WASHINGTON -– In the closing days of a presidential campaign, there is often little each side can do other than hold on to their hats.

The candidates play it safe, their campaigns compete to out bluster each other with conference calls and strategy memos, and each new poll enters the political bloodstream with a noticeable jolt.

But when it comes to the command centers that have pulled the levers and driven the message from President Barack Obama's campaign headquarters in Chicago and Republican Mitt Romney's campaign office in Boston, these last few days are a weird anticlimax as senior aides come to the point where they have done almost everything they can do, barring an unforeseen development that needs attention.

"This is the phase when you hand the baton to the teams on the ground. Strategy is set. Schedule is getting locked down. Closing argument is in the can," said Dan Bartlett, who was a senior adviser to President George W. Bush. "The senior staff will end up spending more time on the phone with reporters and players on the ground in search of any anecdotal
evidence."

"It's a weird feeling: lots of worrying, but no real way to change the trajectory!" Bartlett said.

Paul Begala, an adviser to President Bill Clinton –- and now an adviser to a super PAC supporting Obama's reelection -– said the "closing days of a presidential campaign are a special kind of madness."

"You chase ghosts and rumors all day, and wrestle between weary and worry all night," Begala said.

"In the closing days of the 1992 campaign, Bill Clinton's friend, the legendary basketball coach Eddie Sutton, sent him a message: 'Bill, you are two points up with two minutes to play. Press, don't stall,'" Begala said. "Best political advice I ever heard."

"Both Romney and the president need to heed it," Sutton said.

Both sides on Wednesday made a show of pressing the other side. But at this point, with a race so close, each candidate is essentially trying to avoid mistakes while hoping their turnout operations deliver the votes they need, and that undecided voters break their way. Romney on Wednesday marked another day on the trail keeping a safe distance from the traveling press, and kept his stump speech in safe waters too. Obama has played it pretty safe too, but on this day, he was not campaigning. Instead, he toured from Hurricane Sandy in New Jersey, with Republican Gov. Chris Christie, who has been an outspoken critic of the president during the campaign, on Romney's behalf.

Obama and Christie held a joint press conference, a scene unthinkable before the disaster that claimed more than 60 lives hit the East Coast on Monday.

The president thanked the governor for "extraordinary leadership" and for putting "his heart and soul into making sure that the people of New Jersey bounce back even stronger than before."

Christie returned the favor, describing the president in a way that Obama himself sells himself to the nation on the campaign trail.

"He means what he says," Christie said of Obama.

On Thursday, Obama will pick the partisan mantle back up and hold a full day of rallies in Green Bay, Wis., Las Vegas, and Boulder, Colo. But Vice President Joe Biden got a head start on Wednesday, slamming Romney repeatedly at campaign stops in Florida.

Referencing Romney's now infamous 47 percent comment, Biden adopted a tone of outrage at a stop in Sarasota, Fla.

"This is insulting. He said 47 percent of the American people were quote not willing to take responsibility for their own lives. Who does he think he is? Where does he live? Not where I come from!" Biden shouted.

Romney and Ryan, still feeling their way back to a full-scale campaign after holding food and supply drives on Tuesday for those affected by Hurricane Sandy, kept their stump speeches relatively free of partisan attacks.

Romney talked at greater length than usual about his five-point plan for economic growth, and emphasized his record of working with a Democratic-controlled legislature when he was governor of Massachusetts from 2003 to 2007.

"We worked together," Romney said of himself and Massachusetts Democrats, at a rally in Tampa. "This can happen. It has to happen in Washington. We've got to come together."

Both campaigns sent out top staff to play what has become a daily confidence game, with regular conference calls touting early voting performance, absentee ballots requested, and poll numbers.

"This professed momentum is really fauxmentum," Obama adviser David Axelrod said of the Romney campaign.

Romney adviser Russ Schriefer predicted on a call later in the day that Romney would be the next president, just as Obama campaign manager had said with total self-assurance on the call with Axelrod that Obama would be settling in this time next week to begin his second term.

"This race is exactly where we had hoped it would be," Schriefer said.

But there was one voice on the Romney call who let slip, in a rare moment of candor, where the race is really at.

This is, said Romney pollster Neil Newhouse, "a very tight race that is very far from being decided."

The Truth-o-Meter says: Pants on Fire! | Adam Putnam: Obama campaign gives free cell phones to supporters

An A-team of Florida Republicans packed a Tampa stage Wednesday to welcome Mitt Romney and rally supporters in the final days of the presidential campaign. Former Gov. Jeb Bush and U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio were in the lineup, as well as Agriculture Commissioner Adam Putnam, who warmed up the crowd and encouraged voters to head to the polls early. "Early vote now so that you can wave signs on election day next Tuesday," Putnam said. This is a team sport. This is a team sport. It's fully interactive. We can't just show up ...

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The Truth-o-Meter says: Mostly True | Barack Obama says Mitt Romney would roll back banking regulations

In the final days before the election, the Obama campaign has put up an ad that is a sort of Cliff Notes for voters before they walk into the voting booth. It lists many of the points Obama has used against Mitt Romney throughout this contest. It warns about the future of Medicare, support for education, tax breaks for the wealthiest, and banking regulation. On that last point, it says, "Mitt Romney’s plan rolls back regulations on the banks that crashed our economy." This fact-check examines that claim and tries to ...

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Dick Morris, The Hill
Voters have figured out that President Obama has no message, no agenda and not even much of an explanation for what he has done over the past four years. His campaign is based entirely on persuading people that Mitt Romney is a uniquely bad man, entirely dedicated to the rich, ignorant of the problems of the average person. As long as he could run his negative ads, the campaign at least kept voters away from the Romney bandwagon. But once we all met Mitt Romney for three 90-minute debates, we got to know him — and to like him. He was not the monster Obama depicted, but a reasonable...

Joan Walsh, Salon
Weirdly, Mitt Romney was counting on a “wave” of anti-Obama voters to carry him to victory Nov. 6. But the waves have all gone President Obama’s way, and I’m not making a tasteless Sandy joke. With reliable polls in Ohio and Wisconsin Wednesday showing Obama with solid leads there, Romney has almost no path to victory on Tuesday. Polls today also showed him holding smaller leads in the swing states of Virginia, Florida and Nevada, and tied in North Carolina.It’s still theoretically possible that lingering post-Sandy problems – and...

Jay Cost, Weekly Standard
There is a peculiar divergence between various public opinion polls at the moment. On the one hand, Mitt Romney has built a narrow but durable lead in the national polls, averaging around a 1 percent advantage over the last three weeks. This has cheered the hearts of conservatives everywhere.

Ed Morrissey, Hot Air
To quote my esteemed co-blogger Allahpundit: It comes to this.  With their electoral strategy in ruins, with everyone laughing at Barack Obama’s attempt to float a last-minute version of a second-term agenda, Democrats will reach back and makes the only pitch they know for the final closing argument.Did you know that Mitt Romney is riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiich?For the final days of the 2012 campaign, the Democratic groups pummeling Mitt Romney on television have returned to the weapon they started with last spring: Bain Capital.

Jamelle Bouie, Salon
Six months ago, liberals were preparing for the worst. After a winter of fast growth, the economy had begun to slow down and unemployment had begun to creep back up. Mitt Romney was close behind in the race for the White House, and there was little indication that President Obama could pull ahead and win. And the Senate, a stronghold for Democrats over the last six years, looked vulnerable.

Two former members of the Bush administration may have inadvertently acted as a buffer for the president, driving a wedge between the attacks from Republicans and the administration's efforts in Benghazi.

With the elections less than nine days away, the Republicans, conservative blogs and television shows have hammered the president over the events that took place in Benghazi, which led to four dead Americans including Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens, hoping to damage the president's reputation.

Despite campaigning for former Gov. Mitt Romney, Condoleezza Rice has made the decision to not join the Republicans in their fervent criticism of the Obama administration's handling of the attacks in Benghazi, which has brought a storm of criticism the president's way.

In an interview with Fox's Greta Van Susteran, Rice said, "We don't have all the pieces and I think it's easy to try and jump to conclusions about what might have happened here. It's probably better to let the relevant bodies do their work."

General Colin Powell, a retired four-star general, chairman of the Joint Chief of Staff under former President George H.W. Bush and national security advisor under President Ronald Reagan, said Romney's foreign policy views are inconsistent. He told CBS that Romney's foreign policy is like a "moving target."

The endorsements from Powell and Rice may be enough to help legitimize Obama and his handling of foreign affairs because of their strong track record among Republicans and the military.

Since the Obama administration has been met with such fierce opposition in relation to this event, a flood of information has come forth, but none of which makes the situation more clear.

Recently, a story from Fox News said CIA operatives were denied additional help during the Benghazi attack.

An unnamed source close to Fox News said the CIA was told multiple times to "stand down," but CIA spokeswoman Jennifer Youngblood denied the assertion that the CIA's requests for support were not met.

According to Egyptian security officials, a man who is a suspect in the Libyan attacks was killed in Cairo. The Egyptian official spoke under anonymity and said the details of the suspect's involvement in the Benghazi attacks are under investigation.

The Truth-o-Meter says: Half-True | Barack Obama, critics clash on whether Planned Parenthood provides mammograms

In recent weeks, President Barack Obama and Mitt Romney have sparred over Romney’s promise to eliminate federal funding for Planned Parenthood. Romney has made his pledge several times, most recently in speaking to reporters in Ohio in mid-October, when he said, "I think I’ve said time and again that I’m a pro-life candidate and I’ll be a pro-life president. The actions I’ll take immediately is to remove funding for Planned Parenthood. It will not be part of my budget." On several occasions, Obama has countered that doing so would hamper women’s health ...

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The Truth-o-Meter says: Half-True | Obama ad says Romney will make ‘catastrophic cuts to education’

With Election Day approaching, a new ad from Barack Obama implores voters to remember, in the solitude of the voting booth, what Mitt Romney plans for the country. "In here, it’s just you," a narrators says against an image of a man voting. "No ads, no debates, just you. "So think about this: Mitt Romney’s plan rolls back regulations on the banks that crashed our economy. Medicare: voucherized. Catastrophic cuts to education. Millionaires will get one of the largest tax cuts ever, while middle class families pay more. "That’s ...

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Steve Benen, MSNBC
We talked yesterday about Mitt Romney's unique perspective on FEMA -- he wants to turn emergency response efforts over to the states or the private sector -- articulated during the Republican primary process. In light of the severity and brutality of Hurricane Sandy, the candidate's position is receiving new scrutiny.The New York Times' editorial board, for example, argues today that "a big storm requires big government" (thanks to Bill Wolff for the tip).

Andrew Kohut, Pew
As the presidential campaign enters its final week, Barack Obama has failed to regain much of the support he lost in the days following the first presidential debate and the race is now even among likely voters: 47% favor Obama while an identical percentage supports Mitt Romney.The latest national survey by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, conducted Oct. 24-28 among 1,678 registered voters, including 1,495 likely voters, finds Obama holding a statistically insignificant two-point edge among registered voters: 47% to 45%. This is little different from the 46% to 46%...

The Truth-o-Meter says: Pants on Fire! | Mitt Romney says Obama's Chrysler deal undermined U.S. workers

With Ohio’s 18 electoral votes very much in play, the Mitt Romney campaign aims to blunt one of Barack Obama’s key advantages in that state -- his rescue of the auto industry. The carmakers account for about one out of eight jobs there, and many Ohio assembly line workers are backing Obama for a second term. The Romney campaign has produced a controversial ad that argues Romney would be better for the auto industry than Obama. In the ad, an announcer says, "Obama took GM and Chrysler into bankruptcy and sold Chrysler to Italians ...

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Eugene Robinson, Washington Post
WASHINGTON -- Back when he was being "severely conservative," Mitt Romney suggested that responsibility for disaster relief should be taken from the big, bad federal government and given to the states, or perhaps even privatized. Hurricane Sandy would like to know if he'd care to reconsider.The absurd -- and dangerous -- policy prescription came in a GOP primary debate in June. Moderator John King said he had recently visited communities affected by severe weather, and noted that the Federal Emergency Management Agency "is about to run out of money."

Are you worried that Frankenstorm will restrict your access to up-to-date polling numbers? Do you know more about the state of the race in places you've never been to, but haven't decided what to do for Hallowe'en yet? Then you have come to the right place! With one week to go before Election Day dawns, the race for president is about as tight as it can get, so let's get right to it.

First, a look at the overall state of the electoral math:

[Click on any of theses graphs to see larger-scale versions.]

Things stayed pretty close to where they were last week (note: due to the final debate, last week's column ran on Tuesday, so you may have missed it). Barack Obama's overall electoral vote ("EV") total spiked upwards, then fell back, and finished at 280 EV, one down from where he started. Mitt Romney's total spiked way down, but then partially recovered by week's end, to close at 235 EV, down from 244 EV. The number of states perfectly tied stayed high, going from 13 EV to 34 EV, before falling back to 23 EV at the end. Percentage-wise, this left Obama at 52.0 percent of the overall Electoral College, while Romney fell back to 43.7 percent.

Eleven states moved around in the categories this week, which was mostly bad (but not terrible) news for Obama. Obama lost ground, but held onto, two states (Minnesota and New Mexico), while losing two to "Tied" (Iowa and New Hampshire). The only good news for Obama was flipping Colorado from Romney, but Obama only holds a thin lead here which could easily change back. Mitt Romney got good news in two of his states, and bad news in one, as Arizona and Tennessee firmed up and Montana weakened. Tennessee hadn't had a poll in a very long time, though, so this probably doesn't represent any real movement, just a reality that had been there all along. Still, it's good news for Romney who maintained his hold on all three states. Three states moved, but then moved back, leaving them where they started. Wisconsin firmed up for Obama, but then weakened in a subsequent poll; North Carolina slipped from Romney into a tie, but then drifted back; and Virginia briefly went from Tied to Obama, but then fell back again.

Romney's dip, in the chart above, was due to losing North Carolina and Colorado. His partial recovery was picking North Carolina back up again. Obama gained ground by briefly holding Virginia. When he lost it back to Tied, he also lost Iowa, but gained Colorado to partially offset the loss. At the very end, he lost New Hampshire to Tied. There are three states currently in the Tied category, Iowa, Virginia, and New Hampshire, for a total of 23 EV.

Let's take a closer look at the movement for each candidate, starting with Mitt Romney:

[Definition of terms: "Strong" means 10% or better in the polls,
"Weak" means 5% or better, and "Barely" is under five percent.]

Mitt Romney showed some strengthening among his base "red" states, but actually lost ground overall this week. Overall, he ended the week down by nine EV due to the loss of Colorado to Obama. Romney had some movement in his "Strong" numbers, as first he lost Montana and then gained Tennessee. This was a net gain for Romney, from 134 EV to 142 EV. Romney's "Weak" numbers also managed to grow over the week, from 46 EV all the way up to 60 EV before falling back to 49 EV. This pushed Romney's critical "Strong Plus Weak" line up to 191 EV, which he hasn't seen since the beginning of this month. Firming up Arizona added the 11 EV Romney gained here over last week.

This puts Romney in good (but not great) shape with one week to go. He has made up the ground he lost among his base over the month, but he still has never broken the barrier of polling ahead in states which add up to 250 EV, much less the 270 EV he needs to win.

Which brings us to how Obama's doing:

Overall, Obama stayed about the same, but what must be worrying Team Obama right now is that he seems to be weakening in some of his base "blue" states. That's a bad trend, one week out. For the week, Obama only lost one EV from his total. Obama, however, lost 15 EV from his Strong category, with the weakening of New Mexico and Minnesota. This brought his Strong number down from 210 EV to 195 EV at week's end. Obama was up briefly in Weak with the addition of Wisconsin, until it slipped back to "Barely." At the end, Minnesota also slipped into Barely, completing a one-week slide down from Strong Obama, which, again must be a little disconcerting for Obama fans. As a result, Obama's Strong Plus Weak ended down 10 EV this week to close out at 227 EV. The one bit of good news overall for Obama was capturing Colorado's 9 EV, but he's got a pretty tenuous hold on the state.

This all puts Obama in better shape than Romney, but neither candidate's position could be called "commanding" at this point. Four years ago, when I wrote my penultimate "Electoral Math" column, I subtitled it "Obama Has Closed The Deal." Needless to say, that wasn't a viable option this time around. While I'm usually skeptical of all the "it's going to be a close close race" nonsense from the mainstream media, this time around they may actually be right. The race is one whale of a lot tighter than it was in 2008 at this point, to put it another way.

 

My Picks

Onward to the part of the program where the deciding factor can be not just a poll number, but how my gut feels about a particular state. As always, the categories here are different to avoid confusion with the hard data above. Full lists of states in all my categories are provided at the end, as well.

 

Likely States -- Obama

Safe Obama (18 states, 227 EV)
One state moves into "Safe Obama" this week, while another moves out. Minnesota can't really be seen as Safe anymore, so it's going to move down a bit. But my gut tells me that the race is pretty much in the bag for Obama in Pennsylvania, so I'm going to consider it Safe for now. Because Pennsylvania has twice Minnesota's 10 EV, Obama gains a bit here this week.

Probable Obama (3 states, 26 EV)
While Pennsylvania moves up from "Probable Obama," Minnesota swaps places with it. While Obama has gotten some bad polling of late in Minnesota, I still feel pretty good about his chances there, and so can't really see the state as a tossup yet. Nevada and Wisconsin both stay stable here this week, because I'm still feeling optimistic about both of them.

 

Likely States -- Romney

Safe Romney (21 states, 170 EV)
While the polling doesn't actually merit it, I'm still going to move Georgia up to Safe Romney this week, as I think Romney's going to win in a cakewalk here.

Probable Romney (2 states, 21 EV)
While Georgia moves up to Safe, Arizona moves up to take its place, as it firms up for Romney. Missouri stays put.

 

Tossup States

Lean Obama (3 states, 31 EV)
Two states change places here this week, as Iowa moves down to "Too Close To Call" while Colorado moves up from the same category. This is truly where gut feelings come into play, I should mention. New Hampshire and Ohio stay as "Lean Obama" this week, even though a case could be made that either could be considered a true tossup. I feel good about Obama's chances in Colorado, New Hampshire, and Ohio. I feel less good about his chances in Iowa. We're into tossing darts at the wall here, folks.

Lean Romney (1 state, 15 EV)
Arizona moved up to Probable Romney from this category this week, but I'm moving Florida down to Too Close To Call. I know, Florida has looked like Romney territory all month, but the polls have stayed incredibly tight, so perhaps Obama's response to a hurricane might help him with Floridians, who knows? At least until next week, we're moving Florida to tossup status. North Carolina stays as Lean Romney, although a case could be made that it belongs in Too Close To Call as well.

Too Close To Call (3 states, 48 EV)
Florida moves down from Lean Romney, and Iowa moves down from Lean Obama. To round out Too Close To Call, Virginia stays razor-close, with no clear lead shown by either candidate.

 

Final Tally

This is the last time we're going to provide such an exhaustive look at the polling, we should mention, because next Monday we're going to just dive in and make our predictions for how the 2012 election is going to happen, state by state.

The hard polling numbers show Obama maintaining a lead, but not an overwhelming one. Obama holds 280 EV to Romney's 235 EV, a lead of 45 EV. This is up from last week, when Obama only led Romney by 37 EV. But in Strong Plus Weak, Obama's 227 EV over Romney's 191 EV shows only a 36 EV lead, which is down from last week's 57 EV, and little more than half of Obama's lead from two weeks ago of 67 EV.

The race tightens. Obama, in my estimation, has 21 states with 253 EV comfortably in his column. Mitt Romney has secured 23 states for 191 EV. This shows a healthier lead of 62 EV for Obama, which is down from last week's 73 EV lead.

Still, Obama retains the edge. From the 94 EV in the seven tossup states, Obama only needs 17 EV to be re-inaugurated. Mitt Romney needs 79 EV to win. If Obama wins either Florida or Ohio, the election may essentially be over at that point. Even if Obama loses both large states, he still has multiple paths to victory. Romney pretty much has only one path: a last-minute surge which breaks all the undecideds in almost all of the tossup states his way. The problem for Obama is, this is now looking quite possible instead of ludicrously unlikely.

Frankenstorm Sandy may impact voters' feelings at the last minute, but the real sword of Damocles hanging over the White House right now is this Friday's release of the October unemployment figures. If the numbers are bad, it could give Romney the last-second momentum he needs. If the numbers are good, Obama could waltz to victory. Stay tuned....

 

[Electoral Vote Data:]
(State electoral votes are in parenthesis following each state's name. Washington D.C. is counted as a state. This column series relies on Electoral-Vote.com for state polling data, as we did four years ago.)

Barack Obama Likely Easy Wins -- 21 States -- 253 Electoral Votes:

Safe States -- 18 States -- 227 Electoral Votes
California (55), Connecticut (7), Delaware (3), Hawaii (4), Illinois (20), Maine (4), Maryland (10), Massachusetts (11), Michigan (16), New Jersey (14), New Mexico (5), New York (29), Oregon (7), Pennsylvania (20), Rhode Island (4), Vermont (3), Washington D.C. (3), Washington (12)

Probable States -- 3 States -- 26 Electoral Votes
Minnesota (10), Nevada (6), Wisconsin (10)

 

Mitt Romney Likely Easy Wins -- 23 States -- 191 Electoral Votes:

Safe States -- 21 States -- 170 Electoral Votes
Alabama (9), Alaska (3), Arkansas (6), Georgia (16), Idaho (4), Indiana (11), Kansas (6), Kentucky (8), Louisiana (8), Mississippi (6), Montana (3), Nebraska (5), North Dakota (3), Oklahoma (7), South Carolina (9), South Dakota (3), Tennessee (11), Texas (38), Utah (6), West Virginia (5), Wyoming (3)

Probable States -- 2 States -- 21 Electoral Votes
Arizona (11), Missouri (10)

 

Tossup States -- 7 States -- 94 Electoral Votes:

Tossup States Leaning Obama -- 3 States -- 31 Electoral Votes
Colorado (9), New Hampshire (4), Ohio (18)

Tossup States Leaning Romney -- 1 State -- 15 Electoral Votes
North Carolina (15)

Too Close To Call -- 3 States -- 48 Electoral Votes
Florida (29), Iowa (6), Virginia (13)

 

No polling data since August:
(States which have not been polled since the beginning of September, with the dates of their last poll)

South Carolina (1/13), Alabama (8/16), Vermont (8/21), West Virginia (8/25)

No polling data at all, yet:
(States which have not been polled so far this year)

Alaska, Delaware, Kansas, Mississippi, Wyoming

 

Electoral Math Column Series Archive:

[Oct 23] [Oct 15] [Oct 08] [Sep 26] [Sep 17] [Aug 22] [Aug 8] [Jul 18] [Jun 25]

 

Chris Weigant blogs at:

Follow Chris on Twitter: @ChrisWeigant
Become a fan of Chris on The Huffington Post

 

WASHINGTON -- The last thing President Barack Obama wants is to screw up his response to a storm as massive and devastating as Hurricane Sandy, particularly a week before voters decide if they want him around for another four years. So, he's doing what any good president -- and candidate -- should do: ditching the campaign trail and owning the storm.

In a hastily organized press briefing at the White House, Obama said Monday that his race with Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney is the furthest thing from his mind as the East Coast braces for what could be its worst storm in history.

"I am not worried at this point about the impact on the election. I am worried about the impact on families. I am worried about the impact on our first responders," he said. "The election will take care of itself next week."

Obama's remarks came right after he left a Situation Room briefing on Hurricane Sandy, and right after he canceled a morning rally in Florida to come back to Washington to deal with storm preparations. He was supposed to head to Ohio later in the day for another campaign event, but he canceled that, too. Instead, he sent Vice President Joe Biden, who told the crowd that Obama’s absence was a case of him putting the storm ahead of politics.

"He's doing the job a president should be doing,” Biden said.

To be sure, bad weather conditions are impacting everyone’s campaigning. Biden canceled events in Ohio on Tuesday and in Pennsylvania on Thursday. Romney and his vice presidential running mate, Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), nixed events on Monday night and Tuesday “out of sensitivity for the millions of Americans in the path of Hurricane Sandy,” according to Gail Gitcho, Romney’s communications director. Their campaign also plans to mobilize campaign staff to collect donations for victims and scale back its criticism of Obama “to avoid the perception that Romney was putting politics ahead of public safety.”

But being the commander in chief has its perks. When it comes to showcasing one’s leadership, looking presidential in the midst of a natural disaster can go further than any campaign appearance.

In the days and hours ahead of the storm, Obama signed a batch of emergency disaster declarations for states in Sandy’s path: Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, New Jersey, Massachusetts, New York, Maryland and Delaware, as well as the District of Columbia. The move drew praise from politicians in those states, including some who put aside their campaigning for Romney to give Obama credit for helping out in advance of expected destruction.

“I appreciated the president’s outreach today in making sure that we know he’s watching this and is concerned about the health and welfare and safety of the people of the state of New Jersey,” Republican Gov. Chris Christie said Sunday. “He advised me to call him at any time that things were not going well.”

Obama has also been meeting with FEMA officials and cabinet secretaries, and speaking by phone with governors and mayors whose areas could be affected by the storm. The White House has provided readouts -- and photos -- from those meetings, emphasizing all the steps being taken by FEMA to ensure there aren’t storm victims left helpless like they were, say, in the Bush administration’s flubbed response to Hurricane Katrina.

“FEMA is proactively deploying Incident Management Assistance Teams to multiple states up and down the Eastern seaboard to ensure they have the support they need as they prepare for the storm," the readout from Obama’s Saturday briefing read. "FEMA is holding daily operation briefings with emergency response teams in potentially affected states, and FEMA liaisons are joining state and local emergency operations centers in potentially impacted areas. FEMA is also prepositioning commodities including water, meals, blankets and other resources, should they be needed, at Incident Support Bases along the East Coast."

FEMA administrator Craig Fugate reiterated this message during a media call on Monday, adding that his agency was “rapidly moving from preparing to being prepared to support response operations” in advance of Sandy’s landfall.

On the campaign side, Obama halted his flood of fundraising emails on Sunday, and the campaign is now using its Twitter, Facebook and campaign pages to instead urge donations to the Red Cross storm relief. He also sent out a campaign email on Monday urging supporters to heed advice from local authorities and extending an early thank you to first responders.

“Michelle and I are keeping everyone in the affected areas in our thoughts and prayers. Be safe,” reads the email, signed by Obama.

Politics hasn’t completely vanished as the storm approaches, however. Four critical swing states are expected to be hit by the storm -- North Carolina, Virginia, Ohio and New Hampshire -- and these are the same four states in which Romney staffers are collecting storm relief supplies.

Obama is also still planning to visit Ohio on Wednesday.

I'm sitting in my dining room right now, staring out the window thinking about the somewhat terrifying 'super storm' that is just beginning its long march through my neighborhood.

To be honest, I'm spending most of my time wondering if any of the enormous trees that surround my house are going to stop defying what seems to be basic physics and break.

I always forget until we're in another hurricane just how plain freaky it looks when trees appear to be doing calisthenics.

Now I want to stop thinking about that because really what can you do about it anyway, big trees little house, not a fun calculation. To take my mind off silly Sandy, I'm going to think about the election.

Truly, what else do I think about these days? There are a lot of people trying to decipher exactly what this storm will mean for the outcome.

They'll talk about voter turnout, campaign schedules and appearances.

I think those discussions miss the point. This is a perfect example of what is at the heart of the race for president.

What role should the federal government play in the lives of ordinary Americans?

There has been a lot of talk on the campaign about making the "tough decision to bring down the debt, to balance the budget, reduce the size of government."

Those are all nice slogans, but no one is talking about what that could actually mean.

The Republicans probably won't want to stress this right now, but vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan's budget called for eliminating funds that have been budgeted for disaster relief.

It would require future emergency spending on storms to be dramatically limited, according to the Bipartisan Policy Center.

A sentiment that seems to be shared by the top of the ticket as well.

According to the Washington Post, when asked in a debate about the possibility that federal disaster response could be curtailed to save federal dollars, Governor Mitt Romney replied: "Absolutely. Every time you have an occasion to take something from the federal government and send it back to the states, that's the right direction. And if you can go even further and send it back to the private sector, that's even better."

The Romney campaign is now pushing back on this, saying the governor wouldn't get rid of the Federal Emergency Management Agency but would let states have more say in how the money is spent.

So basically, he's agreeing with the system that is already in place.

When it comes to the details of exactly what he would cut to make a dent in a $16 trillion debt, he won't give specifics, beyond public television and children's programming.

I can't help but think that if he really is going to balance the budget while "growing the military," programs like FEMA would have to be cut.

That might actually be the hard reality of it, regardless of who wins the presidency. I can't tell you what President Barack Obama would do because he hasn't even come close to balancing the budget.

He also hasn't laid out specifics as to how you go from more than a trillion dollar deficit yearly to something more sustainable.

He's talked about $4 trillion in cuts, but he's using the famed "fuzzy math" to get there.

I really doubt many Americans are thinking about this right now, as the rain comes down in sheets and the trees do their version of a hula dance.

I am thinking in the coming days it might be discussed, or at the very least it should be.

This is about to be a real life, terrifying and desperate display of the role the federal government now plays in our lives.

I'm sure I have more to say on this, but as I write, I just saw a 40 foot (12 metre) tree touch the ground with the tip of its highest leaves, so I'm going in the basement.

Jonathan Tobin, Commentary
In the last week, there have been two consistent themes being sounded by the Democrats. One is the assertion that Mitt Romney’s momentum has been halted and even reversed. The other is that their ground game is so good that the president is bound to win the election no matter what the polls say. These two talking points are closely related, since the polls that liberal analysts cite in order to assert that the president is edging back into the lead are based on assumptions about the composition of the electorate that are only possible if the Democrats match or even exceed the...

Chris Cillizza, Washington Post
President Obama has a problem with independents. And it’s not a small problem. In the last three releases of the tracking poll conducted by The Washington Post and ABC News, Obama has trailed former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney among independent voters by between 16 and 20 percentage points. That’s a striking reversal from 2008, when Obama won independent voters, who made up 29 percent of the electorate, by eight points over Sen. John McCain of Arizona.

The Truth-o-Meter says: Half-True | Mitt Romney says women White House employees earn less than men under Barack Obama

As part of his campaign to court women voters, President Barack Obama has repeatedly noted that one of his first acts in office was his signing of the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, which makes it easier for workers who claim pay discrimination to sue for relief. But Mitt Romney’s campaign is using a clever counter-attack -- charging that Obama’s own White House pays female employees less than male employees. "Under President Barack Obama, women are lagging behind," says a mailer distributed to homes in northern Virginia, a key battleground in a ...

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Michael Barone, Washington Examiner
When reading one of the endless stories about a just-released poll Thursday night, a pair of numbers struck my eye: 60 and 37.Those were the percentages of white voters supporting Mitt Romney and Barack Obama in the ABC/Washington Post tracking poll. Overall, the poll showed Romney leading Obama 50 to 47 percent.The reason those two numbers struck my eye is that they are identical to the percentages of white voters supporting Republicans and Democrats in elections for the House of Representatives in the 2010 exit poll. Overall, Republicans won the House popular vote by a margin of 52 to 45...

Dan McLaughlin, Red State
POWERFUL CONSERVATIVE VOICES  |  Monday, October 29, 2012Login Register | Subscribe Contribute About Us By: Dan McLaughlin (Diary)  |  October 26th, 2012 at 03:03 PM  |  RESIZE: AAABarack Obama is toast. This is not something I say lightly. I generally try to remain cautious about predictions, because the prediction business is a humbling one. I have never been especially bullish on Mitt Romney, and I spent most of the summer and early fall arguing that this was basically a neck-and-neck race that would go down to the wire. But in...

Steve Benen, MSNBC