A new Time/CNN/Opinion Research poll in North Carolina finds President Obama and Mitt Romney locked in a virtual dead heat with
Romney up 48% to 47% among likely voters.

More details on the poll are available in the CNN/Time Convention Floor Pass app.

Meanwhile, a new SurveyUSA poll finds Obama and Romney tied at 43%.

Democrats bought a digital billboard facing the Tampa Bay Times Forum where Republicans are holding their national convention, BuzzFeed reports.

An image hitting Mitt Romney on outsourcing jobs flashes every 7.5 seconds.

“At this moment in time we’re quite literally looking at a hurricane
here in Florida. We’re looking at a political hurricane in this country.
We are looking at a spiritual hurricane in our land. And it is time for each one of us to show up and suit up and stand up
and realize that in this time and in this day we pour it out for Him.”

— Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN), quoted by CNN, who has previously suggested hurricanes are messages from God.

With Isaac headed toward New Orleans, Republican National Convention officials are considering a number of worst-case scenarios including a quick roll call and a truncated speech by Mitt Romney, National Journal reports.

“Officials conceded on the record for the first time Monday that plans for an already shortened three-day convention were in doubt… A senior GOP official said no decision had been made and none was likely Monday, but said the convention conceivably could be as short as a single day.”

Other reports suggested the convention could be cancelled entirely.

Kathleen Parker: “It is noteworthy that so many Republican men are focused on women’s reproduction and issues of the hearth, while veteran Republican women leaders are riveted on the economy and jobs. Could it be that the liberal goal of reversing sex roles finally is manifesting, most vividly within the party least likely to have advanced the cause of evolution? If only men could get pregnant, then we’d really have a rollicking debate. If only…”

“Meanwhile, Romney had better speak often and with conviction about his own disagreement with some of his party’s platform, or the anti-woman narrative will become so entrenched that the 2012 GOP may go down in history as having sacrificed the nation’s economy to protect the rights of human embryos.”

Chris Matthews exploded at RNC Chairman Reince Preibus on Morning Joe and accused the Republican party of playing the race card.

[Read more…]

Florida’s former Republican Gov. Charlie Crist will be a speaker at the Democratic National Convention, the AP reports.

Crist formally endorsed Obama over the weekend.

Mike Murphy: “Political conventions are over. Once, they meant something. I’d leap into the most terrifying of time machines to attend an old school political convention with armies of local pols battling it out under a thick cloud of blue tobacco smoke in a stuffy convention hall, while the string-pulling bosses cut pragmatic deals over whiskey and judicial appointments in lavish hotel suites. Those conventions had drama because outcomes were unknown and stakes were high. Today, delegates are bound through the application of TV ad ratings points, not machine deals. They sit in the convention hall like the background actors in a TV show, milling about to the director’s orders, wearing costumes and denied a single line. It seems a shabby ending to a great tradition. It’s time for a mercy killing.”

A new Mitchell Research poll in Michigan finds President Obama and Mitt Romney tied at 47% each.

Said pollster Steve Mitchell: “There is also reason to believe that theaddition of Paul Ryan to the ticket helps Romney. When the vice presidential candidates areadded to a trial ballot question, Romney/Ryan leads Obama/Biden by 1% (46%-45%). Whenasked if Congressman Ryan’s vice presidential candidacy makes them more or less likely tovote for Romney, 53% say it makes them more likely and 47% less likely.”

A longtime adviser to Vice President Joe Biden “sketched out a surprisingly detailed strategy” to Noam Scheiber for a Biden presidential bid in 2016.

“First, Biden is going to extravagant lengths to ensure his boss’s reelection while putting his own ambitions on hold, in the hope that the Obama brass will reward this selflessness when the time comes… Biden’s inner circle believes the strategy will position him to inherit key players on President Obama’s political team.”

“Step two of the master plan is leveraging Biden’s deep ties to traditional Democratic constituencies, such as labor, trial lawyers, and African American, Jewish, and gay groups and donors, the last of which were thrilled by his plug for same-sex marriage this May.”

Matthew Dowd: “This convention provides an opportunity and a possibility for Romney to grasp this moment. The only way he can do this is improve his personal standing with voters. He needs to get them to see him more positively as a leader and get them to trust that he has the their interests at heart. He needs to connect at a gut level with voters and shift their opinion of him from negative to at least neutral, if not positive. His campaign is making a mistake if they use this convention to primarily attack Obama. They need to make it about Mitt Romney.”

Even though Tampa’s strip clubs have advertised special deals for Republican delegates attending the GOP convention, the Tampa Bay Times says business hasn’t picked up.

“They all braced for a windfall from the Republican National Convention — three times a Super Bowl weekend was the industry number thrown around — but at least early Sunday morning many wondered if conservatives were being, well, conservative.”

Here are the highlights of the Republican convention schedule:

Monday: RNC Chair Reince Priebus gavels in the convention at 2:00 pm ET. No speakers planned.

Tuesday: Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval, Former Rep. Artur Davis, South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, Ann Romney, and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie with the keynote address.

Wednesday: Tim Pawlenty, Mike Huckabee, Condoleeza Rice, New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez and Rep. Paul Ryan.

Thursday: Sen. Marco Rubio and Mitt Romney.

“There is a distinct possibility that the 2012 Republican National Convention will be cancelled,” the Boston Globe reports.

A series of conversations with convention organizers made clear the Romney campaign realizes that Tropical Storm Isaac’s “potentially horrid wrath could eclipse any bunting-draped imagery they generate inside the Tampa Bay Times Forum. That would render the whole convention exercise a net loss for their candidate, rather than a positive force propelling him into the fall campaign.”

New York Times:
“Republicans were wary of the optics of television coverage split
between the revelry and partisanship surrounding Mr. Romney’s nomination
and the threat of the storm making landfall in Louisiana or Mississippi
seven years to the week after Hurricane Katrina left an American city
in ruins.”

A new Latino Decisions/impreMedia poll finds that 65% of Latino voters want to re-elect President Obama and 26% while prefer Mitt Romney.

“Some possible reasons for the stagnation of the Republican candidate are also reflected in the survey. One is the fact that Latino voters primarily blame former President George W. Bush for the state of the economy and not necessarily to President Obama. 68% blamed Bush for the economic downturn of recent years and only 14% blamed Obama.”

Mitt Romney conceded President Obama has succeeded in making him a less likable person in an interview with Politico but he offered a defiant retort to those hoping he will open up this week: “I am who I am.”

“Romney quoted that Popeye line three times in a 30-minute interview… swatting away advice from Republicans to focus on connecting with voters in a more emotional, human way at this convention.”

“The issue seems close to the surface for Romney. He even used the same line in an interview with Fox News that aired Sunday: “Remember that Popeye line: ‘I am what I am and that’s all what I am.'”

“The Republican Party needs to re-establish its philosophy of the big tent with principles. The philosophy you hear from time to time, which is unfortunate, is one of exclusion rather than inclusion. You have to be expanding the base, expanding the party, because compared to the Democratic Party, the Republican Party is a minority party.”

— Former Vice President Dan Quayle, quoted by the New York Times.