Mitt Romney political director Rich Beeson told BuzzFeed the campaign’s internal polls are telling a different story than the public polls.

Said Beeson: “The public polls are what the public polls are. I kind of hope the Obama campaign is basing their campaign decisions on the public polls… I have great faith in our data.”

He added, “We are, by any stretch, inside the margin of error in Ohio.”

Police investigating the weekend break-in at Rep. Michael Grimm’s (R-NY) campaign office tell the New York Times that “experts had examined the campaign’s computer systems and concluded that nothing had been erased or tampered with” and that “there was no evidence that an intruder had been in the office.”

“At this point, there is no indication that it was anything other than an act of vandalism.”

However, Grimm told the Staten Island Advance that the incident was nothing less than an “attack on free elections.”

Update: The AP reports police now say a teenager has admitted to the vandalism.

Greg Sargent: “Mitt Romney might still win this election, but he’s now stuck in a trap that will be difficult to escape. Americans are rejecting his argument that they should view their choice mostly as a referendum on Obama’s economic performance, because they blame the sluggish recovery on the magnitude of the mess Obama inherited from George W. Bush, and believe things will get better in Obama’s second term. That is putting pressure on Romney to be more specific about why his alternative, such as it is, would spark a faster recovery than is occurring under Obama.”

“But Romney can’t be too much more specific about that alternative, because it risks reminding voters of the degree to which his policies resemble those of the aforementioned George W. Bush, under whom the meltdown happened in the first place.”

Sen. Scott Brown’s (R-MA) staffers chanted Indian “war whoops” and made “tomahawk chops” during a campaign rally for the senator this week, WCVB-TV reports.

A video shows Brown staffers holding campaign signs “chanting and making tomahawk chops, presumably in reference to Elizabeth Warren’s claims of Cherokee heritage.”

[Read more…]

Here are the latest polls from the battleground states, updated as needed through the day:

Florida: Obama 51%, Romney 47% (Washington Post)

Nevada: Obama 52%, Romney 43% (PPP/LCV)

Nevada: Obama 46%, Romney 46% (Bolger)

Ohio: Obama 52%, Romney 44% (Washington Post)

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

Pennsylvania: Obama 48%, Romney 40% (Mercyhurst University

Mitt Romney got a warm introduction from Bill Clinton before of his speech at the Clinton Global Initiative, Politico reports.

Romney thanked Clinton: “If there’s one thing we’ve learned in this election by the way it’s that a few words from Bill Clinton can do a lot of good.”

He joked that he would now wait a few days for his “bounce.”

National Journal: “It has become a recurring refrain among some Republican pundits and observers each time a new poll shows President Obama or downballot Democrats doing well: Check the party composition.”

“Critics allege that pollsters are interviewing too many Democrats — and too few Republicans or independents — and artificially inflating the Democratic candidates’ performance. Pollsters counter that the results they are finding reflect slight changes in public sentiment — and, moreover, adjusting their polls to match arbitrary party-identification targets would be unscientific.”

Just published: Elephant in the Room: Washington in the Bush Years by Paul Glastris and Steve Benen.

The book explores why, despite efforts to airbrush him out of today’s political conversation, George W. Bush remains central to it.

First Read: “We noted yesterday the importance of Ohio in this presidential election and to Romney. But it’s hard to overstate it – this may be the make-or-break week for the campaign in the state. If this week’s bus tour doesn’t move the needle, as the Romney campaign might say, they very well could decide to all but write off the Buckeye State. They won’t say it explicitly; they’ll go through the motions, but they may have no choice than to try and shore up or make in roads in places like Wisconsin, Colorado Florida, and Virginia.”

Alex Burns: “Ohio isn’t the only reason why national Republicans are so pessimistic
about Romney’s campaign right now, but it is one of the big reasons, and
it’s why the Romney campaign’s continued references to national
tracking polls are wide of the mark. Even if Romney managed to move the
national campaign 2 to 3 points in his direction, it would probably
leave him short of a win unless he improved his position in Ohio by a
bigger margin.”

“This guy has gotten more free passes than a 12-year-old boy at a fair.”

— Rep. Mike Kelly (R-PA), in an interview with the Washington Post, on President Obama.

New York Times: “Mr. Obama was scheduled to attend a reception for world leaders
at the United Nations on Monday night. But a campaign adviser
acknowledged privately that in this election year, campaigning trumped
meetings with world leaders. ‘Look, if he met with one leader, he would
have to meet with 10,’ the aide said, speaking on the condition of
anonymity.”

President Obama “is running as the kind of careful, poll-watching politician he disdained the first time he ran for president,” Politico reports.

“Obama 2012 has become the silver-templed soul of caution, embracing Napoleon’s dictum of ‘never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake’… In doing so, Obama’s campaign team is seeking to take advantage of Romney’s own well-chronicled reluctance, at least so far, to release a slate of policy proposals comparable to the detailed blueprints put forth by Obama and other candidates four years ago.”

Mitt Romney’s campaign “may be struggling, but his transition operation is moving full steam ahead,” Politico reports.

“The transition effort — while necessary and appropriate for a GOP nominee so close to the election — is a jarring contrast to a campaign that appears on the ropes to many Republican strategists. Receiving no bump from the Tampa convention, Romney is plowing ahead with a methodical approach to staffing his would-be administration, despite the fact that his campaign is said by some to need a radical makeover.”

Glenn Reynolds interviews Dr. Jill Stein, Green Party candidate for president.

“Even Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson — in no danger of overexposure — is drawing much more press attention than she is. Stein puts that down to fear that if she got more attention, her candidacy would pull votes from the clear favorite in the race for many in the press, President Obama.”

“We had a bad week — if the election were going to be held tomorrow that
would be a problem, but there’s a lot of ground to cover in the next 42
days.”

— New Jersey Governor Chris Christie (R), quoted by Bloomberg, on the state of Mitt Romney’s campaign.

A new USA Today/Gallup poll finds that voters in 12 key swing states trust President Obama over
Mitt Romney to address issues facing the Medicare system,
50% to 44%.

Obama holds a slightly larger advantage on this issue among
voters nationally, 51% to 43%.