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With the advent of early voting, Election Day has become Election Month in many states—like Noah’s flood, it now lasts for 40 days and 40 nights. And that is forcing both presidential campaigns to play what might be called a hurry-up offense.

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Looks like that whole “donate what you can” grassroots campaign strategy is working for President Obama. The president’s campaign announced Saturday it has just surpassed 4 million donors. The cash the Obama camp has raked in is impressive too—$181 million was raised in September alone.

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The second debate hasn’t even happened, and we’re already getting prepped for the third. Moderator Bob Schieffer of CBS News will be discussing issues of foreign policy during the third and final presidential debate Oct. 22. On Saturday, Schieffer announced the five topics he’s selected for the debate: “The Changing Middle East and the New Face of Terrorism,” “Our Longest War—Afghanistan and Pakistan,” “Red Lines—Israel and Iran,” “The Rise of China and Tomorrow’s World,” and last but not least, “America’s Role in the World.

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Paul Ryan switched line of attack from Libya to China. At a rally in Ohio on Saturday, Ryan told the crowd that Obama has had his chance to label China as a currency manipulator and he hasn’t seized it. The vice-presidential nominee assured that Romney would not allow jobs or property rights to be stolen by the Asian nation.

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Does this mean Bruce Springsteen is weighing in on the whole birther debate? The “Born in the U.S.A.” singer will appear with President Clinton at a rally for President Obama in Ohio on Thursday, the campaign announced on Saturday.

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Maybe the GOP is trying to make voters forget another option exists? Mitt Romney and his allies are going all-out during the last few weeks of the election, spending large amounts of money on a media surge aimed at burying Obama in advertisements.

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On Thursday night, Joe Biden showed that he was the master of a technique that’s a staple of film acting but is rarely, if at all, associated with politics: the reaction shot. He laughed, shook his head, and smirked his way to victory over Paul Ryan.

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Not even Sarah Palin at her nuttiest would have told a car crash story involving hurt kids while debating a man who lost his wife and young daughter in just such a tragedy.But Paul Ryan did.And he veered out of his way to do it.

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No malarkey jokes please. Vice President Joe Biden was the victor of Thursday night’s veep debate, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll released Friday. Forty-two percent of registered voters crowned Biden winner, while 35 percent tipped their hat to his Republican challenger Paul Ryan.

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The post-debate fact checkers are taking Vice President Joe Biden to task for saying the administration never received requests for more diplomatic security in Libya. when in fact the State Department has already admitted it rejected those very requests.

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Take that, Romney. The federal deficit topped $1 trillion for a fourth year in a row, but was down $207 billion from last year—a noteworthy improvement. The Treasury Department announced the $1.1 trillion total deficit for the 2012 budget Friday, which showed a 6.

Pool

Well, now we know which Joe Biden decided to show up on Thursday night. If the vice presidential debate were a movie, it might be called Bazooka Joe Rides Again.Like a bulldog picking up the scent of fresh meat and not quite sure where to find it, Biden tore up everything in sight.

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Malarkey aside, who was the winner of Thursday night’s vice presidential debate? CNN’s early poll results had respondents split down the middle, with 48 percent saying Paul Ryan won the debate and 44 percent backing Vice President Biden—but the debate audience was more Republican than the country as a whole.

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Abortion was discussed only briefly during Thursday night’s vice-presidential debate, but the exchange about it was, I think, an important moment, because it drove home the likelihood than a Republican victory in November will mean the end of Roe v.

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Perhaps Vice President Biden was looking for perfect balance in the debate world by being as aggressive in his debate as President Obama was timid in his. Biden even broke the golden rule of debating—never argue with the moderator unless you’re Newt Gingrich.