Mitt Romney

President Barack Obama and Mitt Romney are vying to spend the next four years in the White House. Current polls show a very close race shaping up for November 6.

We ask your opinion all the time on who should win the 2012 presidential election. But today, thanks to Jimmy Kimmel, we're asking ... who would win a scare-off?!

Last night, the talk-show host discussed the sales of the respective candidates' Halloween masks, pointing out that Obama was clobbering Romney in costume sales.

Kimmel then decided to find out which would scare his security guard Adelina more. Hilarious:

Obama Masks vs. Romney Masks

Mitt Romney's most effective campaign surrogate stopped by The Tonight Show Tuesday.

Ann Romney, the wife of presidential candidate Mitt Romney, made her late-night debut on Jay Leno's couch, advocating for her husband and sharing the requisite funny anecdotes, like this one:

Ann Romney Tonight Show Clip - Four Years Ago ...

Ann Romney proved herself to be a compelling proxy for Mitt, even if she steered clear of actual policy, when Leno asked for her thoughts on the now-infamous 47 percent video.

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A video depicting a young woman registering voters in El Paso County, Colo., claiming she works for the clerk's office but only registering voters who support Mitt Romney, has gone viral.

The person recording the video outside a Safeway grocery store speaks to the young woman who is registering voters outside. She asks, "Are you voting for Romney or Obama?"

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Mitt Romney gave the Internets another chuckle Monday with (possibly sarcastic) comments that appeared to show the GOP presidential candidate confused by the physics of aviation.

Mitt Romney on Airplane Windows

After his wife, Ann Romney, was forced to make an emergency landing last weekend, Mitt was worried because “When you have a fire in an aircraft, there’s no place to go, exactly."

Romney said the biggest problem in a distressed aircraft is that "the windows don’t open. I don’t know why they don’t do that. It’s a real problem. So it’s very dangerous."

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Mitt Romney and his wife, Ann Romney, released their 2011 tax returns today. Spoiler alerts: They're still really rich, and Democrats will call for him to release more!

They paid $1.94 million in federal income taxes on income of $13.7 million, most of it from investments, for an effective tax rate of 14.1 percent, his campaign said.

That's slightly above the 13.9 percent rate the couple paid for 2010.

The Republican presidential candidate's taxes have emerged as an ongoing issue in the 2012 election, as he has declined to release any returns filed before 2010.

Romney's fortune and association with Bain Capital, the private equity firm he co-founded, have been lightning rods in his bid to unseat President Barack Obama.

Critics, including Obama, have urged Romney to release more than just the two years of returns; for whatever reason, he has indicated he does not plan to do so.

It's been kind of a tough week for Mitt, with his 47 percent comment going viral, and even a surprising story about his eldest son Tagg Romney emerging today.

What do you think? Should he release more tax returns?

Election 2012: Who deserves to win?

Eddie Vedder clearly thinks you can't find a better man than Barack Obama for President ... or at least that he's a better man for the job than Mitt Romney.

Performing a set of songs at a campaign fundraiser for Obama in South Tampa last night, the Pearl Jam frontman bashed Romney's 47 percent comments.

"It's very upsetting to hear a presidential candidate be so easily dismissive of such a ginormous amount of the population," Vedder told the audience.

Vedder helped raise $1.7 million Thursday for Obama's reelection campaign, playing four songs for the president and 85 guests at a $20,000-per-person dinner.

"I can't say I've ever played that many songs in a suit before," he said of "Rise," "Without You," James Taylor's "Millworker" and Neil Young's "Rockin' in the Free World."

He recalled signing up for a government security guard training program, working the midnight shift and becoming a security supervisor at a petroleum company.

It was this, he said, that made his dreams reality.

"I'm an example of someone who never made it to university," Vedder said. "I did have this dream to be a musician. I felt that this dream had an expiration date."

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Mitt Romney's son Tagg signed a surrogacy agreement that gave the surrogate, Tagg and his wife the right to abort her recent pregnancy, according to TMZ.

Tagg, the oldest of Mitt's five sons, had twins this year through a surrogate, and Mitt Romney covered some of the expenses connected with the arrangement.

The twin boys, David Mitt and William Ryder, were born on May 4, 2012.

Tagg and his wife Jen, along with the surrogate and her husband, signed a Gestational Carrier Agreement dated July 28, 2011. Paragraph 13 of it reads:

"If in the opinion of the [physician or obstetrician] there is potential physical harm to the surrogate, the decision to abort or not abort is to be made by the surrogate."

"In the event the child is determined to be physiologically, genetically or chromosomally abnormal, the decision is to be made by the intended parents."

"In such a case the surrogate agrees to abort, or not to abort, in accordance with the intended parents' decision."

"Any decision to abort because of potential harm to the child, or to reduce the number of fetuses, is to be made by the intended parents."

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Jackson Ripley won't get to personally vote in a U.S. presidential election until 2020, but he's got some pretty strong opinions on the one coming up in 2012.

The 12-year-old from Colorado was watching political news coverage with his mom about pre-existing health care when he decided to write a letter about it.

A letter to Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney.

Ripley ripped the former Massachusetts Governor not over his 47 percent comments, but his ever-changing health care stance and whether he actually will or won't repeal Obamacare, a.k.a. the Affordable Care Act, if elected president.

Citing contradicting statements from Romney on Meet the Press and the Tonight Show, the adolescent also describes the plight of his little sister, Kennedy.

It is Kennedy's pre-existing conditions that have Jackson spooked by President Obama's challenger, who he also criticizes for his stances on gay and women's rights.

Voting age or not, Ripley's mind is made up. Read Jackson's full letter to Mitt Romney, spelling and grammar and formatting unchanged, after the jump ...

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Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney is seeking to divert attention from a certain viral video that leaked this week by directing your attention to ... another viral video that leaked this week. Give it up for the Internet!

In damage control mode after a video from a private May 2012 fundraiser showed Romney saying 47 percent of voters are entitled and dependent on government handouts, Mitt pointed to a 1998 clip of President Obama saying he believes in redistribution.

Mitt Romney on Obama Voters

"The president's view is one of larger government, there's a tape that came out today where the president's saying he likes redistribution," he told Fox News.

"I disagree. I think a society based upon a nation where government plays a larger and larger role, redistributes money, that's the wrong course for America."

The audio file was first posted on The Drudge Report, a conservative site run by Matt Drudge, a close friend of Romney campaign manager Matt Rhoades.

Romney used the audio to try and paint Obama as the head of a government taking "from some" to "give to the others," an "entirely foreign concept."

Obama 1998 Redistribution Speech Video

"I know there's a divide in the country," Romney continued. "I know that some believe that government should take from some and give to the others. I think the president makes it clear in the tape that was released today that that's what he believes."

Obama campaign spokesman Ben LaBolt fired back:

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An audio recording of President Obama speaking at Chicago's Loyola University in 1998 has surfaced. In it, Obama outlines his belief in the redistribution of wealth.

Then-Illinois State Senator Obama spoke out against "propaganda" that said government doesn't work and the need to use its means to help the less fortunate.

Obama discussed the need to "pool resources and hence facilitate some redistribution because I actually believe in redistribution." Take a listen below ...

Obama 1998 Redistribution Speech Video

The recording, leaked online Tuesday, is the obvious conservative counterpoint to Mitt Romney's "47 percent" comments, which sparked controversy this week.

Similar to the Romney video, Obama the presidential candidate might've chosen different words, but the content of the remarks is fairly consistent for him.

Not to mention the Democratic Party platform in general, really.

In fact, Obama spoke of the need to "spread the wealth around" on the campaign trail in 2008, a sound bite rival John McCain hammered him over (to no avail).

Given sufficient time to articulate his economic positions (see Obama on Letterman last night), they would surely be more palatable to independent voters.

Like Romney, his views wouldn't change much, however.

The difference in worldview between the two candidates is stark, but these videos don't reveal much of anything new to people who've paid attention all along.

That said, what choice are you making in 2012?