ARIZONA: Former President Bill Clinton will campaign Wednesday for Richard Carmona (D) running for the Senate.

“The emergence of Arizona and Connecticut as competitive Senate battlegrounds has reinforced one of the most important themes of this cycle: In a neutral political environment, candidates matter more than ever,” Roll Call writes.

MAINE: “New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg is throwing his financial support behind Maine independent Senate candidate Angus King, who is battling a stronger-than-expected challenge from a Republican contender in a race that could help determine control of the Senate,” The Boston Globe writes. “Bloomberg is one of the major backers behind a $500,000 ad campaign that began running on the Maine airwaves on Friday, the group running the ads said. The ads extol King as an independent voice who could help break gridlock in Washington.”

MASSACHUSETTS: Selling out? “Tea party activists are again supporting Republican U.S. Sen. Scott Brown this election, even though many aren’t thrilled with some of his votes over the past two years,” the Boston Globe writes.

A Western New England University poll shows Warren up 50-45%. (H/T: Taegan Goddard.)

MISSOURI: Claire McCaskill’s running an ad statewide hinting at Todd Akin’s “legitimate rape” comments. It focuses on her work as a prosecutor and her belief in giving women the option of emergency contraception after they’ve been raped, something she says Akin’s against.

NEBRASKA: Steve Martin cut weird video for Bob Kerrey. 

Updated at 8:40a.m.ET: PORT ST. LUCIE, Fla. – In a major foreign policy speech Monday Mitt Romney will attempt to stake out a more activist public position than President Barack Obama on supporting the rebels in Syria's civil war. Romney plans to say that he believes in working with partner nations to arm rebels fighting the government of Syrian President Bashir al-Assad.

Slideshow: Behind Syrian rebel lines

Machine guns operated by motorcycle brakes? Get a glimpse at the rebels fighting against Assad's forces in Syria's mountainous Jabal al-Zawiya area.

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He would equip the rebels – “who share our values” -- with heavy weapons to take out "tanks, helicopters and fighter jets," according to the remarks. The Obama administration has refrained from doing so out of concern that the weapons would end up in terrorist hands, according to The New York Times.

Romney will also argue that the U.S. must support the rebels to develop influence and good relations with the Syria’s future leaders.

Slideshow: On the campaign trail

Reuters, Getty Images

In the final push in the 2012 presidential election, candidates Mitt Romney and Barack Obama make their last appeals to voters.

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Syria is just one area Romney will touch on in a speech in which the Republican nominee will attempt to portray himself as a leader firmly in the peace-through-strength tradition of Harry Truman and Ronald Reagan, while casting President Obama as an ineffective leader on a dangerous and constantly-evolving world stage.

Related: Who are the Syrian rebels?

Romney will deliver a 30-minute address, titled "The Mantle of Leadership," later Monday at the Virginia Military Institute, his 10th address on the topic of foreign policy since summer 2011.

Recommended: Obama urges supporters not to lose enthusiasm

The former Massachusetts governor's speech, like the others before it, will focus on a vision of peace through strength. It will include new details on how Romney would address current global hotspots and repeat regular stump speech staples – such as the importance of averting planned defense cuts, expanding and reinvesting in the U.S. military and working closely with allies abroad, especially Israel.

In prepared remarks released Sunday to reporters, Romney laid out global issues where his campaign hopes to draw "great contrast" with Obama – notably on Libya, Syria and Egypt.

Slideshow: Mitt Romney's life in politics

Jonathan Ernst / Getty Images

From governor's son to presidential contender, a look at the life of Republican Mitt Romney.

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The speech links the attack on the American consulate in Benghazi last month to al-Qaida, a position Romney has rarely engaged in on the campaign trail. Romney calls the attack "likely the work of the same forces that attacked our homeland on September 11th, 2001," and "the deliberate work of terrorists." The attack was not, he says, a spontaneous response to a movie trailer maligning the Muslim Prophet Mohammad, as the Obama administration initially said.

As he did at the Clinton Global Initiative last month, Romney will argue that U.S. aid to Egypt should be linked with promises from Egyptian leaders to uphold the 1979 peace treaty with Israel and to protect minorities, including the country’s Coptic Christians.

Romney, who offended some Palestinians with remarks he made in Israel suggesting the economic disparities between the Palestinian territories and Israel were based in part on cultural differences, will also promise to "recommit" to helping form a democratic Palestinian state alongside Israel.

"In this old conflict, as in every challenge we face in the Middle East, only a new President will bring the chance to begin anew," say Romney’s prepared remarks.

On the infamous "47 percent" tape of a Florida fundraising event in May, Romney predicted the Israeli/Palestinian conflict would "remain [an] unsolved problem."

"We have a potentially volatile situation, but we sort of live with it," Romney said at the May fundraiser, comparing the peace process to the decades-long standoff between China and Taiwan. "And we kick the ball down the field and hope that ultimately somehow, something will happen to resolve it."

During a Sunday conference call with reporters, Romney foreign policy advisers said Monday’s foreign policy speech was meant to align Romney with the foreign policy tradition of Harry Truman, Ronald Reagan and George Marshall.

"If you look at Harry Truman and John Kennedy and the use of power by Bill Clinton in his second term that is a much different approach than Jimmy Carter and Barack Obama so I do think it’s a bipartisan tradition, it’s a recognition that strength is not provocative, its weakness that’s provocative," former Ambassador Rich Williamson, a Romney foreign policy adviser, said on the call. "There’s a fundamental difference between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney and that’s part of the choice that American voters will be asked to make."

Democrats fired back preemptively at that characterization.

"Mainstream foreign policy isn't what Mitt Romney is putting forward: having plans to start wars but not end them; wanting to keep 30,000 U.S. troops in Iraq indefinitely; exploding our defense spending to levels the Pentagon has not asked for, with no way to pay for it; insulting our allies and partners around the world on the campaign trail; and calling Russia our number-one geopolitical foe," Obama campaign spokesperson Lis Smith said in a statement Sunday. "If that's where Mitt Romney thinks the mainstream is, he needs to find a better compass."

Aboard Air Force One Sunday, Jen Psaki, the Obama campaign's traveling press secretary, was more cutting when asked her views on the speech.

"We're not going to be lectured by someone who has been an unmitigated disaster on foreign policy every time he's dipped his toe in the foreign policy waters," Psaki told reporters. "The only person who has offended Europe more is probably Chevy Chase."

LOS ANGELES, Calif. -- With a touch of humor and at one point admonition, President Obama urged supporters at a Los Angeles fundraiser here not to lose enthusiasm for his campaign just because he had one lousy debate performance.

The president kicked off his remarks with an allusion to last Wednesday night that the whole crowd seemed to pick up on. Praising his opening acts at the Nokia Theater here, which included Stevie Wonder, Jon Bon Jovi and Katy Perry, Obama said, “These guys perform flawlessly night after night.”

“I can’t always say the same,” he continued, waiting a beat for comic timing.

And later he reminded his audience that he had some imperfect moments during the last campaign as well.

“Everybody always remembers the victory but they don’t always remember the bumps in the road; things always look good in retrospect.

“But in the middle of it, we were – we made all kinds of mistakes. We goofed up, I goofed up, but the American people carried us forward,” urging his supporters not to forget that they stuck by him even when he hiccupped in 2008 – something he hopes they do over the next 30 days.

Mitt Romney is fighting to earn a new look from voters with 30 days remaining until the election, as President Barack Obama looks to close the window on his Republican challenger. 

Romney, the Republican presidential nominee, has hopes of building momentum off of his strong debate performance this week, in which he generally outperformed Obama with energetic and crisp arguments.

But a top spokesman for the president vowed Sunday that Obama wouldn't allow Romney a repeat performance in their second showdown.

"It's not rocket science to believe the president was disappointed in the expectations he has for himself," former White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said on "Meet the Press" of Obama's debate performance, which was panned as lethargic and lacking in aggression.

Of the second debate, scheduled for Oct. 16, Gibbs said, "I think you're going to see a very engaged president that is ready and willing to call out whichever Mitt Romney shows up."

Romney "walked over" Obama in Denver, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, one of Romney's erstwhile primary opponents, contended. But Gingrich also acknowledged that the GOP nominee had "changed" from the primary, when he vowed to cut taxes for individuals in all income brackets. (Romney said in Wednesday's debate that, in his reform plan, the wealthy wouldn't end up paying any less in taxes.)

Whether Romney has made up much ground versus Obama hasn't yet been fully reflected in polls conducted since the debate. The Republican hopeful entered the matchup trailing the president, and must make up ground — especially in battleground states like Ohio — if Romney is to have any hope of winning on Nov. 6.

"The real question to me, of this campaign, is, can the Romney campaign take this moment and run with it?" asked Mike Murphy, a longtime Republican consultant with ties to Romney.

Romney won the endorsement of a newspaper in one such swing state, Nevada, as the editors of the Las Vegas Review-Journal said Romney "has the principles and experience needed to put America back on the road to prosperity."

But Obama's case for re-election was bolstered Friday by a new jobs report that showed the unemployment rate at 7.8 percent in September, clearing the psychological barrier of 8 percent, above which the unemployment rate had sat for months. 

"I think it was a significant help to the president," Gingrich said of that report.

Obama's advantage over Romney was fueled partly by improving perceptions of the economy, which could be cemented by the new employment data. If nothing else, the president will have a new cudgel to wield against Romney in their next debate matchup. 

Both Romney and Obama will leave it to their running mates this week to carry the banner on Thursday, at the vice presidential debate. 

"I know Vice President Biden is anxious and ready to do this," Gibbs said of Biden's impending debate versus Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan, the Republican vice presidential nominee.

In the meanwhile, both the president and Romney aren't taking the weekend off; instead, they're both on the campaign trail this Sunday. Romney will hold a rally this afternoon in Florida, while Obama attends a "30 days to victory" fundraising concert tonight in Los Angeles.

As the presidential election reaches its apex in intensity, so have arguments from the right that polls and economic statistics -- the numbers used to explain the 2012 campaign -- are not to be trusted.

The theory that many polls are under-sampling Republicans (and thus overstating the support for Obama) has become widespread on the right, as many supporters of Mitt Romney asserted this week during rallies before the first presidential debate.

“I’d prefer him to be higher in the polls, but I think a lot of conservatives just aren’t being polled,” said Cathy Barnes, a Romney voter from southeast Denver who attended the Republican nominee’s rally last Monday near Aurora.

“I don’t believe what they polls are saying, they’ve clearly been Democratic-skewed,” said Daniel Zustek, a health care worker from Denver, at the same rally. “If you look at the numbers – such as Ohio -- they’ve lost a lot of Democratic voter registration in the city of Cleveland, which isn’t stuff that’s really examined when they’re running these polls.”

“Push comes to shove, I think he’s ahead. I don’t think the Democratic turnout will be as high as it was four years ago,” Zustek added of Romney’s chances.

Recommended: On day of data, Romney turns personal

“I think the media likes to slant what the Romneys do. Just because the media says something doesn’t make it fact,” said Rosabel Herrington of Romney’s disadvantage among women voters in most polls before a “Women for Mitt” event Tuesday in Littleton.

The argument is based largely on the notion that pollsters are using a turnout model that most closely resembles the 2008 election, when turnout was inordinately high and Democrats outpaced Republicans. Conservatives argue that these samples should more closely match the 2004 election (when Republican turnout was inordinately high), or, if nothing else, include more Republicans.

Bolstering that argument have been surveys issued by pollster Scott Rasmussen, which have typically shown a tighter matchup between Romney and Obama both nationally and in many swing states. (One reason for this is because the automated polls used by Rasmussen and other outfits -- which NBC News don't report on --  are barred by law from contacting voters whose sole phone line is cellular. These voters are typically understood to skew younger and toward minorities, and thus, more Democratic.)

Former Colorado Gov. Bill Owens (R) echoed this sentiment when firing up a crowd at a Romney rally Monday in Denver.

"As you know, this race is close, and it's going to get closer. Sunday's Rasmussen poll showed that 43 percent of voters say they are certain to vote for Mitt Romney, and 42 percent are certain to vote for President Obama," he said. "But as you know, the undecideds typically swing towards the challenger. And in Colorado, poll after poll has showed that our state is virtually tied."

Obama led Romney, 50 to 45 percent, in the most recent NBC News-Wall Street Journal-Marist poll of Colorado’s likely voters. And in the running tally of polls conducted by the website Real Clear Politics, which includes automated polls with varying party affiliations, Romney leads only in one: Rasmussen’s.

Recommended: Obama accuses Romney of shifting positions

And the Republican presidential nominee himself has invoked Rasmussen's polls to argue the race is much tighter than other polls had suggested.

"Actually the national polls, Rasmussen and Gallup have it a tied race," Romney told NBC's Ron Allen in an interview two weeks ago.

Since then, public opinion polls have shown the national tightening to a degree, and the impact of Romney's strong debate performance last Wednesday isn't fully reflected yet in polls.

The mounting criticism of polls mirrors what some Sen. John Kerry's supporters said about the Democrats' polling performance versus George W. Bush in 2004. But it also serves an unintended benefit for Romney in that Republicans might feel more engaged and active in backing the Republican ticket if they don't perceive it to be trailing Obama so badly.

A similar phenomenon emerged on Friday when conservatives expressed open skepticism of new monthly employment figures issued by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which showed that the economy added 114,000 new jobs in September, and that the unemployment rate had dropped from 8.1 percent in August to 7.8 percent last month.

Jack Welch, the former CEO of General Electric (the former parent company of NBC News), set off a firestorm by insinuating that the administration manipulated the jobs numbers because they were so incredible.

“I have no evidence to prove that. I just raised the question,” Welch explained later in the day on MSNBC.

Welch also declined to retract his assertion: “I don’t want to take back one word in that tweet. … It just defies the imagination to have a surge larger than any other surge since 1983 a month before the election.”

Other political figures weighed in to support Welch’s assertion. Rush Limbaugh expressed skepticism toward the numbers on his show, and one member of Congress encouraged doubt of the official job statistics, too.

"I agree with former GE CEO Jack Welch, Chicago style politics is at work here. Somehow by manipulation of data we are all of a sudden below 8 percent unemployment, a month from the Presidential election," Florida Rep. Allen West (R) wrote on his Facebook page. "Trust the Obama administration? Sure, and the spontaneous reaction to a video caused the death of our Ambassador ... and pigs fly."

But that notion was startling to several other conservatives. Tony Fratto, a former spokesman in President George W. Bush's White House, called the allegation of labor data manipulation "dumb conspiracy theories" on his Twitter page.

And Douglas Holtz-Eakin, a Republican economist who formerly served as director of the Congressional Budget Office, strongly disputed the idea that Obama would manipulate September's report.

"These numbers put together by the BLS or BEA, they're all done by career civil servants who are experts in the area with complete integrity," he said. "If someone tried to do that -- if I, during my time in the Bush administration, had gone to the BLS and said, 'Juice these numbers,' they would have called the Washington Post so fast. That's just not acceptable; it's not how the process works."

Besides, Holtz-Eakin argued, Republicans have plenty to criticize in this jobs report. He argued that the drop in the jobless rate could be an aberration based on an unusually high number of households to report employment in this month's survey.

"We still have a labor force participation rate that's down at 1981 levels, and we still have an unemployment rate that's not a cause for celebration either," he said.

Two days after what was widely considered a subpar debate performance, President Barack Obama continued his mission of convincing voters that Mitt Romney did a 180-degree shift to more moderate policies during Wednesday’s debate.

“My opponent, he's doing a lot of -- a little tap dance at the debate the other night, trying to wiggle out of stuff he's been saying for a year,” Obama said, battling driving rain at an outdoor field in Cleveland, as 9,000 supporters looked on.

The president threw in a few references to popular reality TV shows (which just happen to be popular with some key demographics, young people and women) as he ridiculed what he called Romney’s political maneuverings: “It was like ‘Dancing with the Stars,’ or maybe it was ‘Extreme Makeover, Debate Edition.’”

Seeking to underscore what he says was his opponent’s dishonesty in the debate, Obama continued, “No matter what he says, my opponent, he's a big believer in these top-down economics.”

The Romney campaign responded to Obama's criticisms with a statement from campaign spokesperson Amanda Henneberg, which read in part, "The President can’t defend his record of failure on jobs and the economy so he has to lie about Mitt Romney’s pro-growth economic policies." 

The president drove that message home earlier Friday at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va., noting with a touch of sarcasm that Romney said he wouldn’t raise taxes on anyone -- including corporations and the wealthy.

“He said there’s no way that he’d close the loophole that gives big oil companies billions each year in corporate welfare. Ending tax breaks for corporations that move jobs and profits overseas? He’d never heard of such a thing. Who knew? Who knew?"

And Big Bird, the new symbol for what Democrats call overzealous Republican budget cutting, also figured heavily into both of Obama’s campaign events.

“He said he'd go after funding for public television. So for all you moms and kids out there, don't worry. Somebody's finally getting tough on Big Bird!” he exclaimed in Cleveland.

“You want me to save Big Bird?” he asked as the crowd laughed.

ABINGDON, VA -- Mitt Romney downplayed the importance of new, positive jobs data released Friday, telling a crowd of supporters here in rural Virginia the drop in the unemployment rate had more to do with workers dropping out of the labor force than with any real expansion of hiring.

"There were fewer new jobs created this month than last month," Romney said of today's report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics which showed 114,000 jobs created in September, and revised the August number up to 142,000 new jobs.

Steve Helber / AP

Republican presidential candidate, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney gestures during a rally in Abingdon, Va., Friday, Oct. 5, 2012.

The Republican presidential nominee's tack broke from a now-monthly tradition of seizing on weak employment reports to portray President Barack Obama as ineffective in turning around a struggling US economy, Mitt Romney downplayed the importance of today's more positive labor data,

"The unemployment rate as you noted this year has come down very, very slowly, but it’s come down none the less.  The reason it’s come down this year is primarily due to the fact that more and more people have just stopped looking for work," Romney continued. "If the same share of people were participating in the workforce today as on the day the president got elected, our unemployment rate would be around 11 percent. That’s the real reality of what’s happening out there."

Recommended: Obama uses positive jobs report to make case against Romney

The report from the Bureau of Labor statistics shows workforce participation remained essentially flat in September, at around 64 percent, with an uptick in workers who took part time jobs for economic reasons, such as not being able to get full time employment. Updward-revised jobs numbers from July and August also contributed to the lower jobless rate.

While workforce participation has generally declined over the course of the past four years, workforce participation actually inched upward last month – meaning a drop in those seeking work wasn’t directly attributable to the lower unemployment rate last month.

But if the jobs report itself was a secondary focus in Romney's remarks today, the economy was once again front and center, with Romney telling some 3,300 supporters gathered here that he could grow the economy faster than Obama, and promising brighter economic days ahead.

"My priority is creating jobs," Romney said. "I’ll help small business do that, with everything I can do. Now we can do better. We don’t have to stay on the path we’ve been on. We can do better."

"When I’m president of the United States – that unemployment rate is going to come down not because people are giving up and dropping out of the workforce but because we’re creating more jobs," Romney said later. "I will create jobs and get America working again!" 

The Obama campaign challenged Romney economic plans in a statement released shortly after the event concluded.

"In fact, independent economists say his plans would not create jobs, could slow the recovery, and could actually cost us two million jobs over the next two years. The American people want to move forward, not back,” Obama campaign spokesperson Lis Smith wrote.

President Barack Obama used Friday's new jobs report showing that the unemployment rate had fallen below 8 percent to warn voters in battleground Virginia against electing Mitt Romney as president.

The monthly jobs survey issued this morning by the Bureau of Labor Statistics showed that the economy added 114,000 jobs in September, and that the economy added 86,000 more jobs in July and August than had been initially estimated. Most significantly, the unemployment rate fell from 8.1 percent in August to 7.8 percent last month -- the lowest point since Obama first took office.

"This morning, we found out that the unemployment rate has fallen to its lowest level since I took office," the president said at a campaign rally in northern Virginia.

The new economic data was welcome news for Obama, whose performance in Wednesday's presidential debate prompted hand-wringing from Democrats, who said the president wasn't aggressive enough versus Romney. Friday's data offered Obama an opportunity to play offense on the issue of the economy, the No. 1 issue in the election and a topic on which he often plays defense versus Romney.

"Today's news certainly is not an excuse to try to talk down the economy to score a few political points. It's a reminder that this country has come too far to turn back now," Obama said. "I can't allow that to happen. I won't allow that to happen, and that is why I'm running for a second term as president of the United States."

Recommended: Debate focuses attention on what Social Security 'tweak' might mean for workers

The report was politically significant in that, for the first time, the unemployment rate fell below 8 percent -- an important psychological barrier, especially since Romney has made frequent reference to the tally of months during which the jobless rate has been above that threshold.

Mandel Ngan / AFP - Getty Images

President Barack Obama waves during a campaign event on October 5, 2012 at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia.

Romney has made the anemic economic recovery his primary argument in prosecuting the case against Obama. He said the only reason that the unemployment rate had declined was due to people dropping out of the workforce.

"There were fewer new jobs created this month than last month," Romney said while campaigning Friday in Virginia.

"The reason it's come down this year is primarily due to the fact that more and more people have stopped looking for work," added the Republican presidential hopeful. He argued that while it "looks like unemployement is getting better," the real jobless rate would be closer to 11 percent if the workforce hadn't shrunk during Obama's time in office.

The BLS report was the penultimate monthly update on the U.S. employment situation before the election. The jagged rate of recovery has caused heartburn for Obama in his bid for re-election -- particularly some disappointing reports in the late spring -- offered Romney ammunition to use against the president.

In those months, Obama saw public opinion toward the state of the economy and his management of it sour to a degree in public polling.

It has also been growing confidence in the economy that helped contribute to the president's advantage over Romney in late summer and through September.

Forty-four percent of voters said in the most recent NBC News-Wall Street Journal poll that they believed the economy would improve over the next year, improved from 27 percent of voters who expressed such an opinion in the July edition of the poll.

The Obama campaign has also sought to erode Romney's advantage on the economy with rounds of blistering ads questioning the Republican nominee's experience in private equity, and how Romney manages his own personal wealth.

But Romney still held an edge over Obama in this week's NBC-WSJ poll. Forty-five percent of voters said they thought Romney would better manage the economy, versus 42 percent who said the same of Obama.

Unemployment rate dips below 8%... Will it have an impact?... Is Romney’s plan really a $5 trillion tax cut?... Yesterday was a tale of two different campaigns  --  one with momentum, the other with something to prove… Romney cleans up his “47%” comment, calling it “completely wrong”… Two points on the return of “Moderate Mitt”… Democrats’public angst (comparing Obama’s debate performance to Donald Verrilli’s SCOTUS oral arguments)…  Obama stumps in Virginia and Ohio, while Romney hits Virginia and Florida.  

*** Unemployment rate dips below 8% : A month ago, after what was considered a strong Democratic convention and a subpar one for Republicans, the Romney campaign eagerly looked to the monthly jobs report to change the subject. Now the dynamic is reversed: After what was considered Romney's strong debate performance and Obama's subpar one, Democrats were looking to today's job numbers for some good news. Did they get it? The results are pretty good for them: The unemployment rate fell to 7.8% -- the first time it’s been below 8% since Jan. 2009. More from the AP: “The Labor Department says employers added 114,000 jobs in September. The economy also created 86,000 more jobs in July and August than first estimated.”

*** Does it have an impact? We continue to see these monthly jobs numbers have  very  little impact on the public. Yet they have had a bigger impact on the tone of the political coverage in a 24- to 48-hour period, and that helps the Obama campaign change the subject from Wednesday night’s debate. In addition, do not underestimate the psychological impact of the unemployment rate falling BELOW 8%. It’s been an anchor around the president’s leg politically for years, not months. How many times have Republicans said, “He promised unemployment below 8%!” Well, voila... And one thing we learned a few months ago was just how underreported job gains were in 2011. And this report, of course, featured upward revisions.

Michael Reynolds / AFP - Getty Images

President Barack Obama and Republican challenger Mitt Romney participate in their first debate at the University of Denver in Denver, Colorado, October 3, 2012.

***  Is Romney’s plan a $5 trillion cut?  Speaking of numbers, there has been a lot of attention over whether Mitt Romney’s tax plan is a $5 trillion  tax CUT plan. “I'm not in favor of a $5 trillion tax cut. That's not my plan,” Romney said at Wednesday’s debate. “My plan is not to put in place any tax cut that will add to the deficit.” If you take Romney at his word, he’s right -- he’s saying that he will pay for those tax cuts by closing loopholes and other deductions. But here’s the problem for the Romney campaign: We know the math how you get to just about $5 trillion in tax cuts over 10 years. It starts with reducing tax rates across the board by 20%, eliminating the Alternative Minimum Tax and erasing the federal estate tax. Together, that comes to $450-$480 billion by 2015. You do that over 10 years (standard budget estimations), and you get about $5 trillion. But what we don’t know is the math of how you offset the nearly $500 billion per year as Romney has pledged, because the Romney campaign has yet to provide any specifics about what he would cut. But we do know that he has ruled out:

- touching preferential rates on capital gains and dividends (Simpson-Bowles does RAISE these rates for their offsets),
- exemptions for Roth IRAs and 401(k)s, and
- the exclusion of capital gains on home sales

 Now the Romney campaign has taken issue with the Tax Policy Center’s analysis because the conclusion it drew is that the only way you offset the $4.5 to $5 trillion over 10 years -- after handcuffing yourself on the pledges above -- is to eliminate deductions that will inevitably touch the middle class. The Romney folks say the Obama campaign and Tax Policy Center have created a straw man. But the problem is that Romney has not responded at all with ANY detail on how they do it. The math isn’t just hard; it becomes nearly impossible (at least politically) once you account for the pledge handcuffs. The Romney campaign is hoping to make it until November without having to provide its own straw man beyond, “That’s not true.” The downside of getting the real second look the campaign wants is that they will need to provide some answers to this $5 trillion question.

***  A tale of two different campaigns : Yesterday, we wrote that the Obama campaign had the opportunity to change the story coming out of the debate -- from the president’s performance to some of the potentially problematic things Romney said -- but it was clear who had the better Thursday. Here’s yesterday’s dispatch from NBC’s Garrett Haake and Alex Moe: “Capitalizing on momentum from Wednesday night's debate, Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan whipped up their base here in rural Virginia with a raucous rally complete with fireworks, live music and pointed new attack lines aimed at their Democratic opponents. ‘I got the chance to ask the president questions that people across the country have wanted to ask him, such as why is it that he pushed Obamacare at a time when we had 23 million people out of work?’’ Romney said in Fishersville, VA. As mentioned above, the campaign even featured fireworks at the end (perhaps a tad gloat-ish). But given how long it’s been since the Romney campaign felt this confident, perhaps you can’t blame them.

*** One with momentum, the other with something to prove: Meanwhile, Obama was campaigning like he had something to prove. As NBC’s Kristen Welker reported, “A fired-up President Barack Obama spoke to a crowd of more than 12,000 at a Denver campaign event Thursday and seemed to exude the energy and aggressiveness that many of his supporters felt was missing at last night's presidential debate… Obama argued … that the Mitt Romney who appeared at the debate was not the ‘real Mitt Romney.’ ‘When I got on stage, I met this very spirited fellow who claimed to be Mitt Romney,’ he said. ‘But it couldn’t have been Mitt Romney, because the real Mitt Romney has been running around the country for the year, promising $5 trillion dollars in tax cuts that favor the wealthy. The fellow on stage last night didn’t seem to know anything about that.” Yet Obama’s events yesterday (in both Denver and Madison, WI) only raised this question: Where was THAT guy on Wednesday night? And yesterday’s more forceful Obama -- coupled with his campaign’s conference call and new TV ad -- only seemed to amplify what happened at the debate. By the way, it was hard to find an Obama SUPPORTER at the Denver rally who thought the president did a good job at the debate. Even his die-hards weren’t sugar-coating it.

*** Romney cleans up his “47%” comment: Not only did Romney yesterday try to build momentum after his debate; he also did some major clean-up work. He went on FOX’s Hannity program and said his “47%” comment was “completely wrong.” As the Washington Post reports, “Hannity asked Romney how he would have responded had President Obama brought up the comment the GOP candidate made at a fundraiser lastspring saying that he was unconcerned about the 47 percent of people who see themselves as victims entitled to government support. ‘Well, clearly in a campaign, with hundreds if not thousands of speeches and question-and-answer sessions, now and then you’re going to say something that doesn’t come out right,’ Romney said. ‘In this case, I said something that’s just completely wrong.’” It was a smart time to do it -- better to do this clean-up work with the wind at your back than in damage-control mode. But it does raise the question: How many re-sets can a presidential nominee have? Three weeks ago, you’re standing by what you said, even if it was inartful; now you’re saying it was completely wrong.

*** Two points on “Moderate Mitt”: In fact, there’s plenty of coverage today of how Romney ideologically re-set his campaign at Wednesday night’s debate. National Journal writes that Romney “made his long-anticipated leap to the center.” And David Brooks’ New York Times column is even entitled, “Moderate Mitt Returns!” We had been previewing this move over the past couple of weeks -- with Romney acknowledging he’s the “grandfather of Obamacare” and using his Massachusetts health-care law as an example of his empathy. But here are two points: one, as that National Journal piece notes, Obama let Romney get away with this move to the center at the debate. And two, there has been NO conservative blowback so far to Romney’s move. Many influential conservatives, for now at least, are back to simply wanting to win.

*** Democrats’ public angst: And here’s one final point we want to make about the aftermath from the debate: Democrats reacted to Obama’s performance exactly like they reacted to Solicitor General Verrilli’s oral arguments in the health-care case -- with pronouncements of angst. And there’s a lesson here for Democrats and liberals: While Wednesday’s debate certainly didn’t help, it’s also very possible that it didn’t prove to be fatal, either. But we’ll see what the polls show next week. And trust us: They will be PLENTY of polls for everyone to see. But realistically, the first polls you should trust that will absorb the ENTIRE impact of the debate and post-debate are the runs released no sooner than Tuesday… You want surveys that were actually in the field Sunday and Monday.

*** New Romney ads: The Romney camp is up with three new TV ads – one for Ohio talking about standing up to China and creating 12 million new jobs; one in Nevada featuring ex-UNLV basketball Greg Anthony (who says he voted for Obama in 2008); and one hitting Obama on the deficits and debt.

*** On the trail: Obama campaigns in Fairfax, VA (at George Mason University) at 10:45 am ET and then in Cleveland, OH (at Cleveland State University) at 2:35 pm ET… Romney holds a “coal country” event in Abington, VA at 11:35 am ET and then he heads to a rally in St. Petersburg at 6:15 pm ET.

Countdown to VP debate: 6 days
Countdown to 2^nd presidential debate: 11 days
Countdown to 3^rd presidential debate: 17 days
Countdown to Election Day: 32 days

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*** Friday’s “MSNBC Live with Thomas Roberts” line-up: MSNBC’s Thomas Roberts talks with Obama-Biden Campaign Vice-Chair Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL), MSNBC & CNBC Contributor Jared Bernstein, CNBC Contributor Ron Insana, and Linda Killian, author of “The Swing Vote”.  The Washington Post’s Jonathan Capehart, Republican strategist Susan Del Percio, and Democratic strategist Chris Kofinis join the Power Panel.

*** Friday’s “NOW with Alex Wagner” line-up: Alex Wagner’s guests include Deputy NYC Mayor Howard Wolfson,tThe Huffington Post’s Sam Stein, TheGrio.com Managing Editor Joy Reid, BuzzFeed Editor-in-Chief Ben Smith, CNBC’s Eamon Javers, Bill Burton of Priorities USA Action, and Host of msnbc’s “UP” Chris Hayes.

*** Friday’s “Andrea Mitchell Reports” line-up: NBC’s Andrea Mitchell interviews the Washington Post’s Chris Cillizza, Eugene Robinson and Michael Gerson, Fmr. Deputy Treasury Secretary Roger Altman, The Economist’s Greg Ip and USA Today’s Susan Page.

*** Friday’s “News Nation with Tamron Hall” line-up: Tamron’s interviews Democratic strategist David Goodfriend, Jonathan Collegio from American Crossroads, the Washington Post’s Anne Kornblut, Daily Beast Contributor Zachary Karabell, and author Rich Rubino.

*** Friday’s “MSNBC The Cycle” line-up: MSNBC’s Toure, Krystal Ball, Steve Kornacki, & S.E. Cupp interview Professor John Geer, Author Carrie Goldman, Co-Founder & President of Our Time Matthew Segal.

*** Saturday’s and Sunday’s “Weekends with Alex Witt”: As part of her weekly “Office Politics” series, MSNBC’s Alex Witt interviews Christine Todd Whitman.

“Buoyed by a powerful debate showing, Mitt Romney said Thursday he offers ‘prosperity that comes through freedom’ to a country struggling to shed a weak economy. President Barack Obama accused the former Massachusetts governor of running from his own record in pursuit of political power,” AP’s Espo writes. “Both men unleashed new attack ads in the battleground states in a race with little more than a month to run, Obama suggesting Romney couldn’t be trusted with the presidency, and the Republican accusing the president of backing a large tax increase on the middle class. The debate reached 67.2 million viewers, an increase of 28 percent over the first debate in the 2008 presidential campaign.”

Michael Hirsch: “Barack Obama couldn’t be bothered to notice—he seemed to think he was at a White House news conference, not a debate—but while the president was acting so veddy, veddy presidential on Wednesday night, his challenger, Mitt Romney, decisively made his long-anticipated leap to the center. And if the GOP nominee stays there, he may yet have a chance to take Obama’s job away from him.”

Charlie Cook’s not so sure: “It would take a very consequential event to change the trajectory of this race. Time will tell whether Romney’s strong debate performance on Wednesday night was the event that he needed—particularly in swing states such as Ohio. But at least he energized his supporters and sent a clear message that the race is not over. … Romney had a six-week stretch where nothing broke his way. Now we’ll see if his debate performance was a turning point—or a brief interruption—in the campaign narrative.”

“Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney has described his disparaging remarks about the 47 percent of Americans who don’t pay federal income taxes as ‘not elegantly stated.’ Now he’s calling them ‘just completely wrong,’”  AP’s Hunt writes.

Politico: “Inside the campaign: Reinventing Romney.” (How many times has a headline been written about Romney not just in the last six years, but also in the last six months or six weeks?)

From the story: “In the afterglow of the Denver duel, top campaign advisers said Thursday that the reinvention efforts will include forthcoming ads featuring clips from Romney’s much-praised debate performance, and the increased behind-the-scenes role of two close confidants — Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio), who played President Barack Obama in debate prep, and oldest son Tagg Romney, who has subtly taken a more active role in the selling of a more likable version of his dad.”

More: “Early this week, top Romney aides began contacting friendly pundits and political allies in Washington about a new umbrella message for the rest of the campaign: what the campaign is calling ‘the choice narrative,’ posing a contrast between Obama’s policies in the past four years and what Romney would do in the next four. The construct is an effort to continue undermining Obama while responding to voters who in campaign focus groups have said they would like to know more about Romney’s policies. The frame is designed to acknowledge that many swing voters still like Obama as an individual, and also is aimed at elevating Romney and telling his story, now that the campaign realizes it’s insufficient to be ‘not Obama.’ Romney used that message as an organizing principle for his answers, and aides said Paul Ryan will do the same at his debate with Vice President Joe Biden next week.”

National Journal: “Trying the capitalize on the momentum after the first presidential debate this week, the Romney campaign released three new television ads on Friday focused on the Republican nominee’s economic plans. The campaign’s first 30-second ad, ‘Facts Are Clear,’ attacks President Obama on the nation’s debt and on job creation.” More: The other two 30-second ads focus on specific states. ‘Ohio Jobs’ shows Romney talking directly to the camera in a warehouse, saying he will challenge China on U.S. manufacturing. And: “The final ad features former basketball player Greg Anthony, who says that after voting for Obama in 2008, he is switching his vote to Romney.”

“The solid verdict for Mitt Romney following the first presidential debate — on style points, at a minimum — has pushed the Obama campaign to rethink strategy and the Republican team to reload,” the Boston Globe writes, adding, “How this performance, the most widely viewed event of the campaign so far, affects the race will become apparent in coming days as new polls are released in the key swing states where the president has built a lead. Another milestone in the campaign will be the release Friday morning of updated monthly jobless figures. But the debate disparity between Obama and Romney has prompted immediate rethinking among the president’s advisers and a reenergized push to build on momentum among Republicans.”

More: “A CBS News poll of uncommitted voters, conducted before and after the 90-minute debate, indicated Romney had made great strides in critical areas in the first face-to-face debate. Before the debate, when asked whether Romney ‘cares about your needs and problems,’ 30 percent agreed and 63 percent disagreed. After, the numbers flipped, with 68 percent saying Romney cares and 36 percent saying he does not.”

“A reenergized Mitt Romney joined forces with Paul Ryan in the battleground state of Virginia on Thursday evening and said the previous night's debate enabled voters to‘listen to substance,’ even as the Obama campaign began aggressively questioning the details of several of Romney's assertions,” National Journal reports. “ ‘People got the chance … to cut through all the attacks and counterattacks and all of the theatrics associated with a campaign, and instead they were able to listen to substance,’ Romney said as the crowd of more than 5,000 in this rural town west of Charlottesville roared its approval.”

About that tax deduction limit proposal… “Pressed during Wednesday’s presidential debate to explain how he would pay for the huge income tax cut he has proposed, Mitt Romney said he would consider a cap on the amount of charitable donations, home mortgage interest, state and local tax payments, and other expenses taxpayers can claim on their returns,” the Globe writes, adding, “Tax analysts said it is difficult to evaluate the idea, since Romney has provided few details and has tossed out several dollar figures as a potential cap. But critics say such a cap could be problematic in two significant ways: It would increase the tax burden on many middle-class taxpayers and it would not make up for the roughly $5 trillion in federal revenue over 10 years that would be lost in Romney’s plan.”

The Wall Street Journal notes that historically challengers have had difficulty sustaining the momentum of a good first debate performance.

The Globe also notes that despite Romney’s claims of bipartisanship in Massachusetts, important context is lacking: “Romney’s work on health reform was more an exception than the rule during his four years on Beacon Hill. Many Democrats who served in the Legislature during that time have described Romney as disengaged, treating lawmakers as if they worked for him and sometimes not bothering to learn their names.”

(In fairness, that distance sounds similar to criticisms of President Obama with those on Capitol Hill.)

Speaking of numbers that don’t add up… “Mitt Romney’s Medicare plan won’t try to control costs by limiting the payments that future retirees would use to buy private health insurance, aides say, adding detail to a proposal from the GOP presidential nominee that has both intrigued and confused many Americans,” AP writes. “Reining in costs is vital to keeping Medicare affordable, and in their plans both President Barack Obama and Romney’s running mate, Paul Ryan, set limits on the growth of future spending. Independent experts say they doubt that Romney’s Medicare plan can succeed without some kind of hard spending limit; Romney campaign officials say the savings will come through competition among health insurance plans. ‘It sounds like Romney is trying to have it both ways,’ said Robert Bixby, executive director of the Concord Coalition, a nonpartisan group advocating to reduce government deficits. ‘It’s a really important point whether there will be a cap. It will help determine whether the health care savings he’s touting are credible.’”

“A stunned Obama campaign acknowledged Thursday that President Barack Obama delivered a lackluster and even ineffectual performance in his leadoff debate against Mitt Romney, mistakenly opting for a cautious approach to handling his opponent that all too often left Obama looking timid and disengaged,”   Politico  writes, adding, “Even more frustrating to many Obama supporters was the fact that the president’s muted tone was at least partly by design. … Projecting a calm, reasonable — some said ‘presidential’ —demeanor was the strategy during Obama’s debate-prep sessions outside of Las Vegas.”

But “one Democrat close to Chicago conceded that Obama 'was not happy with his performance.'” And: "Don't expect to see that Barack Obama again."

Obama adviser David Axelrod: “There is some strategic judgment that has to be made, and we’ll make it. I’m sure that he will consider his approach moving forward.” And: Plainly, he didn’t come as focused and intense as Gov. Romney at dropping particular lines. His interest was in honoring the American people with honest answers to serious questions.”

The Obama campaign’s up with an ad in swing states goes after Romney’s assertion that he doesn’t have a tax plan that he’s not in favor of a $5 trillion tax cut. The kicker in the ad: “If we can’t trust him here…” [shows him on debate stage] “…how can we ever trust him here?” [shows the desk in the Oval Office].

Ron Brownstein: “President Obama didn’t have many good moments in this week’s first presidential debate. But it was telling that the few came when he was raising objections to Mitt Romney’s tax, spending, and Medicare plans. The president had much less to say about his own ideas for the next four years. In that way, the debate spotlighted the biggest hole in Obama’s reelection effort: the paucity of specifics he has offered about his second-term agenda.”

Obama at a campaign stop in Denver: “When I got onto the stage, I met this very spirited fellow who claimed to be Mitt Romney. But it couldn’t have been Mitt Romney, because the real Mitt Romney has been running around the country for the last year promising $5 trillion in tax cuts that favor the wealthy. The fellow on stage last night said he didn’t know anything about that.”

(So, we guess it wasn’t the altitude…)

More Obama, this time from Madison, WI: “I just want to make sure I've got this straight: He'll get rid of regulations on Wall Street, but he’s going to crack down on ‘Sesame Street'? Thank goodness somebody’s finally cracking down on Big Bird.”

“The Obama campaign set a new monthly fundraising record for the 2012 election cycle, taking in more than $150 million in September as supporters rallied behind the president in the final phase of the election, according to people familiar with the totals,” the Wall Street Journal writes.

President Barack Obama employed some of his most popular campaign trail lines during Wednesday’s presidential debate in Denver, Colo., but they didn’t seem as effective as when delivered in front of a crowd of cheering supporters. 

COUNCIL BLUFFS, IOWA -- Defending his boss after what many considered a lackluster performance, Vice President Joe Biden said Thursday that President Obama was "presidential" in last night's debate, slamming Mitt Romney for "outsourcing" the $5 trillion price tag the GOP nominee said his proposed tax cuts would avoid.

"I thought the president did well. He was presidential," Biden told reporters outside of a Hy-Vee shopping center in western Iowa. "I think the you just never know what game, what position Gov. Romney's going to come with."

Referencing Romney's claim that he does not support tax cuts with an astronomical price tag, Biden tweaked the GOP nominee for "outsourcing" a key piece of his budget.

"The centerpiece of their economic policy so far has been their tax cut, and last night we found out he doesn't have a $5 trillion tax cut," the vice president said. "I guess he outsourced that to China or something. I don't know if that's offshored."

"Let me repeat what I said, I'm not in favor of a $5 trillion tax cut," Romney said last night. "That's not my plan."

The nonpartisan Tax Policy Center estimates that Romney's tax cuts would cost $4.8 trillion over 10 years, though Romney says that the plan would be paid for by offsets like closing loopholes and limiting deductions.

As for his own October 11 debate -- and perhaps implicitly acknowledging the poor reviews about the president's performance last night -- Biden said that "all debates are tough."

"You can sit there and say, you know, 'I would've done that and I would of done this,'" Biden said,  "Well, it is nothing like standing up before 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70 million people."

He said he has been studying Rep. Paul Ryan's positions and comparing them to the plans Gov. Mitt Romney has embraced in preparation for the Danville, KY showdown next week.

"I don't want to say anything in the debate that's not completely accurate," Biden said.

Later speaking to about 500 supporters at Council Bluffs' Mid-America Center after his lunch stop, Biden chided Romney for bringing up his "accountant" last night, in a swipe at the former Massachusetts governor's personal wealth.

"I thought last night when he said, I'd like to introduce my accountant, that I'd love to have his accountant!" he said to laughter. "But look, we may not have his accountant, but we understand someone ends up paying for all of this."

The vice president won some unwanted attention from Republicans as well for acknowledging that he and Obama would "raise taxes by a trillion dollars" by allowing tax cuts for top earners to expire.

"You know the phrase they always use. 'Obama and Biden want to raise taxes by a trillion dollars. Guess what? Yes, we do, in one regard," Biden said. "We want to let that trillion-dollar tax cut expire so the middle class doesn't have to bear the burden of all that money going to the super wealthy."

"That's not a tax raise, that's called fairness where I come from."

Ed Andrieski / AP

President Barack Obama waves as he arrives at a campaign rally in Denver, Thursday, Oct. 4, 2012.

DENVER -- A fired-up President Barack Obama spoke to a crowd of more than 12,000 at a Denver campaign event Thursday and seemed to exude the energy and aggressiveness that many of his supporters felt was missing at last night's presidential debate.

Trying to rebound from what many called a listless performance last night, Obama argued today that the Mitt Romney who appeared at the debate was not the “real Mitt Romney.”

First Read: Romney helps himself
 
“When I got on stage, I met this very spirited fellow who claimed to be Mitt Romney,” he said. “But it couldn’t have been Mitt Romney, because the real Mitt Romney has been running around the country for the year, promising $5 trillion dollars in tax cuts that favor the wealthy. The fellow on stage last night didn’t seem to know anything about that.”
 
The president dedicated the first part of his speech to retroactively rebutting Romney’s debate talking points.

Last night, Romney said his plans to trim the deficit wouldn’t mean teacher cuts: “I reject the idea that I don’t believe in great teachers or more teachers. Every school district, every state should make that decision on their own.”
 
Romney had the final word on the matter last night, but today Obama told his supporters: “The real Mitt Romney said we don’t need anymore teachers in our classrooms ... But the fellow on stage last night, he loves teachers, can’t get enough of them.”
 
Last night, Obama also missed an opportunity to highlight his opponent’s personal tax records after Gov. Romney said, “I’ve been in business for 25 years. I have no idea what you’re talking about. I maybe need to get a new accountant ... but the idea that you get a break for shipping jobs overseas is simply not the case."
 
Today, Mr. Obama fired off this retort: “We know for sure it was not the real Mitt Romney because he seems to be doing just fine with his current accountant.”

Kevin Lamarque / Reuters

President Barack Obama greets supporters during a campaign rally in Denver on Oct. 4, 2012.

And while Romney drew a lot of public criticism for suggesting his deficit reductions would include stripping federal funding for PBS -- and by extension “Big Bird” -- Obama did not challenge him on the point until today: “He said he’d eliminate funding for public television... I mean thank goodness someone is finally getting tough on ‘Big Bird.’ ”
   
The crowd responded to the president’s jabs with loud cheers, but for many the disappointment from the president’s debate performance had already set in. 

Axelrod: 'I'm sure we will make adjustments'

Bruce Shaffer of Boulder told NBC News, “I wanted him to be more of a president and sound strong, sound confident and be more of the leader we need.”

In a conference call with reporters, top Obama campaign officials downplayed last night's debate and also seized on what it said were misstatements made by Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney.

But senior adviser David Axelrod also admitted that President Obama will make adjustments in his remaining debates against Romney.

“It’s like a playoff in sports. You evaluate after every contest and make adjustments, and I’m sure we will make adjustments,” Axelrod said, declining to get into details about just what changes would be made but noting that they would likely not be scheduling additional debate preparation sessions.

Axelrod added Romney “may win the Oscar for his performance last night, but he’s not going to win the presidency.”

Policy director James Kvaal listed a number of areas in which he said Romney distorted his own policies, including on entitlements and tax cuts for the wealthy.

With Obama returning to the presidential campaign trail today, Obama spokesman Ben LaBolt suggested the president would push back on Romney’s debate assertions during his two rallies in Colorado and Wisconsin, saying he will “make sure every voter out there understands exactly what the divisions are that Mitt Romney danced around last night.”

DENVER -- Mitt Romney looked to build on last night's aggressive debate performance this morning, as he made a surprise visit to a gathering of conservative activists to advance his argument that President Obama is building a "trickle-down government."

"Last night, I thought, was a great opportunity for the American people to see two very different visions for the country," Romney told several hundred conservative activists gathered for the Colorado CPAC conference.

"I think it was helpful to be able to describe those visions.  I saw the president's vision as trickle-down government ,and I don't think that's what America believes in. I see instead a prosperity that comes through freedom," Romney said. "We have two very different courses for America -- trickle-down government or prosperity through freedom."

If there was any doubt that the GOP challenger had found a new attack line against the president, it was quickly dispelled as Romney hammered the "trickle-down" point again and again.

"Trickle-down government will not create the jobs Americans need. Trickle-down government will not bring down the cost of energy," Romney said. "Freedom is what drives America's economy."

The brief remarks here marked Romney's first effort at building momentum off of last night's debate, which Republicans hope can become a turning point in an election that has remained stubbornly locked in place for weeks.

Following last night's debate, Romney advisers telegraphed a more aggressive campaign going forward, including increased TV ad spending in states like Ohio, where Romney continues to trail the president by a significant margin, and more details -- including a speech on foreign policy next Monday at the Virginia Military Institute.

Romney helped himself last night, while Obama didn’t… It was a substantive and civil debate (especially compared with those Brown-vs.-Warren slugfests)… How Obama could win the post-debate -- by seizing on several of the openings Romney gave him last night… NBC’s John Yang interviews undecided Ohio voters who watched the debate… Romney unveils new TV ad… And Obama stumps in Denver, CO and Madison, WI, while Romney hits Fisherville, VA.

*** Romney helps himself: Eight years ago, a politician from Massachusetts was able to use his first debate against a sitting president to make a strong impression in a race he was trailing. And history repeated itself last night. If Mitt Romney's goal of the first debate was to get at least a second look from voters, then he succeeded -- big time. He was energetic, concise, and even funny. He also came across as knowledgeable, especially to those who might have been tuning in for the first time. The  insta-polls   showed that Romney won the debate decisively, and it's hard to disagree. Bottom line: Romney helped himself, and that has to hearten his campaign, his donors, and the entire Republican Party running down the ticket. As we saw in January (after he lost the South Carolina primary) and in February (as Rick Santorum threatened him in Michigan), Romney delivers in a debate when he needs a good performance.   Politico   summed up things pretty well for what Romney accomplished last night: “At a minimum, Romney’s performance has chased away the aroma of terminal illness that was starting to emanate from his campaign and the increasingly restive factions in and around his operation... Whether he gets more than this minimum payoff is far from certain, given the deficit he was facing in both national polls and, more troublingly, several must-win swing states.”

Slideshow: On the campaign trail

***  And Obama doesn’t : By comparison, President Obama -- like George W. Bush before him back in  2004 (and even Ronald Reagan in ‘84 and George H.W. Bush in ’92) -- wasn't on his game and seemed a bit annoyed at sharing the same stage with his challenger. If Romney was energetic and concise, then Obama was listless and rambling. This was more the Obama who debated in Orangeburg, SC in April 2007 than the Obama who bested  John McCain in the general-election debates of 2008. And now the pressure is on Vice President Biden to do what Dick Cheney did against John Edwards in’04: come back with a decisive win. Indeed, what the Obama campaign faces is akin to a baseball team who loses the  first playoff game with its ace, and now needs its somewhat inconsistent No. 2 pitcher to step up. No doubt, Team Obama wishes they weren’t putting this all on Biden to deliver, but they only have the principal himself to blame.

Saul Loeb / AFP - Getty Images

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney speaks at Magness Arena at the University of Denver in Denver, Colorado, October 3, 2012.

***  A substantive and civil debate: Yet if the debate will be remembered for anything -- especially if the poll numbers don’t move much -- it will be for its substance. Fact-checking aside (and will get into that below), last night’s showdown was the most policy-oriented debate we’ve seen in the television era. And as our colleague Vaughn Ververs points out, it was also striking for its civility. No doubt the candidates disagreed on a whole host of issues, but they did so in a civil way, and that was pretty refreshing in this hyper-partisan atmosphere. (For a comparison, just see the recent Scott Brown-vs.-Elizabeth Warren debates.). And, by the way, no one needed to come across civil and likeable more than Romney.

*** Who wins the post-debate? If Romney won the instant reactions from last night’s debate, it is more than possible that the Obama camp can win the next 24 hours. Why? Because Romney said several things that could make life difficult for him today or in the next debate. First, Romney declared, “I will not reduce the taxes paid by high-income Americans.” But in addition to supporting the extension of the Bush tax cuts, which are skewed heavily to the wealthy, the non-partisan Tax Policy Center says that Romney’s tax plan would give the Top 0.1% an average tax cut of more than $246,000. Next, he stated that “there will be no tax cut that adds to the deficit.” While he has said his plan will be paid for, he’s yet to lay out any SPECIFICS on how he’ll pay for it. Romney also said, “I'm not going to cut education funding. I don't have any plan to cut education funding.” But the Ryan budget plan, which Romney has said he’d sign into law, leads to long-term spending reductions in education. And Romney also didn’t disagree with the description that his Medicare plan would consist of “vouchers” for future retirees. Winning a “debate” is always a two-part deal -- the night itself, and then the aftermath. This is now an opportunity for Team Obama and a challenge for Team Romney.

*** Watching the debate in Ohio: NBC’s John Yang watched the debate with six undecided voters in Ohio. As Yang writes, “Most of them—like most voters—have not been closely following the campaign, and this was their first close look at Romney, other than from the TV ads blanketing the airwaves. In this introduction, he favorably impressed at least two of our voters who backed Obama in 2008. These two said Romney came across as better than the out-of-touch millionaire they’d heard about.” More Yang: “Despite the flurry of statistics in the debate, all of our voters still said they wanted to hear more specifics. One ’08 McCain voter said he heard more specifics from Obama and is still waiting to hear some from Romney. Two of our voters—both 2008 Obama voters—said the President came across as ‘arrogant’—though one voter said that was a good thing because she wants that in a leader.”

*** Romney’s new TV and upcoming foreign-policy speech: The day after the debate, Romney has a new TV ad proclaiming that he’ll create 12 million new jobs (however, that 12 million figure is already the estimate for what’s supposed to happen in the next four years, no matter who’s in the White House). NBC also has confirmed thatRomney will deliver a foreign-policy speech in Virginia on Monday.

*** On the trail: Obama holds a campaign rally in Denver, CO at 12:20 pm ET, and then heads to Madison, WI at 4:20 pm ET… Romney and Ryan campaign in Fisherville, VA at 6:45 pm ET… Biden hits Council Bluffs, IA… And the DNC has a bus tour through Ohio, which has begun its early voting.

Countdown to VP debate: 7 days
Countdown to 2^nd presidential debate: 12 days
Countdown to 3^rd presidential debate: 18 days
Countdown to Election Day: 33 days

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Check us out on Facebook and also on Twitter. Follow us @chucktodd, @mmurraypolitics, @DomenicoNBC, @brookebrower