Wrapping a whirlwind day of campaigning, President Barack Obama joined Bill Clinton — the last Democratic president, and vocal advocate for Obama — at a massive rally Saturday evening in northern Virginia. 

Before a crowd estimated at 24,000, Obama both literally and figuratively embraced Clinton, who has emerged as one of the most dogged advocates for the president's re-election campaign this fall. 

"He has been traveling all across the country for this campaign. He's been laying out the stakes so well that our team basically calls him the 'Secretary of Explaining Stuff,'" Obama said. "He was a great president; he has been a great friend."

As the final weekend of the 2012 campaign raised the question of which candidate, Obama or Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney, would best move Washington past its intractable problems, Clinton, a president who has only grown more popular since leaving office, offered Obama his imprimatur. 

"As you see, I have given my voice in the service of my president," the hoarse former president said, following some local favorites, the Dave Matthews Band, at the rally in suburban Washington. 

NBC Politics coverage of the 2012 campaign:

• Uncertain finale looms amid weekend campaign blitz
• Romney implores Colorado for 'one last push'
• Biden zings Romney in Colorado
• Ryan travels to Pennsylvania, trying to put state in play
• Obama plays up 'trust' in battleground Ohio
• Obama aide explains 'voting is best revenge' comment
• Ryan: 'We believe in change and hope'
• Romney strikes optimistic tone as final weekend opens
• Polls: Obama stays ahead in Ohio, deadlocked with Romney in Fla.
• GOP's chances at Senate imperiled by self-inflicted wounds

Both Obama and Romney spent the day criss-crossing the United States to make a firmly centrist appeal, each of them trying to sound upbeat as the clock counts down on Election 2012. Each candidate drew thousands — sometimes tens of thousands — of supporters to rallies in Iowa, Wisconsin, Colorado, Iowa, Virginia, Ohio and beyond. And each candidate argued he was the one who could break through the gridlock in a Congress beset for the past two years by bitter partisan fights.

"You know that if the president is re-elected, he'll still be unable to work with the people in Congress," Romney told a sprawling crowd in Colorado. "He's ignored them. He's blamed them. He's attacked them."

Romney spent much of the campaign's final weekend arguing he was the candidate of "change," co-opting Obama's 2008 message to use four years later against the president. 

Whether the Republican candidate's claim to to the mantle of change would resonate with a handful of remaining swing voters in just a few battleground states was unclear. Obama seemed to enjoy an edge in states like Iowa, leading Romney by five points among likely voters, according to the Des Moines Register's final poll. But a WMUR poll of New Hampshire also found the president and Romney tied, at 47 percent, in another battleground state: New Hampshire. 

That neither Obama or Romney had managed to open a solid advantage over the other in the final hours of the campaign only raised the stakes for the final series of events on Sunday and Monday. Both Obama and Romney — along with Vice President Biden and Republican vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan — were set to hit the road for another robust schedule tomorrow. Obama was set to travel to Colorado, Florida, and New Hampshire; Romney's schedule would take him to Iowa, Ohio and Pennsylvania.

COLORADO SPRINGS, CO — Mitt Romney offered Colorado voters a final look at his presidential résumé on Saturday afternoon, delivering an updated version of his "closing argument" speech to some 4,500 supporters gathered in an airplane hangar here.

"We've got to change course because unless we do we may be looking at another recession," Romney warned. "The question of this election comes down to this: Do you want more of the same or do you want real change?"

Romney will make his "real change" pitch once more for Colorado voters this evening, in his final rally in a state expected to have razor thin margins as votes are tallied on Election Day. As he did in Wisconsin on Friday, Romney focused his remarks on promises to work across the aisle, on keeping an economic focus if elected, and on his resume as a change agent in business and in government.

“You know when I’m elected the economy and American jobs will still be stagnant, but I’m not going to waste any time complaining my predecessor," Romney said. "I will not spend my effort and time trying to pass partisan legislation that’s unrelated to the economy and jobs. From day one, I’m going to go to work to help Americans get back to work.”

Romney was joined on the stump today by his wife Ann, who along with a coterie of top aides usually based in Boston, is traveling with Romney for the final three day stretch of the campaign. Taking the stage here before a large an energetic crowd, she was visibly emotional as she recalled the long road traveled thus far in the campaign.

"That is amazing, to walk in and have this kind of emotion come to us.  It makes me believe we can win Colorado," Mrs. Romney said. "It has been quite a journey. It’s coming to a close. We have three more days."

PUEBLO, Colo. -- It's rare that an audience asks the famously audible Joe Biden to speak up.

But with the acoustics in Pueblo's Central High School gymnasium leaving many of the thousand attendees at his Saturday afternoon rally unable to hear him, they did.

"I wish to hell they'd turn this mic up!" an annoyed Biden declared loudly upon hearing their pleas for more volume.

Biden, who is known to read media coverage of his slip-ups and frequently notes in front of audiences that he "got in trouble" with the press for mistakes,  joked about the kind of headlines that the sound situation could garner as he belted out the remainder of his remarks.

"I'm going to hear a press report," he said as the audience giggled at his imagined headline. "'Biden screamed at the audience.'"

Updated at 5:50pmET: A rapidly-approaching conclusion loomed over the 2012 election on Saturday, as President Barack Obama, Republican nominee Mitt Romney, their running mates and surrogates swarmed a series of battleground states to make their closing messages.

Obama and Romney each employed a mixture of uplifting, forward-looking rhetoric with attacks on the other during a whirlwind tour of battleground states set to decide the election on Tuesday.

 Slideshow: On the campaign trail

Looking for a catalyzing moment to push past Obama in those swing states, Romney opted to play up the president's comments Friday at a rally, at which he urged supporters to vote as a means of seeking "revenge" against Republicans.

"Yesterday the president said something you may have heard by now that I think surprised a lot of people. Speaking to an audience, he said you know voting is the best 'revenge,'" Romney said. "He told his supporters, voting for revenge. Vote for revenge? Let me tell you what I’d like to tell you: Vote for love of country."

The Obama campaign, in response Saturday afternoon, called the line of attack "very small."

"I think it's interesting that that's the closing argument that the Romney campaign is making," said Obama spokesman Ben LaBolt.

Related: Obama aide explains 'voting is best revenge' comment

The remarks were consistent with Romney's effort to project momentum heading into the campaign's final weekend, riding high after drawing the largest crowd of its campaign at a Friday night rally in Ohio. The Republican ticket has essentially tried to co-opt the themes of "change" from Obama's 2008 campaign as its closing argument now against the president.

But the Romney campaign's outward optimism clashed with new polls giving Obama an ever-so-slight edge in pivotal swing states. New NBC News/Wall Street Journal/Marist polls showed Romney trailing Obama by six points among likely voters in Ohio, and by two points in Florida.

 Related: Polls: Obama stays ahead in Ohio, deadlocked with Romney in Fla.

Republican vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan's trip Saturday afternoon to Pennsylvania, a state which the GOP has only contended in the final days of the campaign, was emblematic of the campaigns' dueling perspectives toward the campaign. The Romney campaign argued it was a sign of surging momentum while the Obama campaign cast the trip as an act of desperation — a Hail Mary effort driven by foreclosed opportunities in other battleground states. (Romney will stop in Pennsylvania on Sunday.)

While the outcome on Election Day is far from assured, a certain wistfulness set in as Obama looked back at his four years in office. He argued his experience as president showed he was someone whom voters could trust, meaning to imply as well that Romney wasn't.

"When you elect a president, you don’t know what kinds of emergencies may happen. You don’t know what problems he or she may deal with," he said. "But you want to be able to trust your president."

/

In this composite photo: President Barack Obama points while speaking at a campaign event at Mentor High School in Ohio, and Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney speaks at a campaign rally in Dubuque, Iowa November 3, 2012.  

And amid the late-breaking attack by Romney meant to cast Obama as embittered, the president told a crowd in Mentor, Ohio: "I don't feel cynical. I feel hopeful."

There were signs that awareness of the campaign's approaching horizon had set in among the Romney campaign as well.

"It was very emotional when I gave my last address by myself, because I hear the voices and the passion of the people out there that are really hurting, and they are etched in my mind and my heart, as they are with Mitt," Ann Romney told the press corps traveling with her husband. "It's been an extraordinary experience."

 Recommended: Ryan travels to Pennsylvania, trying to put state in play

The full range of reflection would have to wait, though, until Wednesday. Obama and Romney — along with their running mates, Vice President Joe Biden and Ryan — each have a long list of stops ahead of them during the remainder of Saturday, Sunday and Monday. Their efforts are met by hoards of Democratic and Republican surrogates, who fanned out across the country as part of a frenzied effort in hopes of  adding a few more swing states to their candidate's column on Tuesday. 

MONTROSE, Colo. -- Just hours after the latest unemployment report was released Friday, Republican vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan attacked President Barack Obama for not living up to his promise of getting more Americans back to work.

Related: Jobs data unlikely to sway undecided voters

"We just got the latest jobs report that voters are going to see before heading to the polls on Election Day. And what we saw today is that the unemployment rate is higher than the day that President Obama came into office," Ryan, the chairman of the House Budget Committee, said. "We are 9 million jobs short than what he said he would accomplish. Look, in the president's campaign for another term, he has offered nothing different and if he is reelected, nothing different is exactly what we would get."

Recommended: Obama, Romney bring their closing arguments to the Midwest 

The U.S. economy added 171,000 jobs in October, according to a Bureau of Labor Statistics Report, and the unemployment rate ticked up to 7.9 percent, still below the important psychological threshold of 8 percent.

In the shadows of the San Juan Mountains, Ryan told voters in the key battleground of Colorado to hold on for just another few days.

"Here’s what it comes down to: we can't afford to wait four more years for real change to get us on the right track. We only need to wait four more days. Four more days and we can do this. Four more days. Four more days and we can get this on the right track," he said at the Black Canyon Jet Center to a cheering crowd.

Recommended: Democrats face very steep climb to 25 House seats they need

The Friday morning rally marked Ryan’s 11th in the Centennial State where Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney and Obama are in a dead heat to capture the state’s nine electoral votes. According to a CNN/ORC International poll released yesterday, Obama barely edges out Romney, 50 to 48 percent, among the state's likely voters. The two-point lead for Obama is within the polls margin of error.

Romney will hold two events in Colorado Saturday while Ryan returns on Sunday for an event in Castle Rock before Tuesday’s election.

GREELEY, Colo. -- Speaking in the battleground state of Colorado, Republican vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan piled on President Barack Obama for apparently suggesting the creation of a new cabinet position.

“He's (Obama) got a new idea for the second term and here's what it is. In addition to all the borrowing and all the spending and all the money printing and all the regulating, he wants a new cabinet position,” Ryan told a crowd at the Island Grove Event Center Thursday. “He wants to create a new 'secretary of business.' You know, we already have a secretary of business. It's actually called secretary of commerce. That's what this agency does.”

Ryan continued knocking the president: “Let me ask you a question: can anybody name our current secretary of commerce? You know why? We don't have one! It's been vacant for over four months and the president hasn't even proposed to put somebody in the job. We don't need another bureaucrat or another bureaucracy, we need another president.”

Obama made the comments during an interview with MSNBC to which both Romney and Ryan talked about on the campaign trail today.

"We don’t need a secretary of business to understand business we need a president who understands business, and I do," Romney said at a rally in the battleground state of Virginia Thursday morning.

Justin Sullivan / Getty Images

Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan sing along with Janna Ryan as the Oakridge Boys perform during a campaign rally at the Marion County Fairgrounds in Marion, Ohio on Sunday.

Ohio's Republican governor said Sunday that private polls show Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney beating President Barack Obama in the all-important battleground state of Ohio just as auto industry politics assume a dominant role in the closing days of the campaign. 

Ohio Gov. John Kasich (R) predicted outright that Romney would win Ohio on "Meet the Press" and, with it, the presidential election — a overall contest which Kasich said wouldn't be that close.

"Right now, I believe we're currently ahead. Internals show us currently ahead," he said, referring to the private polling candidates routinely conduct. "Honestly, I believe that Romney is going to carry Ohio."

The governor's show of confidence comes after a week in which Obama and Romney — along with their respective running mates — barnstormed the Buckeye State in hopes of securing the state's 18 electoral votes, which would greatly enhance either candidate's hopes of winning the presidential election.

A Cincinnati Enquirer/Ohio News poll released Sunday and conducted Oct. 18-23 showed the two candidates tied at 49 percent apiece among likely voters in the state. Two other public polls earlier in the week, by CNN/ORC and TIME magazine, showed Obama leading by a small margin.

Romney was set to spend Sunday touring the Buckeye State after canceling a series of stops in Virginia due to the impending Hurricane Sandy; Obama will make a quick trip to Youngstown on Monday before returning to Washington to monitor the hurricane. The president canceled planned stops in northern Virginia and Colorado in the first half of this week. 

Both the president and Romney are battling to turn out their supporters to the polls and shake loose the few remaining undecided voters in a handful of swing states. The Romney campaign has claimed that momentum is on their side, a claim which the Obama campaign argues is a bluff. 

The Romney campaign circulated on Sunday several newspaper endorsements — the Des Moines Register and the Cincinnati Enquirer among them — to argue that the Republican ticket had made inroads in crucial swing states. The Obama campaign responded in kind by sending reporters endorsement editorials from the Youngstown Vindicator and the Toledo Blade, both of which referenced the 2009 auto industry bailout as a point in Obama's favor. 

The auto bailout — which Romney had opposed, memorably, in a New York Times op-ed entitled "Let Detroit Go Bankrupt" — has assumed a central role in the closing days of the campaign, especially as the election plays out largely on a Midwestern, industrial and economically-battered playing field. 

RELATED: Auto politics haunt Romney in NW Ohio

Kasich argued that the auto bailout hadn't actually boosted Ohio's economy as much as Obama would have the state's voters think.

"We are thrilled that we have a strong auto industry," he argued, "but it doesn't account for the growth of 112,000 jobs in our state."

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.

Launch slideshow

The Romney campaign also aired a new ad in Ohio touting an endorsement from the right-leaning Detroit News and iconic automan Lee Iacocca, while also making a controversial claim about productions of Jeeps in China.

"Obama took GM and Chrysler into bankruptcy and sold Chrysler to Italians who are going to build Jeeps in China," the ad says in reference to plans by the auto company to build a new production facility in China to sell vehicles in that country. 

The ad is accurate but plays to misinformation that spread earlier this week — partly because Romney had previously voiced the claims — suggesting that Chrysler was planning to move production of all Jeeps to China. The automaker has strongly disputed those reports, though they could have an impact in battleground corners of Ohio like Toledo, a major hub for Jeep production in North America. 

First Read: Romney's Ohio fortunes tied to softening bailout stance

The governors of two other battleground states — John Hickenlooper (D) of Colorado and Scott Walker (R) of Wisconsin —  relied on more traditional fare to make the case for and against their candidates. 

"What are those deductions and tax credits he's going to get rid of?" Hickenlooper asked of Romney's tax reform plan, seizing on the former Massachusetts governor's refusal to specify which loopholes and deductions he would eliminate to finance his proposed tax cuts. 

And Walker, whose contentious collective bargaining reforms sparked a standoff with his state legislature and a recall election which he won, argued that Romney has a track record of working in a bipartisan manner. 

"He's proven that he can do it in a state like Massachusetts," Walker said. 

But neither Walker nor Hickenlooper seemed as confident as Kasich, who predicted that the fate of Ohio's electoral votes — and the election — would be known early on election night. 

"I'm not sure the election's going to be as close as what everybody is talking about today," he said. 

DURANGO, Colo. -- In the midst of a three-day swing of Colorado, Republican vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan had a special guest join him on the trail Monday: Speaker of the House John Boehner.

“You know, 22 years ago, I was running for congress for the first time,” Boehner said. “And you know, if they can’t say your name, they probably aren’t going to vote for you. Look at my name: Beaner. Bonner. Boner. I had no chance of winning, except I thought I could win. And during that campaign 22 years ago, I had a student at Miami of Ohio putting yard signs up for me named Paul Ryan. I’ve known Paul Ryan for a long time. You’re never going to find a more decent person on the face of the Earth.”

Taking the stage for the first time with the speaker on the campaign trail since being tapped as Mitt Romney’s running mate, Ryan said, “Hey, it's nice to see John ‘Boner’ here today, isn't it?”

Ryan continued in front of a roughly 1,500 person crowd at Fort Lewis College: “It's a true story, but I would put up yard signs as a young guy in college, I had no idea how to pronounce his name. But serving with him for 14 years, we kind of figured it out. John Boehner is a good man; he is a small business man who came to Congress to fight for jobs, and that's exactly what's he's doing."

The GOP vice-presidential nominee has been out campaigning in the Centennial State since Sunday evening and is holding three events in the battleground state today.

According to a CBS/NYT/Quinnipiac poll from the beginning of October, the race here was a tossup, with Romney holding the narrow edge 48 percent to 47 percent. And in the new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll released Sunday, President Obama and Romney are in a dead heat nationally -- both getting 47 percent of support among likely voters.

Early voting in the state started today with just 15 days until Election Day. Colorado has nine electoral votes up for grabs.

“We need your vote; we need your help. Early voting starts today so all I am simply saying is help us, we need your vote. Help us get this country back on the right track. We know who we are and we know what we believe and we can do this and get this done,” Ryan said speaking at a campaign rally outside of Vision Mechanical in Pueblo, CO, this morning.

Only continuing to show the importance of Colorado in the Nov 6^th election, both Romney and Ryan will hold a joint campaign rally here on Tuesday following the final presidential debate Monday evening. The GOP ticket will be joined in Morrison, CO, by Kid Rock and country singer Rodney Adkins plus New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez.

The economy remains the top issue for voters, and a new set of data released Friday paints a picture of an uneven economic recovery in a series of battleground states.

Of the nine states categorized as "battleground states" by NBC News, five had state unemployment rates below the national unemployment rate of 7.8 percent in September, according to preliminary estimates released Friday by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The other four states suffered from a higher-than-average jobless rates, the highest of which was in Nevada; the BLS said that 11.8 percent of Nevadans were unemployed through September, the highest unemployment rate of all 50 states. (One U.S. territory, Puerto Rico, had a higher jobless rate.)

Friday's news is the last series of state-level unemployement data voters will receive before Election Day. One last national jobs report is due Nov. 2, the Friday before voters head to the polls.

President Barack Obama and Republican nominee Mitt Romney have each made jobs the centerpiece of their respective campaigns. The president got a boost earlier this month when the BLS report showed the unemployment rate dropping below 8 percent for the first time in years, disarming Romney of one of his most potent cudgels versus the president.

But as each Obama and Romney travel the country over the next 18 days looking to secure the 270 electoral votes they need to win the White House, economic optimism might be brighter in some states and still dim in others.

The five states with unemployment rates below 7.8 percent included Iowa (5.2 percent), New Hampshire (5.7 percent), Ohio (7.0 percent), Virginia (5.9 percent) and Wisconsin (7.3 percent).

The four battleground states with unemployment rates above the national average are Colorado (8.0 percent), Florida (8.7 percent), Nevada and North Carolina (9.6 percent).

If, for purposes of speculation, Obama were to win the battleground states with jobless rates beneath 7.8 percent along with all of the other states considered more safely in his column, he would win the Electoral College, 288-250.

But politics, of course, are not that simple. For instance, the number of employees on nonfarm payrolls in Ohio actually decreased between August and September, though the unemployment rate dropped from 7.2 percent to 7 percent over the same period.

But as Obama argues that the economy is moving forward and Romney asserts that the recovery has not been sufficiently robust, it's helpful to remember how those arguments might sound different to voters in differing states.

GREELEY, Colo. -- Nearly a week after a feisty debate performance, Vice President Joe Biden is still displaying a high level of energy on the campaign trail.

Campaigning in swing state Colorado for the first time this year, an energetic Biden -- punctuating his remarks with "whoa"s and "c'mon"s -- came equipped with zingers about GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney's statements about equal pay and immigration during last night's presidential debate at Hofstra University.

"You heard the debate last night," the vice president told a crowd of about a thousand at a warehouse-like expo center in red-leaning Weld County. "When Governor Romney was asked a direct question about equal pay, he started talking about binders. Whoa! The idea that he had to go and ask where a qualified woman was, he just should have come to my house!"

Repeating a criticism from this morning's interview circuit, Biden said that Romney was "a little sketchy" on details last night, as was Republican VP candidate Paul Ryan during the two men's mano-a-mano in Kentucky last week.

"The answers are always the same: 'Maybe. It depends. We'll let you know after the election,'" Biden said of the Romney-Ryan ticket.

In Greeley, where the 2010 Census estimated the Hispanic population was 36 percent, Biden also took aim at Romney's January embrace of "self-deportation" as a solution to address illegal immigration.

"I mean, I don't care what your position is on immigration. Self-deportation?" Biden said to laughter. "Whoa! Every 13-year-old, get up and move, man!"

While he issued a broad salvo about Romney's grasp of foreign policy, Biden did not mention the controversy that erupted after the two candidates tussled over Obama's use of the word "terror" to describe the September 11 attack on the American consulate in Benghazi.

Instead, he poked fun at the Romney team's occasional reference to "the Soviet Union" as well as Romney's expressed concern about Russia as the nation's top geopolitical threat. "Whoa!" he exclaimed. "These guys are kind of in a time warp!"

The vice president travels this afternoon to Reno, NV for another campaign event.

Updated 1:53 p.m. - President Barack Obama is enjoying the help of guest stars in recent TV ads airing in swing states.

The president's re-election campaign released a new ad on Sunday, which aired during some of yesterday's nationally-televised sporting events, featuring actor Morgan Freeman doing voiceover work in a spot about the challenges Obama faced upon taking office.

And on Monday, the Obama campaign released a new ad targeting voters in Ohio, featuring former senator and legendary astronaut John Glenn speaking directly to the camera in support of the president's re-election.

"Growing up in Ohio, you learn to size up a person by their character," Glenn says in the ad. "And that's why I'm supporting President Obama."

The cameos come just 22 days before the election, as the president looks to hold off a potentially resurgent opponent in Mitt Romney, who's making up ground versus Obama after a strong performance in their first debate.

Obama's benefited from celebrity support throughout the campaign, having held a star-studded concert last week in Los Angeles, featuring Katy Perry, Stevie Wonder, Jennifer Hudson, Earth Wind & Fire and Jon Bon Jovi.

Obama is also getting a boost this week from rocker Bruce Springsteen; the boss is campaigning in Cleveland this week alongside another Democratic rock star: former President Bill Clinton.

"This election is a clear choice between two different visions for Ohio and the country. We can have four more years like the last four years, with more policies from President Obama that stifle job growth, hurt energy production, and make it harder for businesses to hire," said Romney spokeswoman Amanda Henneberg. "Or we can choose Mitt Romney, who has a pro-growth vision for the country that will unleash the private sector, utilize our domestic energy resources, and help Ohio – and the rest of the country – experience a real recovery."

Romney has made use of some celebrity support, too. Musician Kid Rock rallied with Paul Ryan last week in Michigan, and, of course, actor Clint Eastwood nearly stole the spotlight from Romney at the Republican National Convention in August with a 15-minute routine with an empty chair meant to represent Obama.

But it's quite another thing to put these celebrities on television in the home stretch of a campaign.

Outside groups are getting in on the celebrity action, too. The liberal group MoveOn.org Political Action released a new ad set to run in Colorado and Virginia featuring actresses Scarlett Johansson, Kerry Washington and Eva Longoria (the last of whom is an official co-chair for the Obama campaign) speaking about reproductive rights.

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.”