“Anybody who thinks those states are in the bag is half in the bag themselves.”

— Obama adviser David Axelrod, quoted by Greg Sargent, about Mitt Romney locking up North Carolina, Virginia, and Florida.

He also noted, “We have added millions to TV spending in each of these states. We are doubling down.”

John Ellis: “The great story of this election is Obama’s collapsing support among non-Latino whites. Nowhere is this collapse more….complete than in the Southern states. That downdraft has taken North Carolina off the table and, I think, dooms Obama’s efforts in Virginia and in Gold Coast and I-40 Florida. Those three states all lean Romney in my view…”

“I’m assuming that Obama runs at 36-37% among non-Latino white voters (75% of the total vote, in all likelihood). That puts him at 27-28% of the total vote. If he does exactly as well as he did last time among non-white voters, he adds 21% to his national vote total. And he falls short of a majority.”

“So it may be that we end up with a Romney win nationally and an Obama win in the Electoral College.”

Jonathan Chait: “In recent days, the vibe emanating from Mitt Romney’s campaign has grown downright giddy. Despite a lack of any evident positive momentum over the last week — indeed, in the face of a slight decline from its post-Denver high — the Romney camp is suddenly bursting with talk that it will not only win but win handily. (‘We’re going to win,’ said one of the former Massachusetts governor’s closest advisers. ‘Seriously, 305 electoral votes.'”

“This is a bluff. Romney is carefully attempting to project an atmosphere of momentum, in the hopes of winning positive media coverage and, thus, creating a self-fulfilling prophecy.”

Charlie Cook: “Not all of the states in this Toss-Up column are equal. Most private polls show Romney with low single-digit leads in North Carolina and Virginia. For the sake of argument, let’s give Romney both states, adding 28 additional electoral votes to the 191 that Romney already led in, for a total of 219–51 short of a victory.”

“At the same time, Obama has a lead in Nevada that is wider than any advantage that Romney has in North Carolina and Virginia, so let’s add the Silver State’s six electoral votes to the Obama 237, bringing his total to 243, 27 short of 270.”

“That leaves six remaining states — Colorado (9), Florida (29), Iowa (6), New Hampshire (4), Ohio (18), and Wisconsin (10) — with a total of 76; Obama needs 27 of the 76 while Romney needs 51. But the challenge for Romney isn’t just that he needs to win two-thirds of the “true” Toss-Up state electoral votes. It’s that in five of the six (Colorado, Iowa, New Hampshire, Ohio, and Wisconsin) Obama is still leading in most polling, particularly the last two, while in Florida, it seems awfully close to dead even. If Obama carries Ohio and Wisconsin, where he is ahead in most polling, he gets the 270 with one electoral vote to spare, so Romney could sweep Colorado, Florida, Iowa, and New Hampshire and still come up short. No matter how you cut it, Ohio is the pivotal state, and it isn’t just the history of having gone with every winner from 1964 on and with no Republican ever capturing the White House without it.”

Here are the latest polls from the battleground:

Florida: Obama 47%, Romney 47% (Mellman)

Nevada: Obama 49%, Romney 47% (American Research Group)

New Hampshire: Romney 49%, Obama 47% (American Research Group)

A BBC World Service poll in 21 countries finds sharply higher overseas approval ratings for President Obama than Mitt Romney, 50% to 9%.

Only Pakistan’s respondents said they would prefer to see Romney win November’s election.

President Obama put out a 60-second ad in the seven states his campaign thinks will decide the election: Ohio, Iowa, Colorado, Virginia, New Hampshire, Florida and Wisconsin.

National Journal reports the Obama campaign also released a 20-page “Blueprint for America’s Future.”

Mark Halperin: “As consultants of both parties will tell you, convincing voters a candidate has a plan is far more important than the details of said plan. Romney has made some progress on this front — now it is the President’s turn.”

[Read more…]

“The two presidential campaigns are sounding sharply different notes about how they can get to 270 electoral votes, but beneath the post-debate bravado from both sides there is a rough consensus about the shape of the race in its final two weeks,” Politico reports.

“The main battlegrounds: Ohio, Iowa, Colorado, Virginia, New Hampshire, Florida and Wisconsin. The late inclusion of Wisconsin on this list reflects a bet by Romney — buoyed by some polls showing an opportunity for him there — that he can turn a state that has not voted for a Republican presidential nominee since 1984.”

“Republicans are genuinely intrigued by the prospect of a strike in
Pennsylvania and… are considering going up on TV
there outside of the expensive Philadelphia market. But what Romney
officials worry about, both in Pennsylvania and Michigan, is that if
they put some cash down or use precious hours to send their candidate
there Obama will respond by crushing their offensive with a big ad buy
of his own.”

“Jesus did not have a campaign staff. And he had the most successful campaign in human history.”

— Tennessee U.S. Senate candidate Mark Clayton (D), quoted by the Washington Post, in an article that says he “may be America’s worst candidate.”

Associated Press: “Already four million ballots have been cast in early voting in more than two dozen states.”

A CNN instant poll of registered voters found President Obama won, 48% to 40%. A CBS News poll of undecided voters favored Obama, 53% to 23%. A Public Policy Polling survey of swing state voters also came out in favor of the president, 53% to 42%.

I thought Obama was the winner hands down.

Andrew Sullivan: “For Romney, he made no massive mistakes. No Gerald Ford moments. And since the momentum of this race is now his, if now faltering a little, a defeat on points on foreign policy will be an acceptable result. But this was Obama’s debate; and he reminded me again of how extraordinarily lucky this country has been to have had him at the helm in this new millennium.”

Marc Ambinder: “Romney was betting that he did not need to take risks, and stands a better shot at winning the election the more people associate him with the economy. Deciding to let Obama once again be the aggressor carries real risks, because of the large audience, and because the contrasts in tone between the two candidates could be large enough that some voters who initially thought Romney crossed the credibility threshold might have second thoughts.”

Greg Sargent: “Tonight, America was introduced to Peacenik Mitt — and watched him take a pummeling. I don’t know how much this will impact the overall dynamic of the race — it may not matter much at all — but it’s hard to see this as a good night for Romney.”

Josh Marshall: “The first half hour was a draw, though President Obama scored by default when Romney either didn’t or couldn’t attack on Libya. After that though Romney began to falter as Obama became more direct, organized and declarative. Romney seemed increasingly lost. Obama seemed comfortable, happy. The visuals told the story.”

Chris Cillizza: “Obama controlled the third presidential debate in a way not all that
dissimilar from the way Romney controlled the first one. Obama clearly
came loaded for bear, attacking Romney from the jump for a lack of
clarity when it came to his vision (or lack thereof) on foreign policy.”

Joe Klein: “President Obama won the foreign policy debate, cleanly and decisively,
on both style and substance. It was as clear a victory as Mitt Romney’s
in the first debate. And Romney lost in
similar fashion: he seemed nervous, scattered, unconvincing — and he
practiced unilateral disarmament, agreeing with Obama hither and yon …
on Iraq (as opposed to two weeks ago), on Afghanistan (as opposed to
interviews he’s given this fall), on Libya and Syria and Iran. He didn’t
have a single creative or elegantly stated foreign policy thought and,
indeed, seemed foolish at times.”

The third and final presidential debate was President Obama’s best moment in the campaign so far. He was prepared on every issue and knew Mitt Romney’s record of past statements just as well.

Obama succeeded because he conveyed his unique view of the world from the Oval Office. For undecided voters watching, all they probably heard was that he’s the commander-in-chief. And that’s what Team Obama wanted.

For the most part, Romney made an effort to look presidential by not attacking. He was exceedingly careful and desperately tried not to make a mistake. In fact, despite his rhetoric for the last two years, he now apparently agrees with most of the Obama administration’s foreign policy.

As a result, Romney’s biggest opponent was not the president, it was his own words. Obama did a brilliant job of bringing up past Romney statements — on Iraq, on the nation’s biggest adversary, on Afghanistan, on Osama bin Laden — to make him look unprepared for the presidency.

As the debate went on, Romney tried many times to move the international affairs discussion back to the economy where he was more comfortable. It was as if he had only 30 minutes of foreign policy talking points for a 90 minute debate. As a result he seemed to string together random thoughts which often made him sound incoherent.

Obama won the debate hands down.

Bob Schieffer started off doing a good job as moderator, framing questions but still letting the candidates engage each other. But he lost control of the debate as both Romney and Obama often preferred to talk about the economy. It’s clear that both candidates know that most voters don’t care much about foreign policy.

Democratic strategist Paul Begala told CNN that Mitt Romney is likely to win North Carolina and that the Obama campaign may be giving up there.

Said Begala: “Yes. I’m not supposed to say that. But I [work] for the pro-Obama super PAC, so I’m being paid to help reelect the president. But if you look at where he’s spending money, it looks like Gov. Romney is likely to carry North Carolina. But those other six or seven states, I think all of them — I haven’t seen one poll that show Romney leading, certainly not outside the margin of error.”

President Obama and Mitt Romney will meet for their third and final presidential debate tonight at 9 pm ET. It will be streamed live on YouTube.

Harry Enten: “Historically, the third debate has had little impact. The average change in margin since 1988 just before the third debate and after is only about a point, compared with 2 points for the first debate. This small effect likely has to do with the fact that the third debate takes place very late in the campaign, and there is little the candidates can do now that would be all that surprising.”

Wonk Wire has a policy preview of the debate.

Leave your thoughts in the comments.

President Obama and Mitt Romney head into the final debate still deadlocked among likely voters nationally: 49% side with the Democratic president, 48% with the Republican challenger, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.

Key finding: “International affairs generally, and handling terrorism specifically, were once Obama strong points against the former Massachusetts governor, but voters now divide about evenly between the two. At the end of September, Obama held an 11 percentage point lead over Romney as the one voters trusted on terrorism — and killing Osama bin Laden is a mainstay on the Obama campaign trail. But now, 47% side with Obama on the issue, 46% with Romney.”

However, a new CBS News poll shows Obama leading Romney on foreign policy by a nine-point margin, 50% to 41%.

Nate Silver: “The bad news for President Obama: it’s been almost a week since the second presidential debate, in Hempstead, N.Y., one that instant-reaction polls said was a narrow victory for him. But there is little sign that this has translated into a bounce for Mr. Obama in his head-to-head polls against Mitt Romney. Instead, the presidential race may have settled into a period of relative stability.”

“There is bad news for Mr. Romney as well, however. The ‘new normal’ of the presidential campaign is considerably more favorable for him than the environment before the first debate, in Denver. However, it is one in which he still seems to be trailing, by perhaps 2 percentage points, in the states that are most vital in the Electoral College.”

Frontline has a fantastic short documentary that explores the digital targeting of voters by the presidential campaigns.

They also have an amazing interactive version which allows each person to personalize the story, and find out based on who they are how the campaigns are targeting them.