Williams Takes on Limbaugh, Biden Goes on Letterman, and More

Partisan Gridlock:

If Mitt Romney wins the presidency, he’ll face a tough opponent in Harry Reid. The Senate Majority Leader on Friday pledged to not work with Romney should he prevail in next Tuesday’s election. Said Reid: “Romney’s fantasy that Senate Democrats will work with him to pass his ‘severely conservative’ agenda is laughable. In fact, Mitt Romney’s Tea Party agenda has already been rejected in the Senate.” Among the items he lists include the budget plan put forth by Romney’s running mate Paul Ryan. (Read more)

Silver Explains: Nate Silver of the New York Times election blog FiveThirtyEight has a very simple and succinct reason that President Obama is the favorite heading into next week’s election. Here it is: “Obama’s ahead in Ohio.” It wouldn’t be the FiveThirtyEight blog, however, if Silver did not present a more thorough, detailed statistical analysis backing his case, which of course he also does. (Read more)

Pulling Away: Speaking of Ohio, President Obama is leading the critical swing state in all the latest polls. But there’s more good news for the Obama re-election campaign: New polls show him leading in other battleground states as well, including Florida, Colorado, Iowa, Michigan, Nevada, New Hampshire, Virginia and Wisconsin. (Read more)

Morris Wavers: Just a few days ago, Dick Morris predicted that the election would be a landslide. Now, the Fox News contributor seems to be backing off his initial prediction. He cautioned his readers about last-minute changes in the polls, writing that, “This race is not over yet!” In any event, Morris still believes a Romney victory is “likely” come Election Day. (Read more)

Slip-n-Slide: Richard Mourdock, the Indiana Republican Senate nominee who claimed that even pregnancies resulting from rape are “something that God intended to happen,” is facing defeat at the hands of Democratic opponent Joe Donnelly, the latest state poll shows. Donnelly now holds an 11-point lead over Mourdock in the poll for Howey Politics Indiana. (Read more)

War of Words: There’s a new media feud brewing between NBC’s Brian Williams and conservative pundit Rush Limbaugh. Williams fired the first shot when he criticized Limbaugh over comments he made in the wake of Hurricane Sandy on the latest “Rock Center.” Willams went after Limbaugh over his criticism of New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, the Mitt Romney supporter who has praised Obama for his handling of the disaster’s aftermath. “So after all this loss you might be curious as to why Rush Limbaugh went after Gov. Christie today. It was because he was getting along so well with the president, working together, saying nice things about Barack Obama,” Williams said, adding “Just when we feared the storm wiped away everything, we learned politics survived.” Limbaugh fired back: “Have you watched your network lately? Have you watched your sister or brother network, MSNBC, lately? You guys have your own mess to clean up there. Because you and your colleagues, you’re not only destroying news and journalism in this country, you’re not even doing your job.” (Read more)

Video of the Day: Vice President Joe Biden was on David Letterman’s program Thursday, where he did the night’s top 10 list, “Top Ten Good Things About Voting Early.”