“Weve got to make people understand that what theyre seeing is not the real Mitt Romney.
-- President Obamas top political adviser, David Plouffe, describing the presidents re-election message, according to top campaign advisers interviewed by The Wall Street Journal for the piece “Obama Advisers Strategy Is High Risk, High Reward.
A deadlocked race on the first day of November means a wild ride for Election Day and a boost for antacid sales in Boston and Chicago.

With less than a week before Election Day, polls released Thursday indicated a narrow edge for President Barack Obama in Iowa, New Hampshire and Wisconsin, three states that are being fiercely contested in the final stretch of the campaign.

The countdown to Election Day continues, and the pace of polling in the battleground states has increased. But the main findings remain unchanged: Though polls show an essentially tied race between President Barack Obama and Republican nominee Mitt Romney nationwide, Obama holds narrow leads in a handful of battleground states that appear poised to decide the election.

With just five days remaining, the most crucial question now may be less about last-minute polling trends and more about whether the polls will prove to be collectively accurate.