WASHINGTON — Campaign finance reports filed Saturday highlight a mystery that has been puzzling Mitt Romney’s allies: Why didn’t the Republican presidential challenger spend more money in September?

Top GOP strategists working for outside groups had expected Romney’s campaign to dramatically ramp up its presence on the airwaves after the Republican National Convention at the end of August, when he could finally get access to money raised for the general election.

GRAPHIC: Presidential campaign contributions, by state

But Romney’s campaign spent just $37 million on ads in September, according to its report filed Saturday with the Federal Election Commission. Overall, the campaign had just under $55 million in operating expenses that month.

That meant the GOP candidate was greatly outgunned on the airwaves by President Obama’s campaign, which poured $88 million into media buys in September, driving the campaign’s operating expenses up to $111 million...

WASHINGTON — More than 120 new fundraisers who bundle large checks joined President Obama’s reelection effort in the third quarter of the year, including former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, former Republican Gov. Charlie Crist of Florida and singer Gwen Stefani.

The new fundraisers bring the number of bundlers working on Obama’s behalf to 758, according to a list released Friday evening by the campaign.

Together, they raised at least $180 million through the end of September, at least one-fifth of the $947 million Obama and his fundraising committees have brought in so far, according to a Los Angeles Times analysis. The campaign reports broad fundraising ranges for the bundlers, not exact totals, so the actual amount could be far higher.

Mitt Romney has declined to release the names of fundraisers bundling money for his campaign, other than those who are lobbyists, which he is required to disclose.

Albright...

With only a couple of weeks to go until election day, the fusillade of nasty political flak fills the sky. Citizens straining to find a little blue need to take a long trip. Or look for antidotes.

Andy Mayer, 11, provides a bit of the latter.

Andy is a 5^th grader who lives in “a beige house with green shutters” in Edison Park, in northwest Chicago, along with his mom, dad and 14-year-old brother. (That’s the way he described it.)

He also writes for his own little website, “The Normal Kids Nest,” and when he blogs on the presidential debates it’s a scream. He doesn’t have a big following (other than some people at his public school) or particular fame (until now.) But he’s got loads of flair, wit and originality.

And he’ll be back at it Monday night, when he will again plop on a couch in the family room, while brother Jack sits in dad’s brown chair, and begin banging out one liners about the president, the challenger and anything...

Alluding to Obama’s new effort to cast Romney's shifting positions as “Romnesia,” the Republican said the Obama campaign had been “reduced to petty attacks and silly word games.” 

“It’s absolutely remarkable,” Romney said after taking the stage with his running mate, Rep. Paul D. Ryan, in front of an enormous illuminated castle draped with campaign banners. “They have no agenda for the future, no agenda for America, no agenda for a second term.”

Romney called Obama’s effort the “incredible shrinking campaign.”

“This is a big country with big opportunities and great challenges, and they keep talking about...

WASHINGTON – A strong fundraising push and a light presence on the airwaves enabled Restore Our Future, the “super PAC” backing Mitt Romney, to end September with replenished coffers, setting the stage for its October spending blitz.

The group pulled in $14.8 million and spent just $4.1 million on ads, ending the month with $16.6 million in the bank, according to filings submitted Friday to the Federal Election Committee.

That’s a much healthier cash outlook than Restore Our Future’s previous month; in August, the group spent three times as much as it took in and ended the month with just $6.3 million on hand.

Charlie Spies, the group’s treasurer, told the Los Angeles Times/Washington Bureau the group spent heavily in August to provide Romney air cover, while the GOP presidential hopeful was still limited to using money raised for the primaries.

“We knew in September the Romney campaign would have their general election funds available,”...

Obama cut off Romney in mid-sentence 36 times, while Romney cut off Obama 28 times, according to the Center for Media and Public Affairs at George Mason University in Virginia. Moderator Candy Crowley cut off Romney 23 times, compared with the 15 times she cut off Obama.

The organization combined all forms of interruption and found that Romney was interrupted 59 times, compared with 43 times for Obama.

The figures are more reliable than others compiled by partisan outfits that style themselves as media watchdogs.

Other findings released Friday by the George Mason media center:

—Crowley interrupted the two candidates a total of 38 times, nearly twice as often as the 20 times they interrupted her — 11 times by Romney and nine times by Obama.

—The two candidates interrupted debate No. 1 moderator...

Case study: The histrionics by a couple of MSNBC hosts and their guests over a rash comment by one of Mitt Romney’s sons. Tagg Romney, 42, told a talk-radio host this week that hearing his father described as a liar at the latest debate (though that never happened) made him want to "take a swing at" President Obama.

Romney’s oldest son made the comment to a conservative host in North Carolina. What might have seemed to most people like a loyal son blowing off a little steam was constructed into something more, much more, by MSNBC hosts Ed Schultz and Al Sharpton.

Before they got through their Wednesday night commentaries, with a little assistance from their guests, what seemed like another in a series of campaign piffles had become evidence of, well, let’s see ... Romney campaign bullying. And...

FAIRFAX, Va. -- President Obama diagnosed his opponent with a case of “Romnesia” Friday morning but pledged to help solve the problem by reminding voters of Mitt Romney’s “severely conservative” positions.

Speaking to a crowd here, Obama accused Romney of “backtracking and sidestepping” in transitioning from the conservative GOP primary to the general election campaign.

“If you come down with a case of ‘Romnesia’ and you can’t seem to remember the policies that are still on your website,” Obama said, “here’s the good news: We can fix you up! We’ve got a cure!”

The remarks are Obama’s parting shot before he leaves the campaign trail to prepare for his final debate with Romney in Florida on Monday, providing a glimpse into what advisors have been saying is his frame of mind these days.

Obama is now focused more vigorously on drawing the contrast between himself and Romney, aides say,...

Ubiquitous and almost uniformly dull, the year of dispiriting political advertising seems like it just won’t end. It’s not just voters who get tired of what’s turning up on TV.

A firm that tracks campaign ads finds “a painful proportion of them are all the same” — but plucks out five ads that is says are exceptions to the dull norm. That’s five offbeat, attention-grabbing ads that Kantar Media CMAG selected out of more than 6,000 that have aired this year — from local races all the way up to the scrum for the White House.

“These ads stand out because they're unusually creative, personal or authentic,” said an article by Kantar Vice President Elizabeth Wilner for Ad Age.

That doesn’t mean they are particularly uplifting or nice. Just memorable. Among the ads singled out by Wilner:

--Rep. Allen West’s spot, comparinghis preparations to deploy to Iraq in 2003 to the activities about that time of his Democratic opponent,...

A man who was being paid to register voters by the Republican Party of Virginia was arrested Thursday after he was seen dumping eight registration forms into a dumpster.

Colin Small, 31, was working as a supervisor as part of a registration operation in eight swing states financed by the Republican National Committee. Small, of Phoenixville, Pa., was first hired by Strategic Allied Consulting, a firm that was fired by the party after suspect voter forms surfaced in Florida and other states.

The owner of a store in Harrisonburg, Va., told a local television station that he became suspicious when he saw a car with Pennsylvania plates dump an envelope in back of his store. He recovered the envelope and alerted authorities.

“He made a mistake and he’s being charged with it, which we fully support,” said Sean Spicer, a spokesman for the Republican National Committee. The committee paid more than $3 million to state committees to finance the get-out-the-vote operation.

Strategi...