A new Washington Post-ABC News poll shows Mitt Romney edging President Obama, 47% to 46%, among registered voters — “barely changed from the deadlocked contest in early July.”

“The findings continue a months-long pattern, with neither the incumbent nor the challenger able to sustain clear momentum, despite airing hundreds of millions of dollars in television ads — most of them negative — and exchanging some of the harshest early rhetoric seen in a modern presidential campaign.”

New York Times: “With the U.S. presidential election just over two months away and the Republican convention opening on Tuesday, it is not lost on either camp that American expatriates might make a difference this year, much like the role they played in Florida in 2000. Overseas voters, especially military voters, cast crucial votes in a close election ultimately decided by the Supreme Court in favor of George W. Bush.”

“The common caricature is that expats tend to be affluent, or
military-linked, and thus conservative; or unpatriotic malcontents, and
thus left-leaning. The actual picture is more complicated.”

“I do think that the president’s campaign of personal vilification and demonization probably draws some people away from me.”

— Mitt Romney, in an interview with USA Today, explaining why he’s running behind President Obama in the polls.

Mike Huckabee rallied hundreds of Southern Baptists on a conference call in support of Rep. Todd Akin (R-MO), offering advice about how they can help the embattled Missouri Senate candidate stay in the race, Politico reports.

Said Huckabee: “This could be a Mount Carmel moment. You know, you bring your gods. We’ll bring ours. We’ll see whose God answers the prayers and brings fire from heaven. That’s kind of where I’m praying: that there will be fire from heaven, and we’ll see it clearly, and everyone else will to.”

Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) told the New York Times that GOP convention planners had offered him an opportunity to speak before delegates under two conditions: that he deliver remarks vetted by the Romney campaign, and that he give a full-fledged endorsement of Mr. Romney. He declined.

Said Paul: “It wouldn’t be my speech. That would undo everything I’ve done in the last 30 years. I don’t fully endorse him for president.”

Charles Mahtesian: “Paul’s refusal to play ball stands in contrast to his son, Kentucky
Sen. Rand Paul, who at some personal political cost has endorsed Mitt
Romney’s bid — and has a speaking slot.”

“When you have a party that says coded things, that makes totally false
ads up, falsely saying the president is trying to undo welfare reform, I
think you’re going to see a lot of heavily and not-so-subtly coded
messages from the Romney-Ryan campaign.”

— Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley (D), in an interview on CNN’s State
of the Union, accusing the Romney campaign of playing dog whistle politics.

New York Times: “Having survived a summer of attacks but still trailing the president narrowly in most national polls, Mr. Romney’s campaign remains focused intently on the economy as the issue that can defeat Mr. Obama. But in a marked change, Mr. Romney has added a harder edge to a message that for most of this year was focused on his business and job-creation credentials, injecting volatile cultural themes into the race.”

“The strategic shift in the campaign message that has been unfolding in recent weeks reflects a conclusion among Mr. Romney’s advisers that disappointment with Mr. Obama’s economic stewardship is not sufficient to propel Mr. Romney to victory on its own.”

A new Columbus Dispatch poll in Ohio finds the presidential race a dead heat with President Obama and Mitt Romney each at 45%.

Caveat: The poll is a mail-in survey.

“The Obama and Romney campaigns spend all day beating the pulp out of each other over policy differences, big and small. But when it comes to the political landscape and the dynamics of who prevails, the two sides agree on an awful lot,” Politico reports.

“Both sides predict the race will remain tied in the national polls — and in the 10 states that matter most — until three weeks before Election Day, if not longer. Both think the race will finish 51-49, or closer. But both believe that if one candidate could win bigger — and reach a tipping point that provides a real cushion — it would be Mitt Romney, pulling away at the very end because he crossed the plausibility threshold after the third and final debate.”

“I don’t think about it. I’m not motivated by it. It takes an
incredible amount of discipline and ambition. I’m not there yet in my life.”

— Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, in a Meet the Press interview, on whether he’ll run for president in the future.

The Tampa Bay Times also has a very interesting interview with Bush.

The DNC released a movie-style preview called The Do-Over which makes mocks Republicans for trying to remake Mitt Romney’s image at their convention.

It’s rated “N” for “Not Gonna Work.”

[Read more…]

Former Florida Gov. Charlie Crist, elected as a Republican but now an independent, used a Tampa Bay Times op-ed to endorse President Obama:

“Pundits looking to reduce something as big as a statewide election to a single photograph have blamed the result of my 2010 campaign for U.S. Senate on my greeting of President Obama. I didn’t stand with our president because of what it could mean politically; I did it because uniting to recover from the worst financial crisis of our lifetimes was more important than party affiliation. I stood with our nation’s leader because it was right for my state.”

“President Obama has a strong record of doing what is best for America and Florida, and he built it by spending more time worrying about what his decisions would mean for the people than for his political fortunes. That’s what makes him the right leader for our times, and that’s why I’m proud to stand with him today.”

A new Tarrance Group poll shows President Obama leading Mitt Romney by just one point nationally, 47% to 46%, with another 7% still undecided.

A new Kimball Political Consulting poll in Massachusetts finds Sen. Scott Brown (R-MA) leading Elizabeth Warren (D) in the U.S. Senate race by six points, 43% to 49%.

The result is similar to a PPP poll released earlier this week.

RNC Chairman Reince Priebus announced that the GOP would cancel Monday’s convention events due to Tropical Storm Isaac, The Hill reports.

“Immediately following Priebus’s announcement, the White House said Vice President Joe Biden had postponed his entire trip to Florida scheduled next week.”

The AP says the presidential race is coming down to seven states: Colorado, Florida,
Iowa, Ohio, Nevada, New Hampshire and Virginia, which offer a combined
85 electoral votes.

“The analysis, which also took into account the strength of a
candidate’s on-the-ground organization and travel schedules, found that
if the election were held today, Obama would have 19 states and the
District of Columbia, offering 247 votes, solidly in his column or
leaning his way, while Republican Romney would have 24 states with 206
votes.”

The Economist absolutely rips Mitt Romney.

“All politicians flip-flop from time to time; but Mr Romney could win an Olympic medal in it… And that is a pity, because this newspaper finds much to like in the history of this uncharismatic but dogged man, from his obvious business acumen to the way he worked across the political aisle as governor to get health reform passed and the state budget deficit down. We share many of his views about the excessive growth of regulation and of the state in general in America, and the effect that this has on investment, productivity and growth. After four years of soaring oratory and intermittent reforms, why not bring in a more businesslike figure who might start fixing the problems with America’s finances?”

“But competence is worthless without direction and, frankly, character. Would that Candidate Romney had indeed presented himself as a solid chief executive who got things done. Instead he has appeared as a fawning PR man, apparently willing to do or say just about anything to get elected. In some areas, notably social policy and foreign affairs, the result is that he is now committed to needlessly extreme or dangerous courses that he may not actually believe in but will find hard to drop; in others, especially to do with the economy, the lack of details means that some attractive-sounding headline policies prove meaningless (and possibly dangerous) on closer inspection. Behind all this sits the worrying idea of a man who does not really know his own mind.”

RNC Chairman Reince Priebus predicted a “visible” boost for Mitt Romney after the GOP convention next week, The Hill reports.

Said Priebus: “I think we are going to get a bump; I think we have a better opportunity for the bump as a party, as a challenging party… I can’t give you a scope, but I can tell you I think it’s going to be
real and it’s going to be visible, but I don’t know what it will end up
being.”