With the clock counting down towards Election Day, Mitt Romney needs now to begin aggressively courting independent voters to break the dead heat in which he finds himself currently locked with President Obama, a close GOP surrogate said today.

Asked why Romney finds himself neck and neck with the president despite polls that favor the presumptive GOP candidate's position on the economy, Utah Rep. Jason Chaffetz said the calendar still favors Romney but that he could no longer make "excuses" for not pulling ahead.

"I happen to think at the end of the day we're not trying to win at Labor Day, we're trying to win at Election Day. I don't think it's going to be very close. Those that follow politics day in and day out already know how we're going to vote, which direction we're going to go in," Chaffetz said during an ABC News/Yahoo! Webcast from inside the Tampa Bay Times Arena, home of this week's Republican National Convention.

"But there's this center part of the country - now that school's back in session, the NFL is kicking off, college football is in the air. They're going to start focusing on this. Going to see debates. Going to see the convention. The next three nights are critical, it's prime time baby," he said.

Chaffetz, who came to Congress in 2008, said there were "no more excuses" left for Romney; it was time for action.

"No more excuses. Game on," he said.