How One Well-Connected Pseudonymous Twitter Spread Fake News About Hurricane Sandy  —  The twitter user @comfortablysmug is one of a handful of pseudonymous Manhattan professionals who keep their widely-followed Twitter voices separate from their careers.  His bio describes him as “My Interests …

The Morning Plum: Romney's Jeep-to-China lie earns brutal headlines in Ohio  —  As David Plouffe wrote in his memoir of Campaign 2008, the Obama team has long thought that one of the most effective ways to influence independents and undecided voters is via local media in key battleground states.

In U.S., 15% of Registered Voters Have Already Cast Ballots  —  Early voting highest in the West and among seniors; similar by party ID  —  PRINCETON, NJ — Fifteen percent of registered voters nationwide have already cast their ballots in this year's election, according to Gallup Daily tracking for the week ending Oct. 28.

Obama and Christie to Assess Damage in New Jersey  —  President Obama will join Chris Christie, the Republican governor of New Jersey, in viewing damage from the storm on Wednesday, the White House announced on Tuesday as Mr. Obama praised relief efforts at a Red Cross headquarters in Washington.

Meghan McCain to GOP after Sandy: Do you still doubt climate change?  —  Political analyst Meghan McCain, daughter of Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), is challenging widespread GOP skepticism about climate change in the wake of Hurricane Sandy.  —  “So are we still going to go with climate change not being real fellow republicans [sic]?”

Memo: Pennsylvania  —  Rendell: ‘Startling upset’ for Romney ‘a possibility’ in Pennsylvania  —  When Governor Ed Rendell made these comments last week, he was clearly sending a desperate call to Chicago for help in the Keystone State.  At the time, his comments were met with derision …

DISNEY TO ACQUIRE LUCASFILM LTD.  —  An investor conference call will take place at approximately 4:30 p.m. EDT / 1:30 p.m. PDT today, October 30, 2012.  Details for the call are listed in the release.  —  Global leader in high-quality family entertainment agrees to acquire world-renowned Lucasfilm Ltd …

NPR Poll Finds Presidential Race Too Close To Call … The latest and last NPR Battleground Poll for 2012 shows former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney holding the narrowest of leads in the national sample, but trailing President Obama in the dozen states that will decide the election.

Dozens of Homes Destroyed in Breezy Point … At least 80 flooded homes were destroyed by fire Monday night in Breezy Point, a neighborhood on the tip of New York's Rockaway Peninsula.  Hundreds of homes in this Queens neighborhood suffered flood damage and at least five houses were swept off …

Say Anything: Top Romney Surrogate Claims Romney Justices Won't Kill Roe v. Wade  —  GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney wants the Supreme Court to overrule Roe v. Wade.  He called Roe “one of the darkest moments in Supreme Court history.”  And there is video of him saying that he wants …

EXCLUSIVE: Romney Campaign Training Poll Watchers To Mislead Voters In Wisconsin  —  Mitt Romney's campaign has been training poll watchers in Wisconsin with highly misleading — and sometimes downright false — information about voters' rights.  —  Documents from a recent Romney poll watcher …

WaPo-ABC tracking poll: Popular vote > electoral college  —  Most likely voters — including both Democrats and Republicans — say the winner of the presidential election should be decided by popular vote, not the electoral college, according to the latest release of the Washington Post-ABC News tracking poll.

The Upside of Opportunism  —  Let's try to imagine what the world would look like if President Obama is re-elected.  —  Washington over the next four years would probably look much as it has over the last two: Obama running the White House, Republicans controlling the House and Democrats managing the Senate.

Why Democrats Are Right to Politicize Sandy  —  Disasters are inherently political, because government is political, and preventing and responding to disasters is a primary role of the state.  But there is an innate tension in overtly politicizing a disaster.

Are We Looking at an Undertow Election?  —  The nature of elections is to surprise.  Candidates who are thought to be safe lose races where they insufficiently recognized potential threats.  Incumbents with enormous built-in advantages squander their opportunities to define the opposition.