Today's Times
- Amisco Technologies, an auto parts maker with plants in coastal China, bought two Michigan factories with 500 workers but shut them down in 2007. Amisco is now owned by Bain Capital, Sharon LaFraniere and Mike McIntire report. That and other China-related holdings by Bain funds in which Mitt Romney has invested seem to contradict his campaign-trail complaint that China's manufacturing juggernaut is costing America jobs.
- After Mr. Romney's gain in the polls, a Big Bird ad from President Obama's campaign was not the rebuttal nervous supporters were hoping for, Jim Rutenberg and Jeff Zeleny report. Â But the ad was just one element in a broader effort to reassure Democrats and show that any sense of complacency within the campaign is now gone.
- Campaigns are not having much success controlling how television networks show their candidates during debates, especially the dreaded split-screen and reaction shots, which have long bedeviled presidential candidates who sometimes forget that they are on camera even when they are not speaking, Jeremy W. Peters reports.
- In 2008, a strong black turnout that voted almost exclusively for President Obama helped turn North Carolina blue for the first time in decades, Susan Saulny reports. But times have changed, enthusiasm is down, unemployment is up and it remains unclear what effect those developments will have on the 2012 race, where a small drop-off in blacks' support could have an outsize impact.
- As candidates saturate the networks with advertising and make pleas for voters to cast early ballots, Ohio â€" a battleground state â€" feels like the eye of the storm less than a month from Election Day, Trip Gabriel and Helene Cooper write.
- If Congress fails to act by January, spending cuts and tax increases huge enough to throw the country back into recession will hit, but policy and economic analysts say the effect will be gradual and in some cases reversible, Annie Lowrey reports.
- Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York, complicated efforts to reach a deficit-reduction deal on Tuesday by criticizing a proposal that would lower top tax rates but still raise more revenue, Jonathan Weisman reports.
Happenings in Washington
- Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton will meet with Archbishop Desmond M. Tutu at the State Department. They will deliver joint remarks to a visiting group of Girl Scouts in honor of the inaugural International Day of the Girl.
- The Committee on Oversight and Government Reform will hold a hearing on “The Security Failure s of Benghazi†at noon.
- The Rev. Al Sharpton will lead a rally on the steps of the Supreme Court to show support for the admission policy used by the University of Texas at Austin in Abigail Fisher's case against the university's diversity program.
