney’s schedule, he ‘will attend a storm relief event at the James S. Trent Arena in Kettering, Ohio, where he will be joined by Richard Petty and Randy Owen.’ This is risky business. If Romney is as capable of presidential mien as his advisers think, it will show. The downside could be devastating.”

“Romney has to avoid anything reminiscent of one of the campaign’s most cringe-worthy moments, when Paul Ryan breezed through a soup kitchen in Youngstown, Ohio, after the homeless patrons had left for the morning, put on a crispy-white apron and scrubbed a pot that appeared to the pool to already be clean. (Charity officials later clarified that it was dirty.) Romney has the chance to draw on his years as a Mormon bishop to show he understands tough times, and knows how to serve solemnly. But he has to resist obvious photo-opps.”

A new NPR poll shows Mitt Romney edging President Obama among likely voters nationally, 48% to 47%.

However, Obama leads by 4 percentage points, 50% to 46%, in 12 states battleground states: Nevada, Colorado, New Mexico, Iowa, Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, Virginia, North Carolina and Florida.

CNN: “The candidates are seeking to balance the real threat of a killer storm against the need to squeeze out any last-minute advantages on the campaign trail. For the next few days, routine campaigning may take a back seat. This week, it may all be about who can behave the most presidential.”

Stan Greenberg: ” I’ve seen tracking polls saying that Mitt Romney is either tied or leading in the presidential race, but we think that they are simply wrong. It’s not a conspiracy theory; those other polls are just simply missing a critical segment of President Obama’s coalition: cell phone users. Failing to survey those who don’t have land-lines — who tend to support the president by a significant margin — those polls are blind to the fact that Obama is on track to win re-election on November 6.”

The New York Times notes every late-night television producer has been chasing Mitt Romney “for weeks to try to secure a guest appearance, with no success so far. Mr. Romney also has declined invitations from a host of other media outlets who have landed President Obama for interviews, including MTV and NBC News, which was given two days of access to the president during his campaign tour last week.”

“In the waning days of an intensely close election, one campaign has clearly made a calculation that the late-night audience is valuable and worth courting, while the other has maintained late-night silence.”

President Obama said that the Republican party “would have to overcome an internal war if he were reelected, but expressed hope that the partisan gridlock in Washington could come to an end,” the Huffington Post reports.

Said Obama: “The question’s going to be, how do Republicans react post-election? Because there’s going to be a war going on inside that party. It just hasn’t broken up. It’s been unified in opposition to me.”

Bloomberg: “In 1997, Congress cracked down on a popular tax shelter that allowed rich people to take advantage of the exempt status of charities without actually giving away much money.”

“Individuals who had already set up these vehicles were allowed to keep them. That included Mitt Romney, then the chief executive officer of Bain Capital, who had just established such an arrangement in June 1996.”

“In this instance, Romney used the tax-exempt status of a charity — the Mormon Church, according to a 2007 filing — to defer taxes for more than 15 years. At the same time he is benefitting, the trust will probably leave the church with less than what current law requires.”

From a statement: “Gallup has suspended polling for its daily tracking as of Monday night and will reassess on a day-to-day basis. The ultimate effect on the overall picture of polling between now and this weekend, including election polling, will depend on what happens as a result of the storm, about which we will have a better understanding of on Tuesday and Wednesday of this week.”

The Economist: “To be brutal, a certain amount of bad weather on election day helps
conservatives in every democracy. In crude terms, car-driving
conservative retirees still turn out in driving rain, when bus-taking
lower-income workers just back from a night shift are more likely to
give rain-soaked polls a miss. School closures are a particular problem
for low-income families or single mothers scrambling to find childcare.
In this case, the weather is supposed to clear up well ahead of election
day, but the impact could be felt in the turnout of early voters.”

As the presidential campaign enters its final week, a new Pew Research poll finds President Obama “has failed to regain much of the support he lost in the days following the first presidential debate and the race is now even among likely voters: 47% favor Obama while an identical percentage supports Mitt Romney.”

A new American Research Group poll shows the race tied at 48%.

These results are also similar to what tracking polls currently show.

Here are the latest polls from the battleground states:

Colorado: Romney 48%, Obama 47% (American Research Group)

Florida: Romney 50%, Obama 49% (CNN/ORC)

North Carolina: Obama 45%, Romney 45% (Elon University)

Ohio: Romney 50%, Obama 48% (Rasmussen)

Nate Silver notes the hurricane hitting the east coast means we’ll likely see “a reduction in the number of polls issued over the coming days… And certainly, any polls in the states that are most in harm’s way, including Virginia, New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland and Pennsylvania, will need to be interpreted with extreme caution.”

A new Boston Globe poll in Massachusetts shows Sen. Scott Brown (R) with a razor thin lead over Elizabeth Warren (D) in their U.S. Senate race among likely voters, 45% to 43%.

In September, Warren held a five point lead.

However, Brown’s lead evaporates, with 47% for each candidate, when voters who are undecided are asked which candidate they are leaning toward.

Former President Bill Clinton is planning to visit Minnesota this week to shore up support for President Obama, the Minneapolis Star Tribune reports.

“Minnesota has not been on that swing state list but a Star Tribune Minnesota Poll, published Sunday, shows a newly tight race… The sudden attention comes as both campaigns have started buying advertising time in Minnesota, which had been lacking until last week.”

Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-MO) is out with a new ad that includes a clip of challenger Todd Akin’s (R) controversial interview in which he argued that “legitimate rape” rarely causes pregnancy.

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