Latest polls: National: NBC/WSJ: Tied 47%-47%, Politico/GW: Romney 49-47% (conducted mostly before the second debate – Oct. 14-18). States: OH: Quinnipiac: Obama 50-45%. PA: Muhlenberg: Obama 50-45%.
“With one debate left, President Barack Obama and challenger Mitt Romney are retreating from the campaign trail to bone up on foreign policy, leaving the work of courting voters to their running mates,” AP writes. “Monday's debate in Boca Raton, Fla., with its focus on international affairs, is the third and final between the two rivals and comes just 15 days before the election.”
The New York Times’ Sanger: “The most time, Mr. Schieffer has said, will be spent on the Arab uprisings, their aftermath and how the terrorist threat has changed since the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001.” More: The early line is that this is an opportunity for Mr. Obama to shine, and to repair the damage from the first debate. (He was already telling jokes the other night, at a dinner in New York, about his frequent mention of Osama bin Laden’s demise.) But we can hope that it is a chance for both candidates to describe, at a level of detail they have not yet done, how they perceive the future of American power in the world. They view American power differently, a subject I try to grapple with at length in a piece in this Sunday’s Review, ‘The Debatable World.’”
The L.A. Times: “Foreign policy may be the topic, but undecided voters will be the targets when Mitt Romney and President Obama hold their third and final debate Monday night.”