US Election Diary: Pill-popping to overcome election fatigue

The Tampa rally over yesterday, reporters travelling with Governor Romney were herded on to the candidate's plane. But if they were frazzled by more than a year on the trail, there was help from top Romney aide Stuart Stephens, who handed out packets of pills. "David Cameron asked me to give you this," he said, spotting the man from The Independent. The six little capsules were nothing more than vitamins, he assured me. Duly ingested.

Close shave for Axelrod?

Is the luxuriant moustache sported by David Axelrod, stalwart strategist on the Obama campaign, endangered? To mock any notion of the Romney camp glancing towards states it would not normally expect to win – Minnesota, Michigan and Pennsylvania – he pledged to shave it off if Obama ends up losing even one of them. "Do you want to see Axelrod without a moustache?" a Romney aide quipped.