Mark Halperin notes Mitt Romney’s decision not to apologize for his remarks on a hidden camera video “will be applauded on talk radio all day. It also keeps the story alive.”

“Speaking of which, the White House and the re-elect have many, many creative and obvious ways to keep this story going for a good long while, some of which they have already discussed internally. Watch the President’s Letterman hit for clues.”

Meanwhile, Romney will respond to the leaked video on Fox News show at 4 p.m. ET.

Nate Silver evaluates the swing states to determine which are the most strategically important and finds ten which “could play an important role in the electoral calculus.” 

The most important, along with the chance it will be the one that determines the next president:

Ohio (32%), Florida (20%), Virginia (9%), Colorado (9%), Wisconsin (9%), Iowa (6%), Pennsylvania (5%), Nevada (5%), New Hampshire (3%) and Michigan (1%).

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

Colorado: Romney 47%, Obama 45% (Rasmussen)

Florida: Romney 48%, Obama 47% (Gravis Marketing)

Michigan: Obama 48%, Romney 42% (Marketing Resource Group)

New Hampshire: Obama 48%, Romney 46% (American Research Group)

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

We’ll have New York Times/CBS News/Quinnipiac polls in the morning from Virginia, Colorado and Wisconsin.

“Orrin Hatch is not a bad guy. But he is an old guy… He may die before his term is through.”

— Senate candidate Scott Howell (D), quoted by ABC Salt Lake City, in a fundraising email for his challenge to Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT).

Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia told Reuters that it “really enrages me” to hear people refer to court as a “politicized court.”

Within seconds, he then seamlessly blasted Democrats who do not “stick to the text” of the U.S. Constitution.

Said Scalia: “So why should it be surprising that when you have a Democratic Party which has been trying for years to appoint people who approve of Roe v. Wade — which means people who are not originalists, who do not stick to the text, who believe in substantive due process or whatever — why should it be surprising when the Democrats have been doing that for 30 years, at least, and the Republicans have been doing the opposite for 30 years — swearing that they are going to appoint people who are not judicial activists, gonna, you know, hew to the text — why should it be surprising that you end up with a Court where the Democratic appointees are quite different from the Republican appointees?”

The Week says Mitt Romney “is at a decided low point” but it’s not too late to fix things.

William Kristol joins other conservatives in trashing Mitt Romney’s comments caught on a hidden camera video.

“Recalling that a good chunk of the 47 percent who don’t pay income taxes are Romney supporters — especially of course seniors (who might well ‘believe they are entitled to heath care,’ a position Romney agrees with), as well as many lower-income Americans (including men and women serving in the military) who think conservative policies are better for the country even if they’re not getting a tax cut under the Romney plan. So Romney seems to have contempt not just for the Democrats who oppose him, but for tens of millions who intend to vote for him.”

James Carter IV, the grandson of former President Jimmy Carter, told NBC News that he tracked down the source who took the secret Mitt Romney video and encouraged him to release the full tape to Mother Jones magazine.

Carter “also confirmed there is a personal side to the backstory of the campaign video: he was especially motivated, he said, because of Romney’s frequent attacks on the presidency of his grandfather.”

Carter to New York magazine: “I’ve been searching for clips on Republicans for a long time, almost every day. I just do it for fun.”

No one really expects Mitt Romney to win Massachusetts, but two new polls show him getting crushed in the state he once served as governor.

A Western New England University poll finds that President Obama is now ahead of Romney, 60% to 38%, among likely voters.

A Suffolk University poll shows Obama leading by a 64% to 31% margin.

First Read: “All campaigns have their ups and downs, but the last three weeks for Mitt Romney have been about as brutal as we can remember for any presidential candidate, especially this close to the election. First, the biggest speech of Romney’s life got overshadowed by the Clint Eastwood stunt. Then came President Obama’s significant bounce in the polls after the two political conventions. After that, Romney found himself on the defensive for his reaction to embassy attacks in Egypt and Libya. Next, Politico reported about infighting and disorganization inside the Romney campaign. Finally, all of these events were capped off yesterday by the surreptitiously recorded video of Romney…”

“What is so potentially deadly about this video is the timing, because it comes as the Romney campaign was already viewed to be behind and in crisis. Back in late July, we wrote that the presidential contest had entered halftime with Obama leading, 14-13. Now after the 3rd Quarter (the Ryan pick, the conventions, and post-convention period), Obama has scored two uncontested touchdowns, bringing it to 28-13. And now we head to the 4th Quarter (the debates).”

The Note: “No matter what Mitt Romney wanted this week to be about, it’s clear that it’s going to be about one thing: A campaign that is off message and in disarray.”

Jonathan Chait says the hidden camera video that went viral yesterday exposes Mitt Romney “as a far more sinister character than I had imagined. Here is the sneering plutocrat, fully in thrall to a series of pernicious myths that are at the heart of the mania that has seized his party. He believes that market incomes in the United States are a perfect reflection of merit. Far from seeing his own privileged upbringing as the private-school educated son of an auto executive-turned-governor as an obvious refutation of that belief, Romney cites his own life, preposterously, as a confirmation of it…”

“The revelations in this video come to me as a genuine shock. I have never hated Romney. I presumed his ideological makeover since he set out to run for president was largely phony, even if he was now committed to carry through with it, and to whatever extent he’d come to believe his own lines, he was oblivious or naïve about the damage he would inflict upon the poor, sick, and vulnerable. It seems unavoidable now to conclude that Romney’s embrace of Paul Ryanism is born of actual contempt for the looters and moochers, a class war on behalf of his own class.”

Alex Roarty: “Stories about campaign meltdowns are common for political operations with eroding poll numbers. But they are more a symptom of a struggling campaign than a cause of the struggles. The real danger for Romney is that the squabbles and missteps are now center stage and conveying the impression of a campaign that is flailing as it tries to oust an incumbent president.”

Mother Jones drops another segment of the hidden camera video shot at a Mitt Romney fundraiser in May which shows the GOP presidential candidate saying he believes peace in the Middle East is not possible and a Palestinian state is not feasible.

Said Romney: “I’m torn by two perspectives in this regard. One is the one which I’ve had for some time, which is that the Palestinians have no interest whatsoever in establishing peace, and that the pathway to peace is almost unthinkable to accomplish… All right, we have a potentially volatile situation but we sort of live
with it, and we kick the ball down the field and hope that ultimately,
somehow, something will happen and resolve it…”

“On the other hand, I got a call from a former secretary of state. I won’t mention which one it was, but this individual said to me, you know, I think there’s a prospect for a settlement between the Palestinians and the Israelis after the Palestinian elections. I said, ‘Really?’ And, you know, his answer was, ‘Yes, I think there’s some prospect.’ And I didn’t delve into it.”

He added: “The idea of pushing on the Israelis to give something up to get the Palestinians to act is the worst idea in the world.”

[Read more…]

In a very brief and hastily called news conference late last night, Mitt Romney acknowledged having made the remarks captured in a hidden camera video that 47% of Americans are dependent on government, saying it was “not elegantly stated,” but he stood by the substance of the remarks.

Said Romney: “But it’s a message which I’m going to carry and continue to carry which
is, look, the president approach is attractive to people who aren’t not
paying taxes because frankly my discussion about lowering taxes isn’t as
attractive to them and therefore I’m not likely to draw them in to my
campaign as effectively as those who are in the middle.”

David Brooks lacerates Mitt Romney for comments made on a hidden video that show he “doesn’t know much about the political culture” and “has lost any sense of the social compact.”

“Personally, I think he’s a kind, decent man who says stupid things because he is pretending to be something he is not — some sort of cartoonish government-hater. But it scarcely matters. He’s running a depressingly inept presidential campaign. Mr. Romney, your entitlement reform ideas are essential, but when will the incompetence stop?”