An intriguing pair of tweets from a Fox News producer given the sourcing. Sounds like they are, or were, thinking about doing this, but maybe are debating whether the home-stretch budget will allow it.

https://twitter.com/JoyLinFN/status/260824033178841088
https://twitter.com/JoyLinFN/status/260832695586799616

Obama’s running a 30-minute ad this week too, in the guise of a half-hour MTV interview to air this Friday. The network’s also invited Romney but it’s O whose chances depend upon turning out young voters. Awfully nice of Viacom to give him a pipeline right before the election.

I’m debating with myself over whether it’s a smart use of dwindling campaign funds for Team Romney to pop for a half-hour spot. Con: If Mitt starts to see real movement in Pennsylvania or Wisconsin, he might wish the millions earmarked for the ad had been available for organizational purpose. Pro: Thirty-second ads probably aren’t moving many votes at this point so you’re better off doing something splashy to grab eyeballs. No one will sit through half an hour of Romney at a whiteboard explaining the deficit but they might watch something that incorporates biography and personal detail. After all, one of the strongest aftershocks of Romney’s Denver debate performance was the rise in his favorable rating; people like him more than they used to, and many are no doubt curious to better know the man who might be the next president. Check out the spot from Crossroads below as a starting point. If you believe that women respond to soft-focus ads like this more than men do, then here’s one way to chip a point or two off of the gender gap.

Obama ran a 30-minute ad too in the last few days of the 2008 campaign, incidentally. Victory was all but assured at that point, but he still managed to crack a 20 rating in markets where it ran. Part of that may have been due to curiosity about his historic candidacy, so Romney likely wouldn’t draw as many viewers. But then, he doesn’t have to. The race is tight enough that even a one-point move in the polls could be decisive.