First Read: “With tonight’s Olympics opening ceremonies, we’ve now reached essentially halftime in this presidential contest. Keeping with the sports analogy, the two teams are going into the locker room with Obama ahead of Romney — 14-13 if it’s a football game, 49-43 if it’s basketball. In other words, it’s still anyone’s game. Both sides have had their share of smart play and boneheaded mistakes, and now we get a chance to breathe, relax, and prepare for the second half, which kicks off with Romney’s VP and the two conventions.”

“But if it’s now halftime, Team Romney — with what happened in Great Britain yesterday — concluded it by committing a false start, a holding penalty, and then an interception. Yes, yesterday was that bad.”

Ari Shavit of Haaretz had some interesting observations about his interview with Mitt Romney:

“He radiates old-fashioned American warmth. But when the recording device is turned on, the presumptive Republican presidential candidate immediately becomes tense. He is careful not to say anything superfluous. He refrains from making any commitments. Like a diligent student at an oral exam, he carefully weighs every word he is about to utter. But the interviewee is even more focused on what he is not allowed to say than on what he is about to say.”

President Obama will run a very positive, feel-good ad tied to the start of the Olympic Games.

Alex Burns: “The ad is in line with the Obama campaign’s string of positive commercials this week, and is a definite departure in tone from the slashing, negative, anti-Romney ads that have dominated June and July. But then, these are the Olympics, and voters aren’t necessarily going to want to see harsh Romney-bashing spots during the opening ceremonies.”

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Washington Post: “Tens of thousands of civilian employees in the Defense Department could receive warnings about potential layoffs four days before the November election if impending spending cuts aren’t averted, hitting presidential battleground states such as Virginia and Florida hard.”

“The alerts would come in addition to any that major defense contractors might send out at the same time to their workers under an often-overlooked law, a prospect that is unnerving the White House roughly three months before voters go to the polls.”

“It’s been quite amazing so far. I’m almost speechless. That doesn’t happen too often.”

— Obama strategist David Axelrod, quoted by the Los Angeles Times, on Mitt Romney’s “European misadventures.”

A new Rasmussen survey in Nevada finds President Obama leading Mitt Romney by five points, 50% to 45%.

A new Honolulu Star-Advertiser poll shows both Democratic candidates well ahead of Linda Lingle (R) in the U.S. Senate race. Mazie Hirono (D) leads 58% to 39% and Ed Case (D) leads 56% to 38%.

In the Democratic primary, Hirono leads Case 55% to 37%.

The Guardian: “From criticising the biggest sporting event Britain has held in over 40 years, to ‘looking out of the backside of 10 Downing Street’, Mitt Romney’s first foreign trip of his presidential candidacy hasn’t gone quite as well as he might have hoped. As the former Massachusetts governor continues to gaffe his way across London, here’s a round-up of Romney’s red-facers. So far.”

“There are some people coming from around the world who don’t yet know if we are ready. There’s a guy called Mitt Romney who wants to know whether we are ready. Are we ready?”

— London Mayor Boris Johnson, quoted by the Daily Telegraph, mocking Mitt Romney in front of a crowd of 60,000 at Hyde Park.

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Mitt Romney has already been slapped by British Prime Minister David Cameron for suggesting that Britain may not be ready to host the Olympics, but Josh Rogin points out it’s not the first time he’s said unflattering things about the country.

Romney wrote, in his book, No Apology:

“England is just a small island. Its roads and houses are small. With few exceptions, it doesn’t make things that people in the rest of the world want to buy. And if it hadn’t been separated from the continent by water, it almost certainly would have been lost to Hitler’s ambitions.”

As head of the Salt Lake Olympics, Mitt Romney became the first Olympic executive to approve a series of commemorative pins in his likeness, BuzzFeed reports.

In an interview in London, Mitt Romney “expressed ignorance about when a horse owned by his wife, Ann Romney, would be participating in the Olympic sport called dressage,” Reuters reports.

Said Romney: “I have to tell you. This is Ann’s sport. I’m not even sure which day the sport goes on. She will get the chance to see it, I will not be watching the event. I hope her horse does well.”

Andrew Sullivan: “This is either a fib, designed to insulate him from whatever minimal
fallout there is from owning a dressage horse; or it’s true and he’s
just unlike other human beings.”

Mark Halperin: “With about 100 days to go until Nov. 6, campaign veterans spy a rarity in presidential politics: both the Obama and Romney operations like their chances of winning … The phrase used consistently by each side: ‘I would rather be us than them.’ That is a shift from the recent past, when the McCain, Kerry, Gore and Dole camps all projected the air of fretful underdogs at this stage.”