FAIRFAX, VA -- Mitt Romney barnstormed the Old Dominion on this final full day of campaigning, cramming two stops, separated by hundreds of miles, in this hotly-contested swing state over the course of just a few hours.

Here on the campus of George Mason University, Romney was greeted by his best crowd of the day for a boisterous rally that seemed to overwhelm the GOP nominee, prompting him to joke that the attendees must have been expecting someone else to take the stage.

"That is really something special. I am looking around to see if we have the Beatles here or something to have brought you but it looks like you came just for the campaign and I appreciate it," Romney said to 8,000 supporters here. "Your voices and your energy and your passion are being heard all over the nation."

Romney's rally here was a rare foray into Fairfax County, which broke heavily Democratic in 2008 and where he must cut into President Barack Obama's margins to carry the state.

Charles Dharapak / AP

Republican presidential candidate and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and his wife Ann Romney wave to the crowd at a Virginia campaign rally at The Patriot Center at George Mason University, in Fairfax, Va., Monday, Nov. 5, 2012.

Romney touched down in Lynchburg, Virginia earlier in the afternoon for a lunchtime rally on the tarmac before a smaller crowd of a few thousand supporters. This was safer territory for the Republican nominee, since Arizona Sen. John McCain carried all of the surrounding counties in 2008 and are expected to remain in the GOP column this fall.

To carry Virginia on Tuesday, Republicans will likely need to run up wide margins in these central and western counties, and Romney opened his remarks in Lynchburg by thanking the volunteers in crowd, and urging them to do yet more in the race's final hours.

"Your voices are being heard all over the nation loud and clear, thank you. I also want to thank many of you in this crowd that have been out there working on the campaign. Making calls from the victory centers, and by putting up a yard sign, in your neighbor's yard," Romney joked.

"This is a campaign about America and about the future we’re going to leave to our children. And we ask that you stay at this all the way until victory on Tuesday night," he continued.

Romney did add a tinge of conservatism to his usual "closing argument" speech, blaming Obama for being overattentive to a "liberal agenda" at the expense of minding the economy. Romney also warned of the specter of "card check," a union organizing reform law detested by conservatives.

MORRISVILLE, PA -- Republican presidential hopeful Mitt Romney traveled here to Pennsylvania on Sunday for a trip that, in two days or so, would seem either prescient or desperate.

The GOP nominee made a late personal appeal for Pennsylvania's 20 electoral votes before a crowd of over 25,000. Romney's stop here in suburban Philadelphia marked his first stop in Pennsylvania since late September, and coincided with a last-minute advertising blitz from his campaign, the Republican National Committee and a supportive super PAC.

"This audience and your voices are being heard all over the nation. They’re being heard in my heart," Romney said, taking the stage on this frosty night. "The people of America understand we’re taking back the White House because we’re going to win Pennsylvania.”

The Romney campaign contended the trip was indicative of surging momentum for the Republican nominee, who could expand his pathway to the 270 electoral votes needed to secure the presidency by winning the Keystone State.

"This is one of those states that came into view right after the first debate," Romney adviser Kevin Madden told reporters traveling with the candidate on Sunday. "And as a result it just presented a great opportunity. So we've seen that state just get closer and closer and closer."

Democrats contend Romney's move is a bluff -- a signal that pathways through other battleground states have been foreclosed. Nonetheless, the Obama campaign did spend money on television ads in the state, and are sending high-profile surrogates to the state to campaign on Obama's behalf.

History nonetheless suggests Pennsylvania will be an uphill climb for Romney. The state has reliably supported the Democratic nominee for president in every election since 1988, and in 2008 Sen. John McCain, too, made a late effort in the state, only to lose it by 10 points on Election Day.

But Romney has some advantages here that make the state a tempting target so late in the game. In addition to GOP ad spending in the state, Republicans won two major statewide races here in 2010, electing Sen. Pat Toomey and Gov. Tom Corbett. The Romney campaign also boasts of a robust ground-game here, in part as a holdover of those successes.

Romney delivered his closing argument speech here with a few Pennsylvania flourishes, hitting President Obama for what he called his "war on coal," and name dropping Chris Christie, the popular governor-next-door to this Philadelphia suburb.

The event's one spoiler: the weather. With Romney more than an hour late thanks to a ground stop at the Philadelphia airport, some frustrated and frozen supporters streamed out of the event while Romney spoke, many having arrived as early as two o'clock in the afternoon to secure seats on the bleachers and beat the crowds who ultimately packed the venue.

WEST ALLIS, WI-- Mitt Romney returned to Wisconsin today for the first time since August, delivering his closing argument speech in a state where Republicans hope they can manage a chink in the President Barack Obama's Midwestern armor.

Romney received a raucous welcome from an overflow crowd of 4,000 Wisconsinites chanting "four more days" this morning, welcoming the Republican presidential nominee with some of the loudest support Romney has won since returning to a full campaign schedule in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy.

"What a great state. What a great welcome, and by the way this state is going to help me become the next president of the United States," Romney said, taking the stage following an introduction from the state's once-embattled Republican Gov. Scott Walker.

"I want to thank you for all that you've done and all you're going to do in the next four days and I want to tell you how much I appreciate being in the home of the next vice president of the United States," Romney said moments later, referring to his running mate Paul Ryan, who was born and raised in nearby Janesville, Wisc.

Recommended: Democrats face very steep climb to 25 House seats they need

For the Romney campaign, the presence of a native son of the Badger state on the ticket, along with Walker's strong performance in this summer's failed recall effort, highlight an opportunity to solve a vexing problem -- how to break through Obama's Midwestern firewall.

"They woke a sleeping giant here I would say during the recall," Milwaukee business owner Frank Orlando told NBC News, adding that he was volunteering for a political campaign -- Romney's -- for the first time in his life. He added that half the volunteers he works with are also engaging in politics directly for the first time that cycle.

"We love Paul Ryan," said Grace Lococo, another event attendee from Milwaukee. "We grew up following him."

Romney aides say they see that type of familiarity and enthusiasm as emblematic of a blue state ripe for flipping.

"We see Republican gains in Wisconsin for the past few cycles and we believe its an excellent opportunity for a Romney pickup," Romney spokesperson Rick Gorka said.

Related: Obama slams Romney for Jeep ad in Ohio

Recent polling lends some credence to that theory. An NBC News/Wall Street Journal/Marist poll released earlier this week showed Romney cutting Obama's lead in Wisconsin down to three points -- 49 to 46 percent -- half of what it had been a month prior and within the poll's margin of error.

With the president under the 50 percent threshold, Wisconsin's 10 electoral votes could help Romney succeed on Tuesday should he fail to break through in the race's most critical battlefield of Ohio, where he'll campaign the rest of the day Friday, and return later in the weekend.

For the Romney campaign, Wisconsin has already proven decisive once. The state's primary in April, which Romney won handily, was the last truly competitive contest between Romney and Rick Santorum, and helped wrap up the contentious GOP primary race later that month.

Emmanuel Dunand / AFP - Getty Images

Republican Presidential candidate Mitt Romney talks to supporters calling for donations during a storm relief campaign event to help people who suffered from hurricane Sandy, in Kettering, Ohio, on Oct. 30, 2012.

KETTERING, OH — Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney collected donated supplies for hurricane victims on the East Coast on Tuesday, while urging supporters to give money to the Red Cross at a hastily arranged "relief event" in Ohio.

"Thank you for your help and your generosity," Romney told supporters, as he stood on a table surrounded by donated goods, at the location of a planned campaign rally this morning. "If you have a little extra, if you have more canned goods, bring them along to our victory centers that are open.  But also if you can write a check to American Red Cross that's welcome as well.  We're looking for all the help we can get for all the families in need."

Romney had been scheduled to hold a full-fledged campaign rally in this same building until late yesterday, when the campaign said it was scrapping Romney's political calendar as Hurricane Sandy approached the East Coast. Monday night, the campaign announced this morning's event was back on, but the focus would be storm relief — with Romney making no formal remarks, and no political agenda attached.

Attendees were asked by the campaign to bring donations of non-perishable goods, which are to be trucked to a Red Cross office in Sewell, NJ — or to give to the red cross directly.

Romney's remarks were indeed without a political focus, with no direct mention of the election now just one week away, or of President Barack Obama or any specific campaign issue. After speaking and packing boxes, Romney and Ohio Sen. Rob Portman helped load the donated supplies into a truck for shipment, ignoring questions about whether he planned to tour storm damaged areas, and on his views of the future of FEMA.

Despite effort to the contrary, no political event can be entirely apolitical in late October of an election year, and some trappings of a rally remained here. Romney's long biographical video played once, well before Romney arrived at the venue, and outside the arena vendors sold buttons and hats to attendees as they left. 

Mandy Hess, an administrative assistant at a medical office in Kettering who attended the event with her teenage son, said she wasn't bothered by the hint of politics mixed in with the relief effort.

"It's letting you know who he is as a person and what his roots are, and that people and family are what's important to him so I think that ties into the relief effort," Hess said. 

The GOP nominee himself kept his focus on the storm victims, and tried to strike an uplifting tone, telling supporters that their effort, however small in the grand scheme of things, would matter.

"I know that one of the things I've learned in life is you make the difference you can," Romney said.  "And you can't always solve all the problems yourself, but you can make the difference in the life of one or two people as a result of one or two people making an effort." 

The campaign resumes in full force Wednesday, with Romney planning three rallies in Florida, while his vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan hits the trail in Wisconsin. 

PENSACOLA, FL -- Campaigning in this famous Navy town on Florida's panhandle, Mitt Romney returned to a topic from last week's final presidential debate, slamming the president for proposed defense cuts and pushing his plan to expand the US naval fleet.

“In 2010, then-President Obama came to Pensacola. You probably weren’t there, but some folks were. And he took pride in saying, and I quote, that he had halted reductions in the Navy. That’s what he said. But today, he again has shrunk to a smaller version of the Navy and his view of the Navy’s role," Romney told a crowd of 10,000 supporters here Saturday, setting the scene.

Related: Romney turns Obama's attacks back against the president

"You may recall in our most recent debate I made the point that our Navy is now smaller than any time well, in almost a hundred years, and the president’s response was, well, you know, we don’t use bayonets and horses anymore. And, uh, in fact we do use bayonets, and a modern Navy is one of the critical elements that allows us to protect sea lanes and to keep the world more free and prosperous," Romney said.

Slideshow: On the campaign trail

Reuters, Getty Images

In the final push in the 2012 presidential election, candidates Mitt Romney and Barack Obama make their last appeals to voters.

Launch slideshow

The former Massachusetts governor has made increasing the size and role of the Navy a cornerstone of his military policy. Here in Pensacola, home to a major Naval installation where former GOP presidential candidate John McCain went to flight school, his plan for the Navy took on an outsize role in what was otherwise a largely boilerplate stump speech.

"I believe in a modern Navy. That’s why my plan is to increase the number of ships we’re building to maintain our strong commitment to our military," Romney said. "His vision is not greatness in America’s Navy or America’s military. His vision is to cut our military spending by a trillion dollars. And by the way, a trillion dollars in cuts would cost about 41,000 jobs here in Florida, and think of all the businesses that depend on all those jobs. It’s extraordinary, but the president’s agenda keeps getting smaller and smaller and smaller.”

Saturday is the first day for early voting in Florida, a key battleground state that is pivotal to Romney's chances of taking the White House in 10 days. While Romney himself did not mention early voting in his remarks, both Sen. Marco Rubio and Senate hopeful Rep. Connie Mack urged supporters to cast their ballots right away.

"You know today is the first day of early voting, so when you're done here today, what are you going to do?" Mack asked, as the crowd shouted back "Vote!"

"You're gonna go out and vote and then you're gonna call your friends, you're gonna call your neighbors, you're gonna call your family. No matter where they are, tell them to get out to vote." 

If Ohio has been President Barack Obama’s “firewall” – the state guarding against a disappointing Electoral College result on Nov. 6 – then the president’s re-election team might consider Obama’s well-publicized auto industry rescue as a type of firewall within a firewall.

Charles Dharapak / AP

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney stands on a table as he addresses an overflow crowd as he campaigns at PR Machine Works in Mansfield, Ohio, Monday, Sept. 10, 2012.

Obama has taken every effort to remind voters in Ohio of his authorization of a 2009 bailout of General Motors and Chrysler that is widely credited with preserving the companies as they stood on the brink of catastrophe. In the same breath, the president is sure to mention the op-ed – “Let Detroit Go Bankrupt” – penned by Romney for the New York Times, which called for a managed bankruptcy for the automakers supported partially by government guarantees.

There are real differences between how Obama sought the auto industry rescue and how Romney, judging by his own comments at the time, might have engineered support for GM and Chrysler. But if the Republican presidential nominee manages to win Midwestern states like Ohio and Wisconsin on Nov. 6, he could point to his recent messaging on the auto bailout as a reason why.

Romney has essentially tried to take credit for Obama’s actions, arguing that it was the president who ended up following Romney’s counsel all along, and lead GM and Chrysler toward a “managed bankruptcy.”

"He said that I said we should take Detroit bankrupt. And that’s right. My plan was to have the company go through bankruptcy like 7-Eleven did and Macy’s and Continental Airlines and come out stronger," Romney said at last week's second presidential debate in New York. "And I know he keeps saying, 'You want to take Detroit bankrupt.' Well, the president took Detroit bankrupt. You took General Motors bankrupt. You took Chrysler bankrupt. So when you say that I wanted to take the auto industry bankrupt, you actually did."

Romney’s semantic argument, though, obscures a gulf between him and Obama over how such a managed bankruptcy would have been managed and its implications for the industry.

First Read wrote in February – as Romney sought to win Michigan’s Republican primary – about the precise differences between Obama and Romney when it comes to the bailout.

The separation between Romney and Obama on the issue of the bailout stems from two issues. First, Romney argues that interests of the labor unions were unfairly favored over some of GM and Chrysler's private creditors. The government-supervised bankruptcy did this, he argues, by allowing the autoworkers’ retirees program an equity stake in the restructured GM in exchange for providing financial support for the bankruptcy.

Second, Romney appears to differ with the president over the extent to which government itself should have stepped forward with money to help stave off liquidation of GM and Chrysler and provide for the restructuring process. The administration's approach did this in the case of GM by essentially establishing a new, restructured company in which the government became a majority shareholder. (Romney argued Tuesday for the government to divest itself from the company.)

Romney's position in the past has been that the private sector could have stepped forward to finance and more effectively manage the bankruptcy process -- especially in a way that would have treated private stakeholders in the companies more fairly.

One of the key points, though, involves the type of support Romney would have offered to the companies. His original op-ed called for the government to back warrantees and guarantee private sector financing for the companies when they emerged from bankruptcy. But the bipartisan Congressional Oversight Panel overseeing the various bailouts questioned whether any private financing would have been available in the first place, given the credit crunch in early 2009.

“Gov. Romney, you keep on trying to, you know, airbrush history here,” Obama said on the topic of autos Monday evening at a third debate versus Romney. “You were very clear that you would not provide, government assistance to the U.S. auto companies, even if they went through bankruptcy. You said that they could get it in the private marketplace. That wasn’t true.”

Setting aside the candidates’ very different approaches, what is clear is that, for months now, Romney has tried to play offense on the issue of autos. And his success in states like Ohio – where one in eight jobs is said to have ties to the auto industry – may depend on Romney’s ability to convince Midwestern voters that GM and Chrysler would be doing just as well as they are now if he were president instead of Obama.

It appears voters are interested in learning more. As a New York Times spokesperson noted on Twitter, Romney’s original Nov. 18, 2008 op-ed, skyrocketed Tuesday to the top of the list of the most-read stories on the Times website.

Updated 4:22 p.m. - MOUNT VERNON, IA -- President Barack Obama seized on Republican nominee Mitt Romney’s rhetoric and record on Wednesday with the same aggression he displayed during his second face-to-face meeting with Romney at last night's town hall debate.

Speaking this afternoon in Iowa, the president was quick to revive Romney's response Tuesday night to a question about pay equity between the sexes, in which he touted his record of hiring women as Massachusetts governor by saying he had “binders full of women” who were qualified to be hired.

“I’ve gotta tell you, we don’t have to collect a bunch of binders to find qualified, talented, terrific young women ready to work and teach in these fields right now!” Obama exclaimed as a crowd of 2,800 at Cornell College, outside Cedar Rapids, cheered.

Related: Sharp exchanges at second debate

He also hit Romney over his sales pitch for lowering taxes, saying Romney’s plan is not to be trusted because it contains so few specifics.

“Iowa, you know, everybody here's heard of the New Deal, you've heard of the Fair Deal, you've heard of the Square Deal. Mitt Romney's trying to sell you a sketchy deal,” he said, using the same adjective – “sketchy” – that he premiered last night at Hofstra.

Many of Obama's attacks were similar to those he voiced during last night's debate. That differed from Obama's post-debate appearance after his first debate versus Romney, where the president's attacks seemed as thought they came a day late.

One such attack was ridiculing Romney’s “five-point plan” as a “one-point plan” given its lack of specifics and goal of, as Obama says, raising taxes on the middle class to pay for a tax cut for the wealthy. 

Despite deploying lines Wednesday that he seemed to believe succeeded the night before, Obama still played down his own performance, telling the crowd that he’s “still trying to figure out how to get the hang of this thing, debating it.”

“But we’re working on it. We’ll keep on improving as time goes on. I’ve got one left,” he told the crowd.

And he has one campaign event left Wednesday, in the thick of the swing state of Ohio.

The Romney campaign responded to Obama's event with a response that noted Obama said at the debate, that "there are some jobs that are not going to come back" because of the uneven economic recovery.

"President Obama has no new ideas, no vision for the future, and is simply giving up. The choice in this election couldn’t be clearer. Mitt Romney has bold new ideas that will cut taxes for middle-class families, create 12 million new jobs with higher take-home pay, and cut spending to put our nation on a course toward a balanced budget,” spokesman Ryan Williams said in a statement.

CLINTON, Iowa -- Republican vice presidential hopeful Paul Ryan sought to add some specifics to Mitt Romney's proposals on Tuesday amid criticism that the GOP ticket hadn't fully detailed its plans.

Responding to a woman's question about why Ryan wouldn't answer a question this past Sunday on Fox News about the Romney-Ryan tax plan's math, Ryan argued the television format didn't give him enough time.

Kevin Schmidt / AP

Republican vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan speaks to a crowd in Clinton, Iowa Tuesday, Oct. 2, 2012.

“When you get into math conversation, it can take a little while. Let me give you some specific answers right now,” the Wisconsin congressman said early Tuesday morning standing outside the Clinton County Courthouse. He continued to tick through their 5-point plan for a strong middle class including about energy, education, trade.

“The problem is, it just took me about 5 minutes to go into all of this with you and when you are on a 30-second TV show, you can’t do it as much. But the point is, go to our website, you can see all this,” Ryan said after a several minute riff about their policies. “Mitt Romney has put more specifics, more details about how to grow the economy, about how to save Medicare, Social Security, about how to prevent the debt crisis than the incumbent President of the United States has.”

President Obama’s re-election campaign shot back at these claims in a statement.

"Congressman Ryan can't attend his own campaign rallies without being called out for failing to provide specifics about what Mitt Romney would do if elected. That's because just one day before the first debate, Mitt Romney has refused to say which deductions he'd cut for the middle class in order to pay for his $250,000 tax cuts for multi-millionaires,” spokesman Danny Kanner wrote. “And he's refused to say how he'd replace Obamacare or Wall Street reform to protect middle class families or prevent the big banks from writing their own rules again. They won't share those details with the country because they know that the details are bad for middle class Americans.”

Ryan’s stop here along the Mississippi River was a homecoming for his wife, Janna, and her two sisters and father, who joined at the event in Eastern Iowa. Prudence Petersen Little, Janna’s mother, moved to a house in Clinton when she was very young and Janna’s grandmother remained in the home until 2004.

The Ryans stopped by the red-painted home following the town hall here to meet with the new owners and the three Little girls reminisced on memories of visiting when they were growing up.

The congressman finishes off Tuesday in the Hawkeye State with two more events in Muscatine and Burlington.

CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- Mitt Romney’s getting back in the game.

His campaign went dark on television 11 days ago, but today it booked $4.5 million (so far) in TV ads in eight battleground states today, according to NBC News and ad-tracker SMG Delta.

There was a lot of free media out of the convention for Romney, but it was striking that the only advertising run was from the Obama campaign and pro-Romney outside groups.

Recommended: Dems twist jobs numbers and GOP Medicare ideas 

Romney is also able now to tap into general-election funds, which he wasn’t able to prior to accepting the nomination a week ago.

The states seeing the biggest spending in this buy round are Virginia, Ohio, and Florida with about $1 million each.

Also notably, Romney is spending about $600,000 in this buy on North Carolina, a state most analysts see as beginning to trend toward Romney, but close enough that he may have to spend money here.

The other states he will be up in with this buy – Colorado, Iowa, New Hampshire, and Nevada. 

Brian Snyder / Reuters

Republican presidential candidate and former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney talks briefly with reporters after stopping to buy two pizzas at Lui-Lui restaurant in West Lebanon, New Hampshire September 5, 2012.

Ad spending has now reached $573 million for this general-election presidential race. With the help of outside groups, Romney and allies are outspending Obama and his supporters $303 million to $269 million. 

President Obama’s campaign is the biggest-single advertiser at $218 million. Romney has spent just $79 million on ads. But the Crossroads groups are making up the difference big time, spending $106 million.

Slideshow: Democratic National Convention

Another noteworthy fact, for all that Restore Our Future did for Romney in primaries and for all the talk of Priorities USA’s fundraising problems, Priorities has actually outspent Restore this election, $45 million to $41 million.

The problem for Democrats is that there are multiple outside groups supporting Romney who are spending substantial amounts of money. In addition to Crossroads and Restore, the Koch Brothers’-backed Americans for Prosperity has spent $47 million, for example.

And once again, there is no advertising for Romney in Wisconsin (despite the pick of Paul Ryan as VP), Michigan, or Pennsylvania.