Obama and Romney Race to the Finish

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  After nearly $2 billion in spending, scores of attacks and counter-attacks  hundreds of campaign stops and more ads than most anyone could count, the 2012 presidential race is finally - and many would say mercifully - coming to an end.

But it's not quite there yet: The two major party candidates, exhausted though they may be, will spend all day Monday making last-minute appeals in battleground states. And where they've chosen to go during the home stretch highlights what polls show to be a very tight race. 

Both candidates made it to four states on Sunday to rally supporters: President Obama was in New Hampshire, Florida, Ohio and Colorado, while Mitt Romney travelled to Iowa, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Virginia.

It's no surprise that both men stopped in Ohio, the most fiercely-contested battleground state in the nation. Both candidates have visited the Buckeye State more than any other: Mr. Obama has campaigned there 22 times, including Monday's planned stop, and Mr. Romney has campaigned or will campaign there 25 times

"The people of America understand we're taking back the White House because we're going to win Pennsylvania," Romney said at a rally in Morrisville Sunday evening. The Obama campaign has portrayed Romney's Pennsylvania play as a "Hail Mary" tied to his inability to lock down the more contested battlegrounds. 

Romney continued to push his message Sunday that Mr. Obama deserves to be voted out because he had failed to sufficiently bring the economy back from the 2008 financial crisis; in a new ad, he suggested the president is "offering excuses," while he has a plan that will allow America to come "roaring back." He also said Mr. Obama has been a divisive figure more interested in pushing "a liberal agenda" than fixing the economy.

"We're Americans. We can do anything," Romney said in Iowa Sunday. "The only thing that stands between us and some of the best years we can imagine is a lack of leadership , and that's why we have elections."

In Florida - a state whose 29 electoral votes are nearly essential for Romney - the Miami-Dade elections department temporarily shut down operations Sunday after a crush of voters showed up to request and cast absentee ballots. The move came after Miami-Dade and other counties agreed to allow additional voting opportunities following a Democratic Party lawsuit, which came after Republicans shortened the early voting period. Both campaigns are girded for the possibility of battling over every last vote if a decisive state is too close to call on election night; in Ohio, where Republican Secretary of State Jon Husted will be in court Monday defending a directive that could invalidate thousands of provisional ballots, an Election Day outcome that finds the candidates within 50,000 votes of each other could extend the campaign for weeks or more.   

Mr. Obama will campaign in Wisconsin, Ohio and Iowa on Monday; Romney will be in Virginia, Ohio and New Hampshire. Both candidates are expected to watch the election night returns from their home bases on Tuesday night: Mr. Obama at his campaign headquarters in Chicago and Romney at the Boston Convention and Exhibition Center in Boston.

If Mr. Obama triumphs on Tuesday, some Republicans will place the blame on a factor outside their control: Superstorm Sandy, which effectively deprived Romney of three days of media exposure at a crucial point -- while allowing the president to project leadership in a time of crisis. Former Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, a Republican, said Sunday that the "blackout" in Romney coverage broke Romney's momentum and suggested it may have cost the Republican nominee the election. And the Romney campaign has acknowledged that the storm stalled whatever momentum they may have had entering the home stretch. 

A Pew Research Center poll out Sunday found Mr. Obama with a three point lead among likely voters in a race that Pew found was deadlocked a week ago; 69 percent of them said they approved of the president's handling of the storm. But three other survey out Sunday found the two candidates tied or within one point of each other nationally. The tight race has both sides pushing one simple message to supporters with renewed urgency: If you care about this election at all and have yet to vote, it's absolutely essential that you cast a ballot on Tuesday.