WASHINGTON – The political conventions behind them and three debates ahead, Barack Obama and Mitt Romney now race against the calendar toward Nov. 6.

They have two months to deploy millions of dollars in ads, catch those voters who cast ballots weeks before Election Day, and log umpteen miles in a handful of crucial states – all while worrying what surprising news or candidate slip-up might set the whole enterprise on its ear.

Obama and Romney have huge staffs to help keep it all straight, of course. But you don't. So here, for the rest of us, is a user's guide to the last leg of the 2012 presidential campaign: