Throughout the election, Romney has campaigned specifically on prioritizing oil above other forms of energy, openly consulting with oil executives and donors on his energy policy. With a team led by an oil billionaire and fossil fuel lobbyists and industry campaign donations totaling $2.2 million, it’s unsurprising Romney has been largely quiet on oil subsidies. Romney’s energy plan to open more public lands to drilling and gut safety regulations would only help oil firms.

But at the first presidential debate, Mitt Romney backed away from his oil-soaked campaign by mentioning for the first time openness to ending certain subsidies for the oil and gas industry:

ROMNEY: Now, I like green energy as well, but that’s about 50 years’ worth of what oil and gas receives. And you say Exxon and Mobil. Actually, this $2.8 billion goes largely to small companies, to drilling operators and so forth.

But, you know, if we get that tax rate from 35 percent down to 25 percent, why that $2.8 billion is on the table. Of course it’s on the table. That’s probably not going to survive you get that rate down to 25 percent.

The world’s five largest oil corporations, which include Exxon, receive $2.4 billion tax breaks annually, not the “small drillers” as Romney claims. Annual tax breaks for the entire oil and gas industry total $4 billion. The Center for American Progress details the specific deductions and tax breaks that oil companies receive at taxpayers’ cost.

The public overwhelmingly favors ending these permanent tax breaks, at the same time Republicans claim they don’t exist. While the five largest oil companies earned $137 billion profit last year, and $60 billion for the first half of 2012, they paid relatively low taxes, like ExxonMobil’s 13 percent federal effective tax rate.

If Republicans maintain the oil industry’s special tax breaks, Romney’s plan to lower corporate tax rates would provide the five largest oil companies with another $2.3 billion subsidy annually.

Mitt Romney campaign co-chair and former New Hampshire Gov. John Sununu (R) appeared on Fox News on Thursday and took a victory lap following last night’s first presidential debate.

Sununu described Obama’s performance as “babbling,” “lazy,” and “disengaged,” and dismissed the possibility that he could do better in the future. “When you’re not that bright you can’t get better prepared,” he said. Watch it:

During a separate interview on MSNBC, Sununu doubled down on the characterization. “I think you saw him admit it the night before when he delivered the pizzas. He said, you know, they’re making me do this work. He didn’t want to prepare for this debate. He’s lazy and disengaged.”

As courts continue to block voter suppression efforts around the county, conservative groups are redoubling efforts to intimidate voters at the polls come Election Day.

New Mexico has started its own voter purge of 177,000 people, including a voting rights activist married to a state representative. However, as the law won’t go into effect until November 2014, the local Republican Party has apparently started training “poll challengers” for this election. A hidden camera caught Pat Morlen, the vice chair of the Sandoval County Republican Party, instructing volunteer “poll challengers” to demand photo ID and force legal voters to use provisional ballots. The video, filmed by the nonprofit ProgressNow New Mexico, shows vice-chair Morlen making several claims that directly contradict New Mexico law:

MORLEN: You can request to see a form of ID. At the request of two or more precinct board members of different political parties, a voter shall still present the required physical form of identification.

VOLUNTEER: What happens if we get people in there who are part of what the media is calling the purge?

MORLEN: They’ll vote provisional. That’s all that’s gonna happen.

Watch it:

In spite of these false instructions, New Mexicans who were flagged as “inactive” voters are still permitted to vote with regular ballots in November. The misinformation didn’t stop there. ProgressNow compiled an extensive list of the lies presented as election law, including claims that Spanish speakers are not permitted interpreters and that the police are involved in election monitoring:

CLAIM: “The police are supposed to be the ones who ensure that the election is legit.” FACT: Elections officials preside over elections, not the police. FACT: Police can be enlisted to ensure the orderly conduct of an election but officers who interfere with an election are guilty of a petty misdemeanor.

CLAIM: The trainer claims a person who changed their address but stayed within their same voting precinct should receive a provisional ballot. FACT: Anyone in this situation is given a regular ballot at the polls. (See 1 NMAC 10.3)

CLAIM: The trainer claims that interpreters are not provided to non-English speakers and then is unsure if polling places will provide Spanish-language ballots. FACT: Assistance for people in language minorities is provided, as are Spanish-language ballots.

Morlen also disparaged disabled New Mexicans, opining, “if the person can’t even say their name, at least their name, I don’t see why they should be voting.”

Obama has a narrow lead over Romney in the New Mexico polls, projecting a very close race. This particular training was filmed just two days after a study was released estimating 10 million Latinos could be disenfranchised by various voter suppression efforts. While Morlen’s statements are easily debunked, New Mexico voters are likely to be harassed and intimidated by these volunteer “voter challengers” armed with false information. But New Mexican voters aren’t the only targets; the national Tea Party group True the Vote has mobilized a large army of volunteers to go to the polls all over the country to harass voters. True the Vote tested out their voter intimidation skills during Gov. Scott Walker’s (R-WI) recall election in June, when poll watchers blocked students and African Americans from voting.

During Wednesday night’s president debate, Mitt Romney claimed that “half” of the green firms Obama invested “have gone out of business” and noted that “a number of them happened to be owned by people who were contributors to your campaigns.”

Fact checkers — including this blog — quickly pounced on the claim, explaining that only a tiny percentage of firms that received grants or loans from the Recovery Act have actually filed for bankruptcy. And now, the Romney campaign itself is walking back the GOP presidential candidate’s claim. From Michael Grunwald, author of The New New Deal: The Hidden History of Change in the Obama Era:

ICYMI: Romney camp told me (after my tweet-rants) Mitt didn’t mean to say half the #stimulus-funded green firms failed. Probably <1% so far.

— Michael Grunwald (@MikeGrunwald) October 4, 2012

Grunwald estimates that less than 1 percent of green firms have gone bad in terms of dollar value.

Romney also singled out Tesla Motors, which designs and manufactures electric vehicles, and received a $465 million loan from the Department of Energy. Last night, he quipped, “I had a friend who said you don’t just pick the winners and losers, you pick the losers, all right?” But the company is not a loser. “Founder Elon Musk says it will accelerate its payment of the principal in the spring — and the Department of Energy isn’t complaining it’s not getting its money back.” Romney, unfortunately, has turned to rooting against an American company in his effort to unseat Obama.

The company KitchenAid is primarily involved in the business of making cakes. But their Twitter account stirred up some political ire last night when it tweeted a “joke” about President Obama’s dead grandmother.

The senior director of KitchenAid brand and marketing, Cynthia Soledad, spent the morning furiously apologizing and taking questions from reporters after the account last night tweeted, “Obamas gma even knew it was going 2 b bad! ‘She died 3 days b4 he became president.”

During the debate last night, Obama told the story of his grandmother’s ascent from secretary to vice president of a local bank. The tweet from KitchenAid was likely the result of a staffer mixing up his or her personal and professional accounts.

KitchenAid is owned by the company Whirlpool. Whirlpool’s corporate Political Action Committee gave about two thirds of its funding to Republicans this election cycle.