“Well, he could fall off the stage.”

— Obama traveling press secretary Jen Psaki, in what BuzzFeed calls “an almost comical attempt” to lower expectations for President Obama in next week’s debate with Mitt Romney.

As only he can do, Samuel L. Jackson urges voters to support President Obama.

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The Washington Post reports there are 13 projections in the new issue of PS: Political Science and Politics, which is published by the American Political Science Association. Eight of them project that President Obama will win the popular vote; five say the popular vote will go to Mitt Romney.

The Week looks at the hurdles in Mitt Romney’s path to victory in the Buckeye state.

A new Howey/DePauw poll in Indiana shows Rep. Joe Donnelly (D) with a small lead over Richard Mourdock (R), 40% to 38%, with Libertarian candidate Andrew Horning getting 7% support.

The presidential race isn’t nearly as close with Mitt Romney ahead of President Obama by double-digits, 52% to 40%.

A new Public Policy Polling survey shows Rep. Steve King (R-IA) hanging on to a three point lead over challenger Christie Vilsack (D), 48% to 45%.

A Vilsack internal poll shows similar results with King leading by two points, 46% to 44%.

Mother Jones has obtained a 1985 video in which Mitt Romney explained that Bain Capital’s goal was to identify hidden value in companies, buy significant stakes in these businesses, and then “harvest them at a significant profit” within five to eight years.

Andrew Sullivan: “This is not the ’47 percent’ bombshell. It just shows what Bain Capital was about: rewarding its shareholders by “harvesting” companies. That word is clinical. And look: there’s nothing evil or wrong about Bain. It did what it does, it has had some successes and failures, and it’s not a crime to make money this way. But it isn’t business, as Romney concedes, so much as finance.”

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Nate Silver says there “looks to be about a 20 percent chance that Mr. Romney will win, but also about a 20 percent chance that Mr. Obama will actually beat his 2008 margin in the popular vote. The smart money is on an outcome somewhere in the middle – as it has been all year. But if you can conceive of a Romney comeback – and you should account for that possibility – you should also allow for the chance that things could get really out of hand, and that Mr. Obama could win in a borderline landslide.”

James Rainey: “Republican strategists have decided the public — and, particularly, undecided moderate voters — like President Obama too much to smack him rhetorically with two fists.”

“While Mitt Romney walks that semantic tightrope in a new television ad and on the stump, though, his opponent is walloping him with TV ads that portray the Republican as the hopelessly out-of-touch rich guy. The Obama attacks, making ample use of Romney’s dismissive remarks about the ‘victim’ 47%, give the appearance the president is fighting a cage match, while Romney jabs away, judiciously, with his 16-ounce gloves.”

The Obama campaign just released a brutal new ad hitting Mitt Romney on his 47% comments caught on hidden camera video which Greg Sargent reports will air in seven key swing states: Ohio, Virginia, Florida, Iowa, Colorado, Nevada, and New Hampshire.

This spot is in contention for the most-devastating of the presidential campaign.

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New York Times: “With the election just weeks away — and millions of dollars in advertising time booked but not yet paid for — Democratic super PACs are finally drawing the kind of wealthy donors who have already made Republican outside groups a pivotal force in the 2012 campaign.”

“More than 40 individuals and couples had given at least $250,000 to the leading Democratic super PACs through the beginning of September, according to a New York Times analysis of campaign finance records, and dozens more have given $100,000 or more.”

“Uh, I don’t worry about the opportunity to be on the air and to face the president – he has his views, I have mine. I’m going to let the American people make their choice and I think when they do, they’re going to choose the guy who understands what it takes to get America working again and I do.”

— Mitt Romney, in an interview with ABC News, on the upcoming presidential debates.

A new Washington Post/Kaiser poll finds that voters in three critical swing states — Florida, Ohio and Virginia — broadly oppose the sweeping changes to Medicare proposed by Rep. Paul Ryan and, by big margins, favor President Obama over Mitt Romney on the issue.

Ezra Klein: “This election will probably be decided by a tiny fraction of the electorate in eight or nine states. The undecided voters in those states are popularly portrayed as people who just can’t make up their minds. But that’s not quite right. They aren’t so much ‘undecided’ as uninterested and, frankly, uninformed; in political-science parlance — and SNL ads — they are ‘low information’ voters.”

Businessweek looks inside the mind of the independent voter.

Reid Wilson: “If Romney does lose this year, blame will quickly shift to the Republican presidential nominee himself, his shortcomings, and his ability to articulate a conservative vision for the country. And the fallout from a Romney loss has the potential to reverberate through the Republican Party for a decade.”

Jonathan Chait: “One of the dogs that hasn’t barked in this campaign is the massive financial advantage Mitt Romney was expected to enjoy on account of nearly unlimited funds available to him from conservative Superpacs. Yet, even including the efforts of outside groups, Obama has been out-advertising Romney in the key swing states…”

“The full story of how the financial tsunami failed to strike has yet to be untangled, but bits and pieces have dribbled out over recent days.”

President Obama has a new ad out this morning that Alex Burns says “has the feeling of a closing argument.”

Talking direct to the camera for two minutes, Obama outlines a four-point agenda to restore “economic patriotism” telling viewers, “If I could sit down with you, in your living room or around the kitchen table, here’s what I’d say.”

First Read: “This new Obama spot has the feeling of a closing TV ad 10 days out from
Election Day because, well, the Obama camp believes we’re really 10 days
out — or we’re already there. Indeed, voters in 30 states — including
the battleground states of Iowa, New Hampshire, North Carolina,
Wisconsin, and Virginia — are now casting ballots, either via absentee
or early in-person voting,”

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“The kickoff presidential debate Wednesday in Denver is shaping up as do-or-die time for Mitt Romney, with the pressure intensifying this week after a flurry of swing-state polls showed President Barack Obama opening up a sizable lead,” Politico reports.

“Republicans, fretting about dwindling days for Romney to turn around his campaign, fear that if their nominee doesn’t come away with a decisive first-debate victory, he’ll continue to spiral downward and lose his last, best shot for a comeback.”

“The fear among donors and strategists: a break-even or so-so performance would subject Romney to a self-reinforcing cycle of criticism and pessimism in his own party that will send other Republicans fleeing and make it difficult for Romney to project a closing argument against Obama over the drumbeat of why-are-you-losing questions.”

Amy Walter: “At next week’s debate, the pressure is on Romney to make something happen. The pressure is on Obama to make sure nothing happens.”