Focus on Tagg.

The Politico story:

But the biggest change in the [Romney campaign] ecology, according to the [unnamed] insiders, is the more assertive role of Tagg Romney, who has been “making sure that his father’s environment is such that he’s relaxed when he goes up to do things, and making sure that he’s not over-programmed, and is protected from the cacophony of advice,” a family friend said.

“Romney gets buffeted by all this advice because Romney takes everybody seriously,” the family friend said. “He thinks, ‘Well, gee, I’m talking to businessman X or C or Y. They’re really smart. That’s something I need to factor into my thinking.’ Tagg has been aggressive in saying: ‘There’s no more factoring stuff in. Your thinking is yours. Be who you are! And you’ve got to communicate that to people, and don’t be embarrassed by it.’”

The eldest son has been around the campaign’s Boston headquarters more often and keeps his own heavy schedule of media and campaign appearances. His involvement increased gradually in the two weeks before the debate, according to the insiders, after focusing on fundraising for much of the 2012 campaign.

“Unlike anybody else,” the friend said, “Tagg will basically call people out when they have something stupid to say. Because he’s the son, he’s in a different position to be able to really question people’s advice and question the decisions, but — more importantly — to drive them to make decisions, which is one of the problems in Romneyworld. They’re slow to react, in part because of the campaign’s organizational ambiguity. Tagg has helped resolve some of that.”

The Daily News story:

A recent POLITICO story quoted an unnamed family friend as saying Tagg Romney would be working behind the scenes at being “more assertive in making the organization work better, cleaning up some of the organizational dysfunction.”

But Tagg Romney said that’s simply not the case. In fact, he said he hasn't been to a strategy meeting in more than a year, and the last time his father specifically solicited his advice on a campaign issue was in considering his selection of a running mate.

“It sounds like a great story, but it's not based in reality at all,” he said of the suggestion that he’d be the one to broker peace between warring factions inside Romneyland.

“I’ve never approached anyone about wanting to play that role. No one has approached me,” he said. “This is not spin, the team really gets along well. There's no internal squabbling or fighting for territory or turf.”