For the Record: Only a few stress-filled days left!

Brett McGinness

USA TODAY

We haven't felt anxiety like this election since ...

Theme music for today's edition of For the Record: the Tetris song. We're getting to the end, the candidates' missteps are piling up and stressing the whole country out, and everything's coming in too fast for voters to process. Oh, and of course this entire election is overwhelmingly Russia-themed, so there's that.

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All's well if you can end well

Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump during the second presidential debate.

Exactly one week from now, the nation will wake up to find out that we elected either the S or the Z, the two least-popular Tetris pieces available. So what do Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton need to do to claim victory in the remaining days?

For Clinton, she needs to lay low, keep the focus on Trump, and rely on her more popular surrogates (i.e., the Obamas) to make her case for her and help her maintain her slim lead. The best news for Clinton right now is that early voting is well underway in several states, with millions of votes already cast. The new FBI investigation (or potential fallout from WikiLeaks' Phase 3) may be arriving too late in the contest to have a significant impact.

For Trump, he needs to win Pennsylvania and/or flip a series of other states that could replace the Keystone State's 20 electoral votes. He also needs to keep a simple, straightforward message, avoid taking the bait when Team Clinton tries to distract him with feuds, and hope that there aren't any new controversies down the stretch.

The polls are beginning to process the FBI's renewed investigation into Clinton's emails, but haven't begun to process the latest news of Trump's ties to Russia, which hit late Monday. The betting markets -- usually a bit more reactive -- are pretty much in sync right now: OddsShark's odds have it at -275 for a Clinton win (about 73%), Betfair has it at 72% for Clinton.

Putin' a monkey wrench into the presidential race

The GOP has gone from Soviet foe Ronald Reagan to Russian protege Donald Trump in under three decades, if an investigation by Mother Jones is accurate. An unidentified former intelligence officer with a Western nation says he provided the FBI with information suggesting that the Russian government has been working to assist Trump for years. The source says he was first hired by a rival Republican candidate to dig into Trump's foreign business ties, but eventually came to believe "there was an established exchange of information between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin of mutual benefit."

Also released Monday was a Slate report of communications between servers at the Trump Organization and a Putin-tied Russian bank, Alfa Bank. Slate asked internet pioneer Paul Vixie to review the logs between the two servers: "“The parties were communicating in a secretive fashion. The operative word is secretive. This is more akin to what criminal syndicates do if they are putting together a project.” Yikes! Of course, Team Clinton was all over this.

Pretty explosive, right? Before you start doing your Red Dawn preparations, hang on -- we have dueling experts examining the situation. (As Errata Security's Robert Graham concludes, "Note to self: when I set up my super-secret email server, don't name it after myself like http://trump-email.com ...")

Democrats aren't convinced there isn't more to the Trump-Russia story, though, and are calling on FBI Director James Comey to reveal everything he has.

Not even enough time left to cram in an entire scandal

Democratic Presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton gestures next to Huma Abedin after the second Democratic presidential primary debate in Des Moines, Iowa.

As for the FBI's re-examination on Hillary Clinton's handling of emails ... that's in a holding pattern, much to the frustration of the Clinton campaign. Campaign manager Robby Mook took to CNN Tuesday to call for the FBI to release more information on their investigation (because with the absence of details, undecided voters can pretty much just invent their own theories). “We didn't cause this problem,” Mook said. “James Comey opened this door, and we're just asking for him to make this right and treat everybody the same.” With 650,000 emails for the bureau to sort through, it's fairly unlikely that Team Hillary will get its wish anytime before Election Day.

One of the more visible aspects of the investigation's impact: the absence of Huma Abedin, a close aide to Hillary since the 1990s. “She only learned for the first time on Friday, from press reports, of the possibility that a laptop belonging to Mr. Weiner (Abedin's estranged husband) could contain emails of hers," lawyer Karen Dunn said in a statement. In other words, there's an opening for a temporary sidekick in the Clinton campaign. Start drafting your cover letters.

One of them has the soul for getting down. The other one ... eh

At Monday night's Halloween party at the White House, Barack and Michelle Obama danced to Michael Jackson's "Thriller," with one of them committing to the bit much harder than the other. (Hey, Mr. President -- that thing where you kind of try to dance, then stop dancing and kinda laugh like, "Ha, is everyone watching me? Nah, just kidding, this isn't really how I dance," and then you try to dance again? THAT'S OUR SIGNATURE MOVE, PAL. You'll be hearing from our lawyers.)

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For the Record: Only a few stress-filled days left!

All's well if you can end well

Putin' a monkey wrench into the presidential race

Not even enough time left to cram in an entire scandal

More from the campaign trail

One of them has the soul for getting down. The other one ... eh