Former Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour (R) says that the presidential election is now trending towards President Barack Obama because of Hurricane Sandy.

During a Sunday panel segment on State of the Union, CNN's Candy Crowley noted that the president had gotten a boost after New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced his endorsement in the aftermath of the super storm.

"He said that he thinks President Obama is better on the issue of climate change," CNN Senior Congressional Correspondent Dana Bash explained. "And that the hurricane -- the super storm -- was a reminder from his perspective of what's going on with the climate."

"But that wasn't the best thing that happened to Barack Obama this week," Barbour noted. "The hurricane is what broke Romney's momentum. I don't think there's any question about it."

"Any day that the news media is not talking about jobs and the economy, taxes and spending, deficits and debt, Obamacare and energy is a good day for Barack Obama. You had a blackout -- you had a blackout on all of those issues that started about last Saturday and lasted until about yesterday. That was what was really good for Barack Obama."

Barbour added that Obama's proactive response to Hurricane Sandy didn't "help him a bit."

"What happened is that the news media absolutely blacked out any coverage of the issues that have been the issues of this campaign," the former governor insisted. "Nothing was stopping Romney's momentum. No matter what Obama did, he couldn't stop the momentum. This blackout -- and I'm not blaming the news media -- just all the news coverage was about everything but Obama's policies and the results of those policies."

On This Week with George Stephanopoulos, Ed Gillespie tries to put on his happy face about electoral prospects for Mitt Romney. At one point, he was practically stuttering. Ha, ha!

STEPHANOPOULOS: And with that, let's go to Ed Gillespie for the Romney campaign. Good morning, Ed. Good to have you this morning. You heard David Plouffe right there, his closing argument, Governor Romney would be an enormous risk.

GILLESPIE: And that we're doing better, we should build on the progress we made. The fact is, George, the unemployment today is higher than the day President Obama took office, 23 million Americans struggling to find work, the household income down by $4,300. That's what this campaign is about, them saying, you know, we need to keep doing this, we need more of the same, essentially, we need four more years like the last four years, and Governor Romney promising real change.

Yep. He's promising to pursue policies that will make it much worse.

You know, in terms of President Obama's policies, we've heard that if he's re-elected, I guess his agenda is he will establish a secretary of business. He thinks that somehow is going to help foster job creation, when Governor Romney has been talking for -- for months now about his five-point plan to grow the middle class with greater -- unleashing domestic energy supply, balancing the budget, tax reforms, greater trade. You know, we have a very strong agenda that is resonating with the American people, and that's why he's going to win on Tuesday.

STEPHANOPOULOS: You heard David Plouffe's assessment of the battlegrounds right now. They believe they're in a strong position with that Ohio, Iowa, Wisconsin firewall, and you heard him say that you all are playing defense in Virginia and Florida and a desperate ploy in Pennsylvania. Your response?

GILLESPIE: You know, four years ago -- it's -- it's a remarkable juxtaposition here that Mitt Romney will be in the suburbs of Philadelphia today, and, you know, four years ago, Barack Obama was in Indiana. When you look at where this map has gone, it reflects the -- the change and the direction and the momentum toward Governor Romney. And the fact is that a state like Pennsylvania being in play, a poll out today showing Michigan a dead heat, you know, this -- the map has expanded.

Wisconsin, Minnesota has expanded our way. We feel very confident in terms of where we are in the -- in the target states. We've been able to expand into Pennsylvania while fully funding and staying current with everything we need to be doing in Florida and Virginia and Ohio and all of the other target states.

The only way the Romney people will win Pennsylvania is to steal it. Roughly half the population of Pennsylvania is in Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and the surrounding suburbs. Very few of those counties will go for Romney -- suburban Republican women just aren't going to vote to defund Planned Parenthood, or overturn Roe v. Wade - and if they do, there's something crooked going on. But Gillespie has never been one to let facts get in the way!

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Mitt Romney's political director, Rich Beeson, on Sunday suggested that The New York Times -- and not the Republican presidential nominee -- was responsible for an op-ed calling for the U.S. auto industry to "go bankrupt."

During an interview on Fox News, host Chris Wallace asked Beeson why the Romney campaign was running a "misleading" advertisement which implied that Jeep is sending U.S. jobs overseas when, in fact, the company is adding American jobs.

"I found it interesting that President Obama would attack Gov. Romney on that when they put up an ad saying that Gov. Romney says, 'Let Detroit go bankrupt,' when that's a headline from a New York Times op-ed," Beeson replied.

While it's true that The New York Times selected the title "Let Detroit Go Bankrupt" for Romney's 2008 op-ed, the former Massachusetts governor was reportedly given an opportunity to approve the headline.

Romney also personally repeated the line during a television interview earlier this year.

"Yeah, that's what I said," he told CBS News. "The headline you just read, 'Let Detroit Go Bankrupt,' points out that the companies needed to go through bankruptcy to save those costs."

Eric Bolling is working hard to replace Glenn Beck on Fox News as the resident right-wing lunatic, the guy whose incoherence is his chief charm as far as the Fox audience is concerned. He started out being a talking head on their stock shows on Fox's fake business-news wing, and now he has wormed his way onto the main news channel, even guest hosting Fox & Friends. Roger Ailes pays good money to those who spew hatred and nonsense in rapid-fire fashion.

Bolling has always been one of these federal spending deficit hawks so I was shocked when he said that FEMA should hand over the rescue money to New Jersey quickly. Isn't that always the case? A wingnut who hates the federal government except when they need it. F&F discusses President Obama's trip to New Jersey and Eric Bolling reveals what a hypocrite he really is.

BOLLING: I'm trying to figure out why, I get it, he wants to get there, he wants to see the damage, but please just come, sign the check, tell FEMA to sign over all the money that they need to sign over. I think they already done it. Chris Christie, the other day, yesterday was saying, 'We've gotten access to the funds we're going to need,' so I'm not really sure what touring the sites...

Steve Doocy explained why Obama was there to this dimwitted light bulb, but listen how cavalierly he discusses the need for federal monies to help a state in a dire emergency. Now, if it were a different Governor than Christie -- particularly if it were a Democrat -- I bet Bolling would be screaming that a crony got preferential treatment from Obama and was paid off by the White House. Next he'd call for Congress to enact spending cuts to offset the FEMA money.

Media Matters:

Speaking of FEMA's budget, in 2011 the GOP-controlled House Appropriations Committee proposed cutting FEMA's budget by $87 million. In 2012 they proposed an additional $182 million in cuts. Mother Jones reported in August that Paul Ryan's much-talked about budget proposal, while not making specific mention of FEMA, calls for cuts in discretionary spending that would necessarily scale back federal disaster relief budgets drastically.

And who can forget the government-shutdown fiasco of 2011 which centered, in part, on Republican demands (led by House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA)) that spending on disaster relief be offset by spending cuts elsewhere?

After Meet the Press host David Gregory asks House Majority Eric Cantor about Mitt Romney's dishonest ad where he claims that Jeep is planning on sending American jobs over to China, when Romney himself believes it's a good business model "to outsource in order to make companies competitive," Cantor initially tries to hedge and claims Romney would be the one who would care about plants opening here in America. He also cites an endorsement by Lee Iacocca as some sort of proof that he cares about these things and wants to get the economy back on track.

When Gregory tries to pin him down and asks him if the ad is deceptive, Cantor pulls the "I havent' seen the ad" dodge and tells Gregory it's not running in Virginia. He then goes on to attack President Obama as not being willing to work across the aisle, because we all know Mr. 800-Plus Vetoes Romney would be much more willing to reach across the aisle if he's elected.

And naturally we got no follow up or push back from David Gregory on any of that. If it's Sunday, it's meet the Republicans and their unfettered talking points. I'm wondering, if Cantor was telling the truth about not seeing the ad, why is he being sent out there as a surrogate for Mitt Romney? I don't believe for one minute he hasn't either seen it, or read about what's in it though. Yeah, he has no idea what's in it, but he knows it hasn't aired in his state yet.

I'm writing this while on a conference call with OFA. As I glance up from the screen and out of my front room window, three young OFA volunteers are canvassing our neighborhood, knocking on doors cheerfully and respectfully. I recognize one of them as a young lady who went to school with my daughter. They're out canvassing for all Democrats, not only Barack Obama.

This is the heart of the OFA community organizing effort. Today they launched their final phase -- the get out the vote effort. This follows the first two prongs, which include in-community contact to persuade undecided voters, and new voter registrations.

The campaign reports that these outreach efforts have reached 125 million voters, and those are face-to-face interactions, not robocalls or other automated contact methods. They are conversations, and they're conversations volunteers have been having for years. Unlike Republicans, OFA has relied on a grassroots face-to-face approach to reach new voters.

From the campaign:

As our Neighborhood Team Leaders opened their staging locations this morning, they began logging into our state-of-the-art reporting system, officially launching their GOTV hubs. Unlike campaigns of the past, our volunteers are not driving to some large office miles from their homes and handed a phone and a call sheet. Instead, Canvass Captains, Phone Bank Captains and scores of local volunteers will be knocking on the doors of the very voters they registered, have been talking to for months and know personally. And they will be directing them to polling locations in their communities – the schools their kids go to, the places of worship they attend each week and community centers they know well.

These efforts are all paying off. The campaign reports that early voting turnout is huge in the swing states. I have friends here who have gone into Nevada to assist neighborhood volunteers with efforts to get out the vote. As a result, the Romney campaign has essentially conceded Nevada.

Here are some of the other results:

Among non-midterm voters, Democratic turnout is outpacing the Republicans’ turnout in every single battleground state with party registration.

• In Colorado, Florida, Iowa, North Carolina and Nevada, 1.4 million non-midterm Democrats have voted already, compared with just 840,000 non-midterm Republicans.
• And in Ohio, more than 179,000 non-midterm voters from counties Obama won in 2008 have cast ballots, compared with just 91,000 non-midterm voters from Republican-leaning counties. Ohio does not have party registration, so how a county voted in 2008 is one way to measure this turnout.

This isn't to say there aren't concerns. Florida's shortened early voting days are a problem, but OFA has focused on sporadic voters in Florida vis a vis the early vote. They are encouraging all voters to turn out on election day, and they're working the lines of people waiting to vote to make sure they don't get discouraged.

In North Carolina, some college students are being shifted to provisional votes because of weird redistricting causing the line to roll right through the middle of their campus.

In Ohio, a lawsuit has been filed over Jon Husted's newest dirty trick intended to disenfranchise legitimate voters.

In Florida, one polling place was shut down on Saturday because mysterious packages were left, causing the bomb squad to have to shut down the entire polling place to explode them.

These are problems, yes. But the campaign is undeterred, and they've built a foundation of thousands of community-based organizations to make sure people vote, and that their vote is counted.

I asked specifically in a different call about what they plan for issues that arise on election day in terms of disenfranchisement reports or other dirty tricks. My question arose from reports about Wisconsin and Iowa poll watchers trained by the Romney campaign who were trained incorrectly regarding ID requirements in those states. Whether by accident or design, it's an issue the campaign is aware of and has volunteers and lawyers ready to deal with.

Every national election has stories like this. But we live in an age of YouTube and real-time reporting via Twitter and Facebook, among others. That enables a rapid response and if the voters actually come and VOTE, this election will be as fair as one might expect.

In the course of this phone call, my neighborhood canvassers have wrapped up here and moved on to a different location. It was comforting to see them out and enthusiastic in this formerly red but turning purple district.

It changes one voter at a time.

On the Sunday before the 2012 presidential election, Fox News senior political analyst Brit Hume is saying that it's "puzzling" that national polls indicate GOP hopeful Mitt Romney is tied with President Barack Obama race is a tie while swing state polls suggest that Democrats are going to win enough electoral votes for to keep the White House.

"I think the conventional wisdom is trending now towards a Obama win, something along the lines of what Karl Rove and his team pulled off for President Bush in 2004, but I'm by no means certain," Hume told Fox News host Chris Wallace. "And there's this striking discrepancy between national polls -- which tend to be done, by and large, by older, more-seasoned polling firms -- and state polls -- a number of which are done by less-established firms. The national polls have this a tie. The state polls, as you just suggested -- the battleground state polls suggest and indicate that President Obama is ahead in all of them."

"It seems striking that there would be this difference," he added. "And it is sobering, if you're a Romney supporter, to think that he is trailing or just tied in so many of those states."

"I think it's unlikely -- it's hard to imagine as a political journalist that all these many polls are off. But the discrepancy is unmistakable and puzzling."

Here's a far-from-comprehensive look at Republican attitudes towards FEMA and disaster aid, just in case you were wondering:

• If your state is selfish enough to have a disaster when the federal government is already paying for previous disasters, don't expect the Republican House to simply appropriate additional funds. Instead, they will cut all those other federal programs to pay for it -- and it will be ALL YOUR FAULT.

• There will always be a way to blame Obama for it.

• The Republican solution is always the same: Privatize, privatize, privatize! (And we know what happens when they do.)

• Tea Partiers have no such thing as empathy for their fellow man. Get used to it.

• Republicans are not above making use of the same programs they're trying to kill for the rest of us.

• They will never, ever, ever be transparent-- with pretty much anything.

• From the Bush years, via Rude Pundit: The Strategic Goals of FEMA have shifted from definite measures of effectiveness in emergencies, including the responsibility to feed, hydrate, and shelter victims in the first couple of days after a disaster, to a business-speak that leaves weasel room for any screw-ups.

We've got stories that continue to come out about voter suppression everywhere from Arizona, to Colorado, to Pennsylvania to you name it, and stories like this one just coming out this week -- Florida 'Glitch' Wipes Out 1000 Early Votes In Black Area.

And this recent news from Ohio where their Secretary of State Jon Husted is doing his best to become the next Katherine Harris or Ken Blackwell -- Last-Minute Ohio Directive Could Trash Legal Votes And Swing The Election.

But never mind all that. If people don't like it that the Republicans are doing their best to keep them from voting or their votes from being counted, well that's too bad according to Mitt Romney's number one neocon fan-girl -- Wash. Post's Jennifer Rubin Dismisses Voter Suppression Concerns As "Sour Grapes".

Oh noes!!!!! Barack Obama told a room full of ordinary people last night that "voting is the best revenge" and today Mittens and his Brigade of Stupid are out in force pimping it on every cable station (including their 24/7 campaign constituent Fox) as that mean scary President doing mean scary things.

Some people need to grow the eff up, and I mean YOU, Mark Halperin. Yes, today on a conference call about the state of the race, Mark Halperin actually asked the campaign "what revenge the president was referring to."

Evidently a guy who supposedly writes and talks for a living can't parse a simple sentence, or sequence of sentences. Here's what the president said, specifically, via TPM:

The new line of attack stems from an Obama rally in Springfield, Ohio on Friday in which he briefly interrupted his speech after the audience booed House Republicans and Romney.

“No, no, no — don’t boo, vote,” Obama said. “Vote. Voting is the best revenge.”

Now if you've been watching any of the Obama rallies, you're familiar with the "don't boo, vote" line. He uses it at every rally when he's describing Romney's actions with regard to the auto industry. It's a stock line and he's used it a zillion times. Obama says "Romney wanted the auto industry to go bankrupt." The audience boos. Obama tells them to vote.

This time he added "voting is the best revenge" to the mix.

PROTIP for Mark Halperin: It would be revenge for a policy that would have put all of those workers in the auto industry or related to the auto industry out of work.

DUH. Were you really that stupid or just doing your impression of a Fox News reporter, Mark?

Romney has seized upon it to "other" President Obama. See the ad at the top? The Romney campaign cut that ad within hours of Obama's remark, juxtaposing it with Romney's "vote for love of country."

As if Romney loves anything more than his fat Caymans IRA. Please.