memeorandum: President in Shining Armor (Ross Douthat/New York Times)

3:50 PM ET, October 28, 2012

Top Items:

Obama slips, still has lead — Poll finds Romney support growing among males while the President commands a large section of central and northern Ohio. — ZOOM — The Ohio Newspaper Poll — The telephone poll - which used both land lines and cell phones - of 1,015 likely voters across Ohio …

Discussion: WMAZ-TV, BuzzFeed, nation.foxnews.com and First Read

Rachel E. Stassen-Berger / Minneapolis Star Tribune:

Minnesota Poll: Obama leading, but Romney sees gains — The president's 3-point lead in state is within poll's margin of error. — As the presidential race tightens across the country, a new Star Tribune Minnesota Poll has found that it is narrowing here as well, with President Obama holding …

Discussion: Ballot Box, The Fix, Outside the Beltway, PoliPundit.com and National Review

John Hinderaker / Power Line:

Minnesota, Now In Play — Over the last couple of weeks we have toyed with the idea that Minnesota could be competitive in this year's presidential election. While certain data have been tantalizing, on balance we have concluded that it just isn't in the cards.

Meghashyam Mali / Ballot Box:

Poll: Romney, Obama tied at 49-49 in Ohio — A new poll shows President Obama and GOP challenger Mitt Romney locked in a dead heat in the key battleground of Ohio. — A new Cincinnati Enquirer/Ohio News Organization poll released late Saturday shows both candidates receiving 49 percent support …

Discussion: PoliPundit.com

Ed Morrissey / Hot Air:
Virtual tie in ... Minnesota?

Discussion: americanthinker.com and small dead animals

Rich Heldenfels / Akron Beacon Journal:
Presidential race tied in Ohio newspaper poll

Discussion: Washington Wire, American Power, Le·gal In·sur·rec· tion, The Greenroom and Philly.com

Andrew Kirell / Mediaite:

Andrew Sullivan To ABC: If Romney Wins Florida And VA, It's The ‘Confederacy’ — During this Sunday's edition of ABC's This Week, Daily Beast writer Andrew Sullivan claimed that if Republican nominee Mitt Romney wins back Florida and Virginia in the upcoming 2012 presidential election …

Discussion: The Moderate Voice, American Power, The Other McCain, NewsBusters.org, nation.foxnews.com and The Hinterland Gazette

The / TheGazette:

Gazette endorsement for president: Romney — President Barack Obama has made his mark during his historic first term. The Affordable Care Act of 2010, a massive overhaul of the health care system that has some features we support. A stimulus measure that the majority of economists …

Lee Enterprises / Quad City Times:

Our presidential endorsement: Ready for change — We invested heavily in hope back in 2008. — Our 2012 endorsement of Mitt Romney comes with an imperative for change. — The change that we'd hoped would elevate our economy wound up woefully short. The presidential gambit …

Discussion: Power Line, The Fix and National Review

Joshua Davidovich / The Times of Israel:

Obama offered to reestablish full ties with Iran, Israeli paper reports — Israel was told about and opposed president's diplomatic incentives package, initiated soon after he took office, and Iran rebuffed it, according to Maariv — Soon after he took office, President Barack Obama began …

Discussion: The PJ Tatler, Weasel Zippers, Israel Matzav and americanthinker.com

Noel Sheppard / NewsBusters.org blogs:

Gingrich: Obama Cancels Campaign Trips Due to Hurricane, Didn't Cancel Them Over Benghazi — Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich took quite a shot at Barack Obama Sunday. — Appearing on ABC's This Week, Gingrich said of the President, “You'll notice he's canceling his trips over the hurricane.

Discussion: Le·gal In·sur·rec· tion

Thomas L. Friedman / New York Times:

Why I Am Pro-Life — HARD-LINE conservatives have gone to new extremes lately in opposing abortion. Last week, Richard Mourdock, the Tea Party-backed Republican Senate candidate in Indiana, declared during a debate that he was against abortion even in the event of rape because after much thought he …

Discussion: National Review and Lawyers, Guns & Money

Ross Douthat / New York Times:

President in Shining Armor — FAR in the future, long after today's partisan passions have cooled, some enterprising women's studies doctoral student will be able to write a fascinating dissertation on the rhetoric and iconography surrounding gender in Barack Obama's 2012 campaign.

Discussion: ECHIDNE OF THE SNAKES

Scott Lemieux / Lawyers, Guns & Money:

Third Party Nihilism: The Arguments Can Always Get Worse! — To its credit, the occasional inexplicable book-plugging interview aside Salon no longer promotes Camille Paglia. Alas, it is now fairly regularly publishing Matt Stoller, who is sort of Paglia but 1)with fewer references to Madonna …

Discussion: Booman Tribune, The Reaction, The Mahablog and American Prospect