Alex and the panel took a short break from the presidential race to take a closer look at some of the more interesting down-ballot contests that could determine which party holds the majority in the 113th Congress. The "Sage of Capitol Hill" Luke Russert lent his expertise to the discussion, explaining that while President Obama will no doubt help down-ballot Democrats in blue states like Connecticut and Massachusetts, many other Senate races -- as well as the majority of House races -- will be fought and won based on local issues unrelated to the goings-on at the top of the ticket.

The Cook Political Report currently forecasts the House of Representatives staying in Republican hands, though the GOP's current 25-seat advantage may be culled by 1-10 seats. A Republican takeover in the Senate -- seen as inevitable earlier in the cycle due to the political climate and the sheer number of Democrats (23) being forced to defend their seats compared to Republicans (10) -- is no longer a sure thing, though Cook still expects the GOP to pick up 2-4 seats.

Whether it's two, three or four is crucial. If it's two, Harry Reid returns as majority leader. If it's four, he will be forced to hand the Senate gavel over to Kentucky Senator Mitch McConnell. But a three-seat gain will result in a 50-50 tie in the Senate under which the Vice President -- be it Joe Biden or Paul Ryan -- will cast the deciding vote. If that's the case, the presidential contest could prove even more critical than anyone expected.

On today's show Alex and her panel dissected the various strengths and weaknesses of Vice President Joe Biden and Congressman Paul Ryan going into Thursday night's debate in Danville, Kentucky.

Both candidates are currently hunkered down in their respective debate camps, with Vice President Biden reportedly practicing on a debate stage that is a perfect replica of the one that will be used by the candidates at Centre College Thursday night.

Among other things, we also learned that Alex could literally "watch old Biden debate tape forever," that polls show voters predicting a Ryan victory going into the contest, that New York Magazine‘s John Heilemann believes 'Scranton Joe’ is "systematically underrated" as a debater and that Paul Ryan's wizardry with a whiteboard may not necessarily help him to connect with viewers watching at home.

Heilemann also had a handy hint for those planning to watch the debate: Don’t drink every time Biden uses the word “literally” in any drinking game, or you’ll definitely suffer the consequences…

Former General Electric CEO Jack Welch became the latest high-profile person to float a political conspiracy theory last week, joining the likes of Donald Trump and Rush Limbaugh by suggesting that the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) had manipulated the September jobs data to help re-elect President Obama. While any sane person would assume that Welch's theory would fly outside the Overton Window, it quickly gained currency among many conservative  commentators and became a central topic of conversation on the Sunday talk show circuit.

On Monday's panel, Alex and her guests discussed this relatively recent phenomenon in which any fringe idea can quickly become a part of the mainstream political narrative and argued whether "epistemic closure" is more of a problem on the right than the left.

"There's no economist that can say Mitt Romney's tax plan adds $5 trillion if I say I will not add to the deficit with my tax plan." - Mitt Romney at last night's debate.

Say what? Hang on - Before everybody in the media rushes to coronate Mitt Romney for his stellar debate performance, let's just pause to reflect on Mitt's specious tax argument.

Romney says the economists who have scored his tax plan as adding $5 trillion to the deficit are wrong because his tax cut isn't a $5 trillion tax cut. He dismissed the same criticism from President Obama last night, saying, "if the tax plan he described were a tax plan I was asked to support, I'd say absolutely not. I'm not looking for a $5 trillion tax cut."

This is what a $5 trillion logical fallacy looks like...

Economists: Your 20% tax cut plan costs $5 trillion.

Romney: My tax plan does NOT cost $5 trillion. It is revenue-neutral.

Economists: Tell us how it's revenue-neutral...

Romney: Deductions.

Economists: Such as?

Romney: (Silence)

Economists: So, you’re saying…

Romney: There's no economist that can say Mitt Romney's tax plan adds $5 trillion if I say I will not add to the deficit with my tax plan.

In his latest National Journal article, Ron Brownstein argues that the most important voting demographic of the 2012 election is one that Democrats traditionally have trouble with, but Obama is making inroads with in swing states this cycle: Non college-educated white women.

While President Obama lost this group -- or as Brownstein refers to them, "waitress moms" -- to John McCain in 2008 by a 41%-59% margin, the Obama campaign has targeted these voters by airing ads on networks like Bravo and Lifetime and on shows like Dr. Phil and Judge Judy.

The results so far are striking. The President is currently polling at 52% among this group in Ohio and Iowa, 51% in Pennsylvania, 50% in New Hampshire and Wisconsin and 48% in Florida, according to National Journal's analysis of recent swing state polling.

Brownstein writes that in addition to the 47 percent remarks which were very damaging to Romney among this subgroup of the electorate, he has also been hurt by the "skirmishes over defunding Planned Parenthood and access to contraception in health insurance. Many of these women view such women's-health matters not as moral issues but as practical pocketbook concerns."

Today, Alex and the panel looked at how the campaigns are appealing to women and another critical voting block -- Latinos.

Republican Senator Scott Brown (R-MA) spent much of Monday night's Massachusetts Senate debate -- the second of four against challenger Elizabeth Warren -- stressing his independent credentials and running away from his congressional bosses. Asked by debate moderator David Gregory if he would vote for Senator Mitch McConnnell (R-KY) to be majority leader in January if elected to a full term, Brown took a pass.

“I've already let it be very clearly known to Mitch McConnell that I’m completely disgusted as to what’s going on down there," Brown said. "He has a lot of work to do to earn my vote because I don’t work for him or Harry Reid. That’s the beauty of being independent."

At another moment in the debate, Brown bragged about voting "about 50 percent with my party and about 50 percent with the Democratic party." According to the latest Boston Globe poll of likely Massachusetts voters, Brown trails Warren 43% to 38% with 18% still undecided. Among poll respondents, 20% said Brown was "heavily influenced" by the Republican Party, 41% thought he was "sometimes influenced" by the party and 33% said he "votes independently."

On today's show, Alex and the panel were joined by MSNBC's Luke Russert to discuss how the candidates are appealing to voters in this key Senate race.

President Obama may be enjoying an advantage in the polls, but his administration's handling of the recent terrorist attack in Libya has provided Governor Mitt Romney with a rare opportunity to score some points against his rival on foreign policy.

It's not yet clear how aggressively Team Romney will move to take advantage of the administration's shifting explanations, but some GOP operatives smell blood and believe the administration's bungled response to the attacks can be exploited for political gain.

Five days after the September 11th assault on the U.S. diplomatic mission in Benghazi, U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Susan Rice said that the murder of four Americans appeared to be a "spontaneous reaction" erupting from protests against an anti-Muslim film made in the U.S.. However, just four days later, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney told reporters it was "self-evident that what happened in Benghazi was a terrorist attack."

The discrepancy caused some Republicans to question the administration's adroitness in responding to the situation and speculate about a possible political motive in concealing the true nature of the attack.

"It was either willful ignorance or abysmal intelligence," Senator John McCain (R-AZ) said over the weekend. On Meet The Press Sunday, White House senior adviser David Plouffe called any suggestion of a political calculus "preposterous" and "really offensive."

Today on the show, Alex and her panel discussed whether the administration mishandled the situation, and whether Republican criticism is justified or simply an attempt to score political points during election season.

Just about everyone in Washington is afraid of the looming "sequester" -- due to slash $109 billion from next year's budget (including half from the Department of Defense) if no action is taken by the January 2 deadline -- but as of yet, no one has a plan to do anything about it. Enter a new "Gang of Six" (no, not that one,  or that one either) whose members say they are committed to coming up with a "balanced, bipartisan deficit reduction package" to avert the dreaded cuts. The problem? They need to come up with a grand plan to cut $1.2 trillion from the nation's books over the next 10 years and do it in a lame-duck session of Congress following a bitter presidential election. Not easy. Don't forget, the reason we're currently in this fiscal bind is because the bipartisan "super committee" created as part of last summer's debt ceiling deal failed to reach consensus on a way forward. What's different now?

Back then, Republicans refused to raise net revenue through the tax code, while Democrats balked at any dramatic changes to Medicare and Social Security. The key word coming from the new group of senators here is "balanced." The six senators -- Carl Levin (D-MI), John McCain (R-AZ), Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH), Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) and Kelly Ayotte (R-NH) -- seem to be suggesting that tax hikes will be a part of their proposed solution. But the key question, as always, remains: Will Republicans go along with it?

Tea Party favorite Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) seems to think they might. "We're not going to save our defense unless we go along with the president's wishes to raise taxes on small business," he told The Washington Post. "It's not a good choice. I would never support it ... [But] there are enough Republicans, I think, who are so afraid of defense cuts that they would probably give in. President Obama appears to hold the cards here as he would need to sign into law any legislation passed by Congress to prevent the sequester from going into effect. Republicans may hate increased revenues but they also know what the cost of inaction would mean to their beloved Defense Department. For that reason, Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and others have advised the president to push hard for a deal in the post-election lame-duck session when he has leverage over congressional Republicans. (This, of course,  assuming that President Obama wins re-election).

Senator Jeanne Shaheen appeared on the show today, striking an apolitical tone. She says the political advantage should not figure into the calculus of any potential deal. "This shouldn't be about who has the upper hand," she said. "The goal was never to let the sequester go into effect, never to do these across-the-board cuts. I don't know anybody who thinks that's a good idea, so what we need to do is roll up our sleeves and we need to come up with a long-term solution that addresses all aspects of the budget."

Fair enough, but we didn't hear anything from her today to suggest that a deal is any closer than it was last summer.

Sir Winston Churchill once famously remarked that democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others... The same thing could be said of the illustrious 112^th congress, whose members packed their bags over the weekend and departed the capital for a seven-week break that will see them remain in their home districts through the presidential election. Their next day in the office? November 13. This, after the House was in session for just twelve– Yes, count ‘em, twelve – days in August, September and October. Nice work if you can get it!

The 112^th Congress will be mainly remembered for two noteworthy accomplishments. First – It has the dubious distinction of being the least popular congress on record. According to Gallup it received the lowest approval rating on record – 10% -- and it did it twice -- once in February and once in August.

It is also by far the least productive congress of the post WWII-era, having passed just 174 laws, 35 of which were to name post offices or federal buildings. Before departing, it did manage to pass yet another congressional resolution to keep the federal government functioning through March 27, 2012. It may not have done anything about the Bush tax cuts set to expire Dec. 31 or the so-called “sequester” due to slice $109 billion from defense and other domestic programs next year. But that’s not to say it didn’t accomplish anything. Early Saturday morning, the Senate passed a flurry of bills – 40 in fact – before going on vacation. They included: HR 2453 The Mark Twain Commemorative Coin Act. It also passed Senate Resolution 558 congratulating athletes from Nevada and across the US who participated in the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games. The Senate also determined that astronauts should be able to keep some of their souvenirs from space. Bravo Congress! See you in seven weeks!