Barbour: Sandy Stole Romney's Momentum

Election Day looms large on today's talk show dial, with surrogates from both campaigns scrambling to make the case for their guy, reports Politico. Haley Barbour conceded Mitt Romney has lost a bit of mojo, saying "the hurricane is what broke Romney’s momentum," before trying to refocus: "Any day that the news media is not talking about jobs and the economy ... is a good day for Barack Obama.” Further, he said, "if this election had been held last Friday, Romney would have won. No matter what Obama did, he couldn’t stop the momentum." Elsewhere on the Sunday dial:

• Nonsense, says David Plouffe: Sandy's political impact is "irrelevant," adding that Chris Christie's collaboration with Obama is "what leaders should do."
• Haley Barbour on Christie: He "would have been a fool to poke his finger in Obama’s eye. When they’re going to be your partner for years, you praise in public and criticize in private."
• Eric Cantor on unemployment: "The reality is, if 7.9% unemployment is satisfactory to you, then this is acceptable, this Obama administration’s performance. From the folks that I meet, it is totally unacceptable. This is not good enough for us in America."
• Plouffe on Romney's play for Pennsylvania: "This is a desperate ploy at the end of a campaign. To win Pennsylvania, Governor Romney would have to win two-thirds of the independents. He's not going to do that anywhere, much less Pennsylvania."
• Nonsense, says Romney political director Rich Beeson: "Pennsylvania is very fertile ground for us. President Obama is well under 50 in a state that he should be well over 50. There are a million more Democrats in Pennsylvania than Republicans."
• David Axelrod on Virginia: "I feel very good about Virginia, and I think we're going to win Virginia. It's going to be close. That's one of the earlier reporting states we're going to be looking at."

(More Sunday morning talk shows stories.)