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he has alternately tailored his campaign speeches and his ad campaigns to women, older voters and, most recently, new young voters who may not have been old enough to cast a ballot four years ago.
• In each case, Obama has used Romney and his running mate, Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, as foils, arguing that their policies would limit women's health care choices, force seniors to pay more for Medicare and cut back on student loans.
• Ryan's place on the Republican ticket has given Obama the opportunity to draw attention to Medicare, singling out Ryan's proposal to overhaul the health care program for older Americans and drawing Romney into a skirmish on an issue that favors Democrats. Obama's courtship of women got an unexpected boost by the eruption over Missouri Senate candidate Todd Akin's remarks about rape and abortion, prompting an unexpected debate on that social issue.
• As a result, the presidential campaign is taking shape as a contest between Democratic interest-group politics on one side and the Republicans' single-issue referendum on Obama's stewardship of the economy on the other.
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• PHILADELPHIA (AP) -- Penn State's disgraced former president is trying to convince the public he had no idea that Jerry Sandusky was a child molester -- and that he most certainly did not protect one.
• With a network TV appearance, a magazine interview and a news conference

held by his lawyers, Graham Spanier portrayed himself Wednesday as the innocent victim of a witch hunt and a rush to judgment by former FBI Director Louis Freeh, whose university-commissioned report on the sex-abuse scandal prompted the NCAA to hit Penn State with a $60 million fine and other sanctions.
• Freeh, hired by Penn State trustees to conduct an internal probe of the scandal, released a report last month that accused Spanier, Hall of Fame coach Joe Paterno and other top university officials of concealing a 2001 abuse allegation against Sandusky to protect the university from bad publicity.
• Spanier told The New Yorker magazine he was stunned by Freeh's allegation.
• "There's no logic to it," Spanier said. "Why on earth would anybody cover up for a known child predator? Adverse publicity? For heaven's sake! Every day I had to make some decision that got adverse publicity."
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