This being the Jewish New Year, a time for reflection, I’m going to heed the calls of some of our more conservative readers and refrain from passing another negative judgment on my old pal Mitt Romney. Instead, I’ll merely pass along ten headlines from the weekend, and one—the Mittster, caught on tape—from Monday afternoon. Once you’ve read and digested them, there’s a little multiple-choice test.

“POLL FINDS OBAMA IS ERASING ROMNEY’S EDGE ON ECONOMY” (New York Times, 9/14). From the beginning, the best thing Romney has had going for him is a widespread perception that he would do a better job than President Obama in handling the economy and creating jobs. As recently as July, a CBS News/New York Times poll showed him with an eight-percentage-point lead on this key issue, which has now been erased. According to the latest CBS/Times survey, fifty per cent of respondents said that Obama would do a better job handling the economy, and just forty-four per cent said Romney. Among “likely voters,” Obama’s lead was smaller—one point rather than six—but still.

“ROMNEY AT RISK OF LOSING EDGE ON DEFICIT” (Washington Post, 9/16). In most polls, the budget is just about the only other issue where Romney has held an advantage. In an April ABC News/Washington Post poll, for example, he held a whopping lead of seventeen percentage points—fifty-four to thirty-seven—on the question of who would handle the deficit better. But in the most recent ABC/Post poll, that lead has narrowed to just three points. Other polls show a similar trend.

“ROMNEY’S TAX PLAN FAILS TO GAIN A FOOTHOLD” (_Wall Street Journal, 9/16). The subhead on this story, which cited a number of recent polls showing Obama leading Romney on the question of who has the best tax policy, was “Conservatives Worry GOP Nominee is Losing Messaging Battle to Obama on an Issue They Say Should Favor Republicans.” Several prominent Republicans said that Romney had failed to explain how his policy of cutting income-tax rates across the board and eliminating some tax shelters would benefit ordinary Americans and help stimulate economic growth. “I think there’s an educational effort that needs to be made with the public,” Douglas Holtz-Eakin, who advised John McCain in 2008, said. “I don’t think sufficient effort has been made on that front.”

“POLL: OBAMA LENGTHENS LEAD IN PA” (Philadelphia Inquirer, 9/15). A few months ago, Republican strategists were saying that Pennsylvania would be a competitive state. In May, Karl Rove said that it was “in play.” Now, according to a new poll from the Inquirer, Obama is leading Romney in Pennsylvania by eleven points, which is the same margin by which he won the state in 2008. Romney’s unfavorability rating in the latest poll is forty-nine per cent, and his favorability rating is forty-four per cent. The new survey comes a few days after reports that the Romney campaign was scaling back its activities in Pennsylvania and Michigan, another swing state where Obama has a consistent lead in the polls.

“POLL: OBAMA KEEPS 5-POINT LEAD IN VA. AFTER CONVENTION” (Washington Times, 9/17). Even as Romney’s hopes of victory in states like Michigan and Pennsylvania have receded, G.O.P. strategists have focussed on Virginia as an Obama-leaning state where the Republican candidate could score a surprise win. The latest poll, which was carried out by Public Policy Polling, shows little evidence of a Romney surge in the Old Dominion. “Barack Obama continues to look like the definite favorite in Virginia,” Dean Debnam, president of P.P.P., said in a news release. “And it’s hard to imagine a scenario where Obama would win Virginia but lose the election.” P.P.P.’s surveys are sometimes criticized for leaning Democrat. But two other polls last week—from NBC News/Wall Street Journal/Marist College and from Rasmussen—also showed Obama ahead in Virginia.

“ELIZABETH WARREN LEADS SEN. SCOTT BROWN IN TWO NEW POLLS IN U.S. SENATE RACE” (Boston Globe, 9/16). Having consistently trailed Brown, who came to office in a special 2010 election to replace Ted Kennedy, Warren, the liberal Harvard professor and scourge of Wall Street, appears to have taken the lead following her tub-thumping speech at the Democratic National Convention. One poll, from the Western New England University polling center, shows Brown trailing by six points. The other survey, from P.P.P., shows Warren having gained seven points in a month, and now leading by two.