Presidential debates are as closely scrutinized for gaffes as for policy pronouncements, something President Barack Obama and Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney know all too well.

Both candidates can arguably trace some of their political success to opponents’ missteps in debates, and both Obama and Romney are acutely aware that a cringeworthy debate moment can do as much – if not more – to alter the trajectory of a campaign as a good zinger.

The Obama and Romney campaigns have downplayed expectations for their respective candidates’ debate performances, almost to the point of comedy. But both candidates know that it’s better for them to exceed low expectations than to have to clear a high bar.

Romney’s debate shortly before the election in his 2002 bid for governor offers an instructive example. Romney entered the showdown trailing Democrat Shannon O’Brien by a few points in most polls, but the two of them failed to land many blows for much of the debate until they encountered a seemingly mundane question about parental consent for minors seeking abortions.

O’Brien responded to a question from the moderator (which, as a matter of full disclosure, was my father, Tim Russert) by saying she favored lowering the age at which girls need parental consent to obtain an abortion (18) to match the legal age of consent in Massachusetts (16).

“The age of consent for having sexual relations is lower than the age of 18, so I certainly think if someone is able to engage in that activity that they should be adult enough to make the decision.”

Romney said he would leave the current laws unchanged. O’Brien’s response to a follow-up point, about how Massachusetts minors needed parental consent to get a tattoo, offered a more lasting debate moment.

“You want to see my tattoo?” she jokingly said.

The incident hurt O’Brien with independents and Catholics in Massachusetts with so little time to recover before the election. Massachusetts political analyst Jon Keller of CBS Boston WBZ-TV recounted the moment as O’Brien’s downfall in his book titled “The Bluest State.” 

“O’Brien’s dismissal of parental consent rights and her flip tattoo comment caused a sensation, and her remarks dominated talk-radio chatter in the campaign’s final days. On Election Day, Romney romped. He carried 56 percent of independents as well as 52 percent of self-described moderates. He mopped up with Catholics, tripling the margin of the previous Republican governor.”

Romney, of course, went on to serve as governor of Massachusetts before twice seeking the Republican presidential nomination.

In his 2012 bid for the GOP nod, Romney certainly re-learned lessons about navigating presidential debates. His line about why he wouldn’t employ a landscaping firm that employed illegal immigrants (“I’m running for office, for Pete’s sake!”) and his misbegotten $10,000 bet to Texas Gov. Rick Perry proved to be lasting moments to the former Massachusetts governor’s detriment in the debate.

And as if to underscore how damning a single lapse can be, Romney is certainly familiar with Perry’s own gaffe – the “oops” moment when the Texas governor simply forgot which three federal agencies he’d promised to eliminate.

The lessons are familiar for Obama, too. He saw when then-Sen. Hillary Clinton struggled with an answer about providing drivers licenses to illegal immigrants, a difficult moment that hurt her in her protracted primary battle versus Obama.

When asked at an Oct. 30, 2007 primary debate at Drexel University whether she backed a plan by the state of New York to grant drivers licenses to illegal immigrant, Clinton gave an elusive answer that seemed to further muddle her opinion on the issue.

She said: “You know, this is where everybody plays ‘gotcha.’ It makes a lot of sense. What is the governor supposed to do? He is dealing with serious problems. We have failed. And George Bush has failed. Do I think this is the best thing for any governor to do? No. But do I understand the sense of real desperation, trying to get a handle on this? Remember, in New York, we want to know who's in New York. We want people to come out of the shadows.”

Clinton had been seen as the frontrunner for the Democratic nomination prior to that point, but her opponents – which included Sen. Chris Dodd (D-CT), former Sen. John Edwards (D-NC) and Obama – to pounce.

“Well, I was confused on Senator Clinton's answer,” Obama said. “I can't tell whether she was for it or against it. And I do think that is important. One of the things that we have to do in this country is to be honest about the challenges that we face…Immigration is a difficult issue. But part of leadership is not just looking backwards and seeing what's popular or trying to gauge popular sentiment. It's about setting a direction for the country. And that's what I intend to do as president.”

John Heilemann and Mark Halperin, authors of the definitive book about the 2008 election, “Game Change,” described the incident in that work:

“But whatever the confluence of causes and effects, the damage to the front-runner from the Drexel debate and its aftermath was more severe than anyone in Hillaryland knew. The inevitable candidate was suddenly revealed as vulnerable. The flawless campaign looked fallible. The Clinton Juggernaut had a hole in its hull and water was rushing in.”

In a span of one debate question Clinton went from the inevitable nominee to fighting a long, drawn out primary that eventually ended in a humbling defeat and allow Obama to become the Democratic nominee and eventually president.

So while the conventional wisdom is that one debate won’t totally alter this election, it should be noted that debates can significantly alter the trajectory of a race and even decide them. The two men debating in Denver tonight know that better than anybody.

Kevin Lamarque / Reuters

President Barack Obama shakes hands after holding a round table discussion with first time voters at OMG Burger in Miami on Sept. 20, 2012.

President Barack Obama leads Mitt Romney in Colorado, Iowa and Wisconsin, reaching the key 50 percent support threshold in all three battlegrounds, according to the latest NBC News/Wall Street Journal/Marist polls of these states.

In both Colorado and Wisconsin, Obama is ahead by 5 points among likely voters (including those leaning toward a candidate), 50 percent to 45 percent.

And in Iowa, the president’s edge over Romney is 8 points, 50 percent to 42 percent.

Read the Colorado poll results here (.pdf)

Among a wider sample of registered voters, Obama’s lead is even larger – 6 points in Colorado, 8 in Wisconsin and 11 in Iowa.

While Obama still hasn't closed the deal, says Marist College pollster Lee Miringoff, “The advantage is his in all three states.”

He adds, “It is very important in an election when you start closing in on 50 [percent]. In politics that is a big number.”

The results from these new polls are similar to the NBC/WSJ/Marist surveys of Florida, Ohio and Virginia that were released last week. Those showed Obama ahead in all three battlegrounds. And they’re consistent with this week’s national NBC/WSJ poll (conducted by different pollsters) that found Obama up by 5 points among likely voters, 50 percent to 45 percent.

Romney’s favorability vs. Obama’s
These new surveys – conducted after the political firestorm over last week’s attacks on U.S. embassies in Libya and Egypt, and during the melee over a leaked video of Romney talking about the “47 percent” of Americans who are dependent on government and believe they are victims – also show the Republican’s favorability rating in an unenviable place.

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

A plurality of likely voters view Romney in a negative light in all three states. In Colorado, it’s 43 percent favorable to 50 percent unfavorable; in Iowa, it’s 42 percent to 50 percent; and in Wisconsin, it’s 43 percent to 46 percent.

By contrast, out of last week’s polls in Florida, Ohio and Virginia, just one of them – Ohio – found Romney’s favorable/unfavorable rating under water.

Read the Wisconsin poll results here (.pdf)

Meanwhile, Obama’s favorable/unfavorable scores in Colorado (51 percent to 45 percent), Iowa (53 percent to 42 percent), and Wisconsin (51 percent to 44 percent) are all above water.

Romney casts himself as 'change' candidate in seizing on Obama comment

Yet the president’s job approval rating in these states is a bit lower – 47 percent in Colorado, 48 percent in Wisconsin, and 49 percent in Iowa.

Tied on the economy
According to these polls, Obama and Romney are essentially battling to a tie on the question of which candidate would do a better job in handling the economy. In Wisconsin, 46 percent of likely voters pick Romney, while 45 percent select Obama.

But in Colorado, the president gets 48 percent, and the GOP nominee gets 46 percent. And in Iowa, Obama is up by four points, 47 percent to 43 percent.

Read the Iowa poll results here (.pdf)

Yet when it comes to which candidate would do a better job on foreign policy, the president enjoys a double-digit advantage in all three states.

Other notable numbers

• In Republican running mate Paul Ryan’s home state of Wisconsin, his favorable/unfavorable score among likely voters is 49 percent to 40 percent (versus 51 percent to 44 percent for Obama, 43 percent to 46 percent for Romney, and 42 percent to 45 percent for Vice President Joe Biden).
• In Wisconsin’s competitive Senate contest, Democrat Tammy Baldwin gets support from 48 percent of likely voters, and Republican Tommy Thompson gets 46 percent.
• Obama is ahead among independents in all three states – by 1 point in Wisconsin, 10 points in Iowa and 11 points in Colorado.
• And there’s a significant gender gap in these three states, with the president up by double digits among women and with Romney slightly ahead among men.

The NBC/WSJ/Marist polls were conducted Sept. 16-18 of 971 likely voters in Colorado (which has a margin of error of plus-minus 3.1 percentage points), 898 likely voters in Iowa (plus-minus 3.3 percentage points) and 968 likely voters in Wisconsin (plus-minus 3.2 percentage points).

About a quarter of all likely voters in these three states were interviewed by cell phone.

NBC’s Natalie Cucchiara contributed to this report.

COLORADO SPRINGS, CO –- Paul Ryan wasted no time on Thursday in attacking President Barack Obama and the Democrats on the final day of the Democratic National Convention.

“The president is going to be in Charlotte tonight with the Democratic convention. Their convention actually began with a tribute to big government. They actually said government is the only thing we all belong to,” Ryan told the crowd. “Then, they cut references to God out of their platform. They reversed course on that one yesterday – it wasn’t really a popular reversal if you watched it on TV.”

Continuing inside an airplane hangar: “But to quote a popular journalist from Wisconsin, ‘they were against God before they were for him.’” [The journalist, POLITICO’s Jim VandeHei, made the comments on MSNBC’s Morning Joe Thursday morning.] 

Related: Romney back on air

Speaking in the Centennial State – where four years ago, Obama officially accepted the Democratic Party's presidential nomination – the Republican vice presidential candidate said the president hasn’t lived up to his promises and has made the economy worse.

“You know, right here in Colorado, four years ago with the Styrofoam Greek columns, the big stadium, the president gave this long speech with lots of big promises,” Ryan said speaking inside WestPac Restorations. “And he said, let me quote ‘if you don’t have a record to run on, then you paint your opponent as someone people should run from.’ You know what, that is what he said four years ago and that is exactly what he is doing today. He has no record to run on.”

The attacks are coming from both sides.

Recommended: Bill Clinton steps up to lay out the case for Obama, Democrats 

Wednesday night, former President Bill Clinton spoke at the convention in Charlotte, NC and did not hold back on attacking the Romney-Ryan ticket.

“When Congressman Ryan looked into that TV camera and attacked President Obama's Medicare savings 'the biggest, coldest power play,' I didn't know whether to laugh or cry,” Clinton said. “Because that $716 billion is exactly to the dollar the same amount of Medicare savings that he had in his own budget! You got to admit one thing, it takes some brass to attack a guy for doing what you did.”

Congressman Ryan, who in Iowa on Wednesday morning praised Clinton for working with Republicans while in office, made no reference to the remarks made at the convention last night by the 42nd president.

Video: Wednesday night's DNC speeches

The House Budget Committee Chairman, however, did acknowledge he may have finally found one thing to agree on with current Vice President Joe Biden.

“You know it was just reported that in the middle of President Obama’s debt ceiling negotiations last summer Vice President Biden said quote, ‘You know if I were doing this I’d do it totally different,’” Ryan told the nearly 3,000 people here in Colorado about the upcoming Bob Woodward book, "The Price of Politics."

"Sounds like Joe and I finally agree on something," the congressman deadpanned.

Updated, 1:30 p.m. - TAMPA, Fla. -- Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa said that Republicans "can't just trot out a brown face" to make inroads with the Latino community, an increasingly important growing bloc.

As the GOP prepares to showcase some of its rising Hispanic stars during the next two days of its national convention, the Democratic mayor dismissed Republican overtures toward Latinos as insincere.

"You can't just trot out a brown face or a Spanish surname and expect people are going to vote for your party or your candidate," Villaraigosa said at a press conference here organized by the Democratic National Committee.

"People are going to vote just like Anglos do, just like African-Americans do, and virtually every demographic group. They vote for people based on what they say, what they've done, and what they're going to do," he later added.

Among the Latinos speaking in Tuesday's Republican National Convention programming are Rep. Francisco Canseco, R-Texas. Sher Valenzuela, the Republican candidate for lieutenant governor of Delaware, Republican Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval and Texas GOP Senate nominee Ted Cruz.

But, other staunch opponents of illegal immigration -- like Iowa Rep. Steve King, who's speaking as well on Tuesday -- will also be among the featured voices in the day's program.

"I don't think it's going to do much for him, frankly," Villaraigosa said of the GOP's overall message.

The Los Angeles mayor predicted that President Barack Obama would win "close to 70 percent" of the Latino vote in his re-election effort; Romney advisers have set a goal in the upper-30th percentile in targeting Hispanic voters.

Latino voters are of particular importance in swing states like Colorado, Florida and Virginia -- a sign of shifting demographics that Republicans have worried would put them at a long-term political disadvantage unless they were to become more welcoming of Latinos.

Ryan Williams, a spokesman for Romney, said in response to today's Democratic bracketing event: "Today, as we learn that more than a quarter of Democrats believe President Obama does not have a clear plan for creating jobs, his surrogates in Tampa continued to launch false and baseless attacks against Governor Romney.  The facts speak for themselves – with 23 million Americans struggling for work, nearly one in six Americans living in poverty, and median incomes declining, the Obama campaign cannot defend a record of broken promises and failed policies.  Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan have a plan to strengthen the middle class by creating jobs and turning around our economy."

Mary Altaffer / AP

Mitt Romney, right, shakes hands with his newly announced vice presidential running mate, Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan, after Ryan addressed the crowd Saturday, Aug. 11, 2012 in Norfolk, Va.

This article is based on reporting by NBC’s Carrie Dann, Garrett Haake, Alex Moe, Jamie Novogrod, and Andrew Rafferty. It was written by Dann.

At 11:11 pm on Friday night, political journalists all over America read the subject line of their latest email, blinked, and asked aloud, "Where's Paul Ryan right now?"

There was exactly one person standing on the Republican congressman’s driveway in Janesville, Wisc.

NBC reporter Alex Moe, who had spent 15 days shadowing the onetime dark horse to be Mitt Romney's vice presidential pick, was preparing to leave Ryan's neighborhood for the night when the email blast thundered into her inbox: "MITT ROMNEY ANNOUNCES VICE PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE IN NORFOLK SATURDAY."

The venue for the announcement, according to the press release: the USS Wisconsin. Ryan's home state.

Until a few days prior, speculation for the VP choice had centered around Ohio's Sen. Rob Portman and former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty. But Portman had just given remarks at the opening ceremony for a charity bicycling tournament,  and NBC reporter Andrew Rafferty had seen him return to his hotel in Columbus less than an hour earlier.

Moments before, Pawlenty had just wrapped up a lengthy fundraiser in Manchester, N.H., and NBC’s Jamie Novogrod was at that moment driving behind the black hatchback whisking the governor and his wife back to the Hilton Garden Inn where they were checked in.

Ryan was the question mark.

So, at 11:15 pm, Moe marched up to the side door of Ryan's Wisconsin home -- where the lights hadn't yet been turned off for the night -- and gave a good hard knock.  And then another one.

No answer.

When Pawlenty got the call he wouldn’t be the pick
Three days earlier, Tim Pawlenty woke up to a beautiful vista, and the memory of some disappointing news from the night before.

In Aspen, Colo., for a closed-door conference of national security luminaries, Pawlenty had spent the better part of a nervous week in the shadow of the Maroon Bells peaks, enduring radio silence from Boston.

It was Monday night when he got the call from Mitt Romney and learned that, for the second time in four years, he'd been passed over for the second-in-command job. When NBC reporter Carrie Dann greeted him on the Aspen Institute campus the following morning, he betrayed no disappointment, but he could no longer afford to be very forthcoming about the details of his schedule during the upcoming week.

Pawlenty's hurried manner on the way into breakfast left the reporter's intuition tingling over his halting answers to questions that had previously been met with teasing and tolerance. "Just... my schedule hasn't changed," he told her.

It hadn't. Which meant that he'd need a poker face to field questions from Dann and other reporters for another grueling four days.

All seemed normal in Norfolk
The story was classic Stu Stevens: too unbelievable to be anything but true.

Top Romney strategist Stuart Stevens was telling reporters in the Norfolk Marriott bar a tale about becoming seriously ill while working in Albania and subsequently having to be airlifted to a hospital in Zurich for treatment. By 11:00 pm Friday night, the press corps had long given up on trying to bait Stevens into giving something away about the vice presidential selection process, and war stories abounded instead. The mood was too casual, it seemed, for anything out of the ordinary to be going on.

After Stevens wrapped up the tale, NBC reporter Garrett Haake decided to call it a night early, ready to rest up for the launch of Romney's bus tour the following day. Teeth brushed, he flipped through his emails one last time before bed.

Then he saw the campaign’s advisory for its vice presidential selection.

An hour later, he would be standing on a pier in the middle of the night, staring in disbelief at the waves below.

Portman wouldn’t be the guy, either
Rob Portman missed the call.

The Ohio senator was giving remarks at Friday night's opening ceremonies for  Pelotonia, a charity bike ride to raise money for cancer research, when the phone rang around 7:30 pm. Mitt Romney was on the line, but Portman couldn't pick up.

Two hours later, Rafferty spotted Portman in the lobby of the Columbus Hyatt, clad in a bright red Ohio State Buckeyes polo.  By then, Portman had spoken with the GOP nominee, and he knew that he would be returning to Capitol Hill instead of the White House after all.

When the 11:00 pm announcement came that Romney would name his running mate the following day, it was clear to Rafferty that Portman couldn't be the guy. Was the charity bike tour an elaborate ruse? Was the senator being whisked to a secret location in an SUV, ushered thru hidden loading docks under the dark of night? 

It couldn't be. But he waited in the lobby until 4:00 am, just to make sure the Ohio pol didn't pull the fast one of a lifetime.

Chasing (and then losing) Pawlenty
Feeling just a few miles per hour short of a car chase, NBC's Jamie Novogrod was following a black Volvo carrying Tim Pawlenty and his wife Mary back to Manchester. The couple had attended two fundraisers on Romney's behalf that Friday evening, and reporters had waited in torrential rain to spot the couple's comings and goings.  The friend driving the former Minnesota governor had a New Englander's lead foot, and the reporter following at a safe distance strained to keep sight of the car.

Pawlenty's star had seemed to be dimming in recent days. So when Jamie got the call from a colleague that the pick was set to be announced the following morning, it seemed obvious that the governor couldn't possibly be “the guy” -- after all, he had a full slate of New Hampshire events the following day, with no hint of an abrupt departure for Norfolk.

At the Manchester exit off the highway, his view of the Volvo obstructed in the wet weather, Novogrod spotted too late the car's tail lights disappearing into the night several hundred yards down the road. 

"I've lost him," Novogrod told Dann, who was awaiting Pawlenty at his hotel. "You're on your own."

Blackberry down
On the air and on the web, NBC's reporting unfolded with few hiccups.

But behind the scenes, there was some sprinting that would have impressed the U.S. Olympic team, and at least one electronic casualty.

In Norfolk, Haake rushed down to the site of the USS Wisconsin, the site of the following morning's event that just so happened to bear the name of Ryan's home state.

Sockless and juggling camera equipment, he  heard the request over his cell phone's speakerphone to set up a liveshot of the event site.

Thud.

He dropped his blackberry, speaker blaring, to the wooden pier where it bounced once, twice, three times, over the edge into the bay.

Splash. It was gone.

By then, though, Haake already had some peace of mind. NBC had confirmed Ryan was the pick.

The pieces fall into place
At 12:01 am Saturday morning, after intense phone collaboration between reporters in the field, top correspondents, and seasoned producers, NBC News reported three Romney sources indicating that Ryan had been selected for the VP slot.

Throughout the network's team, the pieces had fallen into place.

Just after midnight, when he returned to his hotel, Pawlenty confirmed to Dann and other reporters waiting for him there that he wouldn't be traveling to Norfolk the following day. He wouldn't say who the pick was, but it was clear there was no chance he was the one. "I didn't enter this thinking I was going to be the vice presidential candidate," he said. "So I'm not disappointed."

Portman was safely in his hotel room. Shrugging a phone to each shoulder -- one for a network conference call and one for GOP sources -- NBC's reporters ruled out other also-rans: Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio, and others.

Where was Ryan?
None of them was "the guy."  But then ... where WAS "the guy?"

Moe, now accompanied by an NBC satellite truck and crew, was still at the Wisconsin congressman's house. She'd spoken to Ryan earlier that day and accompanied him home from a memorial service for victims of the Sikh temple shooting in his district. Arriving home at around 2:00 pm ET, Ryan had sheepishly admitted that he'd forgotten his keys and trekked into the backyard to dig around for a spare.

That was the last time anyone in the press saw the Wisconsin congressman until he appeared in Norfolk as a vice presidential nominee.

Because after a week of smoke and mirrors to keep secret the most-sought-after answer in American politics, he did just about the simplest thing in the world.

Paul Ryan walked casually into his backyard -- and kept walking. Out of reporters' sight, navigating through a familiar forest, he emerged to a car waiting to take him to the airport.

And then to Norfolk.

"From the blue-collar steel town of Pueblo to a college campus in the conservative stronghold of Colorado Springs, President Barack Obama appealed to middle class voters Thursday to give him four more years, saying he is the candidate who has looked out for them and the only one who will continue to do so,” The Denver Post writes. “As he did in Denver and Grand Junction on Wednesday, Obama repeatedly hit on what he says is the fundamental difference between his and opponent Mitt Romney's visions for the country: Romney wants to decrease taxes for the wealthiest Americans, while Obama would raise them and give middle-class families a tax cut.”

“President Obama’s staff arranged for him to be personally briefed last summer on a loan program to help clean-energy companies, two months before the program was thrust into headlines by the collapse of its flagship, the solar company Solyndra, records show,” the Washington Post writes. “About the same time, then-White House Chief of Staff William Daley resolved a dispute among administration officials over another project in the program, clearing the way for a $1.4 billion loan, according to documents and sources familiar with the situation. The documents, a series of e-mails among Energy Department staff members involved in managing the program, provide new details about the level of White House involvement in the controversial initiative. White House officials have said in the past that final decisions about which companies would receive the loan guarantees were made by career staff members at the Energy Department, not political appointees. Administration officials said Wednesday that the e-mails show that the White House involvement was appropriate and that there was no pressure on agency officials.”

Politico: "Advisers to President Barack Obama are scripting a Democratic National Convention featuring several Republicans in a prime-time appeal to independents — and plan a blistering portrayal of Mitt Romney as a heartless aristocrat who “would devastate the American middle class,” Democratic sources tell POLITICO. According to convention planning documents, the three-night convention in Charlotte, N.C., early next month will seek to “[e]xpose Mitt Romney as someone who doesn’t understand middle class challenges” while also burnishing “the President’s image as someone whose life story is about fighting for middle class Americans and those working to get into the middle class.”

National Journal: The Obama campaign is out with a rebuttal ad, addressing a Mitt Romney spot that attacked the president on welfare reform.

This isn’t what President Obama wanted to see heading into Colorado today. Romney leads 50-45%, in a new Quinnipiac/New York Times/CBS poll.

Obama is up, however, in Virginia, 49-45%, and Wisconsin, 51-45%.

According to an AARP poll of voters over 50, Obama and Romney are tied 45-45% with the group. But Obama gets just a 42%-49% approval rating among them. What’s more, this group really dislikes Congress. The deliberative body gets just an 8% approval rating, with 81% disapproving. The group narrowly prefers Democrats to control Congress (43-39%). They “are as likely to say that their personal economic circumstances were negatively affected by political gridlock in Washington (78%) as by the economic downturn (77%).” They also “want the candidates to better explain their plans for Social Security and Medicare, which will help them determine their votes.”

And for anyone who thinks the Paul Ryan budget wouldn’t become an issue, these voters are strongly in favor of Social Security and Medicare: 91% believe “Social Security is critical to the economic security of seniors” and “the next president and Congress need to strengthen Social Security so that it is able to provide retirement security for future generations.” (That includes about three-quarters of Romney voters.) On Medicare: 95% say “Medicare is critical to maintaining the health of seniors” and 88% say “The next president and Congress need to strengthen Medicare so that it is able to provide health coverage in retirement for future generations.”

The poll was conducted by Hart Research and GS Strategy Group. (Disclosure: Hart Research is the Democratic half of the NBC-WSJ poll.)

Voters and reporters looking to Mitt Romney for new jobs proposals or additional details about his existing plans shouldn't expect many, the presumptive Republican nominee's aides said Thursday.

Most of Romney's fall campaign will involve "re-introducing a lot of the policy that came out a year ago," Romney senior adviser Eric Fehrnstrom said on a conference call with reporters. The reason for that, he explained, was to remind them "of the governor's very detailed policy" now that voters are playing closer attention to the campaign.

The conference call was organized to outline the jobs policies about which Romney will speak today in Colorado. But the five priorities mentioned on the conference call -- energy, trade, education, cutting the deficit, and freeing up businesses from regulation -- have generally been staples of the former Massachusetts governor's campaign for much of the past year.

Kacper Pempel / REUTERS

Republican Presidential candidate Mitt Romney delivers foreign policy remarks at the University of Warsaw Library in Warsaw July 31, 2012.

The question of specifics, though, has been one that has plagued the Romney campaign -- and it's not only Democrats who have voiced this criticism.

"The Romney campaign thinks it can play it safe and coast to the White House by saying the economy stinks and it's Mr. Obama's fault," the Wall Street Journal's right-leaning editorial board wrote in early July. "Thanks, guys, but Americans already know that. What they want to hear from the challenger is some understanding of why the President's policies aren't working and how Mr. Romney's policies will do better."

But the Romney campaign has generally brushed off these complaints as imprudent politics. Boston has clearly broadcast that they are satisfied with the plans they have offered. ("He doesn’t need to lay out new policies," Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan, a surrogate of Romney's and potential running mate, told National Review Online earlier this week.)

The Romney campaign has been generally opaque in its approach to several issues that could conceivably expose their candidate to scrutiny, which could distract from their central narrative about Obama and the economy. For instance, the campaign's refusal to detail which tax deductions Romney would favor eliminating – to show how he’d prefer to balance the budget – mirrors his refusal to release more than two years of tax returns, to detail his exit from Bain Capital, or to lay out how his administration would be more transparent than Obama’s.

On each question, though, the Romney campaign has left open a void of detail, and the Obama campaign and Democrats have gladly stepped in to fill it.

The president himself trumpeted a report from the nonpartisan, independent Tax Policy Center about Romney's tax plan.
The study concluded that, based on the available details about Romney's plan, that it would threaten a higher tax burden on the middle class, because it disproportionately takes advantage of exemptions that would be eliminated to finance tax reform.

But the enduring story of the Romney campaign is its conclusion early in the campaign that little else will matter on election day aside from voters' conclusion about Obama's handling of the economy. They've bet that the broad contours of Romney's policy contours will be enough to sway voters, and that they can weather criticism about the specifics without any of that becoming fatal.

"That report you referenced is a joke," Fehrnstrom said of the center’s report on the call. "There are serious problems with the authorship of that study, and the methodology."

One of the authors was an economic adviser member of Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers. But the other was the senior staff economist on President George H.W. Bush’s Council of Economic Advisers.

"The governor's plan essentially lays out the parameters that he wants to achieve," Jonathan Burks, the Romney campaign's deputy policy director, said on the call. "And within that, he would write a tax bill that achieves those goals. And so it's not a question of today, you know, we've got a 2,000-page tax plan that could be scored and demonstrated ... The details of how that would be accomplished would have to be worked out with Congress."

Republicans are quick to note that President Obama has offered few detailed proposals for his second term, and argue that the "American Jobs Act" first introduced by the White House last fall is only a re-hash of old policies.

But the Romney campaign's bet that it doesn't need to offer more detail opens the door to the Obama campaign and Democrats' efforts to turn the election into a choice between the president and Romney, even if it involves mischaracterizing elements of Romney's background – or inserting policy details that don’t exist -- that the GOP candidate won't define for himself.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) made an especially specious claim in that vein when he told the Huffington Post this week that a Bain investor -- who he did not name -- told him that Romney had paid no effective tax rate for a decade.

Fehrnstrom angrily condemned that suggestion during an appearance Thursday on Fox News, but there are no indications that the evidence Romney could offer to rebuff those charges will be publicly available anytime soon.

NBC's Jay Rankin and Garrett Haake contributed.

The AP’s Beaumont goes to Colorado and says it’s all about suburban women. “If President Barack Obama wins this swing-voting state, and a second term as president, voters like Paula Burky will probably be the reason,” he writes. "‘He understands women,’ said Burky, a Westminster resident who last month decided to vote for Obama. Both the Democratic president and his Republican challenger, Mitt Romney, see women -- specifically suburbanites from their 30s to their 50s -- as critical to victory in Colorado as well as in other hard-fought places like Virginia and Nevada where polls also show close contests. That means this group of voters may also hold the key to winning the White House.”

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg endorsed Scott Brown because of his “opposition to the National Right-To-Carry Reciprocity Act, which would allow gun owners to carry concealed weapons across state lines,” the Boston Globe reports. Bloomberg “will hold an August fund-raiser for Brown at his Upper East Side townhouse.”

Updated 12:53 p.m. - The shooting of moviegoers in Colorado “reminds us all of the ways that we are united as one American family,” President Barack Obama said Friday in remarks mourning the victims of the overnight massacre.

Speaking in Florida, where he cut short a campaign trip, the president led a crowd in a moment of silence and called for Americans to reflect on what he called a senseless act of violence.

“Even as we learn how this happened and who's responsible, we may never understand what leads anybody to terrorize their fellow human beings like this,” Obama said. “If there's anything to take away from this tragedy it's the reminder that life is very fragile. Our time here is limited and precious.”

Mitt Romney, speaking early Friday afternoon in New Hampshire, said: "Our hearts break with the sadness of this unspeakable tragedy. Ann and I join the president and first lady -- and all Americans -- in offering our deepest condolences to those whose lives were shattered in a few moments of evil in Colorado."

The presidential campaign was essentially put on hold after a gunman waged an assault on viewers of a midnight showing of “The Dark Knight Rises” in Aurora, east of Denver.

Slideshow: Shooting at Batman screening in Aurora, Colo.

Obama canceled a planned campaign stop for later Friday in Florida to return to the White House; Vice President Joe Biden and first lady Michelle Obama also canceled political events set for Friday afternoon. The Romney campaign canceled a planned series of radio interviews this afternoon.

“I am so moved by your support, but there are going to be other days for politics. This, I think, is a day for prayer and reflection,” the president told supporters.

Additionally, the both the Romney and Obama campaigns put a hold on airing political ads on television on Colorado for at least the weekend.

"I stand before you today not as a man running for office, but as a father and grandfather, a husband and an American," Romney said, also striking an apolitical tone in his statement. "This is a time for each of us to look into our hearts and remember how much we love one another and how much we love and how much we care for our great country."

Details from the shooting were still emerging as of late Friday morning, but White House press secretary Jay Carney said that the president was first notified of the shooting at 5:26 a.m. ET by John Brennan, his homeland security adviser. Obama called the mayor of Aurora later in the morning, and received a follow-up briefing from Brennan, White House chief of staff Jack Lew, and FBI Director Robert Mueller.

"The president orders that his administration do everything that it can to support the people of Aurora in this extraordinarily difficult time,” Carney said in a gaggle aboard Air Force One.

Mandel Ngan / AFP - Getty Images

President Barack Obama steps off Air Force One upon arrival at Southwest Florida International Airport July 20, 2012 in Fort Myers, Florida.

Most political reaction revolved around expressing sympathies for the victims of the shooting.

"I am stunned and furious at the news of the shooting at the Aurora Century 16 Movie theatre this morning,” said Democratic Colorado Rep. Ed Perlmutter, whose district includes the site of the crime. “Colorado is not a violent place, but we have some violent people. We are a strong and resilient community, and we will lean on each other in the days, weeks and months to come.”

Few elected officials touched on the impact of the Colorado shootings on the long-simmering debate about gun control laws.

"I would say as you know the president believes we need to take common sense measures that protect the Second Amendment rights of Americans while ensuring that those who should not have guns under existing laws do not get them," Carney said when asked about the impact of the shooting on the gun debate. "We're making progress in that regard in terms of improving the volume and quality of information on background checks, but I have nothing additional on that for you. This is obviously a recent event."

One of the few exceptions to that came from New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, a longtime advocate for stricter gun laws.

"You know, soothing words are nice, but maybe it's time that the two people who want to be president of the United States stand up and tell us what they are going to do about it, because this is obviously a problem across the country," Bloomberg said on WOR Radio in New York. "No matter where you stand on the Second Amendment, no matter where you stand on guns, we have a right to hear from both of them concretely, not just in generalities -- specifically, what are they going to do about guns?"