A chart showing the results of the Gallup/USA Today poll. (Photo: USAToday.com)

After a new poll out today from Gallup and USA Today showed Mitt Romney pulling ahead of President Barack Obama by strengthening his standing with likely female voters in key swing states, the Obama campaign fired back by releasing a memo written by Josh Benenson of the Benenson Strategy Group consulting firm criticizing "deep flaws in Gallup’s likely voter screen." Tim Miller, deputy communications director at the Republican National Committee, told Politicker the Obama campaign's memo shows they are "panicked" with battleground state polls tightening in the wake of President Obama's widely panned performance in the first presidential debate.

"Since the president’s disastrous debate performance, the panicked Obama campaign’s message has vacillated from Big Bird to false character attacks on Mitt Romney to now nitpicking the crosstabs of bad polls," Mr. Miller said. "Litigating polls won’t help the president fix his two central problems: he can’t defend his economic record and he has offered no plan for getting people back to work in a 2nd term."

Mr. Benenson's memo described the poll showing President Obama and Mr. Romney tied among likely women voters in swing states at 48 percent as an "extreme outlier." Mr. Benenson pointed to other recent polls of the battleground states that have shown President Obama with an average 10.3 percent lead over Mr. Romney and Gallup's data on registered female voters in the battleground states, which shows him leading Mr. Romney 52 percent to 44 percent.

"We believe the problem with Gallup’s outlying data is rooted in their 7 question likely voter screen, which distorts the composition of likely voters, leading to erratic and inaccurate results," Mr. Benenson wrote. "In Gallup’s current survey, Obama leads women by 53-44 among registered voters in the Battleground States, which is closely aligned with results from other pollsters. It is only when the likely voter screen is applied that their results become so out of step."

Mr. Benenson attributed the differences between Gallup's numbers among likely voters and registered voters a bias in the questions asked by the pollsters.

"Several of the likely voter questions create a bias against groups inclined to support Obama," wrote Mr. Benenson. "For example, Gallup asks voters both whether they have voted in their precinct before and where people in their neighborhood go to vote. This creates a bias against registered voters who more likely to move from time to time, such as young voters, renters, minorities and urban dwellers, all of whom tend to lean toward the President."

Mr. Benenson concluded his memo by claiming the tie among likely female voters in the battleground states shows the Gallup poll is "questionable."

"In the past, Gallup’s justification for such outlying numbers is that they are providing a snapshot of voter attitudes during a particular time period, not predicting the outcome of the election. But this implausible result among women appears to not even provide an accurate reflection on the electorate today, making its value questionable," Mr. Benenson wrote.

Prior to the October 3 debate, President Obama was enjoying a wide lead in many swing state polls. The next presidential debate will take place tomorrow at Hofstra University in Hempstead.

Lis Smith and Tim Miller in Tampa. (Photo: Twitter.com/SeanSpicer)

TAMPA, FL -- Along with all the red staters at the Republican National Convention in Tampa, there are several Obama For America staffers who are monitoring the events from an office they're calling the "Romney Economics: Wrong for the Middle Class War Room" and one Republican National Committee staffer has repeatedly attempted to get behind enemy lines and into the Obama campaign's convention outpost. This morning, Obama For America Director of Rapid Response Lis Smith tweeted that Tim Miller, the digitally savvy deputy communications director of the Republican National Committee had tried and failed to infiltrate the Democrats' convention war room.

"@Timodc's attempts to crash our office have been even less successful than @MittRomney's reinvention convention. Not an easy feat," Ms. Smith wrote, referring to Mr. Miller by his Twitter handle. 

Politicker reached out to Ms. Smith for more details of the Romney-Economics-Wrong-for-the-Middle-Class-War-Room-Gate and she said Mr. Miller made multiple attempts to disrupt press conferences at the Obama campaign's Tampa headquarters.

"He's tried to get into our morning presser two days in a row to disrupt it. Both times he was unsuccessful," she said.

Mr. Miller responded to Ms. Smith by claiming the Obama campaign showed they are afraid of the GOP by having him removed from the war room by security, and also by having an RNC war room in the first place.

"@Lis_Smith like a sitting prez campaigning during our convention, using security to eject me only exposes the fear," he wrote.

Mr. Miller told us he was merely standing on the sidewalk outside the office "discussing with reporters the misinformation they were sharing at their press conferences and offering proposed questions for the speakers."

"Given that [Obama For America National Press Secretary Ben] LaBolt, [Obama campaign advisor Robert] Gibbs and others came into our convention space and were treated graciously I find it odd that they won't return the favor," he added.

Mr. Miller also told us he had a "hilarious time" at the Obama campaign war room.

(This post was updated at 9:57 p.m. to include a comment Mr. Miller provided earlier today that we missed due to the tsunami of campaign press releases flooding our inbox.)

Matt Ortega (Photo: Facebook)

Matt Ortega, a former Democratic National Committee employee and the deputy director for digital at the D.C. Democratic consulting firm "{new} partners," is accusing the Republican National Committee of stealing his CSS code for a website attacking President Barack Obama. The RNC's website, "Obama's New Idea's To Fix The Economy," was launched yesterday following the president's campaign framing speech. It features a blank page with a blinking cursor to imply the president has no ideas to improve the country's economic situation. Mr. Ortega claims the code used to make "Obama's New Idea's To Fix The Economy" was stolen from a site he made last September called "Exciting Things About Tim Pawlenty" that also featured a blank slate with a blinking cursor that Mr. Ortega says was an effort to lampoon the erstwhile presidential candidate "for being boring."

"When the RNC launched this website today, a friend of mine IM'ed it to me and it was very clear the idea was the same idea I had done," Mr. Ortega told The Politicker yesterday evening. I started examining their code just to look at it, because digital nerds like me, we tend to do that sort of thing. And I was like, wait a minute, this is my code. I did this from scratch by hand."

Mr. Ortega responded by blasting the RNC on Twitter and by launching a site of his own, RNCStoleMyWebsite.com, this morning. His "RNC Stole My Website" page features side by side comparisons of the code from "Exciting Things About Tim Pawlenty" and "Obama's New Idea's To Fix The Economy."

"I was like, this is basically my handiwork and they're attacking the president, who I personally support, so in the day and age of Twitter, I figure I might as well call them out on it and publicly shame them," said Mr. Ortega.

According to Mr. Ortega, the similarities between the sites include the dimensions of the blinking cursors, the order of meta tags for Facebook, the size of the margin spacing and the name of the div classes.

"It wasn't like one or two things, it was like everything is the exact same," Mr. Ortega said. "The biggest irony for me was that their site attacks the president for having 'no new ideas' and they're literally using someone else's idea. I mean, to me, that was just like the cherry on top."

Mr. Ortega is taking the RNC to task for the alleged code theft with his "RNC Stole My Website" page and a continuing barrage of Tweets, but he said he doesn't plan on pursuing legal action.

"A friend of mine who's a lawyer had a suggestion I should do a C&D and even offered to do it and I was like, if you want to, go for it. But, I mean, I'm not expecting to get actual financial restitution or anything like that," said Mr. Ortega. "Really, at this point all I want is them to give me an attribution on the site itself, which I doubt they would ever do, or admit that they actually stole it...And then, C, just shame them."

We reached out to RNC Deputy Communications Director Tim Miller via email to ask about Mr. Ortega's allegations. He didn't answer our question about whether the code was taken from Mr. Ortega, but he provided a statement saying the spat shows Democrats have no way of defending the president's economic policies.

"The only defense any Democrats have mustered to the fact that the President did not offer a single new idea to fix the economy has been a complaint about 'CSS code,'" Mr. Miller wrote. "That shows you how far afield they are of the concerns facing real Americans who are struggling in the Obama economy."

Andrew Stiles of the Washington Free Beacon enjoyed the vocal stylings of MSNBC's Chris Matthews.

Newark Mayor Cory Booker discussed his (lack of a) drug habit and support for medical marijuana.

Matt Drudge debuted a new cowboy hat avatar and speculated about a coming invasion of government drone planes.

Deputy RNC Communications Director Tim Miller had fun watching Democratic operatives dispute a poll that showed Mitt Romney pulling ahead of President Barack Obama with female voters.

Apparently, 1990's sitcom star Joey Lawrence means a great deal to CNBC contributor James Pethokoukis.