The etch-a-sketch may be broken -- worn down from wear. The white board is stained -- erased too many times. Yesterday, Governor Mitt Romney told the Des Moines Register, "There's no legislation with regards to abortion that I'm familiar with that would become part of my agenda." The remarkable part of this statement is not that it runs counter to the position he's held for this entire campaign, but rather that it aligns with the view he espoused more than a decade ago when he was running for a different office. Step right up and punch your ticket for the Merry-go-Mitt. If you don't like what he's saying at this moment, inevitably he will pivot to a view you agree with.

Shortly after the Governor's comments to the Des Moines Register, his campaign spokeswoman Andrea Saul wrote to the National Review, "Governor Romney would of course support legislation aimed at providing greater protections for life." Romney's comments had put the campaign in a tough spot. The new line had to be that their candidate would "support" legislation that restricts reproductive rights, but anti-abortion legislation would not be part of his "agenda."

Let's go to the video tape (all clips included in video below). A month ago Governor Romney told David Gregory on Meet the Press, "I am pro-life and will intend, if I'm president of the United States, to encourage pro-life policies." So four weeks ago, curbing a woman's right to choose would be a policy priority for a President Romney.

Throughout this campaign he said how he would achieve that goal. A President Romney would do his best to get Roe v. Wade overturned, saying at the January 7th debate, "in my view, if we had justices like Roberts, Alito, Thomas, and Scalia, and more justices like that, they might well decide to return this issue to states as opposed to saying it's in the federal Constitution. Do I believe the Supreme Court should overturn Roe v. Wade? Yes, I do."

A President Romney would also sign an overall ban on abortions. Mike Huckabee asked him on October 2nd, 2011, "Would you have supported a constitutional amendment that would have established the definition of life at conception?" Romney's response: "Absolutely." And in typical Romney style, he said during a 2007 debate that he would be "delighted" to sign that kind of legislation.

After all of Romney's tough talk on abortion, it's jarring to hear him say just four weeks before the Presidential election that "no legislation with regards to abortion" would be a part of his "agenda." But should it be that shocking? In the 2002 gubernatorial election in Massachusetts, Romney assured voters, "I will preserve and protect a woman's right to choose, and I am devoted and dedicated to honoring my word in that regard." That echoed the sentiment he expressed when he entered politics in 1994, challenging Senator Ted Kennedy. In a debate that October, Romney said, "I believe that abortion should be safe and legal in this country - I have since the time my Mom took that position when she ran in 1970 as a Senate candidate. I believe that since Roe v. Wade has been the law for 20 years that we should sustain and support it. And I sustain and support that law and the right of a woman to make that choice."

Governor Mitt Romney's core beliefs on this subject, or at least how he speaks about them in public, haven't just evolved, they've done a complete 360-degree turn. Like a carousel, Romney's policy positions have been twirling since he launched his political career. If voters and fact checkers feel like they're getting flip-flop fatigue, remember Senator Ted Kennedy warned of the Merry-go-Mitt back in 1994 with the prescient retort: "I am pro-choice, my opponent is multiple choice."

Check out the video below for all the vintage Romney clips and see what Alex and the panel makes of the return of moderate Mitt:

It was the most talked about poll of the day, and perhaps the moment conservatives have been waiting for since Governor Romney stepped off the debate stage last Wednesday night. A new survey by Pew Research shows Governor Romney with a four point lead nationally -- outside the margin of error and a 12-point swing from a month ago. Equally striking is the shift among women, who supported President Obama 56%-38% in September, but were split at 47%-47% in the latest poll.

But how much should be read into this single poll? Is it a sign of an inflection point, or an outlier? Author of the New York Times' FiveThirtyEight blog Nate Silver urges caution, writing, "it's one thing to give a poll a lot of weight, and another to become so enthralled with it that you dismiss all other evidence." But that hasn't stymied broad, earth-shifting conclusions. The Daily Beast's Andrew Sullivan called the poll "devastating, just devastating" and claimed, "it's hard to see how a president and his party recover." RedState’s Erick Erickson also seemed to assume Romney had arrived, declaring "liberals are now in full meltdown." But it was just a few weeks ago that Erickson tried to undercut polls that favored President Obama, writing: "I also believe the polls are reflecting a bigger Democratic strength than is really there."

Perhaps the best advice comes from frequent NOWist and editor-at-large for Time Magazine Mark Halperin, who puts all this poll volatility into perspective: "the reality is that right around the time whatever debate bounce Mitt Romney got from his performance settles down, the two combatants will have their next face off on Long Island, shaking up the race again." Whether this is a blip or a bounce, it may only last until the next debate.

"I think I came out more confused." That was what former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright said today after listening to Governor Mitt Romney's foreign policy address. Albright participated in an Obama campaign conference call, describing the speech as "full of platitudes." The former Secretary of State also claimed "some of his facts are just dead wrong." Specifically, Albright said Romney's promotion of a Palestinian state demonstrated "he obviously doesn't track the things he himself says" -- since he had told donors at a fundraiser in May that the Israeli-Palestinian dispute would remain "unsolved." Albright also hit Romney on his view of Russia, saying "of the various weird things Romney has said, his position on Russia is truly out-of-date...I'm beginning to think Romney doesn't have the facts." Back in March, Romney called Russia "our number one geopolitical foe."

Albright's dismantling of Romney's speech isn't surprising, as the campaign has often struggled with foreign policy. Romney managed to enrage England on day one of his international tour, questioning their Olympic preparation and prompting scathing headlines from British newspapers (see left). A few days later in Israel, he suggested Palestinian "culture" was the reason their economy is weaker than Israel’s. And his campaign was criticized for hastily chastising the President's reaction to the attack in Benghazi before knowing the details of the incident. Basically, the Romney campaign's record on foreign policy is questionable at best.

Check out the video below to see what Alex and today's panel thought of Governor Romney's speech today:

Governor Mitt Romney has become quite fond of the phrase "trickle-down government" -- debuting it as an attack line against the President at the debate this week, and saying it nine times the next morning in a speech to CPAC.

Turns out Romney didn't coin the phrase, however -- it's vintage Bush 41. In the third debate between President George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton in 1992, Bush used the phrase repeatedly (check out the video below).

There's of course one big problem with taking strategy tips from Bush's '92 campaign...he didn't win.

Who says Governor Mitt Romney doesn't talk specifics? It may have ruffled some feathers, but last night Romney offered some straight talk about how he plans reduce the deficit -- namely, cutting the federal subsidy for PBS. You may wonder why he only felt compelled to give this one, single example of a program he would eliminate, but as Politico noted, PBS funding accounted for a whopping .00014% of the federal budget in 2010. Romney followed up that comment by saying, "I love Big Bird" (see above, a parody account for the Sesame Street resident didn't take his intentions lightly).

Johnathan Chait was also skeptical about Governor Romney's logic, writing in New York Magazine, "So Romney is a candidate of a 20% cut in tax rates, a new plan to cover people with preexisting conditions, and higher defense spending, and he will accomplish it all by eliminating federal funding for PBS."

While this is not the first time Romney brought up slashing PBS funding, he did back some new policy positions during the debate. The Wall Street Journal's Daniel Henninger called it "The Romney Reboot" -- as the Governor settled on a series of more moderate positions without explanation. Watch the first segment of today's show as Alex takes the panel through Governor Romney's policy transformation:

Tonight is big for both candidates -- but it is huge for Governor Mitt Romney. In the new poll by NBC News, the Wall Street Journal and Marist, President Obama bests Governor Romney in Ohio by eight points, and has leads within the margin of error in Florida and Virginia.

But below the topline numbers, there are more problematic signs for the Romney campaign. More than half of voters say recent news has given them a less favorable impression of Governor Romney, signaling his "47%" comments could be an inflection point in this race. When given the full description of that comment specifically, 45% of voters say they had a more negative view of Romney. Also a bad sign for Team Romney is that his favorability is still underwater -- 41% to 44%.

Can Romney change the dialogue tonight?

While Governor Mitt Romney's campaign struggles to define the specifics of its policies for America's future, President Obama could face some tough questions about his past. Today Karl Rove's Super PAC American Crossroads unleashed its largest ad buy of this cycle -- it includes $11 million to run the ad below in eight swing states. Titled "Actually Happened," the ad claims, "This is what President Obama said the jobless rate would be if we passed the stimulus: 5.6%. But this is what the jobless rate actually is: 8.1%." As our friends at First Read point out, the attack is misleading because President Obama never promised 5.6% unemployment. According to FactCheck.org, that figure comes from a "speculative report at the beginning of Obama’s presidency" which noted several times there was "substantial uncertainty around all of our estimates" because of the recession.

Aside from the dubious American Crossroads line of criticism, there are some statements made in President Obama's first term that could cause him trouble in the debates. Politico writes today about ten promises made by President Obama that could come back to haunt him: One of those is a vow to tackle comprehensive immigration reform in his first year. That said, it hasn't seemed to hurt him among Latinos in this election so far, as a new poll out today shows the President at an all-time high of 73% support from Hispanic voters nationally.

Check out the video below to see what Alex Wagner and our panel think about which past promises could be landmines for the President tomorrow night:

Kissing babies is nothing new on the campaign trail, but newborns are taking center stage in a new Republican fear-mongering campaign. On the show today we discussed a TV ad that Governor Romney's campaign released earlier this month, in which a mother tells her baby, "Dear daughter, your share of Obama's debt is over $50,000, and it grows every day." That ad seems to have set off a series of Super PAC ads echoing that strategy. Below you can watch a Restore Our Future spot released this past week, tracking a child's life from the President's inauguration until now.

Another ad from the Super PAC Americans for Job Security ends with a baby about to burst into tears as her mother narrates, "the future is getting worse under Obama."

The ads are clearly designed to appeal to women, and to elicit a visceral response by putting the safety of children at stake. This is reminiscent of the famous "Daisy" ad aired by President Lyndon Johnson's campaign in 1964 when he was running against Barry Goldwater. That ad featured a girl counting flower pedals until she is drowned out by the countdown to the launch of a nuclear bomb. 

Watch what Alex and our panel think about this strategy and whether or not it will help Romney swing female voters.

America was in crisis this week -- from football, to bacon, to politics. Mitt Romney went to war with himself and got some advice from Newton Leroy Gingrich about the upcoming debates. Before Alex Wagner left for a weekend vacation on Jupiter, she made sure to look back at What Just Happened?!

The Romney campaign woke up to some disappointing poll numbers this morning. While a CNBC survey reporting that 55% of voters believe the economy is worse off than it was four years ago would normally be good news for the Romney camp, the poll also gave President Obama a 9% point edge on who would do a better job with the economy over the next four years. For a candidate whose calling card in this election is “Mr. Fix-it” for the economy, it could be an ominous sign.

Meanwhile, two other polls found the President pulling ahead in the crucial swing state of Ohio, leading Governor Romney by eight and ten points.

For more on Ohio’s impact this year and the state of the race there, check out the discussion below:

Headlines about Governor Mitt Romney paying a 14.1% effective tax rate in 2011 may have been the last thing some early voters saw before casting their ballots -- probably to the frustration of the Romney campaign. While each campaign jockeys for the best position come November 6th, early and absentee voting is already underway. In half the country (25 states) polls have already opened for early or absentee ballots (see the graphic below showing the states where voting has already started). That means whatever is happening right now in this race could have a direct impact on the final result. In some crucial swing states, that impact could be tremendous. In 2008, early ballots accounted for 78.9% of the vote in Colorado and 60.6% of the vote in North Carolina. 

There are also signs that the next six weeks may not alter this race significantly. A new poll by Politico and George Washington University found that 84% of voters have made up their minds on either candidate. That poll also gave President Obama a 3% point lead nationally.

America learned a lot more about the Republican candidate for president this week, as secrets were exposed both willingly and against all efforts. Check out the video below as we take a look back at What Just Happened?!