Campaigns launch into expectations game ahead of vital presidential debate

With the first presidential debate set for Wednesday, the campaigns are hard at work trying to jockey for advantage -- as the Obama campaign girds for a potentially aggressive performance by Mitt Romney. 

The three October debates could be Romney's best chance to overtake President Obama in the polls and build lasting momentum into Election Day. To date, he has trailed Obama by single digits for months in most national polls while the president recently has watched his lead grow in key swing states. 

The debate stage, for Romney, represents an opportunity to win over the wishy-washy. And Obama's team wants to make sure his opponent is not so convincing. In the run-up to Wednesday, each campaign is now engaged in a delicate political dance, trying to manage expectations and shoot down potential talking points while generally psyching out the other side. 

Dueling campaign memos released Thursday and Friday contained practically the same message: The other guy is a skilled debater, the other guy has the advantage, but our guy has the truth on his side and debates aren't the only factor. 

"Just as he was in the primaries, we expect Mitt Romney to be a prepared, disciplined and aggressive debater," Obama adviser David Axelrod wrote in a memo Friday, adding that debates "generally favor challengers." 

Axelrod went on to list several other advantages Romney supposedly has -- the Republican nominee got plenty of debate practice during the primaries, and he's "unencumbered" by the responsibility of being president. 

"Maybe this is why the Romney campaign has so confidently predicted for months that he will turn in a campaign-changing performance such as Ronald Reagan's in 1980," Axelrod wrote. 

He was referring to Reagan's late surge past then-President Jimmy Carter in the polls following a strong debate performance. 

Axelrod's counterpart on the Romney campaign, adviser Beth Myers, made a similar case. 

"While Governor Romney has the issues and the facts on his side, President Obama enters these contests with a significant advantage on a number of fronts," she wrote in a strategy memo. "Voters already believe -- by a 25-point margin -- that President Obama is likely to do a better job in these debates. Given President Obama's natural gifts and extensive seasoning under the bright lights of the debate stage, this is unsurprising. President Obama is a uniquely gifted speaker, and is widely regarded as one of the most talented political communicators in modern history." 

Myers stressed that this will be Romney's first "one-on-one" presidential debate, and argued that Obama was judged the winner every time he faced John McCain in 2008. "The takeaway? Not only has President Obama gained valuable experience in these debates, he also won them comfortably." 

The first debate will be held this coming Wednesday in Denver, Colo., and will focus on domestic policy. 

It will be followed by the lone vice presidential debate on Oct. 11 between Republican running mate Paul Ryan and Vice President Biden. 

The second presidential debate is set for Oct. 16 in Hempstead, N.Y., and is expected to be a town hall format covering a range of issues. 

The final debate is set for Oct. 22 in Boca Raton, Fla., and will focus on foreign policy. 

While each candidate is trumpeting the other's debating prowess in order to lower expectations -- and hopefully pull off what would then be perceived as a surprisingly strong night -- each campaign is also hammering the other on the issues. 

"But what must President Obama overcome?" Myers asked. "His record." 

She argued his "ample rhetorical gifts" will be used to try and mask the failures in that record, warning the president will go "negative" to divert attention. 

Axelrod argued the same, and went on to try and rebut any potential argument. Citing a recent comment in which Romney predicted Obama would "say a lot of things that aren't accurate," the campaign also released a web video Friday challenging several of Romney's recent claims of mischaracterization. 

It showed one clip of Romney saying he's not in favor of lowering taxes on wealthy people, followed by a debate clip of Romney saying he wants to cut taxes for everyone by 20 percent, "including the top 1 percent." 

"Facts will matter," Axelrod wrote.

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Obama appeals to middle class, jabs at Romney in weekend of furious campaigning

President Obama on Saturday made his appeal to middle class voters while taking a few swipes at Mitt Romney as the presidential campaigns charged into the weekend with well-honed messages for potential voters in several states.

"This country doesn't succeed when only a few do well," the president said during a early-evening rally in Milwaukee. "America  succeeds when the middle class does well." 

The president also attacked Romney plan to extend tax cuts to all Americans by saying he could pay more “and Mitt Romney could sure afford to pay a little more.”

The president’s comments came one day after Romney release a summary of his 2011 tax returns and after a recent video surfaced in which the GOP presidential candidate suggested nearly half of Americans don’t pay taxes.

“We can't move forward if we've got leaders who write off half the nation,” the president said. “I don't see a lot of victims (here) today.”

Earlier Saturday, GOP vice presidential candidate Rep. Paul Ryan was in Miami where he told a crowd full of Cuban-Americans that he and Romney will restore the American Dream that brought them to this country and be tougher than Obama on the Castro regime.

“People aren’t working and opportunity is slipping away,” Ryan said at a campaign stop in the city’s Little Havana neighborhood. “People pick up and they go for a better life in this country … Mitt Romney and I are trying to restore that.”

He also attacked the president for his recent remarks he made on the Spanish-language Univision network about his struggle to change Washington. Ryan also attempted, as he has before, to convince potential voters that he and Romney have the region’s best interest at heart, considering his mother is a resident.

Vice President Joe Biden was busy in New Hampshire trying once again to assure middle-class voters that Democrats are the true champions of the middle class. Biden, whose roots in working-class Scranton, Pa., appeal to union crowds, was also trying to secure the union vote for the president and other candidates in the Democratic Party, which has long benefited from organized labors’ support – from campaign cash to extensive get-out-and-vote efforts.

“There is a middle class because of the word union,” Biden said in a union hall in Manchester, N.H. “We need all volunteers because we are going to be outspent by super PACs. It’s a knock on the door.”

The campaigns enter the final six weeks of the race amid protests in the Middle East and North Africa in which 40 people have been killed, including four Americans, and efforts to learn whether the sieges were pre-planned and terrorist attacks.

The camps in recent days have also tried to capitalize on earlier-made statements by the rival candidate – the secretly recorded one this year in which Romney said 47 percent of Americans don’t pay taxes and are "dependent on the government."

The Romney camp took aim at Obama saying 14 years ago in an audio clip: “I actually believe in redistribution, at least at a certain level, to make sure that everybody's got a shot."

The race for the White House remains close and will likely be decided in several battleground states, including Florida, Colorado, Iowa, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Ohio, Virginia and Wisconsin.

This week, Gallup released a poll showing the candidates locked at 47 percent each, while a Fox News poll showed Obama leading by 7 percentage points among likely voters in Ohio (49-42 percent) and Virginia (50-43 percent) and holding a five-point edge in Florida (49-44 percent.)

A recent Wall Street Journal/NBC/Marist poll showed Romney trailing in Colorado, Iowa and Wisconsin.

The poll show Romney trailing Obama 45 percent to 50 percent in Wisconsin where Romney had hoped to grow support after picking Ryan, who represents that state in Congress.

Still, Obama will be in Wisconsin on Saturday for three campaign-fundraising events, a sign political experts say indicates the race there remains tight.

Obama has not campaigned in Wisconsin since February. No Republican presidential candidate has won Wisconsin since Ronald Reagan in 1984.

The Romney campaign responded to Obama’s visit to Wisconsin just minutes after the president spoke.

“After an absence of 220 days, President Obama has finally returned to Wisconsin – a state he won by over 14 points four years ago,” said campaign spokeswoman Amanda Henneberg. “In Wisconsin, and all over America, people are tired of the president’s false attacks and broken promises. … America can’t afford four more years of Barack Obama.”

The first lady is attending an awards ceremony Saturday night in Washington for the Congressional Black Caucus Foundation.

Biden made two campaign stops in New Hampshire and was joined by wife Jill Biden.

Romney was fundraising in California while Ryan made two stops in Florida, including an afternoon visit in Orlando, a town hall at the University of Central Florida. He was joined in Miami by former Florida GOP Gov. Jeb Bush and Florida Sen. Marco Rubio.

“You know, just a couple days ago on Univision, President Obama admitted that he can't change Washington from the inside,” Ryan said in Miami. “Why do we send presidents to the White House in the first place?”

He also said about the Castro family’s grip on Cuba, “We need to crack down on this regime.”

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Obama, Romney campaigns ease off Libya debate as administration's story changes

As the Obama administration's initial explanation of last week's deadly attack on the U.S. Consulate in Libya appears to unravel, both presidential campaigns were curiously quiet Thursday -- with the Obama campaign deferring to testimony from a day earlier and the Romney campaign declining to criticize the president. 

The White House on Thursday called the assault a terrorist attack, after officials initially declined to use that term for more than a week. And the administration's claim that the strike was not pre-planned continued to be called into serious question as new evidence emerged of possible Al Qaeda ties. 

But Obama campaign spokesman Ben LaBolt, in an interview with Fox News, gave no indication that President Obama would address the American public anytime soon about the issue and deferred to remarks a day earlier by a top counterterrorism official. 

And Mitt Romney's campaign has said little about this other than to stress the importance of bringing the killers to justice. 

Asked Thursday about the evolving version of events in Libya, Romney spokesman Ryan Williams said: "Governor Romney believes our immediate priority in Libya is to track down and bring to justice those terrorists who brutally murdered our diplomats. The attack is a clear reminder that terrorists, particularly those linked to Al Qaeda, remain a grave threat and one that is growing in North Africa."

The Romney campaign appears to have dialed back on Libya since the candidate first criticized the U.S. Embassy in Cairo last Tuesday for a statement that allegedly sympathized with those protesting over an anti-Islam film. 

"I think they're gun shy," Republican strategist Ron Bonjean said. 

Bonjean was referring to the wall of criticism the Romney campaign faced -- from the media and the Obama campaign -- after the initial statement criticizing the embassy in Cairo. Romney defended those comments and went on to criticize Obama's foreign policy strategy in the aftermath of the Libya attack. 

But Romney and Obama on the campaign trail have since turned almost exclusively back to the economy. 

The latest back and forth pertains to two online videos. In one, Romney seems to dismiss the "47 percent" of people who don't pay federal income taxes, saying they see themselves as "victims" and will only support Obama. The other online clip features audio of a young Obama appearing to embrace "redistribution." 

The Twitter pages for both Romney and his campaign show little to no activity on Libya since last week. 

Bonjean said he thinks Romney is "letting the situation develop" before he speaks in any definitive terms on it again. That's not necessarily a bad move, he suggested. 

"I think what they're doing is not taking the shovel away from the Obama administration on the Middle East while they're still digging a hole," he said.

Bonjean said Romney might eventually make hay out of the changing story -- particularly at next month's presidential debate on foreign policy -- but until then, he said it would be best for surrogates to do the attacking. Still, he said it might be appropriate for Romney to say something on Libya in the near future about the importance of the American public knowing the facts about what happened. 

Republicans on the Hill are far less "gun shy" about criticizing the administration. 

Rep. Peter King, chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, told Fox News it was "irresponsible" for the administration to send U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice for a round of Sunday show interviews in which she called the attack "spontaneous."

"They had to know at that time that there was terrorist elements involved," King said. "The Obama administration wants us to think that the war against terrorism is over, that the president's policies have worked, that we have nothing to worry about from Al Qaeda. That is dangerous, irresponsible and it was wrong." 

And the Republican National Committee has been flagging the administration's changing statements. In an email Thursday, the RNC asked whether the administration was "deliberately lying" about the facts of the attack.

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Obama, Romney post-convention ads stick to familiar territory

The Obama and Romney campaigns have fresh cash for more new TV ads in the final stretch of the election cycle -- but while foreign policy could soon be entering the ad wars in light of recent events, for now the campaigns appear to be retreading old ground. 

The post-convention ads so far seem to simply reinforce the sharpest points of each campaign to date. 

For Mitt Romney, that means nine different ads tailored to voters in 16 battleground states. However, each begins the same way: a wide shot of a packed crowd during Romney’s acceptance speech last month in Florida, then the GOP presidential nominee saying, “The president can tell us it was somebody else’s fault, but he cannot tell us that we are better off than we were when he took office.”

The Obama ads, meanwhile, try to drill into the minds of voters the same line the president has delivered since the start of the campaign: Romney wants to extend tax breaks to “millionaires like himself” at the expense of the middle class.

“The middle class is carrying a heavy load in America,” says the narrator in a new Obama ad. “But Mitt Romney doesn’t get it.”

Team Obama also is using Romney’s pick of Rep. Paul Ryan as running mate for new ads that return to their line about Romney and other Republicans having “waged a war on women.”

“He’s made his choice, but what choices will women be left with?” the narrator in one ad asks as Romney shakes Ryan’s hand.

Elliott Curson, the Philadelphia media adviser whose series of 30-second TV ads helped Ronald Reagan clinch the 1980 GOP presidential nomination, said Tuesday the 2012 campaigns need only to “stick with what’s working.”

“The ads need to be sharp and in focus,” Curson told FoxNews.com. “Obama has one goal -- talk about Romney because he cannot talk about his record. And Romney needs to say the economy is in bad shape and that he can fix it.”

Curson also said the overarching strategy in the final ads is for each candidate to make the other “scare the voter more.”

While still focusing on the economy and tax policy, it's possible they may start to incorporate foreign policy more in the weeks ahead in the wake of the attack on the U.S. Consulate in Libya and ongoing demonstrations at other embassies. A new ad from the Republican-backed group American Crossroads released such a pointed video Friday, criticizing Obama for skipping intelligence briefings and for attending a Las Vegas campaign event on Tuesday "after a U.S. ambassador is murdered in the line of duty."

The nine new Romney ads are in Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Ohio, Virginia and Wisconsin.

The Virginia ad begins like the others, with Romney at the convention posing the “better off” question, then diverges into the narrator warning that proposed defense cuts would eliminate 130,000 jobs in the state.

Each ad ends with the narrator promising new jobs for the state if Romney is elected – including 340,000 in Virginia and as many as 700,000 in Florida.

The ads came out in force this week, after the Romney campaign largely stayed off the airways during the Democratic National Convention.

Obama and his supporters have so far spent $188 million on TV commercials while Romney and the independent groups backing him spent $245 million through the end of August, according to the Associated Press.

Obama and Romney can now access tens of millions in campaign funds that the federal government keeps off limits until candidates officially accept their nominations and the general election begins.

Romney, who has the decided cash advantage despite Obama raising more money over the full election cycle, is also expected to spend some of that money on ads in upper Midwest states, where he had not initially been expected to be competitive.

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