“Mitt Romney’s challenge, with less than five weeks until Election Day, is to convince voters that the steady, decisive, in-command competitor who showed up for the first presidential debate is the real Mitt Romney,” the Washington Post reports.

“The Romney whom viewers saw next to President Obama on Wednesday night is not the candidate they’ve come to know through many months of attack ads and replayed gaffes.”

New York Times: “Mr. Romney’s senior aides warned staff members and donors that the race was hardly won. But they said the debate reversed the sagging morale of volunteers and contributors and dispelled what had been a growing notion that the race was slipping away from Mr. Romney.”

Mitt Romney tried to distance himself from perhaps his most damaging campaign moment, saying that his infamous “47 percent” remarks were “completely wrong,” National Journal reports.

Said Romney: “Clearly in a campaign with hundreds if not thousands of speeches and question-and-answer sessions, now and then you are going to say something that doesn’t come out right. In this case I said something that’s just completely wrong. And I absolutely believe, however, that my life has shown that I care about 100 percent. And that has been demonstrated throughout my life. And this whole campaign is about the 100 percent. When I become president it will be about helping the 100 percent.”

“When he was asked what he would do to actually cut spending and reduce the deficit, he said he’d eliminate public television funding. But I just want to make sure got this straight. He’ll get rid of regulations on Wall Street — but he’s going to crack down on Sesame Street.”

— President Obama, quoted by TPM, on Mitt Romney’s statements in last night’s debate.

A person close to the debate-prep process told Politico that President Obama was “supposed to have been more aggressive within the confines of civility, but opted for a more passive approach that missed ‘many, many opportunities’ – including the glaring failure to mention Romney’s infamous ’47 percent’ comments…”

“…Even as strategists downplayed the likely electoral impact of the debate, one Democrat close to Chicago conceded that Obama ‘was not happy with his performance.'”

Said the source: “Don’t expect to see that Barack Obama again.”

The Obama campaign “set a new monthly fundraising record for the 2012 election cycle, taking in more than $150 million in September as supporters rallied behind the president in the final phase of the election,” the Wall Street Journal reports.

“The September total far surpasses the $114 million raised in August, when the Obama team snapped a three-month streak in which it was outraised by Republican challenger Mitt Romney. At the time, the $114 million was the most the Obama campaign had collected in any one month in the 2012 election season. The most the Romney campaign has collected so far was $111 million in August.”

TV Newser: “More than 58 million people watched the first Presidential debate last night between President Obama and Mitt Romney, up substantially from the first debate in the 2008 election cycle, which had 52.4 million viewers.”

In a segment on Current TV, Al Gore blamed Denver’s high altitude for President Obama’s poor debate performance.

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The Obama campaign is up with a new ad in seven swing states hitting Mitt Romney on his tax plan after the president was roundly criticized in last night’s debate for not challenging his opponent.

Greg Sargent: “The ad’s approach is straightforward: It corrects Romney’s obfuscations with facts. It shows Romney claiming his plan won’t cut taxes by $5 trillion, then points out that the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center found that it would, in fact, cost $4.8 trillion over 10 years.”

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BuzzFeed notes that President Obama and his aides “rapidly reversed their strategic course Thursday morning, shifting the center of their attacks on Mitt Romney back toward the oldest criticisms of the Republican: That he’s a flip-flopper.”

“Democrats had long been torn over whether to portray Romney as too conservative, or too inconsistent, for the electorate — realizing that the attacks are inconsistent with one another. And since this spring, they seemed to have settled on the former, casting Romney as a conservative whose policies of cutting taxes and spending, and on abortion and other social issues, are too far right for most voters.”

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

Iowa: Obama 49%, Romney 45% (Des Moines Register)

Ohio: Obama 51%, Romney 42% (Columbus Dispatch)

Ohio: Obama 49%, Romney 45% (Public Policy Polling)

North Carolina: Obama 48%, Romney 48% (Public Policy Polling)

President Obama’s re-election campaign said the president “likely won’t be flinging barbs during this week’s presidential debate,” CNN reports.

Said spokeswoman Jen Psaki: “If you’re expecting that, that’s probably not what he’s going to deliver.”

Psaki was referring to reports that Mitt Romney was “working on zingers” and memorizing short attack lines to fire off at the president during Wednesday’s debate in Denver.

A new DNC video makes sure the expectations are high for Mitt Romney as he heads into this week’s presidential debate.

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National Journal: “After nearly six years of running for president, millions of dollars spent on ads, a massive political convention and hundreds of rallies in swing states such as Ohio, Florida, and New Hampshire, Mitt Romney’s bid to become the next president could come down to a few hours onstage on Wednesday night.”

The Week: The first debate: “Do or die” for Mitt Romney?

“It would take me too long to go through all of the math.”

— Rep. Paul Ryan, in an interview on Fox News, after host Chris Wallace played a clip of President Obama saying “they tell you they’re gonna start talking specifics really soon, they don’t do it. And the reason is because the math doesn’t work.”

“This whole race is going to turn upside-down come Thursday morning.”

— New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R), in an interview on CBS News, arguing that Wednesday night’s presidential debate will mark a new stage in Mitt Romney’s campaign.