A new Politico/George Washington University Battleground Poll shows that against a generic, unnamed Republican challenger, President Obama tied 43 to 43.

“But when voters were pushed to pick between Obama and the GOP front-runner, Mitt Romney, the president took a 6-percentage-point lead. Obama beat Herman Cain by 9 percentage points in the survey, conducted last week as new revelations about sexual harassment allegations against the former Godfather’s Pizza CEO continued to trickle out.”

Notes Democratic pollster Celinda Lake: “Generic Republicans never flip-flopped on a position and never had any problems in their personal life. When it’s a choice, we’re in a much, much stronger position.”

NBC will announce that it has hired Chelsea Clinton to become a full-time special correspondent for NBC News, the New York Times reports.

The latest Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll shows the “week of turmoil” in the race for the Republican presidential race has benefited Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich while hurting Rick Perry and Herman Cain.

Romney leads the race with 32%, followed by Cain at 27%, Gingrich at 22%, Paul at 9%, Perry at 4%, Bachmann at 2%, Santorum at 2% and Hunstman at 1%.

With just nine days remaining for the supercommittee to find $1.2 trillion in debt reduction over the next ten years, The Hill notes that the tone of some of the members is cause for concern.

Sen.
Pat Toomey (R-PA), a member of the committee, said in an interview,
“It’s at a difficult point. I think we’ve got a ways to go, but I hope
we can close that gap.” Meanwhile, Rep. James Clyburn (D-SC), another
member, said that his confidence was diminishing.

Meanwhile, The New York Times
reports that the supercommittee may kick the can down the road
and “decide on the amount of new revenue to be raised but would leave it
to the tax-writing committees of Congress,” the House Ways and Means
Committee and the Senate Finance Committee, “to fill in details next
year, well beyond the Nov. 23 deadline… That would put off painful
political decisions but ensure that the debate over deficit reduction
stretched into the election year.”

Spending time in Tennessee is apparently working for Herman Cain: A new Vanderbilt poll shows him leading the GOP field in the state with 22%, followed by Mitt Romney at 12%, Rick Perry at 9%, Michele Bachmann at 6%, Newt Gingrich at 6% and Ron Paul at 6%.

Rich Galen explains how Newt Gingrich can win the GOP presidential nomination.

“The two candidates who are stable in their numbers are Romney (with a ceiling of about 25 percent of GOP voters) and Ron Paul (who will stay between six and 10 percent). That leaves about 65 percent of Republican voters looking for a home. Cain will continue to drift downward (my words, not Newt’s); Santorum, Huntsman, and Bachman are, and will continue to be minor players.”

“So, Newt’s thinking goes, he doesn’t need to beat Romney — he needs to consolidate the non-Romney vote and he’s the only one who can do that.”

An example from recent history: “Sixty-two percent of Iowa voters wanted someone other than Barack Obama four years ago. The only reason he won was because Hillary and Edwards almost precisely split 60 percent of the votes.”

In a sign that Newt Gingrich is emerging as the latest not-Romney Republican presidential frontrunner, Alexander Burns
highlights an email beginning to circulate that attacks Gingrich for
his “history of off-message and ideologically erratic comments.”

“The
email is a reminder of the challenge Gingrich faces ahead of him, if he
really has to go through the same level of vetting as other credible GOP
presidential candidates — like Rick Perry and Michele Bachmann did when
they were on the upswing in the polls. But it’s also a sign that
Gingrich’s rise is being taken seriously by his opponents inside the
party.”

“I’m thinking he would have to have a split personality to do the things that were said.”

— Gloria Cain, quoted by the Washington Post, in her first interview since her husband, Herman Cain, was accused of sexual harassment by multiple women.

Michele Bachmann accused CBS News of “media bias” after her campaign was included on an email chain that suggested she would get fewer questions than other candidates in last night’s GOP debate, CNN reports.

“In the email chain, a CBS employee notified CBS News political director John Dickerson that Bachmann’s spokeswoman, Alice Stewart, had volunteered the candidate for an interview on Dickerson’s post-debate webcast. The employee copied Stewart on the email and told Dickerson that she had been cc’d.”

Dickerson replied, apparently unaware that Stewart was on the email chain: “Okay let’s keep it loose though since she’s not going to get many questions and she’s nearly off the charts in the hopes that we can get someone else.”

Saturday Night Live replays last week’s Republican presidential debate.

[Read more…]

“Debates are good, but we’re reaching overload.”

— Political consultant Ed Rollins, in an interview with The Hill, noting that “there are going to be 20-plus debates in this primary process.”

Michael Shear looks at some of the reasons why the Republican presidential primary debates have mattered so much this cycle.

“Maybe
it’s because Democrats don’t have anything else to do in the evening.
Without Democratic debates to fill their time, curious liberals are
tuning in to get their fill of televised political combat…
the Republican candidates are not the typical collection of middle-aged,
somewhat boring governor or senators. Instead, many of them are genuine
media personalities who know how to use the television camera to their
advantage… The proliferation of political commentary on blogs, news
Web sites and even Twitter has made it possible to experience the
political campaigns entirely through the eyes of other people. But that
may make people even more eager to find out for themselves.”

Miss last night’s Republican debate? The Daily Beast has video clips of the top seven moments.

However, even if you tried to watch, Politico notes you may have been confused when the televised portion on CBS ended after an hour when viewers were expected to go to the Internet to see the final 30 minutes.