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)

Linda McMahon (R) has not only buried Rep. Chris Murphy (D) in a blizzard of advertising in their U.S. Senate race, “but for weeks she was getting a better deal on her commercials than her more poorly funded rival,” the Stamford Advocate reports.

“McMahon enjoyed a lower rate because many of the contracts with the state’s four major networks were signed as early as the end of April… The early contracts appear to have saved McMahon tens of thousands of dollars up until Sept. 6, when the 60-day period before the election triggered federal requirements of equal billing and availability of broadcast slots.”

Examples: “One recent billing report filed by WFSB, the CBS affiliate on Channel 3, showed that Murphy was charged $900 for a 30-second ad on its evening Eyewitness News. McMahon was charged $40 for a similar spot. A 30-second spot on “Sunday Morning” cost Murphy $800, while McMahon had to pay only $85.”

The first presidential debate is in just nine days.

Rick Klein notes Mitt Romney is under pressure to deliver, “particularly the first encounter Oct. 3 in Denver. His campaign needs to create major moments to change the trajectory of the race, and no opportunity is as ready-made for that as much as the first debate. Romney can make his case on the economy face-to-face with the president.”

Though Democrats often hit Mitt Romney for having an offshore bank account in the Cayman Islands, BuzzFeed finds a 2010 video of running mate Paul Ryan calling the Cayman Islands “the place you hide your money” while making the case for changing the corporate income tax.

The New Yorker asks Mitt Romney if it was possible to run the government the way you would run a business.

Said Romney: “The private sector is less forgiving. If you make serious mistakes in the private sector, you’ll lose your job, or, if you’re in a position of responsibility, you might lose other people’s jobs. In politics, politicians make mistakes all the time and blame their opposition, or borrow more money, or raise taxes to pay for their mistake. In the business world, the ability to speak fast and convincingly is of very little value. I remember the first time I met Jack Welch. I expected him to be a super-salesman. Instead, he spoke quietly, somewhat haltingly, but brilliantly. Stuff matters a lot more than fluff in the private sector.”

It’s a subject we tackle at length in You Won – Now What?

First Read: “The Romney camp’s timing was smart — on its worst week of the campaign, dump all the bad news you can to get everything out of the way. But the campaign also didn’t answer all the questions about Romney’s past tax returns; the only way to do that would be to release the actual returns, not a short summary. But here’s the bottom line about the tax-return issue: The Obama campaign succeeded in making it a talking point and attack (just see its new TV ad), and the Romney camp seems to have succeeded in its goal to not release the actual returns prior to 2010.”

The Week has four takeaways on what Romney’s tax returns tell us about him.

The Obama campaign ties together Mitt Romney’s “47% moment” with the release of his 2011 tax return in a tough new ad.

[Read more…]

Amy Walter talks off-the-record to a handful of Democratic and Republican political operatives who agree that Wisconsin, Nevada, and Ohio “are the toughest states for Romney to win. If he loses all three he can’t win. Even if he swept all the other toss up states he’d end up with just 267 to Obama’s 271.”

Florida, Colorado, and New Hampshire are the best opportunities for Romney and though recent polling has Obama up in Virginia, “operatives on both sides think the state is much more competitive than that.”

First Read: “Right now, you could argue that Obama is in a stronger position in North
Carolina (his most challenging battleground state) than Romney is in
Ohio (a state that EVERY victorious Republican presidential nominee has
won).”

In a Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel interview, Rep. Paul Ryan slapped back at conservative critics who say the Romney campaign has been vague and timid.

Said Ryan: “A, we still have a ways to go. We still have a lot left that we’re planning on doing. B, I think that’s just what conservatives do by nature. I think that’s just the nature of conservative punditry is to do that – to kind of complain – about any imperfection they might see.”

The Week looks at Romney’s five toughest Republican critics.

Andrew Sullivan: “If Obama wins, to put it bluntly, he will become the Democrats’ Reagan. The narrative writes itself. He will emerge as an iconic figure who struggled through a recession and a terrorized world, reshaping the economy within it, passing universal health care, strafing the ranks of al -Qaeda, presiding over a civil-rights revolution, and then enjoying the fruits of the recovery. To be sure, the Obama recovery isn’t likely to have the same oomph as the one associated with Reagan–who benefited from a once-in-a-century cut of top income tax rates (from 70 percent to, at first, 50 percent, and then to 28 percent) as well as a huge jump in defense spending at a time when the national debt was much, much less of a burden. But Obama’s potential for Reagan status (maybe minus the airport-naming) is real.”

“Yes, Bill Clinton won two terms and is a brilliant pol bar none, as he showed in Charlotte in the best speech of both conventions. But the crisis Obama faced on his first day–like the one Reagan faced–was far deeper than anything Clinton confronted, and the future upside therefore is much greater. And unlike Clinton’s constant triangulating improvisation, Obama has been playing a long, strategic game from the very start–a long game that will only truly pay off if he gets eight full years to see it through. That game is not only changing America. It may also bring his opposition, the GOP, back to the center, just as Reagan indelibly moved the Democrats away from the far left.”

New York Times: “Through the halls of Congress and well beyond, a whisper campaign is bursting into the open: Rather than burden him with the usual constraints on a ticket’s No. 2 not to upstage or get ahead of the presidential nominee, let Ryan be Ryan and take a detailed, policy-heavy fight to President Obama and the Democrats.”