DENVER-- A defiant Mitt Romney refused to concede he is running as an underdog in the crucial battleground states that define the presidential contest, and accused President Obama of distorting his positions and trying to "fool" the American people.

Brian Snyder / Reuters

Republican presidential candidate and former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney speaks at a campaign rally in Denver, Colorado September 23, 2012.

Asked if he was now running as the underdog after a brutal two-week stretch of the campaign that included press accounts of infighting within his campaign, a leaked tape of him making controversial remarks at a fundraiser, and a slew of polls placing him slightly, but consistently behind President Obama in nearly every battleground state, Romney brushed off the question.

"I don’t pay a lot of attention to the day-to-day polls. They change a great deal," Romney said. "I know in the coming six weeks they’re very unlikely to remain where they are today. I’ll either go up or I’ll go down. It’s unlikely that we’ll just stay the same."

Pressed as to why those same polls showed him trailing in the various states - including Colorado, where he'll campaign Sunday night and Monday - Romney blamed President Obama's campaign for what he called "inaccurate" attack ads, which he complained mischaracterized his position on issues ranging from the auto bailout to abortion.

"They've been very aggressive in their attacks both on a personal basis and on a policy basis," Romney said. "I think as time goes on, people will realize that those attacks are not accurate and we'll be able to have a choice which is based upon each other’s accurate views for the country."

Later asked if he could win the upcoming October 3rd debate against President Obama, Romney returned to this vein, choosing not to answer the question directly, but to say that at least after the debates he could stop the president from trying to "fool people" into believing untrue things about him and his policy positions.

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"I think the president will not be able to continue to mischaracterize my pathway, and so I’ll continue to describe mine, he will describe his, and people will make a choice. That’s the great thing about democracy. I’m not going to try to fool people into thinking he believes things he doesn’t. He’s trying to fool people into thinking that I think things that I don’t. And that ends at the debates," Romney said.

But Romney, who regularly complains about ads by the president's campaign that he says are false and should be taken down, has also had multiple ads by his own campaign rated false by independent fact checkers, including recent attacks on welfare reform, which remain on the air.

The former Massachusetts governor also addressed his languid public campaign schedule of late, which has focused largely on fundraising and debate prep, by again blaming the president for disregarding federal campaign matching funds in 2008 and again this presidential cycle, forcing him to do the same.

"He’s doing it again this time, so to be competitive it means a lot more fundraising than I think I would like," Romney said. "I’d far rather be spending my time out in the key swing states campaigning, door-to-door if necessary, but in rallies and various meetings, but fundraising is a part of politics when you’re opponent decides not to live by the federal spending limits."

Finally, as Romney landed in Denver, where in just 10 days he will face off with President Obama in the first of three presidential debates, Romney attempted to shift expectations of an outright victory toward something more modest.

"I can’t tell you winning and losing. I mean, he’s president of the United States, he’s a very effective speaker. I hope I’ll be able to describe my positions in a way that is accurate and the people will make a choice as to which path they want to choose," Romney said.

"I don't expect this to be a contest of who can say the cutest phrase, I think it's a contest of very different directions for the country," he added later.

After President Obama’s tough speech today on the House Republican budget, bloggers on the left lauded his critique, and those on right called his speech hallow.

Townhall.com's Guy Benson, a conservative, called the speech "Obama's worst speech yet."

"Today we witnessed something truly remarkable. Barack Obama managed to out-do himself by uncorking what very well may have been the most dishonest, demagogic, and bitterly partisan speech of his presidency."

Conservative blogger Nash Keune of The Corner says that Obama wildly misinterpreted and misrepresented the House Republican budget.

•    The president accused the House Budget Committee of breaking the Budget Control Act agreement by allocating $1.028 trillion for discretionary spending, $19 billion (or 1.8 percent) below the BCA cap. But, as Speaker Boehner noted a few weeks ago, according to Webster’s Dictionary a “cap” indicates “an upper limit” or “ceiling.” Apparently some interpreted this BCA maximum spending level as a minimum.

•    Obama said that, if the House budget passed, by the middle of the century we would have to cut spending on non-military discretionary spending (characterized as teaching, law enforcement, etc.) by 95 percent by the middle of the century, assuming that cuts are spread evenly. But this is not what the Ryan budget proposes. The House Budget details specific cuts which can be made to achieve its overall budgetary target.

•    The Ryan-Wyden Medicare plan “is a bad idea and it will ultimately end Medicare as we know it,” according to the president. Of course, this prediction is recycled from last year, even though it was named the “Lie of the Year” by Politifact. And, as Yuval Levin pointed out, the new Ryan budget is even less vulnerable to this charge than it was last year.”

(Note: What was Politifact's Lie of the Year was "Republicans voted to end Medicare," not with the additional qualifier "as we know it" -- which is an important distinction.)

On the left side, Jonathan Chait of New York Magazine argues that Obama’s speech tied Mitt Romney to the House Republican budget plan, which will frame the elections as a choice of priorities:

“Do Americans really want to undergo the fiscal pain that would be required in order to maintain the low tax rates demanded by Republicans? He has every reason to believe the answer is no...The Republican strategy has real strengths. The party’s sheer bloody-minded refusal to compromise, and its devotion to ever more radical policy agendas, has helped it to shift the terms of the debate steadily rightward. Even keeping tax rates at Clinton-era levels is now a position too left-wing for Democrats to advocate.”

Igor Volsky, of left-leaning Think Progress agrees with Obama -- saying the GOP budget would end Medicare as we know it.

“As a result, under their budget, CBO projects that average spending would rise to only $7,400 in 2030 and to only $11,100 in 2050. Since the Republican budget would convert Medicare spending into vouchers, these dollar amounts would be the amounts of the vouchers, on average...The Republican budget never specifies how it plans to enforce its cap on Medicare spending and in the absence of any other enforcement mechanism, it’s likely that the cap would be enforced by limiting the amount of vouchers provided to beneficiaries. After all, we know that capping the vouchers is the clear policy goal of Republicans—we need look no further than the budget they proposed last year. The vouchers, therefore, would likely be capped at CBO’s projected spending per beneficiary under the Republican budget: $7,400 in 2030 and $11,100 in 2050. And since these amounts would be much lower than actual costs, beneficiaries would be left to pay the difference.”

Greg Sargent, a liberal opinion blogger for the Washington Post, outlines how be believed Obama squashed the House Republican budget:

“1.Obama cast the Romney-Ryan-GOP approach as not only radical and extreme, but as a proven failure.

2. Obama defended government activism as not just morally right, but as a way to faciliate economic growth

3. Obama framed the choice as one over who sacrifices to fix the deficit....

In sum, the political case he made is threefold: The GOP approach has already failed us. In its current, more radical iteration, it’s a departure from longtime consensus about government’s proper role in spurring economic growth and in guarding against the excesses of unfettered capitalism. And that addressing inequality and tax unfairness isn’t just morally right; it’s the only way to secure the country’s future.”

GULFPORT, Miss. – The Republican party will be in trouble come November if Mitt Romney attempts to inspire voters using math, Rick Santorum argued to a roomful of Mississippi supporters on Sunday.

"You have Gov. Romney now saying, 'Oh this race is over that mathematically it can't work," Santorum said.  "When we have our nominee going out there and trying to sell the American public to vote for him because of mathematics, we are in very, very tough shape. This isn't about math. This is about vision, it's about leadership."

Santorum, a former Pennsylvania senator, will need to win 61 percent of the remaining delegates to win the nomination, according to calculations by the NBC News political unit. That’s a tall order, especially with former House Speaker Newt Gingrich remaining in the race and cutting into Santorum's support.

But the Santorum campaign has dismissed the delegate argument, and instead focuses on the upcoming states and the possibility of non-binding delegates coming their way.

As Santorum took his campaign to the South, he continued to stress how his grassroots campaign has been the key to his success, contrasting his style with that of his rivals. He said it is the aggressive schedule of town halls held in Iowa while he was at the bottom of the polls that led to his rise. "You keep going, because every meeting I've had like this, people walk out and they take a sign, they take the card and they say 'I'll make some phone calls,'" Santorum said.

He added, "We haven't run a campaign carpet-bombing people with calls and ads."

Santorum targeted Romney and President Barack Obama over one of the most heavily-used talking points used during this Republican primary – the teleprompter.  "I always believed that when you run for president of the United States, it should be illegal to read off a teleprompter. Because all you're doing is reading someone else's words to people. You know, when you're running for president, people should know not what someone's writing for you after they've had pollsters and speech writers test it."

Santorum also acknowledged some of his own mistakes that have came from not using a teleprompter. "You know we get fired up sometimes and say some things that I wish I had a mulligan on if you will, but if you’re not scripted that’s going to happen," he said.

Not all supporters of the Keystone XL oil pipeline are blaming President Obama after he rejected the project proposal yesterday.

One example: Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer (D).

“What the State Department is tasked with doing is getting a complete application that says, ‘Here is the pipeline being proposed.’ But unfortunately, in an unprecedented way, the governor of Nebraska called a special session, changed the laws in Nebraska so that TransCanada no longer has a route, and there’s been no permit granted in Nebraska,” Schweitzer said today on MSNBC’s "Andrea Mitchell Reports."

Because the pipeline route is not yet approved in Nebraska, President Obama had no choice but to strike down the proposal, Gov. Schweitzer explained.

“In Nebraska, they say it’s going to be at least six months, maybe a year before they can actually grant a permit. And yet we’re standing before the administration and saying to them, ‘We have an inadequate application, it’s not complete, we don’t know where the route is, so we can’t tell you how big the pipeline will be or where it’s going to be delivered to, now we want you to give us approval.’”

He added, “These jokers in Congress that are trying to force the president to approve of an incomplete application are just making mischief. They’re not helping us develop energy,” he said.

Montana, where the employment rate is below the national average at 7.1%, has a particular interest in seeing the pipeline built -- so that its oil can reach the refineries on the Gulf coast and make it to market, Gov. Schweitzer explained.

“As the chief executive of Montana, if they asked me to approve of a pipeline with an incomplete application, I would have to reject it. And I am the biggest proponent of this pipeline in America,” he said.