“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.”

Washington Post: “Two presidential campaigns dealing with sudden reversals of fortune descended on this must-have state Tuesday, one hoping to sustain a new momentum, the other hoping to regain its footing. In both rhetoric and demeanor, President Obama and Republican Mitt Romney came to Ohio acutely aware of the altered terrain. Romney, buoyed by new polls that show him pulling ahead of the president, has shed the languid pace that characterized his travels as recently as last weekend. He appears renewed, even ebullient, and so do his crowds…”

“The race comes down to a few crucial battleground states, none more important than Ohio. And Romney has struggled here.”

Amy Walter: “To win the Buckeye State, Romney needs to do more than close the polling gap or win the early voting race. The Republican nominee has got to re-make his image which has taken a pounding by relentless attacks by Democrats. Can he show Ohioans that he shares their middle class values? Or have Ohioans already formed a solid opinion of him that can’t be changed in the last four weeks?”

The AP reports the presidential battleground map “is as compact as it’s been in decades, with just nine states seeing the bulk of candidate visits, campaign ads and get-out-the-vote efforts in the hunt for the 270 Electoral College votes needed for victory. That means just a fraction of Americans will determine the outcome of the race for the White House.”

Pollster David Paleologos of Suffolk University told Bill O’Reilly that his organization will not be doing any further polls in Florida, North Carolina and Virginia because he believes President Obama has no chance to win those states.

[Read more…]

“We weren’t geniuses last week and we’re not stupid this week. It’s going to be a tight race. We’ve always said that.”

— An unnamed Obama adviser, in an interview with Mark Halperin, while adding that “we have more routes to win than he does.”

Nate Cohn: “Over the next few days, more surveys will weigh-in on the size of
Romney’s post-debate bounce. But it’s important to keep an eye on
whether the polls are measuring the peak of Romney’s bounce, which looks
like it was around 4 points before the polls with Sunday interviews
pointed toward a smaller one, or whether they’re measuring the weekend
and later, when there are signs that Romney’s bounce began to fade.
Resolving the size of Romney’s bounce and whether it lasted are two
important, but separate questions. We’ll need to be careful to track
both.”

President Obama “will attend his last fundraiser of the 2012 campaign Thursday and then shift into top gear following his disastrous recent debate performance that vaporized his polling lead over challenger Mitt Romney,” The Hill reports.

Sources say the president “will spend the rest of the campaign at swing-state rallies or preparing for the next two debates instead of attending more private fundraisers.”

“You have to scratch your head when the president spends the last week talking about saving Big Bird. I actually think we need to have a president who talks about saving the American people and saving good jobs.”

— Mitt Romney, quoted by Politico.

Here are the latest polls from the battleground states:

Colorado: Romney 50%, Obama 46% (American Research Group)

Nevada: Obama 47%, Romney 47% (Rasmussen)

New Hampshire: Obama 47%, Romney 41% (WMUR)

North Carolina: Romney 50%, Obama 41% (Gravis)

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

Ohio: Obama 45%, Romney 44% (SurveyUSA)

Ohio: Obama 51%, Romney 47% (CNN/ORC)

Pennsylvania: Obama 43%, Romney 40% (Siena)

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) has hired Allison Gollust, former head spokesperson at NBC Universal, as his new communications director, Azi Paybarah reports.

“Gollust may be a more out-front presence than her predecessor, particularly once Cuomo lifts his self-imposed virtual ban on non-New York media in the run-up to 2016. She is replacing Richard Bamberger, a personal-publicity-shy former television producer who is departing for a job in the private sector.”

Rep. Sean Duffy (R-WI) touts a major endorsement in a new ad — his own mother. Carol Duffy explains that she’s “a lifelong Democrat” and her Republican son “really had to earn” her vote.

[Read more…]

President Obama “did not take his debate preparation seriously, ignored the advice of senior aides and walked off the stage in Denver believing he had got the better of Mitt Romney,” Toby Harnden reports.

A top Democrat “said that Obama’s inner circle was dismayed at the ‘disaster’ that the first presidential debate had turned out to be and believed that the central problem was that the President was so disdainful of Romney that he didn’t believe he needed to engage with him… The Democrat, who is aligned with the Obama campaign and has been an unofficial adviser on occasions, said that David Axelrod, Obama’s chief strategist, was stunned that the President left the stage feeling that he had won the debate.”

The DNC “had more debt than cash on hand when the general election started in September, a troubling fact few people have noticed to this point in the campaign,” the Washington Post reports.

“We already knew that the Republican National Committee had more than 10 times as much cash as the DNC while the party’s were holding their conventions, but a closer look at the DNC’s August report shows it also took out $8 million in loans during that month — which means it had more debt ($11.8 million) than cash on hand ($7.1 million).”