Abbreviated Pundit Round-up: Obama with slight lead, Republicans pretend otherwise

Nate Cohn:

Ranking The Battleground States

With the national polls deadlocked, nine battleground states appear poised to determine the next president.

Jonathan Bernstein:

It's getting close to Election Day, and perhaps it's a good point to step back and assess where the presidential race is right now.

Despite some premature spiking of the football from those who favor Mitt Romney, the race remains very close and could easily go either way. But at even odds right now, it's pretty clear that your money belongs on Barack Obama.

Among the reasons, by the way, is the idiotic idea that what happened in Benghazi is a scandal. It's not. It's a tragedy, and every time Romney tries to politicize it, he loses.

David Ignatius:

The Romney campaign may have misfired with its suggestion that statements by President Obama and U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice about the Benghazi attack last month weren't supported by intelligence, according to documents provided by a senior U.S. intelligence official.

Nate Silver:

Still, if the national polls tell a more equivocal tale than the Gallup poll alone would imply, it's really in the state polls where Mr. Obama's strength lies ' as has largely been the case all year.

Mr. Obama's chances of winning the Electoral College improved to 70.4 percent on Thursday from 65.7 percent on Wednesday, according to the forecast.

As of this writing, it's 67.9, Gravis and Gallup have Romney ahead, while Ipsos/Reuters, IBD/TIPP, UConn/Hartford Courant, YouGov/Economist, RAND and PPP have Obama ahead. Friday, Rasmussen was tied.

Meanwhile, guess who's spiking the football? In Jennifer Rubin's fantasy world, Romney has already won the election. There's Romney cabinet predictions, and there's Romney nearing 270. One thing Republicans do very well is arrogance.

David Dayen:

I might not put it quite this way, but here's the area of agreement: Obama comes at the end of a 30-year cycle of narrowing and narrowing what passes for the liberal agenda. The landscape was so different in the 1970s that Nixon was calling for a guaranteed income. Now when Democrats are really feeling bold, they highlight policies that they are proud to reveal were based on Republican ideas of just a few years earlier, things like the Heritage Foundation's health care plan or the market-based solution of cap and trade.

I would disagree that liberalism ' although that's probably the wrong phrase ' has disappeared. It's just become hidden beneath a thicket of campaign contributions from wealthy donors. The decline of unions as a political counterweight means that Democrats chase big money, and not surprisingly they respond to big money concerns. Issues like poverty, hunger, and need go unremarked upon on the national stage, even while they remain core concerns at the community level.

Gallup weighs in on Tuesday's debates:

Americans who report watching the second presidential debate between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney believe Obama did a better job, by 51% to 38%. That is a sharp reversal from the first debate for which Romney was widely regarded as the winner.

Any poll movement (likely small, if at all) will be seen in Sat-Sun polling. NBC/WSJ is in the field and will report in on Sunday.

Why stop there? Just hire Andrew Wakefield. Chicago Sun-Times Hires Jenny McCarthy as Columnist. @ReportingHealth http://t.co/....
' @lizabio via web

Foreign Policy:

House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-CA) compromised the identities of several Libyans working with the U.S. government and placed their lives in danger when he released reams of State Department communications Friday, according to Obama administration officials.

This is why you do not play politics with national security: http://t.co/...
' @zpleat via web

GOTV Gangnam style: