Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney last mentioned Libya in a campaign speech on Oct. 12, according to an NBC News review of his speeches.

Outside of his two debate appearances -- on Oct. 16 and Oct. 22 -- the GOP candidate has eschewed attacking President Barack Obama's handling of the Sept. 11, 2012 attacks on a U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya at any of his public events.

Romney's last Libya-specific attack on the administration during a campaign event was related to Vice President Joe Biden's explanation of the administration's reaction and changing explanations for the attack, which left four Americans dead, including Ambassador Christopher Stevens.

"We need to understand exactly what happened as opposed to just having people brush this aside," he said. "When the vice president of the United States directly contradicts the testimony, sworn testimony -- of State Department officials -- American citizens have a right to know just what’s going on. And we’re going to find out and this is a time to make sure we do find out."

Romney himself has only referenced Libya since then in his two final debates versus Obama. At the second debate, in New York, Romney slammed the administration's response, saying it "calls into question the president’s whole policy in the Middle East."

But Romney also struggled to respond to moderator Candy Crowley's insistence that Romney had erred on an issue of semantics -- whether Obama had specifically failed to label the attack an "act of terror" in the immediate aftermath of the attack.

In the third debate, this past Monday, Romney barely dwelled on the issue and declined to make an issue of Libya, an issue on which the Republican nominee had campaigned heavily for the better part of a month, until Oct. 12.

Romney adviser Kevin Madden, during a gaggle with reporters on Wednesday traveling with Romney, addressed why the GOP nominee hadn't spoken about Libya.

"Libya is still an issue with many voters, particularly given the conflicting statements from the president and his administration about the nature of the attack. The American people still have unanswered questions," he said.

The issue of the Benghazi attacks haven't died down over the last two weeks; indeed, many conservatives complained Wednesday about insufficient media attention paid to newly-revealed emails showing the State Department had identified messages on social media by extremist groups claiming responsibility for the Benghazi attacks.

Libya hasn't disappeared entirely from the Romney campaign's whole repertoire, either. Vice Presidential nominee Paul Ryan addressed it on Monday at a rally in Colorado, Romney surrogates have discussed the issue to varying outlets this month, too.

NBC’s Jordan Frasier, Jay Rankin and Matt Loffman contributed reporting

BRISTOL, VA – Republican vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan was back in the battleground state of Virginia on Thursday, hammering away at President Barack Obama for lacking a 2nd term agenda.

"Just a couple of days ago he came up with a slick new brochure, you know, with less than two weeks left to say, 'Oh I do actually have an agenda,'" Ryan said.

"It is a slick -- well, comic book -- that was his word,” acknowledging a man in the crowd. "To me, a slick re-packaging of more of the same. And look at what it has gotten us. You see, where we are today is our economy is barely limping along. It is slower than it was last year, last year was slower than the year before."

On Tuesday, President Obama released the "Blueprint for America's Future," which featured proposals for a 2nd term published in millions of glossy pamphlets. The 20-page document came after heavy criticism that Obama hadn't been spending enough time laying out specifics. 

Ryan asked voters here in Bristol to give both he and Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney the “moral obligation” to put the Republican agenda in place come Nov. 6.

“The worst thing that could happen, president Obama gets reelected and we have more of the same with a debt crisis. The second worst thing that could happen is we get elected by default without a mandate. This is why we’re asking you to give us the moral authority and the obligation to honor you by putting this agenda in place to get America back on the right track,” Ryan said outside Universal Fibers in Southwest Virginia.

As Ryan returned to Virginia today for two rallies -- the next happening in Charlottesville -- President Barack Obama himself was campaigning just a couple hundred miles away in Richmond during his 48 hour "campaign extravaganza."

Polls are tight in this swing state; the Oct. 11 NBC News-Wall Street Journal-Marist poll showed Romney with a narrow lead over President Obama in the state, 48 percent to 47 percent among likely voters.

Early voting is underway in the state and the GOP VP nominee begged the nearly 1,500 person crowd Thursday to help with voter turnout.

“Virginia, we need your help. Don’t forget, early voting has already started. If you haven’t voted absentee, you can still do it, And go find somebody who thought the hope and change sounded good in 2008 but know it isn’t true now. Get them to vote for us,” he said.

Just before departing for his second event of the day in Charlottesville, Ryan, joined by his wife and three kids, met racecar driver Richard Petty on the tarmac in Blountville, TN and posed for a picture.

“It is a real pleasure to meet you in person,” Ryan said after introducing Petty to his kids as one of the “most famous racecar drivers ever.”

Kevin Lamarque / Reuters

President Barack Obama delivers doughnuts to fire fighters at a fire house in Tampa, Fla., Oct. 25, 2012.

RICHMOND, VA -- President Barack Obama touted the endorsement of former Secretary of State and retired Gen. Colin Powell's endorsement, suggesting it was a nod of support to his record on foreign policy and defense.

Addressing a crowd of 15,000 here at a public park, Obama said, "I was proud to learn that we have Colin Powell's support in this campaign."

"I'm grateful to him for his lifetime of service to his country both as a soldier and a diplomat. And every brave American who wears this uniform of this country should know that as long as I am your Commander in Chief, we will sustain the strongest military this world has ever known.

"We will be relentless in pursuit of our enemies. Those are promises I've kept."

Military spending is a key issue in swing state Virginia, home to several bases as well as many civilian defense employees, who live primarily in Northern Virginia.

"President Obama says that ‘trust matters,’ but Virginians already know that he cannot be trusted to protect our military or our economy. Under President Obama, our military stands to be cut by nearly $1 trillion and he has no plan whatsoever to save the 136,000 Virginia jobs that could be eliminated because of his cuts," said Curt Cashour, Romney's spokesman for Virginia. "To make matters worse, the president’s liberal policies are killing jobs in Virginia as we speak."

After his speech, the president was headed to Chicago where he would become the first sitting president to vote early in person.

CINCINNATI, OH -- Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney said he was the candidate of "big change" at the outset of three-event bus tour of battleground Ohio on Thursday.

Slideshow: On the Trail

The former Massachusetts governor cast President Barack Obama as a figure of the "status quo," and made clear that the Republican ticket represented "big change" by contrast -- repeating that phrase throughout his speech.

"This is a critical time for our country and the choice of paths we chose will have an enormous impact. We have huge challenges," Romney said, ticking off issues ranging from job creation to education. "These challenges are big challenges. This election is therefore a big choice. And America wants to see big changes and we’re gonna bring big changes to get America stronger again.”

Recommended: First Thoughts: Examining Ohio's key counties (and margins)

Romney repeated his mantra of "big change" more than 10 times in his roughly 30 minute remarks, hammering the point home again and again and melding it into his broader critique of Obama.

"The Obama campaign doesn't have a plan," Romney said. "The Obama campaign is slipping because he's talking about smaller and smaller things despite the fact that America has such huge challenges and that this is such an opportunity for America, and that's why on November 6th I'm counting on Ohio to vote for big change!"

Al Behrman / AP

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney speaks during a campaign stop at Jet Machine, Thursday, Oct. 25, 2012, in Cincinnati.

A senior Romney adviser said that the focus on "big change" would continue in the race's final days.

"Highlighting our campaign's focus on big issues and contrasting that with the smallness of President Obama's campaign will be something we make clear with voters today and through the rest of the campaign," Romney senior adviser Kevin Madden told NBC.

“Here’s the ‘big change’ Mitt Romney is offering: going back to the same failed policies that caused the economic crisis and empowering the extreme voices in his party like Richard Mourdock," Obama campaign spokeswoman Lis Smith said in a statement.

Slideshow: Twin sons of different parties 

Romney also continued to highlight how his policies might be better for individual families than Obama's,

"This election is not about me. It’s not about the Republican party. It’s about America. And it’s about your family," Romney said after running through a series of scenarios like caring for an aging relative or getting a good education for a child, and how those experiences would differ under a second Obama term or a Romney presidency.

Related: Obama and Romney project early voting bravado in battleground Ohio

The GOP standard-bearer also launched into an extended riff this morning about how a voter's hypothetical daughter -- a play toward prized women swing voters -- might suffer from Obama's proposals.

Interviews with female voters at Romney's event suggested this strategy could be part of the right prescription to close the gender gap with women in Ohio.

"I don't think that women are any different from any other voters in particular, and I think that what women are concerned about is they have a dual concern," explained Romney supporter Emilia Pater, a homemaker from Cincinnati who attended this morning's rally. "They're concerned about the economy and their families, because most women are caretakers of their families and they are the ones that are looking toward the future and saying what's going to be left for my children?"

Updated 12:56 p.m. - Each presidential campaign's bravado about who has momentum in the closing stretch of the campaign has extended to early voting, with Democrats and Republicans each claiming an advantage Thursday in the battleground state of Ohio.

President Barack Obama's campaign said early voting in counties and precincts which Obama won in 2008 is humming along at a better pace than that last election. Moreover, Obama national field director Jeremy Bird wrote, early voting in Democratic portions of Ohio is exceeding early voting in Republican corners of the Buckeye State.

Justin Sullivan / Getty Images

Republican presidential candidate, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney greets supporters during a campaign rally on Oct. 25, 2012 in Cincinnati, Ohio. (EDITORS NOTE: Image was created using an iPhone and processed with the Instagram application)

Republicans countered with a memo arguing that most of the early voters touted by the Obama campaign were likely to vote Democratic anyway, thereby eating into their Election Day turnout.

"In states where Democrats have more early votes (IA, OH, NV) they are investing significant resources in turning out “high propensity voters” – those who have voted in either 3 or 4 of the past 4 general elections," a Republican National Committee memo argued Thursday.

The RNC said that there were about a million Democratic voters, of whom, about 43 percent had requested an absentee ballot or had already voted. By contrast, the RNC said there were over 1.3 million Republicans in Ohio, only about 27 percent of whom had voted early or requested an absentee ballot.

"This means there are 380,022 more Republican high propensity voters who haven’t voted early in the electorate," the memo said. "In contrast, Democrats are diluting their ability to perform on Election Day."

Slideshow: Twin sons of different parties 

Lost in the arguments are a few details, most importantly being that Ohio doesn't formally register voters by party. A "Republican" or "Democrat," for purposes of each campaign's accounting, refers to whichever primary in which an Ohioan recently voted.

"When the Romney campaign boasts that Republicans are out-performing their voter registration, they forget to tell you that Ohio doesn’t have party registration," Bird wrote. "And because Republicans had a competitive primary this year and Democrats did not, Republicans naturally have a 460,000-person edge this year among past primary voters—what Romney’s campaign is disingenuously referring to as 'registered Republicans.'"

The reality of the situation probably lies somewhere in between both campaigns' claims.

In Ohio itself, Obama leads Romney, 60 percent to 30 percent, among those who have already voted, according to a TIME magazine poll released Wednesday.

For some voters, though, there's still some appeal to waiting on line on the day of the election itself and voting.

"I think a lot of people want to vote the day of the election. They don't want to vote early. I don't know why. I'm doing it as well. I think they like the camaraderie of it," said Kim Pedigo, a substitute teacher from Cincinnati and Romney supporter who attended the GOP nominee's rally this morning. "I like to be there at the poll. I like to see what's happening. Its fun."

Both Obama and Romney have stressed early voting in their campaign appearances, and on Thursday, Obama himself will be the first president to make an early vote in person when he travels to Chicago to cast his ballot.

Obama would qualify as the kind of "high-propensity" voter that Republicans argue Democrats have targeted in a state like Ohio, at the expense of their Election Day turnout. The Obama campaign argued earlier this week that it's doing something different: urging unlikely voters to vote early, so that it can more efficiently target the remaining low-propensity voters on Nov. 6.

These factors make it even more difficult to divine which way Ohio -- arguably the most important swing state this election, given its potential to significantly ease either Obama or Romney's path to the White House -- is trending.

Obama senior adviser David Axelrod might have best summed up these dueling claims about the early vote in a conference call earlier this week touting the Obama campaign's own organizational prowess.

"We'll know who is bluffing and who isn't in two weeks," he said.

NBC's Garrett Haake contributed from Ohio.

CINCINNATI, OH -- Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney's campaign announced on Thursday that its Victory fund had hauled in a record $111.8 million dollars in the first two weeks of October.

Brian Snyder / Reuters

Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney, accompanied by Sen. Rob Portman (R-OH) (C), picks up food at First Watch cafe in Cincinnati, Ohio October 25.

The Republican victory effort had amassed a $169 million warchest for its final push to Election Day, the Romney campaign said. Its record fundraising was tabulated through Oct. 17, which includes the first two presidential debates.

The Romney Victory fund, a joint fundraising venture by the Romney campaign, the Republican National Committee and four state Republican parties allied with the Romney camp, raised $170 million for the GOP contender in September. October's haul is on pace to far surpass that number.

“Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan are offering a vision for the country that will finally bring a real recovery to the American people. Their plan will bring much needed change after the last four years and it is why we have seen such momentum and strong support from our donors," Romney national finance chairman Spencer Zwick said in a statement accompanying the release.

With less than two weeks remaining in the fall campaign, today's release could be intended in part to continue to project momentum and strength for the Romney campaign, themes the candidate has sought to emphasize at each appearance on the campaign trail.

"There's no question about it. We're seeing more and more enthusiasm, more and more support," Romney said on Tuesday in Nevada. "We're going to make sure that these campaigns and the message of these debates, rather, these messages, keep going across the country."

Slideshow: Twin sons of different parties 

Much of the $169 million the Romney team had on hand as of last week is earmarked for fueling that message with both ad spending and get-out-the-vote efforts increasing in intensity.

Earlier this week, a Romney adviser said the campaign has inquired about air time for a possible 30-minute infomercial to air in swing states, and the money could also be used to broaden Romney's electoral map. Pennsylvania, with its expensive media markets, could become a target for the Romney campaign, which has flirted with the state but not yet fully engaged, including not running TV ads.

There's also no sign that the money well will dry up for Romney any time soon. Tonight in Dallas the campaign will hold a fundraiser headlined by former Vice President Dick Cheney, and Romney's son Josh and featuring a video appearance from Vice Presidential nominee Paul Ryan, that organizers say is expected to raise more than two million dollars.

TAMPA, FL – President Barack Obama referenced an Indiana Republican candidate's controversial comments about rape on Thursday, looking to inject the controversy into the presidential campaign.

The president's campaign has been looking to link comments by Indiana GOP Senate candidate Richard Mourdock -- in which he suggested a higher power intends pregnancies that result from instances of rape -- to Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney, though Obama himself stopped short this morning of drawing a direct connection.

“As we saw again this week, I don’t think any politician in Washington, most of whom are male, should be making health care decisions for women,” Obama said.

Earlier Thursday, the Obama campaign did the work of linking Romney and Mourdock more directly, blasting an email to reporters titled, “Mitt Romney and Richard Mourdock” that said Romney hasn’t reconsidered his endorsement of the Republican Indiana Senate nominee or “ever once stood up to the most extreme elements of his party.”

And Wednesday during a taping of the Tonight Show with Jay Leno, Obama reiterated his stance on rape that he previously articulated during the dustup over Missouri Senate candidate Todd Akin’s comment on “legitimate rape.”

“Rape is rape,” he said.

Examining Ohio’s key counties (and winning/losing margins)… Obama yesterday: “What we have right now is a lead that we’ve maintained”… Romney yesterday: “We are going to win”… Powell -- again -- backs Obama… The Mourdock story continues… New NBC/WSJ/Marist polls (of Colorado and Nevada) come out at 6:30 pm ET (Update: They're here)… Obama stumps in Florida, Virginia, and Ohio, while Romney spends his whole day in the Buckeye State… And it’s also debate night in the Buckeye State: Brown vs. Mandel.

CINCINNATI, Ohio -- With Mitt Romney, President Obama, and even part of your First Read team all here in the Buckeye State today, we take an in-depth look at the key Ohio counties to watch on Election Day. If this race will all come down to Ohio -- as many think it will -- be sure to save these numbers for Nov. 6:

Slideshow: Twin sons of different parties 

Cuyahoga (Cleveland): 2004: Kerry 448,503 vs. Bush 221,600 (+226,903); 2008: Obama 458,422 vs. McCain 199,880 (+258,542)
Franklin (Columbus): 2004: Kerry 285,801 vs. Bush 237,253 (+48,548); 2008: Obama 334,709 vs. McCain 218,486 (+116,223)
Hamilton (Cincinnati): 2004: Bush 222,616 vs. Kerry 199,679 (+22,937); 2008: Obama 225,213 vs. McCain 195,530 (+29,683)
Lucas (Toledo): 2004 Kerry 132,715 vs. Bush 87,160 (+45,555); 2008: Obama 142,852 vs. McCain 73,706 (+69,146)

Slideshow: On the Trail

Both Bush and Obama received 51% of the vote in Ohio in 2004 and 2008. The one TRUE swing county is Hamilton, which both men won. But just as important are the margins. Note that Obama won the Democratic-leaning Cuyahoga and Lucas counties by wider margins than Kerry did, while Bush was able to minimize his losses in these two counties. So for the president, it’s about winning his counties by 2008 margins; for Romney, it’s about losing them by 2004 margins. What made Obama’s victory margins so impressive in 2008: There were fewer voters in Cuyahoga and Lucas. It’s a big reminder that for the Democrats, Ohio defies gravity for them. In just about every other swing state, the president is counting on NEW voters, population GROWTH (particularly among Hispanics) for instance. Ohio is a state that is getting older and smaller; does it also mean it gets whiter? On paper, it should be a state that actually moves away from the Democrats over the next few years, just like Missouri, and yet, it hasn’t.

*** Obama: “What we have right now is a lead that we’ve maintained”: NBC’s Brian Williams yesterday was able to interview Obama on the first leg of his 48-hour swing across the country (which took him to Iowa, Colorado, and Nevada). Obama on the state of the race: “I think that, you know, we always knew this was gonna be a close race from the start. And what we have right now is a lead that we've maintained throughout this campaign. And we are gonna just continue to drive home the message that there are two fundamentally different choices in this election about where we take the country.” Obama on the new pamphlet laying out his second-term agenda: “This is exactly what I laid out at my convention.  Every point that's in there is what we said when I accepted the Democratic nomination… And it's been on our website for weeks.” And the president on his relationship with Romney:  “I think if you look at George Bush and John Kerry or George Bush and Al Gore or first President Bush and Bill Clinton, I don't think-- anybody would say that while you were in the middle of a campaign that you felt deep affection for the other guy.”

Kevin Lamarque / Reuters

A young girl listens as President Barack Obama speaks during a campaign rally in Dayton, Ohio Oct. 23, 2012.

*** Romney: “We are going to win”: Meanwhile, that “other guy” -- Mitt Romney -- campaigned yesterday in Nevada and Iowa. Here’s a dispatch from NBC’s Garrett Haake covering Romney in Cedar Rapids: "This is a defining election – defining for the nation but also defining for your family," Romney told a crowd of some 2,300 supporters there. "I say that because it will make a difference, this election will. A difference for the nation, a difference for the families of the nation and a difference for your own family." More Romney: "We are going to win, by the way." Romney’s tone is all about the soft sell to suburban women. And his advertising of late is matching the tone we’re hearing from him on the trail. It’s clear, Boston knows the difference between winning and losing is making sure the gender gap is small. If they are going to get crushed among Hispanics (the Post/ABC tracking had POTUS hitting 75%!!! with Latinos yesterday), then Romney has to pick up ground somewhere.

*** Powell -- again -- backs Obama: On CBS this morning, Colin Powell endorsed Obama. The endorsement isn’t a surprise – after all, Powell backed Obama in ’08 – but it would have been a blow to Obama had Powell picked Romney this time around (or even decided against endorsing). The AP: “Former Secretary of State Colin Powell, a longtime Republican, is sticking with President Barack Obama in this year's election. He tells ‘CBS This Morning’ he respects Mitt Romney but thinks he's been vague on many issues. Speaking of Obama, Powell said the president got the United States out of Iraq and has laid out a plan for leaving Afghanistan ‘and didn't get us into any new wars.’ He praises Obama's economic performance, saying that while difficult choices are ahead on taxes, spending and budgetary policies, ‘steadily, I think we've begun to come out of the dive and we're gaining attitude.’”

*** The Mourdock story continues: Why do presidential candidates do late-night TV? One reason, as we saw with Obama going on “The Tonight Show with Jay Leno” last night, is that it allows the candidate to take advantage of news of the day -- like Richard Mourdock’s comments on rape and abortion. Said Obama: “Let me make a very simple proposition, rape is rape. It is a crime. So these various distinctions about rape don't make very much sense to me… The second thing this underscores though this is why you don't want a bunch of politicians, mostly male making decisions about women's health care decisions.” Again, the Mourdock story couldn’t have come at a worse time for Romney and the GOP, and Obama extended the story with his comments on Leno. The Obama camp also is up with a web video linking Mourdock to Romney and Paul Ryan. But the real potential blow to Mourdock (and thus the GOP’s chances of winning back the Senate)? John McCain’s endorsement is now up in the air. “John McCain, R-Arizona, said on CNN on Wednesday that his support for Richard Mourdock was dependent on an apology from the Republican Senate candidate for his remarks that pregnancies caused by rape are intended by God.”

*** New NBC/WSJ/Marist polls! We are unveiling new NBC/WSJ/Marist polls of Colorado and Nevada today at 6:30 pm ET. (Update: They're here)

*** On the trail: Obama begins his day with a rally in Tampa, FL at 9:20 am ET, then hits Richmond, VA at 12:50 pm ET, votes in Chicago, and then concludes his day with an event in Cleveland, OH at 8:55 pm ET… Romney spends his day in Ohio, visiting Cincinnati at 11:00 am ET, Worthington at 3:10 pm, and in Defiance at 7:35 pm… Biden heads to South Dakota to attend prayer services for George McGovern… And Ryan stumps in Virginia.

*** Debate night: Brown vs. Mandel: By the way, part of your First Read team is in Cincinnati, where NBC’s Chuck Todd moderates a Senate debate between Sen. Sherrod Brown (D) and Josh Mandel (R) that begins at 7:00 pm ET. If you live in Ohio, you can watch on your NBC station.

Countdown to Election Day: 12 days

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*** Thursday’s “The Daily Rundown” line-up: Live coverage of President Obama’s Tampa rally… Former Gov. Ted Strickland (D-OH) on behalf of the Obama campaign… the latest on Hurricane Sally… latest campaign trail news and analysis with Politico’s Lois Romano, Democratic strategist Steve McMahon, American Crossroads’ Steven Law and Michelle Bernard of the Bernard Center for Women, Politics and Public Policy.

*** Thursday’s “Jansing & Co.” line-up: MSNBC’s Chris Jansing interviews Rep. Charles Rangel, Anne Kornblut & Perry Bacon on Murdock; Nathan Gonzales discusses the early voting revolution; strategists Fred Malek and Karen Finney on the tightening senate races; actress Audra McDonald and Nancy Northup, from the Center for reproductive Rights, talk about their “Draw the Line” campaign.

*** Thursday’s “MSNBC Live with Thomas Roberts” line-up: MSNBC’S Thomas Roberts talks with Rep. Ted Deutch (D-FL), Author of “The Swing Vote” Linda Killian, MSNBC Contributor Jimmy Williams, and Author Mitchell Gold.  Today’s Power Panel includes the Washington Post’s Nia Malika Henderson, Republican strategist Robert Traynham and Democratic strategist Blake Jeff.

*** Thursday’s “NOW with Alex Wagner” line-up: Alex Wagner’s guests include Time’s Michael Scherer, The Huffington Post’s Sam Stein; POLITICO’s Glenn Thrush, CNBC Chief Washington Correspondent John Harwood, and Planned Parenthood President Cecile Richards.

*** Thursday’s “Andrea Mitchell Reports” line-up: NBC’s Andrea Mitchell interviews Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL), Sen. Patty Murray (D-WA), Republican strategist Phil Musser, Democratic strategist Kiki McClean, and  the Washington Post’s Chris Cillizza and Ruth Marcus.

*** Thursday’s “News Nation with Tamron Hall” line-up: .

*** Thursday’s “MSNBC The Cycle” line-up: . MSNBC’s Toure, Krystal Ball, Steve Kornacki, & S.E. Cupp interview Politico’s Jonathan Allen, Cook Political Report Jennifer Duffy, BET Mark Levin.

Latest polls: Romney leads in another national poll: AP-GFK 47-45% and the gender gap is gone, as Pew first showed. It was 16 points, now it’s a 47-47% tie. States: OH: Time: Obama 49-44%

From the Time poll: “The poll makes clear that there are really two races underway in Ohio. On one hand, the two candidates are locked in a dead heat among Ohioans who have not yet voted but who say they intend to, with 45% of respondents supporting the President and 45% preferring his Republican challenger. But Obama has clearly received a boost from Ohio’s early voting period, which began on Oct. 2 and runs through November 5. Among respondents who say they have already voted, Obama holds a two-to-one lead over Romney, 60% to 30%.”

And the gender gap in Ohio is real: Obama’s up 56-37% with women. Romney leads with men 51-42%. Also helping Obama: He gets 43% of the white vote. That’s the SAME percentage he got in Ohio in 2008.

Ohio’s nightmare scenario: “A new Ohio program intended to make voting easier has the potential to keep the presidential election in doubt until late November if the national outcome hinges on the state's 18 electoral votes,” USA Today writes. “Under Secretary of State Jon Husted's initiative to send absentee ballot applications to nearly 7 million registered voters across Ohio, more than 800,000 people so far have asked for but not yet completed an absentee ballot for the Nov. 6 election. Anyone who does not return an absentee ballot, deciding instead to vote at the polls, will be required to cast a provisional ballot. That's so officials may verify that they did not vote absentee and also show up at the polls.”

Jon Ralston makes the case for why Romney still has a shot in Nevada, but also why the Democratic Harry Reid machine likely prevails: “As I have reported ad nauseam, the math looks ominous for Romney with the registration and early voting turnout. But it’s not insurmountable math. If Republicans can turn out in much greater numbers during the second week of early voting and on Nov.6 and if Romney can decisively win independents, he could pull of a squeaker. Some GOP strategists I respect clearly believe that is a possible scenario. And Republicans, despite my irresistible mockery, do have a ground game this cycle, albeit not close to the Reid machine.”

Warren Buffet on CNBC: "We're still inching ahead, but we're inching. "I think the economy will get better under either one of them.”

Colin Powell endorsed President Obama on CBS. "I plan to stick with him in 2012,” he said. "I signed on for a long patrol with President Obama, and I don't think this is the time to make such a sudden change." Citing foreign policy, Powell said Obama’s has been “very, very solid” on terrorism and warned that there are "very strong neoconservative views that are presented" from Romney and his campaign. He also called Romney’s foreign policy "a moving target."  He said, "Sol I am not quite sure which Gov. Romney we would be getting with respect to foreign policy.”

He added, "I'm a Republican of a more moderate mold" and called himself a "dying breed." And: "Let's not forget that Congress bears a lot of responsibility for many of the problems we have now,” but Obama needs to show "greater presidential leadership.” He also said Romney didn’t ask for his endorsement.

Obama was on Leno last night and raised the specter of Supreme Court appointments as it relates to Richard Mourdock and the choice in the election. “I don't know how these guys come up with these ideas. Let me make a very simple proposition. …. Rape is rape. It is a crime. And so, these various distinctions about rape and, you know -- don't make too much sense to me. Don't make any sense to me.

“The second thing this underscores, though, this is exactly why you don't want a bunch of politicians -- mostly male -- making decisions about women's health care decisions. I -- women are capable of making these decisions in consultation with their partners, with their doctors. And, you know, for politicians to want to intrude in this stuff, often times without any information, is a huge problem. And this is obviously a part of what's at stake in this election. You've got a Supreme Court that -- you know, typically a president is going to have probably another couple of appointments during the course of his term. And, you know, Roe vs. Wade is probably hanging in the balance.”

AP: “Seeking to shore up his support among women voters, President Barack Obama on Thursday hammered Republican rival Mitt Romney anew over his backing of Richard Mourdock, the Indiana Senate candidate drawing fire for saying that pregnancies that result from rape are ‘something God intended.’”

More: “ ‘Unlike some other leaders in the Republican Party, like John McCain, Mitt Romney hasn’t questioned his endorsement of Richard Mourdock or ever once stood up to the most extreme elements of his own party. Instead, he tapes ads for them,’ Obama’s campaign says in an online video. His aides haven’t ruled out the possibility of using a similar message in TV ads in battleground states in the coming days as the president looks to break open a race national polls show is close. While a Romney campaign aide has said he disagreed with Mourdock’s remark, the Republican presidential nominee is standing by Mourdock and hasn’t asked the Indiana state treasurer to take down a TV ad Romney filmed for him earlier this week.”

Obama also mocked Donald Trump, who yesterday promised to donate $5 million to a charity of Obama’s choice if he’d release his college transcripts and passport applications, leading the charge once again on conspiracy theories about the 44^th president of the United States, who he somehow implies is illegitimate. Obama on Leno: "This all dates back to when we were growing up together in Kenya.  We had constant run-ins on the soccer field." Obama added to laughter. "He wasn't very good and resented it. ... When we finally moved to America I thought it would be over."

Bill Clinton’s in another ad for Obama. Here’s the script: Clinton: "The stuff some folks are saying about President Obama sound kind of familiar. The same people said my ideas destroyed jobs—they called me every name in the book. Well we created 22 million new jobs and turned deficits into surpluses. President Obama's got it right. We should invest in the middle class, education and innovation. And pay down our debt with spending restraint and asking the wealthy to pay a little more. Sound familiar?"

Clinton will be on the trail with Obama at rallies Monday in, where else, Florida, Ohio, and Virginia.

Michelle Obama will do a fundraiser in Boston Tuesday for her husband’s campaign.

And the campaign has an ad called “537” aimed at those registered voters who are for him but aren’t getting into the likely voter models. Here’s the script: "Five hundred and thirty seven. The number of votes that changed the course of American history.” From a newscast: "Florida is too close to call.” Announcer: "The difference between what was..." [Picture of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney] "And what could have been....  So this year, if you're thinking that your vote doesn't count. That it won't matter. Well, back then, there were probably at least 537 people, who felt the same way. Make your voice heard. Vote."

The front page of the Des Moines Register is good news for Romney. With dueling headlines and photos – it’s a smiling Romney greeting a crowd above the headline, “Romney expresses optimism,” and next to that a skeptical-looking Obama and the headline, “Obama sharpens criticism.”

He puts “bayonets” in Virginia and New Hampshire radio ads, doubling down on his claim that the Navy is smaller now than since 1917. Here’s the script: ROMNEY: “Our Navy now is smaller than any time since 1917. The Navy said they needed 313 ships to carry out their mission; we’re now down to 285. …That’s unacceptable to me.” ANNOUNCER: “To Mitt Romney, that’s a problem. To President Obama, it’s a chance to deliver a punch line.” OBAMA: “[W]e also have fewer horses and bayonets…” ANNOUNCER: “The state of our Navy, the state of our entire U.S. military, is crucial for America. Our freedom depends on it. And so do many of our jobs, 136,000 in Virginia alone. Does President Obama know how much his defense cuts will hurt us? Sure, his flippant remarks insult Mitt Romney, but do they also expose how President Obama views the world and America’s place in it? As Commander-in-Chief, Mitt Romney will reverse Obama’s defense cuts. He will invest in our military, creating jobs, and defending our freedom.”

But Romney is wrong on the facts. The Washington Post’s Kessler writes that in 1916, there were 245 ships, and they included small warships, gunboats, and torpedo boats. Today’s boats are not only more powerful, there are more of them. “The current level of ships, 285 in fiscal 2011, is actually not even the lowest since 1916,” Kessler writes. “The historical list shows that the lowest ship force was reached during the Bush administration, when the number of ships fell to 278 in 2007. Given the change over time in the composition of the naval force, that probably is the most relevant comparison — and the trend line is up.”

And: “Romney’s pledge to build 15 more ships per year, including three submarines, also is less than meets the eye. The current Navy plan is to build 34 ships over the next four years — 10 in 2013 — including seven submarines as part of its goal to reach at least 300 ships by 2019.” Plus: “No other country in the world has a Navy or Air Force that is remotely comparable in size or power to the United States’. China just commissioned its first aircraft carrier, a refurbished old tub from Ukraine. The United States has 11 carriers, each of which is far, far more advanced than any foreign carrier on the high seas.”

And the fact checkers agree. Politifact gave Romney a “Pants on Fire” for the claim. FactCheck.org: “Romney Flunks Naval History.” FactCheck.org says there were 342 ships in 1917 when the U.S. entered WWI, but “there are more Navy ships now than during the last four years of George W. Bush’s presidency” and “it’s true that the Navy has fewer ships now than it did then — but not fewer than at “any time” since then.”

The conservative-leaning Washington Examiner endorses Romney.

USA Today editorial: “As head of the Winter Olympics organizing committee in 2002, Mitt Romney undoubtedly saw ice skaters executing double flips. Now Romney, in his bid for the White House, is attempting a similar move. … To some degree, this is par for the course in American politics, where candidates tack to their party's ideological edge to get the nomination, then shift toward the center in a bid for independent votes. Nor is the nation well-served by politicians who never change their minds, even in the face of new facts. But Romney has moved back and forth more abruptly, and on more issues, than most candidates, leaving voters to sort conviction from opportunism. Would President Romney govern as moderate Mitt from Massachusetts? Or the self-described ‘severely conservative’ Mitt from the Republican primaries? Odd as it might seem, the answer is: probably both. … In any event, the surest way for voters to reconcile Romney's debate season gyrations is to recognize that they're voting not just for a president but for a party as well.”

“Mitt Romney’s 1991 testimony in the divorce of Staples founder Tom Stemberg will be considered for public release on Thursday in open court and with television cameras rolling at Norfolk Probate and Family Court,” the Boston Globe writes. “The court on Wednesday rejected Stemberg’s request to close the hearing, siding with the Globe, which is seeking access to the impounded testimony of Romney, now the Republican nominee for president. … Gloria Allred, an attorney for Sullivan Stemberg, produced two, inch-thick volumes of testimony Romney delivered during the divorce proceedings two decades ago.”

CLEVELAND, OH -- Appearing in an economically hard-hit corner of the crucial battleground state of Ohio, Republican vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan attempted to put a softer edge on the GOP ticket’s plans to reform social programs.

In one of his only major policy speeches of the campaign, the Wisconsin congressman sought to widen the GOP ticket's appeal beyond Republicans and to Independents and Democrats -- just as President Barack Obama's campaign warns that GOP nominee Mitt Romney's proposals would wreck the social safety net and stunt upward mobility.

“Upward mobility is the central promise of life in America. But right now, America’s engines of upward mobility aren’t working the way they should,” Ryan told the crowd at Cleveland State University. “Mitt Romney and I are running because we believe that Americans are better off in a dynamic, free-enterprise-based economy that fosters economic growth, opportunity and upward mobility instead of a stagnant, government-directed economy that stifles job creation and fosters government dependency.”

Slideshow: On the Trail

The speech hit on policy more than politics, evinced by the fact that Ryan mentioned Obama's name only once in his speech.

“Mitt and I have a message that’s bigger than party. We are speaking to all Americans in this campaign,” Ryan said in front of nearly 600 people, adding, “Wherever we are in life, whether we are rich or poor, black, brown, or white, American by chance or by choice, we are one nation, rising or falling together.”

He continued: “Whatever your political party, this nation cannot afford four more years like the last four years.  We need a real recovery,” Ryan, the chairman of the House Budget Committee, said with both American and Ohio flags lining the stage behind him.

The seven-term Wisconsin congressman referenced his former mentor, Jack Kemp, in the speech and said that a Romney administration, if elected, would do everything it could to help the 46 million Americans in poverty today.

“In this war on poverty, poverty is winning. We deserve better. We deserve a clear choice for a brighter future,” he said, speaking off a teleprompter.

Slideshow: Twin sons of different parties 

The list of topics Ryan on which touched didn’t stop there, extending into themes he discusses regularly on the campaign trail -- but counched differently for the more formal speech. He also included standard Romney agenda items, such as "urgent" reforms of the school system, repealing Obama's health care law, and protecting religious liberties.

“Look, I am a proud Republican,” the GOP VP nominee said. “Our party does a good job of speaking to the part of the American Dream that involves taking what you’re passionate about and making a successful living from it. But part of what makes America great is that when we don’t succeed, we look out for one another through our communities. My party has a vision for making our communities stronger – but we don’t always do a good job of laying out that vision.”

Wednesday’s speech in the Buckeye State was a step toward trying to help better illustrate that vision.

"In a Cleveland speech today less than two weeks before the election, Congressman Ryan will attempt to hide the truth about Mitt Romney’s policies," responded Danny Kanner, a spokesman for the Obama campaign. "But one last-minute speech won’t be able to mask the truth: the Romney-Ryan approach would close ladders to the middle class with a budget that, according to one expert, would “likely increase poverty and inequality more than any other budget in recent times (and possibly in the nation’s history)."

The last major policy speech on the Republican side came back on Oct. 8, when Romney spoke in the battleground state of Virginia on foreign policy. Ryan’s event in Swanton, OH that day was delayed to watch his running mate’s address.  Today, shortly after Ryan took the stage in Ohio, Romney started his campaign rally simultaneously in Reno, NV.

RENO, NV -- Mitt Romney returned to Nevada for the second straight day on Wednesday, hoping to boost support in this critical Western battleground by personalizing his message to different slices of Silver State voters.

Romney again claimed his three debates versus President Barack Obama, the last of which was on Monday in Florida, claiming the post-debate momentum and seizing the mantle of being the candidate of "change."

"We’ve had four debates and he hasn’t been able to describe what his plan is to get this economy going. He hasn’t been able to defend it to the American people," Romney said of his debates with President Obama, as well as the VP debate. "I know he’s got a lot of discussion he’s trying to talk to people about it but you know you can boil what he’s saying down to four simple words: And that is more of the same. And we don’t want more of the same. We can’t afford four more years like the last four years."

Romney has hammered at that message at each of three campaign stops since the final debate Monday night, looking to convince voters his campaign has momentum and that the president's cause is fizzling.

Brian Snyder / Reuters

Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney and vice-presidential nominee Paul Ryan talk on the tarmac at the airport in Denver, Colorado before parting ways to campaign separately October 24, 2012.

"The Obama campaign is slipping and shrinking," Romney told the 2,000-plus supporters gathered here today. "The president can't seem to find an agenda to help America's families."

The GOP nominee, who has sometimes struggled to connect personally with voters, today amended his stump speech to touch on how his plan would be better for Americans in specific demographic groups, using the issue of debt and deficits to appeal for support from young women by describing how debts run up by the president could cost them a chance at the American dream.

"Let me tell you how else this might affect, might affect your family, how this choice that you’re making will make a difference in your family. You might have a daughter graduating from college this spring. And she’s gonna come out and she’s gonna probably have 10 or $20,000 in student loans to pay back, and she’s going to be paying the interest on that for a long, long time," Romney said.

"But in addition to those loans, there’s something else that she has, about $50,000 per person for America in debt," Romney said of a hypothetical young woman who graduated from college with student loan debt. "And so when she gets her first paycheck and she sees the deductions for taxes, some of those taxes are going to pay for that debt, and for things she didn’t get, for things that our generation took upon ourselves. And she’s going to be paying for that all of her life. And so the American dream she had been told about by you, her parents, that American dream is going to be out of reach."

In Nevada, the state with the nation's worst unemployment rate, currently stuck at 11.8 percent, Romney did not linger more than usual on his five-point jobs plan, but promised the steps would "get America's economy just cooking again."

To win Nevada's six electoral votes, Romney advisers say the GOP candidate must overperform here in Washoe county, which broke for Obama by 12 points in 2008 but is traditionally more of a swing county. A strong performance there would be necessary to counteract the union-backed Democratic machine in Clark County, home to Las Vegas, and the state's largest population center.

Voters like Steve Wren, 50, a pastor at a church in Reno and a self-described "pro-life Democrat," could be key to Romney's success here. Wren joined his wife, who is supporting Romney, at today's event and told NBC News before the event began that he was still unsure if he would vote for the GOP nominee this time around, after reluctantly breaking from his lifelong support for Democrats to vote for Sen. John McCain in 2008.

"I think he made it clear with what he said. I think its pretty obvious that, well, its obvious to me, that I don't really like where we're going and so we sort of have one choice," Wren said after the rally, adding that he would most likely be voting for Romney after being pleasantly surprised by how "genuine and real" Romney seemed in person.

"I heard a lot of the stuff that I've always heard, so maybe it was just being here and seeing him in person but there was just something that seemed really passionate and genuine, so I was touched by that," Wren said. 

The White House received emails from the State Department that said the Islamist militia group Ansar al-Sharia had used social media to claim responsibility for the attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi within hours of last month’s assault, American officials said Wednesday.

But Ansar al-Sharia disavowed the claim -- which appeared on Facebook and Twitter -- the following day. It was one of many conflicting accounts to emerge in the chaotic hours after the attack in the eastern Libyan city.

When asked about the emails, Secretary of State Hilary Clinton said that “posting something on Facebook is not in and of itself evidence” and added that this “underscores how fluid the reporting was at the time, and continued for some time, to be.”

The assault, which came on the 11th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States, claimed the lives of U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans.

The emails, called “op reports,” were among hundreds that poured into government agencies that night, officials told NBC News. All of these messages had to be analyzed and assessed before decisions could be made or action taken, officials said.

"These emails are unclassified from the operation center and go to hundreds, if not thousands of people,” a White House official told NBC News.

“They basically say: we are under fire,” the official said.

Multiple terror groups often claim credit for the same attack, which makes it nearly impossible to draw conclusions immediately from such intelligence reports, officials said.

U.S. officials told NBC News that the public emergence of the emails added little that was new to the understanding of the U.S. response to the attack.

"Intelligence professionals follow the information wherever it leads to build a coherent picture of what's being assessed. Each report is carefully considered and everything credible is used to try to fill in missing pieces of the narrative,” a U.S. intelligence official told NBC News.

“The process is dynamic. As new reporting comes in, you review, reassess, and revise as appropriate," the official said.

For the documents, click here.

For the full story, click here.

The post is culled from reporting by NBC's Frank Thorp, Andrea Mitchell, Catherine Chomiak and wire services.

MARION, Ohio -- Vice President Joe Biden assumed the role of jokester-in-chief on Wednesday in Ohio, alternating between a policy lecture and an amateur comedy gig in ridiculing the Republican presidential ticket.

Appearing in Ohio at the end of a three-day trip, Biden's campaign pitch offered comfort and glee for the base and occasional fodder for the opposition.

There was the assurance to a crying baby that Mitt Romney wouldn't win the election. "It's okay. He's not going to get elected," he mock-soothingly announced as a child in the audience wailed. "God, I shouldn't be scaring children like this!"

There was the groaner understandable only to aficionados of Buckeye State geography. Relating that he's traveled from the phonetic "Dayton, Ohio" to "Marion, Ohio," he cracked "I didn't think I was marrying y'all!"

And there was the slip-up quickly picked apart by Republicans familiar with Biden's occasional history of locality-based missteps. Lamenting the political ads he's seen in his travels, he said the commercials were saturating airwaves "here in Iowa." (That prompted a release from Boston offering Team Romney's "Response to Vice President Biden in Iowa ... Uh... Ohio.")

As the closing weeks of the election loom, Biden's speeches have become must-watch fodder for journalists - who often tweet highlights as they watch live video feeds from their offices - and for Biden foes eager to catch one of his famed rhetorical goof-ups.

Biden's rally of over a thousand supporters in a high school gymnasium disappointed neither.

Speaking of Romney and Ryan's tax plans, Biden related a teenage memory of wanting to hang out "on the corner" with troublemaking kids, only to be stopped by his mother's warning.

"She'd look at me and she'd say, 'Joey, if it looks like a duck, and it walks like a duck, and it quacks like a duck, it's a duck!'" he declared.

While wasn't entirely clear how Biden transitioned from effective tax rates to poultry, the crowd loved it.

"Man," he concluded. "This is one quackin' duck!"

DAVENPORT, IA -- President Barack Obama would win a second term if the election were held today, a top adviser to the president argued Wednesday.

A sanguine David Plouffe told reporters Wednesday Obama maintains several paths to winning 270 electoral votes despite some polls showing tightening races in some swing states.

“We win the election if it were held today,” the senior White House adviser told reporters traveling after Obama’s event in Davenport, IA. "Our view is that in all the battleground states we’ve contested, every single one of them, we have a credible pathway to 50 percent."

He counted even the more challenging states for Obama, such as North Carolina, Virginia and Florida in that mix and suggested that the Romney campaign’s continued heavy resource allocation in some of those states meant they weren’t as confident about them as they might say.

“If they felt good about Florida and Virginia I think you’d begin to see them curtail a little bit. And we feel that Florida and Virginia are very winnable for the president,” Plouffe said.

Plouffe also said that the dustup surrounding the president’s interview with the Des Moines Register editorial board, which was first kept off the record but then put back on after the Register went public about it, would not affect voters in Iowa who might be reading that newspaper.

“I know it’ll be a flurry of interest for a few hours but I don’t think it’s something that will impact people who are still deciding how to vote,” he said.

Asked to respond to Donald Trump’s offer of charity money if President Obama releases his college transcripts, Plouffe, grinning, told reporters, “Direct questions to Boston. Because Donald Trump is Mitt Romney’s biggest supporter so he owns everything he says.” 

A 2010 Supreme Court decision was supposed to herald a new era of special interests' influence in elections, giving rise to shadowy outside spending groups -- "super PACs" -- that could take advantage of unlimited corporate campaign spending.

President Barack Obama and other Democrats openly fretted that the court's 2010 "Citizens United" ruling, which struck down limits on corporate political spending, would allow big business to marshal their resources to bend the law to suit their own purposes.

But with just less than two weeks until the election, super PACs have hardly been the overt bogeyman many political observers had feared. They're plenty influential --  but they’ve become part of the DNA of American politics by operating like para-campaigns for Obama and Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney.

Super PACs' influence over campaigns hasn’t been quite as Obama and other Democrats first warned.

“Corporate lobbyists will be able to tell members of Congress if they don’t vote the right way, they will face an onslaught of negative ads in their next campaign,” Obama said in 2010 comments pushing for Congress to adopt the DISCLOSE Act, which would have required more disclosure for donations to these organizations.

Recommended: Obama and Romney begin campaign blitz

Rather, super PACs -- and the seasoned political professionals who run such groups -- have stepped forward to assume and bolster some of the traditional functions that might otherwise fall to candidates themselves. Super PACs have hardly been able to dictate the terms of the election, but their absence might have otherwise meant dire straits for candidates who benefited from their spending, primarily on television ads.

“The outside group can serve the purpose of providing cover to the challenger while the incumbent attempts to define the challenger with dramatically lopsided resources,” said Jonathan Collegio, the communications director for American Crossroads, one of the largest and most influential Republican super PACs.

NBC News

American Bridge 21st Century, a Democratic Super PAC devoted solely to opposition research. Opposition researchers find the dirt on presidential candidates that turns into the mud that is slung throughout the campaign season.

Rock Center

In the presidential campaign and a slew of House and Senate races across the country, super PACs have served varying purposes. They have helped prop up candidates whose own bank accounts are lacking, or have done the dirty work against an opponent that a candidate’s campaign might not be able to execute.

“Between Crossroads and the Chamber and all of those groups, they’ve done a lot in a lot of our states,” said one Democrat familiar with the party’s Senate campaign efforts. “They’ve probably kept their Republican candidates afloat in a couple of instances.”

Super PACs and the battle for the White House

In a similar manner, Romney was the beneficiary of super PAC support at crucial points in his campaign for president. During the Republican primary, a super PAC founded by former aides -- Restore Our Future -- was able to overwhelm Romney’s opposition with millions’ worth of television ads pillorying Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum.

And after Romney emerged from that primary, bloodied from the process and with relatively depleted bank accounts, Restore Our Future and Crossroads were able to offer him support on the airwaves -- stepping forth as a kind of surrogate for the GOP nominee in the absence of a more robust campaign effort.

Recommended: Detailing Romney's foreign-policy shifts; the latest in a long chapter of change

In essence, no action or advertisement made by Romney or Obama has gone unanswered. That means no super PAC has been able to dominate the general election, though the countervailing advertising has contributed to a kind of Cold War in politics; each side keeps accelerating its spending, partly for fear of falling behind the other side.

That sentiment motivated Obama’s own flip-flop toward super PACs earlier this year, when his campaign dropped its objections toward the groups and embraced Priorities USA, a supportive super PAC founded by former Obama aides.

“With so much at stake, we can't allow for two sets of rules in this election whereby the Republican nominee is the beneficiary of unlimited spending and Democrats unilaterally disarm,” Obama campaign manager Jim Messina wrote in his Feb. 6 missive to Democrats explaining the reversal.

To that end, the pro-Obama super PAC Priorities USA has spent $52.7 million on the general election, according to NBC News ad-tracking sources, $35.7 million of which has been spent following the Democratic National Convention. Restore Our Future, by contrast, has spent $73 million on the general election, $34.8 of which came after the Republican convention, when Romney got access to the pool of general election funds he had built, but had been unable to access.

A series of other super PACs have stepped forward to spend millions more on both candidates’ behalf.

Super PACs and downballot races

It might be that super PACs’ effect are more pronounced in races downballot, where finances and organization can be more uneven between House and Senate candidates.

House Majority PAC, a Democratic super PAC dedicated to electing members of the House, was able to coordinate with other progressive groups and pool resources and research in a targeted way.

“One of the ways we’ve been effective is helping to coordinate efforts from a whole host of progressive groups that have traditionally been involved in electoral politics,” said Andy Stone, the group’s communications director. “House Majority PAC has worked to efficiently and effectively use the resources that we have to make a difference in House races, and make sure what happened in 2010 doesn’t happen again -- where House Democrats were just overwhelmed by the last minute by outside money.”

But there are also limits to what super PACs can accomplish.

Paul Lindsay, the communications director for the National Republican Congressional Committee, said the NRCC appreciates its outside supporters but has tried to lead the way with its own spending.

“We’ve always worked under the premise that we can only control what is in our organization and capacity,” he said.

“Candidates matter,” said the Senate Democratic operative, echoing that sentiment. “Super PACs can only do so much.”

Related: Ohio tops all states in ad spending

That principle extends to the presidential election, as well. Collegio of American Crossroads argued that it’s up to candidates -- not their supportive super PACs -- to close the deal with voters.

“Ultimately, outside groups that can’t coordinate are far more effective at making the case against candidates than at making the case for candidates,” he said. “A candidate must push himself or herself over the finish line with their own message and identity.”

Updated 4:32 p.m. - DAVENPORT, IA -- President Barack Obama kicked off a swing state barnstorm with a rally Wednesday in Davenport, Iowa – the state he credits with giving his 2008 campaign its first big boost.

Mandel Ngan / AFP - Getty Images

President Barack Obama arrives on stage for a campaign event October 24, 2012 at Mississippi Valley Fairgrounds in Davenport, Iowa.

“This is the first stop on our 48-hour fly-around campaign marathon extravaganza,” Obama told a crowd of 3,500 at the Mississippi River fairgrounds.

“We're going to pull an all-nighter -- no sleep. We're starting here in Iowa; we're going to Colorado, then we're going to go Nevada, then we're going to Florida, Virginia, Ohio. I am going to stop in Chicago to vote,” he said, urging the crowd to vote early in Iowa, as he will in his hometown. 

Obama also continued to hit a theme of “who can you trust more,” saying that, unlike Romney, Obama’s positions on issues over the past decade have been consistent.

“You could take a videotape of things I've said 10 years ago, 12 years ago and you'd say, man, this is the same guy, has the same values, cares about the same people - doesn't forget where he came from. Knows who he's fighting for,” he said.

The Romney campaign responded to the president's event with a  statement from campaign spokesman Ryan Williams: "President Obama proved once again today that his campaign is getting smaller and smaller as Election Day approaches. Another four years of President Obama’s policies will mean lower incomes, higher taxes, and more debt. A glossy brochure full of the same policies that haven’t worked over the last four years is no substitute for a real agenda that will help grow the middle class and restore America’s strength. In two weeks, Americans will choose Governor Romney's positive agenda over President Obama's increasingly desperate attacks.”  

After the rally in Davenport, the president was headed to Denver, CO for another campaign event.

Indiana Republican Senate candidate Richard Mourdock said Wednesday that his controversial comments regarding conception following rape are being taken out of context. At a Tuesday night debate versus Democratic opponent Joe Donnelly, he said that when women become pregnant after being raped, “that’s something God intended.”

The Indiana state treasurer said Tuesday in response to a question about abortion rights: "I struggled with it myself for a long time, but I came to realize that life is that gift from God and I think even when life begins in that horrible situation of rape that it is something God intended to happen."

Mourdock, a favorite of Tea Party supporters, said Wednesday that his comments were inelegantly stated, and subsequently mischaracterized by Democrats.

"I am a much more humble person this morning. Because so many people mistook, twisted, came to misunderstand the points that I was trying to make," he said at a press conference in Indiana. "And if, because of the lack of clarity in my words, that they came away with the impression other than I stated a moment ago -- that life is precious, that I abhor violence and that I'm confident God abhors violence and rape -- if they came away with any impression other than that, I truly regret it."

Mourdock's comments not only threaten to make a competitive Senate race more challenging for the GOP, but also, by proxy, exacerbate Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney's struggles with female voters.

Romney appeared in a television ad on Monday that endorsed Mourdock, the only such ad the GOP standard-bearer has cut for a Senate candidate this cycle. The Romney campaign released a statement on Tuesday evening taking exception to the Indiana Senate candidate's comments, and Mourdock said on Wednesday that he hadn't spoken to Romney or any other Republican who had urged him to apologize.

Romney's campaign issued a statement on Wednesday reiterating its support for Mourdock, while emphasizing its differences from Mourdock on allowing abortion in cases of rape and when the mother’s health is in danger.

Democrats have tried to make hay of the controversy, releasing a flurry of statements demanding that Romney more forcefully disavow Mourdock and take down the television ad. (Mourdock said Wednesday that the ads continued to run in Indiana.)

"For those who kind of want to twist the comments, and use them for partisan, political gain -- I think that's wrong with Washington these days," Mourdock said of the response his comments had provoked. "I'm confident that Hoosier voters are going to be moving on and supporting us in big numbers in 13 days."

The controversy threatened to remind voters of other Republicans' comments this election about rape, most notably Missouri Senate candidate Todd Akin's comments earlier this summer asserting that "legitimate rape" rarely results in pregnancy. Republicans more sharply distanced themselves from Akin, a congressman, and urged him to drop out of the race.

Akin never withdrew, though, a move which is widely regarded to have hurt the GOP's chances of beating Democratic incumbent Sen. Claire McCaskill in Missouri and, by extension, retake the U.S. Senate. Republicans must pick up a bet of four seats on Nov. 6 -- three, if Romney is elected president -- in order to wrest control of the upper chamber from Democrats. The GOP entered the 2012 elections with hopes of achieving that goal, but candidates' missteps and better-than-expected performances by some Democrats have made control of the Senate an open question in this election.

Whether this hurts Mourdock's race versus Donnelly -- or is able to translate into a political millstone for Romney -- is an open question in the waning days before Election Day. Mourdock took strides toward reassuring important women voters of his stance.

"I don't think God wants rape, because rape is evil," he said. "I want to assure every woman who hears this, who hears the story of this, that I abhor it, and I'm confident God abhors this."

The biggest hurdle for Republican Mitt Romney to overcome in his six-plus years’ pursuit of the White House has been authenticity.

On a range of issues – from abortion, health care, climate change, and coal to the minimum wage, campaign finance, and bank bailouts, to name a few – Romney has shifted positions and even been diametrically opposed to views he had held previously.

It’s something that’s haunted him dating back to 1994 – in his first venture into politics – when he ran for the Senate against the late Ted Kennedy. “Mitt Romney isn't pro-choice; he's not anti-choice; he's multiple choice,” Kennedy said of Romney’s stance on abortion in a memorable line from a Kennedy-Romney debate.

The damning line set in motion a powerful narrative that would be used against Romney for the next 18 years.

Now, with just two weeks to go until Election Day and with Romney’s path to power in sight, likely the final Romney re-positioning of this campaign took place Monday night at the third and final presidential debate on foreign policy.

The Republican nominee's moderated tone and deviation from prior positions – on timelines in Afghanistan, support for the war in Iraq, the president’s pursuit of sanctions and diplomacy with Iran, whether Egypt’s longtime leader Hosni Mubarak should have stayed in power, and whether Palestinians and Israelis can accomplish peace – are once again raising questions about Romney’s core convictions and how exactly he would intend to conduct U.S. foreign policy if elected president in 13 days.

To be fair, there have been shifts by President Barack Obama, too – from his staunch opposition to health-care mandates as a candidate to then endorsing them as president and trade policy from the 2008 primary to general election. On foreign policy, he was hotly critical of President George W. Bush’s establishment of a prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, pledging to close it within a year. He tried to close it, but ran into the political and legal complications.

But it’s particularly striking that Romney -- who is 65 years old and wants to assume the role of “leader of the free world” – would at this late stage be shifting his worldview.

“Gov. Romney appeared to leave a lot of his positions behind,” former Ambassador Nick Burns, who has worked for both Republicans and Democrats, said Tuesday morning on CNN. “And it does leave you with the question – what is his worldview, what does he really believe, what would he DO on these big national security issues, such as Afghanistan or even Iran, where previously he had been very critical? Last night, [he] largely agreed with the president, so I think he’s leaving the impression that he’s not quite sure what he’d do or that he’s not being as specific as he might be.”

On Afghanistan, Romney was against a timeline for withdrawal before he was for it.

Here’s what Romney said Monday night:

“Well, we're going to be finished by 2014, and when I'm president, we'll make sure we bring our troops out by the end of 2014. … We've seen progress over the past several years. The surge has been successful and the training program is proceeding apace. There are now a large number of Afghan Security Forces, 350,000 that are ready to step in to provide security and we're going to be able to make that transition by the end of 2014. So our troops will come home at that point.”

But previously, he called the president’s timeline a “politically timed retreat,” “misguided,” “naïve,” and “makes absolutely no sense.” Here he was July in his speech to the VFW:

“I have been critical of the President’s decision to withdraw the surge troops during the fighting season, against the advice of the commanders on the ground. President Obama would have you believe that anyone who disagrees with his decisions is arguing for endless war.  But the route to more war – and to potential attacks here at home – is a politically timed retreat. As president, my goal in Afghanistan will be to complete a successful transition to Afghan security forces by the end of 2014. I will evaluate conditions on the ground and solicit the best advice of our military commanders.  And I will affirm that my duty is not to my political prospects, but to the security of the nation.”

Here he was Feb. 1:

“The president’s mistakes, some of them are calculated on a philosophy that’s hard to understand and, sometimes, you scratch you head and say: How can he be so misguided and so naive? Today, his secretary of defense unleashed such a policy. The secretary of defense said that on a day certain, the middle of 2013, we’re going to pull out our combat troops from Afghanistan. He announced that. He announced that. So the Taliban hears it, the Pakistanis hear it, the Afghan leaders hear it. Why in the world do you go to the people that you’re fighting with and tell them the date you’re pulling out your troops? It makes absolutely no sense. His naiveté is putting in jeopardy the mission of the United States of America and our commitments to freedom. He is wrong. We need new leadership in Washington.”

March 2010:

“I would not have announced the date we're going to start pulling people out. I think that makes it more difficult at the time you're just adding troops.”

April 2010:

“If I'm Karzai, I say holy cow before the job is done these guys are going to leave. What does that mean about my life and livelihood?”

On Iraq, Romney Monday night said:

“We don't want another Iraq, we don't want another Afghanistan. That's not the right course for us.”

Yet during another debate in Boca Raton four years ago (January 2008), Romney called the war in Iraq the “right decision.”

TIM RUSSERT: Governor Romney, was the war in Iraq a good idea, worth the cost in blood and treasure we have spent?

ROMNEY: It was the right decision to go into Iraq. I supported it at the time. I support it now.

During this campaign, he shifted his position slightly, saying instead that it was “appropriate at the time.” He said on FOX News Sunday, Dec. 18, 2011:

"Going back and trying to say, given what we know now, what would we have done, would we have invaded or not, at the time, we didn't have the knowledge that we have now. … we took action which was appropriate at the time."

He also said during that same interview, he said that Obama had “pulled our troops out in a precipitous way, and we should have left 10, 20, 30,000 personnel there to help transition to the Iraqis' own military capabilities."

Asked then if he, as president, would send them back in, Romney sidestepped:

“I think the decision to send U.S. troops into a combat setting is a very high threshold decision. This is not something you do easily. You don't - you don't send our troops around the world every time there's something that goes off… in an untoward way. … I'm not going to say where I would send troops and not send troops. We send troops where there's a substantial U.S. interest involved. And I have a very high threshold as to a decision where we send our troops.”

But, according to his foreign policy white paper on his campaign website, he would have wanted 14,000-18,000 troops in Iraq:

"Reports indicate that President Obama is seeking to keep 3,000 troops in the country after 2011, a number far below the reported 14,000 to 18,000 our commanders in the field have recommended as the minimum necessary to carry out our mission. In light of these developments, it is impossible to forecast what conditions in Iraq will confront the next American president in January 2013. Mitt Romney will enter office seeking to use the broad array of our foreign-policy tools - diplomatic, economic, and military - to establish a lasting relationship with Iraq and guarantee that Baghdad remains a solid partner in a volatile and strategically vital region."

Obama, too, wanted to leave some troops in Iraq, but he ultimately couldn't get agreement with the Iraqi government to do so on the Status of Forces Agreement, which Romney attacked him for during the debate.

On Iran, Romney Monday night called for tightening sanctions, but acknowledged “crippling sanctions” are in place and working:

“…[C]rippling sanctions are something I called for five years ago, when I was in Israel, speaking at the Herzliya Conference. I laid out seven steps, crippling sanctions were number one. And they do work. You're seeing it right now in the economy. It's absolutely the right thing to do, to have crippling sanctions. I would have put them in place earlier. But it's good that we have them. Number two, something I would add today is I would tighten those sanctions.

But at a February CNN debate, during the GOP primary, Romney said Obama did not put in place “crippling sanctions.”

“This president -- this president should have put in place crippling sanctions against Iran, he did not. He decided to give Russia -- he decided to give Russia their No. 1 foreign policy objective, removal of our missile defense sites from Eastern Europe and got nothing in return. He could have gotten crippling sanctions against Iran. He did not.”

On Meet the Press last month, he said Obama’s policy of engagement “has not worked,” said U.S. “should pursue kind of crippling sanctions” he’s spoken about.

“President Obama had a policy of engagement with Ahmadinejad.  That policy has not worked and we're closer to a nuclear weapon as a result of that.  I will have a very different approach with regards to Iran.  And it's an approach which, by the way, the president's finally getting closer to. It begins with crippling sanctions. That should have been put in place long ago. …

“Well, at the time President Bush was president, Iran was years away from a nuclear weapon.  And he pursued diplomacy, as I can think we should continue to pursue diplomatic channels.  We should pursue as well the kind of crippling sanctions that I've spoken about when I gave a speech at the Herzliya Conference five years ago.”

Even that appearance on Meet the Press, in which he said he think “we should continue to pursue diplomatic channels,” was a rhetorical shift.

He stressed diplomacy and “peace” Monday night:

“It’s also essential for us to understand what our mission is in Iran, and that is to dissuade Iran from having a nuclear weapon through peaceful and diplomatic means.”

But here he was at AIPAC March 6, saber-rattling:

“Hope is not a foreign policy. The only thing respected by thugs and tyrants is our resolve, backed by our power and our readiness to use it.”

It’s instructive to read more of Romney’s AIPAC speech to fully grasp the tonal shift in Monday night’s debate.

“In recent days and weeks, we’ve heard a lot of words from the administration. Its clear message has been to warn Israel to consider the costs of military action against Iran. I do not believe that we should be issuing public warnings that create distance between the United States and Israel. Israel does not need public lectures about how to weigh decisions of war and peace. It needs our support.”

And:

“I will bring the current policy of procrastination toward Iran to an end. I will not delay in imposing further crippling sanctions, and I will not hesitate to fully implement the ones we currently have. I will make sure Iran knows of the very real peril that awaits if it becomes nuclear. … As President, I will be ready to engage in diplomacy. But I will be just as ready to engage our military might.”

On negotiations:

“I have studied the writings and speeches of the jihadists. They argue for a one-state solution—one all-dominating radical Islamist state, that is. Their objective is not freedom, not prosperity, not a Palestinian state, but the destruction of Israel. And negotiating and placating such jihadists will never, ever yield peace in the Middle East. I recognize in the ayatollahs of Iran the zealot refrain of dominion.” …

“Iran has long engaged in terrorism around the world, most recently in Georgia and in Thailand. In Washington, DC, Iran plotted to assassinate the Saudi ambassador by bombing a Georgetown restaurant. Iran has deployed Hezbollah and Hamas and armed the insurgents of Iraq and Afghanistan, killing our sons and daughters. They war against America. Yet, the current administration has promoted a policy of engagement with Iran.”

And on sanctions:

“This President not only dawdled in imposing crippling sanctions, he has opposed them.”

On Mubarak, Monday night, Romney said he approved of how the president handled the ouster of longtime Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak:

MR. SCHIEFFER: Governor Romney, I want to hear your response to that, but I would just ask you, would you have stuck with Mubarak?

MR. ROMNEY: No, I believe, as the president indicated and said at the time, that I supported his — his action there. 

But here was Romney on July 27 critical of President Obama’s handling of Mubarak, telling an Israeli newspaper that Obama could have persuaded Mubarak to become more democratic – not calling for his ouster:

“President Bush urged Hosni Mubarak to move toward a more democratic posture, but President Obama abandoned the freedom agenda and we are seeing today a whirlwind of tumult in the Middle East in part because these nations did not embrace the reforms that could have changed the course of their history, in a more peaceful manner.”

On the prospect of Israeli-Palestinian peace, Monday night Romney criticized the president for not doing more to accomplish it:

“...are Israel and the Palestinians closer to — to reaching a peace agreement? No, they haven’t had talks in two years. We have not seen the progress we need to have, and I’m convinced that with strong leadership and an effort to build a strategy based upon helping these nations reject extremism, we can see the kind of peace and prosperity the world demands.”

But Romney’s public and private comments have diverged on this subject.

Publicly, he told the Israeli newspaper Haaretz:

“I believe in a two-state solution which suggests there will be two states, including a Jewish state.”

But privately, during that fundraiser in which he called 47 percent of Americans “victims,” he dismissed the idea of a two-state solution and said it would “remain an unsolved problem”:

“Palestinians have no interest whatsoever in establishing peace and that the pathway to peace is almost unthinkable to accomplish. … These are problems that are very hard to solve. And I look at the Palestinians not wanting to see peace anyway, for political purposes -- committed to the destruction and elimination of Israel. I just say there is no way, and so, what you do is you move things along the best way you can and hope for some degree of stability, but you recognize this is going to remain an unsolved problem.”

During his speech at AIPAC, instead of maintaining neutrality with regard to negotiations, he said:

“The current administration has distanced itself from Israel and visibly warmed to the Palestinian cause. It has emboldened the Palestinians. They are convinced that they can do better at the UN – and better with America – than they can at the bargaining table with Israel. As President, I will treat our allies and friends like friends and allies.”

During his trip in Israel, at another fundraiser, he also implied that it was Palestinians’ “culture” that was to blame for lower gross-domestic product in areas controlled by the Palestinian Authority as compared to Israel.

Despite all of these shifts, Romney adviser Jim Talent, a former Missouri senator, claimed on MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell Reports that it was Obama who was shifting -- toward Romney.

“I gotta tell you. I think the opposite is true,” he said after being asked about Romney’s changes. “I think the president is moderating his view to come closer to Mitt Romney’s view.”

Closer to the “mainstream,” Talent said.

NBC's James Rankin contributed to this report.