Al Behrman / AP Photo

Will it be enough? President Barack Obama holds a 5-point lead on Mitt Romney in Ohio according to a new Quinnipiac University/CBS News poll. The Obama campaign is waging a defensive ground war in the battleground state, which may prove an Electoral College bulwark against Romney’s chances at the White House.

Evan Vucci / AP Photo

If Mitt does what the president did in the first debate—just show up—he might scrape by. The Republican nominee’s advisers say a low bar is set for Romney as they prepare for the third presidential debate, which will focus on foreign policy.

William B. Plowman / NBC NewsWire / Getty Images

White House and campaign officials privately are voicing chagrin and surprise over the extent of presidential confidante Anita Dunn’s extensive consulting work for firms lobbying the administration on policies and regulations at the very time she is a key reelection adviser.

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We, the people. Throughout our history, we’ve expanded the meaning of our nation’s founding phrase, to include more and more of our citizens because we believe that the American dream isn’t about any one person or segment of society.

Carolyn Kaster / AP Photo

We’ve been at war with al Qaeda for at least 11 years and still don’t know how to have an effective political or, more important, strategic conversation about it. In the five weeks since the Benghazi attack, we’ve spent far more time arguing about what to call it than discussing its implications.

Elise Amendola / AP Photo

Proof that Mitt Romney suffers from double Romnesia comes with an easy-to-miss detail that he insisted on in his official portrait from his one term as governor of Massachusetts.At first, the 52- by 37-inch oil painting seems distinct from the portraits of the commonwealth’s other governors, mainly in the inclusion of a picture within a picture of his wife, something not done by any of his 69 predecessors.

Bruce Schreiner / AP Photo

The presidential debates are iconic, high-profile events that attract global media attention. So why are only a relative handful of American colleges vying to host them?Most of those that wind up with the honor are hardly household names.

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The day after last Tuesday’s debate, as I was monitoring the Twitter feed for the post-debate debate, some news flashed across the screen that elicited more than one tweeted, all-cap, “WHOA!” Housing starts in September surged to their fastest pace in four years, up 15 percent over August, far exceeding the experts’ predictions.

Ted Soqui / Corbis

Which matters more: air power or boots on the ground? It’s the kind of debate you hear a lot among military men and armchair strategists, arguing (these days) about how best to stop Iran from getting a nuclear bomb. Today, however, it’s also a debate among the people who run election campaigns, arguing about how best to win their guy four years in the White House.

Illustration by Ben Wiseman; Source: Brendan Hoffman / Bloomberg News-Corbis

Obama was gripping the telephone so tightly that it looked as if he were about to pulverize it in the palm of his hand.Back in the spring of 2011, House Republicans had refused to raise the nation’s debt ceiling unless the president first conceded to massive spending cuts—a gratuitous game of chicken that put the global economy at risk and defied decades of bipartisan Washington tradition.

Saul Loeb / AFP

With a support structure of big donors, Mitt Romney’s campaign along with outside GOP groups hold a $46 million advantage over the president’s reelection campaign. Obama has raised more individually, and set a record for most individual donors, but doesn’t have the money behind him that his Republican contender has.

Helene Cooper: Sanctions Brought Iran to the Table‘U.S. Officials Say Iran Has Agreed to Nuclear Talks.’ That was the top story in Sunday’s New York Times, and reporter Helene Cooper sat down on Meet the Press to discuss why Iran has agreed to talk and what the negotiations might mean for the future of the Middle East.

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While President Obama won the second debate marginally, the victory has meant little change in the polls; it seems the momentum Governor Romney’s first debate performance continues his surge in many public-opinion surveys.  The third debate offers the president one last chance to score a decisive win that could swing the momentum back toward him.

Getty Images; AP Photo

With national polls showing a neck-and-neck race for the White House and little reason to suspect that will change before November, Gov. Mitt Romney and President Obama are fighting for every vote between now and Election Day.

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Many Democrats have found the pecuniary power of Republican Super PACS highly intimidating.Not Alexandra Kerry.Filmmaker, consulting-firm managing director, and the eldest daughter of Massachusetts Senator and 2004 Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry, Alex—as she likes to be called—has taken it upon herself to fight back.