After Brutal Polling Day, Romney Team Reassures That They'll Win  —  Mitt Romney's top staff offered reporters an endless number of reasons they're going to beat President Obama on a conference call Wednesday.  Not included on their list of Romney advantages: a clear lead in the polls.

Storm Response Earns Obama Praise Amid the Election's Deadlock Drama  —  President Barack Obama, accompanied by Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, second from left, and others, speaks about superstorm Sandy during a visit to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Headquarters in Washington, Oct. 31, 2012.

Civil rights icons pump Obama in Forsyth  —  Lowery: Don't think whites going to heaven  —  UPDATED TO INCLUDE MAYOR'S COMMENTS: 5 p.m.  —  Two icons of the civil rights movement visited Forsyth on Saturday to campaign for the reelection of Barack Obama.

Sifting the Numbers for a Winner  —  A crucial element: the mix of Democrats and Republicans who show up this election.  —  It comes down to numbers.  And in the final days of this presidential race, from polling data to early voting, they favor Mitt Romney.  —  He maintains a small but persistent polling edge.

Why Exactly Is Chris Christie Subverting Mitt Romney?  —  Chris Christie is love-bombing President Obama — the man he labeled clueless just last week — and Maureen Dowd is asking why: … Here are three theories about Christie:  —  1) The first, most benign theory: Christie, in my experience …

Biden already thinking about 2016  —  Election Day isn't for another six days, but Vice President Biden is already thinking about 2016.  —  Appearing at an eatery in Florida on Wednesday, Biden was chatting by phone with a Republican voter when the vice president half-jokingly …

The Facebook spike  —  As John notes in the adjacent post, a group of former special operators have set up a Facebook page called SOS: Special Operations Speaks.  SOS posted the graphic below on their Facebook page:  —  Facebook took the graphic down twice on the ground that it violated …

Two women from the Dominican Republic told The Daily Caller that Democratic New Jersey Sen. Bob Menendez paid them for sex earlier this year.  —  In interviews, the two women said they met Menendez around Easter at Casa de Campo, an expensive 7,000 acre resort in the Dominican Republic.

Florida GOP memo: Democrats are ‘cleaning our clock’  —  WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — A memo obtained by NewsChannel 5's Evan Axelbank, from an adviser to a Florida GOP campaign, says that the Democratic turnout effort is “cleaning our clock.”  —  The memo says, “The early and absentee turnout is starting to look more troubling.”

Dear Little Girl: Sorry We Made You Cry About ‘Bronco Bamma’ And Mitt Romney … Oh my goodness, do we feel bad now:  —  “A 4-year-old Fort Collins girl expressed her frustration over the seemingly never-ending presidential campaign,” Denver's 9News reports.

Exclusive: Classified cable warned consulate couldn't withstand ‘coordinated attack’  —  The U.S. Mission in Benghazi convened an “emergency meeting” less than a month before the assault that killed Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans, because Al Qaeda had training camps …

Obama's Libya stonewalling isn't working  —  President Obama is having no luck convincing voters and the media there is nothing amiss regarding his handling of the Benghazi attack.  —  My colleague David Ignatius is among the latest to acknowledge that there are real questions about what happened …

You Can't Go Home Again  —  Tom Friedman ventured into the wilds this week, to his home state of Minnesota: … I wish I believed he is kidding.  But this wasn't just a routine visit home; Friedman was looking for insight into the national scene: … Which means that he found what he was looking for.

U.S. yanks support for Syrian opposition group, warns of extremist takeover of uprising  —  ZAGREB, Croatia — The Obama administration on Wednesday renounced the proclaimed leaders of the Syrian political opposition and said any group seeking to oust President Bashar al-Assad must reject attempts …

Gay Rights Group Files Complaint Over Tuesday's Text Messages  —  “It's unacceptable to launch these types of despicable attacks from dark corners,” a Human Rights Campaign spokesman said about the Federal Communications Commission complaint filing.  —  Via: @cyrsucker

Politics can't scare off Ryan from his appointed Halloween rounds  —  Janesville, Wisconsin (CNN) - Even in an election year, Republican vice presidential hopeful Paul Ryan stuck to a family trick-or-treat tradition.  —  On Wednesday, Mitt Romney's running mate held three rallies in his home state …

Status Update on Gallup Election Polling Following Superstorm Sandy  —  Here's an update on Gallup's thinking when we suspended our national daily tracking of the presidential election campaign as of Monday, Oct. 29.  Basically, we reached the conclusion that Superstorm Sandy had compromised …

The Case for Obama: Why He Is a Great President.  Yes, Great.  —  I decided to support Barack Obama pretty early in the Democratic primary, around spring of 2007.  But unlike so many of his supporters, I never experienced a kind of emotional response to his candidacy.

Emails show Obama admin used DOE loan money to help Harry Reid's 2010 campaign … President Obama claims that political considerations did not influence the Energy Department's green energy loan program, but newly-released internal emails show that his administration subsidized Nevada companies …

A Partisan Advantage for Obama?  —  As I pointed out at the end of August, I see political and economic context of the election as favoring Mitt Romney, though not overwhelmingly so.  In fact, I think that Romney's gains after the first debate partly reflected a dissatisfied electorate responding …

The tea party gets a news site  —  Tea Party conservatives are getting their very own news site.  —  The Tea Party News Network, self-described as “the only trusted news source and the antidote to mainstream media bias,” is already live but will announce its launch tomorrow morning, with plans to start live video on election day.

New Jersey Continues to Cope With Hurricane Sandy  —  HOBOKEN, N.J. — National Guard troops sought on Wednesday to rescue thousands of residents still trapped by sewage-laced floodwaters in this city on the Hudson River, as local officials pleaded for volunteers to help.