With just a few days left, it seem increasingly unlikely that there's going to be an "October Surprise" -- or something that might change this election's trajectory.  In 2000, it was President Bush's DUI arrest; in 2004, it was Osama bin Laden's statement. As CNN reports:

It's Halloween on Friday, but campaign aides to Barack Obama and John McCain may be spooked for another reason: Events that dominated the news right before the previous two presidential elections may have been game-changers.

Aides to Sen. John Kerry were increasingly confident of victory four days before the 2004 election, believing the Massachusetts senator performed strongly in three debates with President Bush and was buoyed by polls showing a last-minute surge for the Democratic ticket.

But that was before Osama bin Laden weighed in...

On the Friday before the 2000 election, Americans woke up to another headline that dominated the dwindling days: The night before, Bush acknowledged he had been arrested for driving under the influence in 1976 in Maine.

So, is it too late for an October Surprise?

In the hard fought North Carolina Senate race, Democrat Kay Hagan fired back with a new ad slamming Elizabeth Dole for an ad she ran earlier in the week implying she was "godless." Here is Hagan's response:

Here is Dole's original ad:

Hagan leads Dole by just 2.0% in the RCP Average for North Carolina Senate.

From a study by the Project for Excellence in Journalism:

• MSNBC stood out for having less negative coverage of Obama than the press generally (14% of stories vs. 29% in the press overall) and for having more negative stories about McCain (73% of its coverage vs. 57% in the press overall).

• On Fox News, in contrast, coverage of Obama was more negative than the norm (40% of stories vs. 29% overall) and less positive (25% of stories vs. 36% generally). For McCain, the news channel was somewhat more positive (22% vs. 14% in the press overall) and substantially less negative (40% vs. 57% in the press overall). Yet even here, his negative stories outweighed positive ones by almost 2 to 1.

• CNN fell distinctly in the middle of the three cable channels when it came to tone. In general, the tone of its coverage was closer than any other cable news channel to the press overall, though also somewhat more negative than the media overall.

• The distinct tone of MSNBC—more positive toward Democrats and more negative toward Republicans—was not reflected in the coverage of its broadcast sibling, NBC News. Even though it has correspondents appear on their cable shows and even anchor some programs on there, the broadcast channel showed no such ideological tilt. Indeed, NBC's coverage of Palin was the most positive of any TV organization studied, including Fox News.

• At night, the newscasts of the three traditional broadcast networks stood out for being more neutral—and also less negative—than most other news outlets. The morning shows of the networks, by contrast, more closely resembled the media generally in tone. That might surprise some who imagined those morning programs were somehow easier on political figures. Overall, 44% of the morning show stories were clearly negative, compared with 34% on the nightly news and 42% in the press overall.

A new Concord Monitor poll in New Hampshire shows Obama leading by 7 points (Oct. 28-30, 600 LV), the same margin as the poll taken two weeks ago.

Obama 51 (+1 vs. last poll, Oct. 17-19)
McCain 44 (+1)

Obama leads by 12.3 points in the RCP Average for New Hampshire

On a conference call with reporters, Obama campaign manager David Plouffe estimated that with early and absentee voting at such high levels, "we're probably over 40 percent now in terms of the overall turnout we're likely to see."

"We very much like what we see from early voting," he said.

In terms of expected turnout, not registered voters, Plouffe said: "Florida's over 30%. North Carolina's at 39%. New Mexico's about 33%. Nevada's about 43%." In Florida, which has only voted for a Democrat once since 1976, Plouffe said early numbers look especially good. "In Florida, in 2004, the Republicans won the early and absentee vote numbers," Plouffe said. "In 2008, as of last night, we had just about a 200,000-vote edge over the Republicans, which is obviously a big change from 2004."

The Obama campaign is pushing newly-registered and sporadic-voting Democrats to vote early. "In Nevada, 43% of all the Democrats who have voted early are either new or sporadic-voting Democrats, which is obviously a key factor," Plouffe said. "In North Carolina, 19% of all Democrats who voted early are Democrats who never voted in a general election before."

On Obama's path to victory, Plouffe said: "We still remain confident that we're in very strong shape in all our Kerry states we're trying to defend. In the battleground states that were Bush states -- Iowa, New Mexico, Nevada, Colorado, Virginia -- we think all remain very strong for Senator Obama. Florida, Ohio, Indiana, Missouri, Montana, the three states I mentioned [North Dakota, Georgia, Arizona] -- we believe we have a credible pathway to win all of them."

Moving to the Senate campaign, the Hill reports that in two of the most hotly contested races, the candidates are going to court:

Sen. Norm Coleman (R-Minn.) has sued Democratic opponent Al Franken for defamation, claiming that Franken's television ads make false accusations about Coleman being the fourth most corrupt senator in Washington.  ...

The Coleman-Franken race is the second hotly contested Senate fight in two days to draw legal action. On Wednesday, Democrat Kay Hagan's campaign filed a cease-and-desist letter over Sen. Elizabeth Dole's (R-N.C.) ad that suggested Hagan, a former Sunday school teacher, was an atheist.

Looking at the RCP Avgs, Coleman has a 2.4-point lead over Franken, while Hagan has a 3.2-point lead over Dole.

Obama campaign manager David Plouffe announced this morning on a conference call with reporters that the campaign will start advertising in three more states beginning later today. They will go back on the air with TV ads in Georgia and North Dakota, and will begin airing a TV ad in Arizona for the first time.

"Essentially we're playing alone," Plouffe said, noting that McCain isn't on the air in the three states. "For a while we were playing alone in North Carolina, Indiana and Virginia, and I think we benefited from that."

UPDATE: Here are the ads that will air in the three states...

"Rearview Mirror," airing in Georgia and North Dakota:

"Something," airing in Arizona:

New Politico/InsiderAdvantage polls taken Oct. 29 show tight races in the swing states of Missouri and North Carolina:

Missouri (814 LV)
McCain 50
Obama 47

McCain leads by 0.4 points in the RCP Average for Missouri

North Carolina (641 LV)
Obama 48
McCain 48

Obama leads by 2.6 points in the RCP Average for North Carolina

A quick look at where the candidates and their running mates are campaigning today with links to those states' RCP Avgs:

* McCain is still in Ohio;

* Obama is in Iowa, then on to Indiana;

* Palin is in Pennsylvania;

* Biden is in Delaware , then on to Ohio.

In the Headlines

"In Ohio, McCain is Everywhere Even If Joe the Plumber Isn't" (Elisabeth Bumiller, New York Times) - In case anyone was wondering if Ohio was a combat zone for Senator John McCain's presidential campaign, consider that five days before the election the candidate took a 220-mile, six-stop, 12-hour bus tour across the northern breadth of the state. Along the way, he deployed his unofficial running mate, a disappearing and reappearing Joe the Plumber, to try to drive his points home.

"In Final Stretch, McCain to Pour Money into TV Ads" (Matthew Mosk, Washington Post) - Sen. John McCain and the Republican National Committee will unleash a barrage of spending on television advertising that will allow him to keep pace with Sen. Barack Obama's ad blitz during the campaign's final days, but the expenditures will impact McCain's get-out-the-vote efforts, according to Republican strategists.

"Poll: Dead heat in 2 key swing states" (Alexander Burns, The Politico) - Barack Obama and John McCain are evenly matched in the swing states of North Carolina and Missouri, though Obama is strongly outpacing McCain in two of those states' crucial battleground counties, according to new Politico/InsiderAdvantage polls.

"Obama approaches lawmaker about White House Post" (Mike Glover, AP) - Barack Obama's campaign has approached Illinois Rep. Rahm Emanuel about possibly serving as White House chief of staff, officials said Thursday as the marathon presidential race entered its final, frenzied stretch with a Democratic tilt.

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