First Read: “Ever since the Obama campaign began its Bain hit, there has been near universal agreement among elites that the hits were either “not working,” or “unfair,” or both. But as we’ve said before and we’ll say again: The Bain attacks aren’t meant to sway folks in NY and DC, but folks in three crucial battleground states: Ohio, Iowa, and Wisconsin. The whole point of this campaign by the Obama folks is to paint Romney as an out-of-touch Wall Street CEO…”

“And while the Romney campaign has comforted itself with the criticism of the Obama attacks by other Democrats (Booker, Rendell etc.), the campaign has done little to fix the larger image issue. So far, the Romney campaign has made this argument: Any attack on Bain is an attack on America’s free enterprise system. But how does it explain that Bain and its partners often made money, even if the firms they took over went belly up? And how do they now explain this Milken association? Does it keep using the “free enterprise” line? Or does it need to do something else?”

Wall Street Journal: “Once again, the Obama high command is making a big bet on their ground operation. The aim is to flood the zone: open up offices in battleground states, call undecided voters, and swarm the shopping malls to register as many people as possible. In this way, Democrats hope to neutralize the Republican super PAC advantage by out-registering and out-working the GOP on the streets.”

A new Deseret News/KSL-TV poll finds Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) leads challenger Dan Liljenquist (R) in the Republican U.S. Senate primary, 60% to 32%.

The primary is on Tuesday.

Paul Begala: “Let’s posit that the point of politics is to get more votes than the other side — so everything a politician does is by definition political. Shocking. But there is, frequently, also an element of principle, a dash of ideology, and maybe even a hint of idealism. To analyze every act in terms of motive, and to reduce every motive to its basest level, is just dumb.”

“You can drive yourself crazy trying to peer into a person’s soul–or you can do the sensible thing: ask not what inner motives drive a politician’s policy choices but instead whether those choices are good for the country. ”

A new Associated Press-GfK poll finds half of Americans say it won’t matter much whether President Obama or Mitt Romney wins the presidential election “even though the presidential candidates have staked their chances on which would be better at fixing the economic mess.”

“People are especially pessimistic about the future president’s influence over jobs… Asked how much impact the November winner will have on unemployment, 6 in 10 gave answers ranging from slim to none.”

Meanwhile, a majority of those surveyed — 55% — say the winner will have from “just some impact” to “no impact” on the nation’s huge budget deficits.

The Boston Globe probes Mitt Romney’s business dealings with “junk bond king” Michael Milken.

“What transpired would become not just one of the most profitable leveraged buyouts of the era, but also one of the most revealing stories of Romney’s Bain Capital career. It showed how he pivoted from being a relatively cautious investor to risking his reputation for a big payoff. It is one that Romney has rarely, if ever, mentioned in his two bids for the presidency, perhaps because the Houston-based department store chain that Bain assembled later went into bankruptcy.”

“But what distinguishes this deal from the nearly 100 others that Romney did over a 15-year period was his close work with Milken’s firm, Drexel Burnham Lambert Inc. At the time of the deal, it was widely known that Milken and his company were under federal investigation, yet Romney decided to go ahead with the deal because Drexel had a unique ability to sell high-risk, high-yield debt instruments, known as ‘junk bonds.'”

“I don’t want to be vice president.”

— Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), quoted by Roll Call.

A new Associated Press-GfK poll finds one-quarter of American voters are still persuadable on who they’ll vote for in the presidential election.

“Until then, Obama and
Romney will spend huge amounts of time and money trying to win their
votes, especially in the most competitive states that tend to swing
between Republicans and Democrats each presidential election. Obama and
Romney face the same hurdle, winning over wavering voters without
alienating core supporters they need to canvass neighborhoods and staff
telephone banks this fall to help make sure their backers actually vote.”

The Financial Times looks at how Mitt Romney campaign is planning to deploy an army of Mormon supporters from Utah “to states where the presidential race is close, such as neighboring Nevada and Colorado. Such efforts could be crucial in battleground states that will decide the election.”

“The missionary work that is at the heart of the Mormon religion — 1m have left home for two years to convert others to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints — could be good preparation for a Romney door-knocking and phone-calling outreach effort, given the long hours and rejection that such endeavours often entail.”

Scott Conroy: “While every eventual GOP nominee in the last five non-incumbent presidential cycles began the race as a favorite, the same cannot be said of their VP picks, all of whom were initially regarded inside the Beltway echo chamber either as blips on the political radar or not on the screen at all.”