In Reuters/Ipsos surveys conducted over nine months, “a startling 35% of households have suffered a major economic setback in the past four years. They have either lost a house to foreclosure or are in the middle of losing one. Or they have lost a job or taken a pay cut. Almost 96,000 adults were polled.”

“Strikingly, many don’t seem to blame the president. They divide about evenly on which candidate has the better plan for the economy: Forty percent pick Obama and 42 percent choose Romney.”

Joe Klein: “When I asked several close Obama associates about the President’s reluctance to sell his policies, they admitted their frustration. They said he hates doing things that he considers transparently political. He hates the idea of inviting a bunch of pols over to the White House for a drink or a movie, because they’d see it as an obvious bribe…. He hates the notion of launching precooked zingers in debates. He hates debates, period, with their false air of portent and stage-managed aggression. These are in­convenient prejudices if you want to be re-elected…. Now that Mitt Romney has established himself as something other than an automaton, Barack Obama is going to have to come clean, descend from the mountaintop and make his best case for keeping the job.”

A new Pew Research poll finds 40% of those surveyed expect Paul Ryan to perform better in tonight’s vice presidential debate, while 34% expect Joe Biden to do better.

First Read: “Biden has more pressure on him going into the debate, but Ryan has the
higher expectations, especially among base conservatives. And a
question: Just how many will tune in to the debate? We’re putting the
over-under at 40 million. Remember, there are two MLB playoff games
tonight, as well as Steelers-Titans NFL football game.”

In an interview with Extra, Sarah Palin refused to rule out a future run for the White House.

Said Pailin: “I’m not sure what the future holds… Que sera, sera,”

Mike Allen: “Conversations with advisers to the V.P. candidates suggest that both will be very aggressive tonight. One of Vice President Biden’s missions is to calm down President Obama’s supporters — particularly the progressives who, in the view of the White House, have overreacted to the disappointing first debate. Biden plans to do that by making Ryan answer for his own proposals, as well as Romney’s. The V.P. wants to stay more on offense than on defense, and expose and explain contrasts. His style is to demonstrate a mastery of specifics, then step back in ‘Regular Joe’ style to relate to viewers. His prep team in Wilmington, Del., included Ron Klain and Bruce Reed. His mock debates were formal, but aides dressed casually.”

“Paul Ryan has been watching game film of Biden, including the ’08 debate with Sarah Palin and the V.P.’s Meet the Press appearance in May, to try to get in his head. Since the Republican convention, Ryan has been buried in a pair of debate-prep binders – one for foreign issues, one for domestic. As Ryan rewrote and edited his responses, the drafts were sent to Boston for fact-checking, then added to the binders. Ryan plans to call out the President and Vice President for what he considers mischaracterizations of GOP positions, and will argue that he has worked hard on these measures, and knows they are being mis-described.”

The Week: 6 ways Joe Biden can win the vice presidential debate

“It’s a nervous situation… this is his first time. Joe Biden’s been doing this since the 1800s.”

— RNC Chair Reince Priebus, quoted by National Journal, lowering expectations for Paul Ryan in tonight’s vice presidential debate.

New York Times: “Inside Mitt Romney’s campaign headquarters over the past few days, the data pouring in was unmistakable. Aides scouring the results of focus groups and national polls found that undecided voters watching the presidential debate in Denver seemed startled when the Republican candidate portrayed all year by Democrats — the ultraconservative, unfeeling capitalist — did not materialize.”

“The voters, they discovered, consistently reserved their highest marks for moments when Mr. Romney sounded bipartisan and moderate, two themes he has long played down on the campaign trail but seemed to take pains to showcase this week with centrist-sounding statements on taxes, abortion and immigration.”

Washington Post: “What remains to be seen is which Romney will be judged as the real one
by voters. Will they consider his flexibility disturbing evidence that
he lacks principles or a reassuring signal that he would not govern as
an ideologue?”

Here are the latest polls from the battleground states:

Florida: Obama 49%, Romney 45% (University of North Florida)

Nevada: Obama 47%, Romney 46% (SurveyUSA)

Nevada: Obama 51%, Romney 47% (Public Policy Polling)

New Hampshire: Obama 48%, Romney 48% (Rasmussen)

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

Ohio: Obama 46%, Romney 42% (Newsmax/Zogby)

Pennsylvania: Obama 51%, Romney 46% (Rasmussen)

Pennsylvania: Obama 50%, Romney 42% (Philadelphia Inquirer)

Wisconsin: Obama 51%, Romney 49% (Rasmussen)

Here are the latest national polls, updated as needed:

Fox News: Romney 46%, Obama 45%

Gallup: Romney 48%, Obama 48%

IBD/TIPP: Romney 49%, Obama 44%

Rasmussen: Romney 48%, Obama 47%

Reuters/Ipsos: Romney 45%, Obama 44%

Major Garrett reports the first batch of Obama internal polls came back from key swing states today and “revealed that Obama was not in free fall, as some feared, but that his support has returned to where it was in July and August.”

“Internal Obama polling data show that all swing states have tightened up and that Romney is within the margin of error in states like Ohio and Virginia and Florida. It’s now a dogfight across the swing-state battlefield and any sense of pre-debate complacency that some Obama hands feared was creeping into both turnout and fundraising has vanished.”

Obama to ABC News: “What’s important is the fundamentals of what this race is about haven’t changed.”

Mitt Romney vowed he would govern as a “pro-life president” after telling a newspaper yesterday that he wouldn’t seek legislation affecting access to abortion, NBC News reports.

Said Romney: “I think I’ve said time and again. I’m a pro-life candidate. I’ll be a pro-life president. The actions I’ll take immediately are to remove funding for Planned Parenthood. It will not be part of my budget. And also I’ve indicated I’ll reverse the Mexico City position of the president. I will reinstate the Mexico City policy.”

The mother of a Navy SEAL killed in the attack on a U.S. consulate in Libya told WHDH-TV that she thought Mitt Romney was using her son’s death for political advantage.

Said Barbara Doherty: “I don’t trust Romney. He shouldn’t make my son’s death part of his political agenda. It’s wrong to use these brave young men, who wanted freedom for all, to degrade Obama.”

Bill Clinton tried to help President Obama recover from a poor debate performance last week by offering “a withering new critique of Mitt Romney,” the Los Angeles Times reports.

Said Clinton: “I had a different reaction to that first debate than a lot of people did. I thought, ‘Wow, here’s old moderate Mitt. Where ya been, boy?'”

He suggested a retort for Obama: “I could have used you in that healthcare debate when I was trying to
enact a national version of the Massachusetts law, and you were all of a
sudden condemning what you had been for. And I miss
you.”

[Read more…]

A new Pan Atlantic SMS poll in Maine shows Angus King (I) way ahead in the U.S. Senate race with 50%, followed by Charlie Summers (R) at 24% and Cynthia Dill (D) at 12% with another 14% still undecided in the race.

A new Esquire/Yahoo! News poll finds that Americans would trust President Obama more to look after their dog when they’re out of town than Mitt Romney, 52% to 27%.

“I think it’s fair to say I was just too polite.”

— President Obama, quoted by the Huffington Post, on why he didn’t do well in the first presidential debate.