THE LAST WEEK – AT 10:42 A.M. ET:  Mitt Romney's strategy for the last week of the campaign is emerging, according to Fox:

Mitt Romney will begin his closing argument of the 2012 presidential campaign Tuesday by focusing on his approach to fixing the economy, senior aides tell Fox News.

Over the final eight days of the campaign, the former governor will return to an early and recurring theme of his presidential run, in which he referred to his “Day One, Job One” plan.

Aides say Romney's message will be optimistic and "focused on the big issues that Americans want their president to confront and develop solutions for." They say he will call for “real change on day one” on a host of issues outlined throughout the campaign.

These issues include balancing the budget, repealing ObamaCare, reversing President Obama’s military spending cuts and averting automatic budget cuts, and achieving North American energy independence.

The final push of the race has been somewhat scaled back due to the superstorm currently threatening the East Coast.

The Romney campaign cancelled a Tuesday night rally in Milford, N.H., for the Republican presidential nominee and Monday events for his wife, Ann Romney in response to the storm.

"The top priority is the safety and security of people who may be in harm’s way,” senior campaign adviser Kevin Madden said Sunday. “So we'll have to monitor the storm and make sure that we see if we need to make any adjustments but it's hard to predict at this point."

The campaign also has stopped sending fundraiser emails in New Jersey, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Virginia and the District of Columbia -- all expected to be hit by the storm’s high winds and heavy rains.

COMMENT:  I'm concerned about any campaign disruption at this point.  Who knew that the October surprise would be the weather? 

Romney is down another point in the Rasmussen survey today, reducing his lead to two points.  He'd been at four a few days earlier.  He was also down a point in yesterday's Gallup tracker.  We'll watch closely to see if these minor changes mean anything.  They can just be statistical noise, especially as Romney seems to be rising slightly in other polls.  Because of the hurricane, the IBD/TIPP poll won't be updated today.

According to Mason/Dixon, Romney has nailed down Florida.  If true, Rasmussen's overly cautious listing of Florida as toss-up should be changed.  That would make Romney and Obama essentially even in the Rasmussen electoral vote survey.

The current RealClearPolitics average of the popular vote shows Romney up onoy one point, essentially a dead heat.  However, we should note that a number of polls have oversampled Democrats.

October 29, 2012