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.

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.

WaPo-ABC tracking poll: High marks for President Obama on Hurricane Sandy response  —  President Obama gets sky-high marks for his response to Hurricane Sandy, which cut a brutal path along the country's East Coast on Monday, according to the latest release of the Washington Post-ABC News tracking poll.

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 …

NBC/WSJ/Marist polls: Obama leads in Iowa, running neck and neck in N.H, Wis.  —  Less than a week before Election Day, President Barack Obama holds a statistically significant lead over Republican nominee Mitt Romney in the battleground of Iowa, while the two candidates are locked in tight races …

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 …

What I'm Hearing About The Sex Scandal  —  I've heard the story, but I don't want to say what it is because, well, I have no idea if it's true.  —  But in the interests of sparing you 1 heart attacks and 2 overly optimistic guesses: What it's about, rumors say, is a Senator.

Beeson: Obama ‘firewall is burning’  —  Romney political director Rich Beeson said Wednesday that the Obama team's electoral firewall — aka, Ohio, Iowa and Wisconsin — is “burning.”  —  “The firewall that I think they talked about was Iowa, Wisconsin,and Ohio,” he said on a conference call …

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 …

New ADP Count Slashes Job Creation for September  —  Revisions to the way payroll data firm ADP counts private sector job creation have resulted in a sharp drop in the September employment count.  —  ADP's new calculations put the monthly job creation at just 88,200, down from the 162,000 …

Atlantic City mayor accuses Christie of ‘double standard’ in Sandy response  —  Atlantic City Mayor Lorenzo Langford accused New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) of having displayed a “double standard” in his handling of communities affected by the landfall of Hurricane Sandy.

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 …

George Lucas Just Saved Star Wars by Firing George Lucas  —  So at long last, George Lucas has decided to get out of the moviemaking business.  He's selling out Lucasfilm, including all of its properties and moneymaking storylines, to the Mouse.  This is a good thing.  Maybe even a great thing.

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 …

NEWS FLASH  —  DONALD TRUMP IS ROBO-CALLING FOR ROMNEY |  Real estate mogul and ardent birther Donald Trump has been asked to stump for Mitt Romney in the final week before Election Day.  Trump will be doing robo-calls in Ohio, North Carolina, Wisconsin, and Florida — crucial battleground states.

Obama's campaign goes empty and strident  —  “It is a great advantage to a president, and a major source of safety to the country, for him to know he is not a great man.”  —  Energetic in body but indolent in mind, Barack Obama in his frenetic campaigning for a second term is promising …

Armed Islamists on Tunis streets after clashes  —  TUNIS — Dozens of Islamists, some armed with knives, took to the streets of Tunis on Wednesday after deadly clashes overnight, but there was no sign of additional security despite authorities saying there was.

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.

Political Memo: Romney Tones Down Campaign Rhetoric as Vote Nears  —  TAMPA, Fla. — Mitt Romney used to talk up the “crucial” importance of having two parents in the home, saying “a mom and dad together” have a big impact.  But over the past week, he has been extolling the virtues …

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.

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 …