- Rep. Todd Akin, the embattled Missouri Senate candidate who faced calls to withdraw after commenting that women cannot get pregnant in cases of "legimitate rape," has now passed the deadline to withdraw. He is largely on his own as he seeks to unseat vulnerable incumbent Democrat Claire McCaskill -- groups like the National Republican Senatorial Committee have pulled funding -- although he recently got an endorsement from Newt Gingrich.

- Mitt Romney will continue his Ohio tour today. He will begin with an 8:30 a.m. rally in Westerville with golf icon Jack Nicklaus, continue to a 1:05 p.m. manufacturing roundtable with business leaders and finish his day with a 5:30 p.m. rally in Toledo. The campaigning in Ohio has taken on extra urgency with another poll showing Romney trailing Obama there, the second in two days.

- Romney is out with a new ad trying to do some damage control over his "47 percent remarks." Looking directly into the camera, the Republican nominee says, "We should measure compassion by how many people are able to get off welfare and get a good paying job."

- Paul Ryan will be in Colorado, another swing state that Obama wrested from longtime Republican control in 2008. Ryan is scheduled to be at a town hall in Fort Collins at noon and a rally at Colorado Springs at 6:25 p.m. (both Mountain Time).

- In Massachusetts, Senator Scott Brown repudiated staffers who made tomahawk gestures and yelled Indian war whoops at supporters of his opponent, Elizabeth Warren, but Brown went on to attack Warren for reporting that she had Native American ancestry, saying she "hasn't passed" a test of integrity.

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