 President Barack Obama is greeted by former President Bill Clinton during a campaign rally in Concord, New Hampshire, on Sunday, November 4. Obama and his Republican rival, Mitt Romney, are darting from swing state to swing state, trying to fire up enthusiasm among supporters and win over any last wavering voters before election day.  Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney poses with children during a campaign rally at the Hy-Vee Center in Des Moines, Iowa on Sunday.  Romney arrives at Sunday's rally in Des Moines.  Obama arrives at a campaign rally in Dubuque, Iowa, on Saturday, November 3.  Romney supporters attend a rally in Englewood, Colorado, on Saturday.  Obama arrives at Cleveland Burke Lakefront Airport before an event in Mentor, Ohio, on Saturday.  President Barack Obama departs aboard Marine One for travel to campaign events in Ohio, Wisconsin, Iowa and Virginia from the south lawn of the White House on Saturday.  Ann Romney offers pastries to journalists aboard GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney's campaign plane at Portsmouth International Airport in Newington, New Hampshire, on Saturday.  Supporters look on as Romney speaks during a campaign rally in Newington, New Hampshire, on Saturday.  President Barack Obama embraces Judith Kamalay after she introduced him during a campaign rally Friday, November 2, in Hilliard, Ohio.  Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney works aboard his campaign plane before takeoff Friday in Norfolk, Virginia.  Romney gets ready to step off his campaign bus during an event Thursday, November 1, in Doswell, Virginia.  Obama addresses a campaign rally Thursday at Austin Straubel International Airport in Green Bay, Wisconsin.  U.S. Republican Presidential candidate Mitt Romney greets policemen who were part of his motorcade as he prepares to board his campaign plane in Roanoke, Virginia on Thursday.  Supporters wait to hear President Obama during a campaign rally at Austin Straubel International Airport on Thursday.  Mitt Romney holds a baby during a campaign event at Meadow Event Park on Thursday.  President Obama speaks during a campaign rally at Austin Straubel International Airport.  A Mitt Romney supporter holds an American flag during a campaign event at Meadow Event Park.  President Barack Obama greets and comforts victims of Hurricane Sandy at a shelter in Brigantine, New Jersey, on Wednesday, October 31.  Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney holds a campaign rally on Halloween at Metropolitan Park in Jacksonville, Florida, on Wednesday, October 31.  President Barack Obama speaks about the federal government's response to Superstorm Sandy at the headquarters of the Red Cross in Washington on Tuesday, October 30.  Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney accepts a food donation for storm victims at an event in Kettering, Ohio, on Tuesday.  Supporters listen as Romney speaks at an event to collect food and supply donations for storm victims in Kettering, Ohio, Tuesday.  Romney talks with advisers on his campaign bus while en route to a rally at Avon Lake High School on Monday, October 29, in Avon Lake, Ohio.  Obama makes a statement in the White House briefing room following a briefing on Hurricane Sandy on Monday in Washington. Obama returned early from a campaign trip to Florida and has canceled several other campaign events to monitor the storm.  Former President Bill Clinton speaks during a campaign rally with Vice President Joe Biden on Monday in Youngstown, Ohio. Obama had planned to attend the event but canceled to monitor Hurricane Sandy.  Obama steps off Air Force One on Monday upon arrival at Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland.  People line up in the rain for a campaign rally with Clinton and Biden on Monday in Youngstown, Ohio.  Democratic supporters listen during a campaign rally Monday with Clinton and Biden.  Romney greets supporters during a campaign rally at Avon Lake High School on Monday in Avon Lake, Ohio. Romney canceled other campaign events planned for Monday and Tuesday due to Hurricane Sandy.  A young girl looks on during a campaign rally for Romney at Avon Lake High School on Monday.  Romney speaks during a campaign rally at Seven Cities Sod on Monday in Davenport, Iowa.  Romney gets into his SUV after landing Monday in Vandalia, Ohio.  Romney holds a giant cinnamon roll on Monday en route to Dayton, Ohio.  A supporter of Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan wears a campaign sticker on his shoe during a campaign rally at the Celina Fieldhouse in Celina, Ohio, on Sunday, October 28.  Obama delivers remarks during a campaign rally at Elm Street Middle School in Nashua, New Hampshire on Saturday, October 27. With 10 days to go before the presidential election, Obama and his opponent, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, are criss-crossing the country from one swing state to the next in an attempt to sway voters.  A young Romney supporter holds a homemade sign during a campaign rally at Ranger Jet Center on Saturday in Kissimmee, Florida.  Obama speaks at a campaign rally in Nashua, New Hampshire, on Saturday.  Romney emerges from his SUV at Akron-Canton Regional Airport on Saturday in Canton, Ohio.  Romney and his running mate, Rep. Paul Ryan, hold a campaign rally at Canton Hoover High School in North Canton, Ohio, on Friday, October 26.  Obama chats with firefighters after dropping off doughnuts for them at a fire station in Tampa, Florida, on Thursday, October 25.  Romney, center, poses for a photo with workers at First Watch Cafe on Thursday.  Volunteers make phone calls seeking support for Romney at his Arlington Victory Center in Virginia.  Obama kisses a baby during a campaign rally at Byrd Park in Richmond, Virginia, on Thursday.  Supporters take photos of Obama during a campaign rally at Ybor City Museum State Park in Tampa on Thursday.  Supporters look on as Romney speaks during a campaign rally at Jet Machine in Cincinnati.  Romney says goodbye to Ryan at Denver International airport on Wednesday, October 24.  Supporters cheer as Obama speaks during a campaign event at Mississippi Valley Fairgrounds in Davenport, Iowa, Wednesday.  The president speaks with residents during a lunch with a group of Obama for America volunteers at an unanounced stop at Antonella's Pizzeria in Davenport, Iowa, on Wednesday.  Romney holds a campaign rally at the Reno Event Center in Nevada on Wednesday.  Obama greets people at Buckley Air Force Base in Aurora, Colorado, Wednesday.  Romney gestures to the crowd during a campaign event at the Reno Event Center in Reno, Nevada on Wednesday.  Romney talks with his running mate Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin aboard their campaign plane on Tuesday, October 23, en route to Denver. A day after the final presidential debate, Romney is campaigning in Nevada and Colorado.   Obama and Romney hug their wives on stage after finishing their third and final presidential debate at Lynn University in Boca Raton, Florida, on Monday, October 22.  Romney and his wife, Ann, try to relax backstage with members of their family before the start of Monday's debate.  Obama reads briefing material while meeting with advisers inside his cabin on Sunday, October 21, at Camp David, Maryland.  Republican candidate Mitt Romney plays with his grandson while having dinner on Sunday in Delray Beach, Florida.  Bartek Wawruch stands between cardboard cutouts of Obama and Romney at Lynn University in Boca Raton, Florida, on Saturday, October 20, as the campus prepares for Monday's presidential debate.  Romney boards his campaign plane at Newark Liberty International Airport on Friday, October 19.   Romney speaks with campaign staff on board his campaign plane at Washington Dulles International Airport in Chantilly, Virginia, on Thursday, October 18.  Obama speaks during a rally at Veterans Memorial Park in Manchester, New Hampshire, on Thursday.  Jack Bunn, 51, and Jane Cookson, 57, cast their votes at the Board of Elections early voting station in Wilson, North Carolina, on Thursday.  Barack Obama and Jon Stewart speak during a break in the live taping of Comedy Central's "The Daily Show with Jon Stewart" on Thursday.  Supporters of Mitt Romney attend a campaign rally in Chesapeake, Virginia, on Wednesday, October 17.  Mitt Romney is seen backstage through a campaign flag as he waits to take the stage at a rally in Chesapeake, Virginia, on Wednesday.  Supporters of Obama listen to him speak during a rally at Cornell College in Mt. Vernon, Iowa, on Wednesday.  President Barack Obama arrives at Rickenbacker International Airport in Columbus, Ohio, for a campaign rally Wednesday.  A group of men watch the presidential debate on television screens at an electronics store in Miami on Tuesday, October 16.  Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney talks with aides aboard his campaign plane en route to Ronkonkoma, New York, on Tuesday.  A worker cleans a sign for the Commission on Presidential Debates before the second presidential debate in Hempstead, New York, on Tuesday.  Members of the production crew ready final preparations for the second presidential debate between President Barack Obama and Republican nominee Mitt Romney on Tuesday.  First lady Michelle Obama greets supporters during a campaign rally at Ohio Wesleyan University in Delaware, Ohio, on Monday, October 15.  Supporters of President Barack Obama cheer during the campaign rally at Ohio Wesleyan on Monday.  Obama jokes about a telephone with campaign volunteers Alexa Kissinger, left, and Suzanne Stern as he makes calls from a campaign office in Williamsburg, Virginia, on Sunday, October 14.  Dolls depicting Obama and Mitt Romney are on display at a gift shop at Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport in Maryland on Sunday.  Romney holds up a baby as he works the rope line after delivering remarks at a rally in Lebanon, Ohio, on Saturday, October 13.  A supporter holds an American flag in front of the Ohio logo on his shirt as he stands with a crowd at Shawnee State University to hear Romney speak on Saturday.  Mario Orosa, left, and Ron Cathey, right, chat with Obama during dinner at Smith Commons restaurant in Washington on Friday, October 12. Obama had dinner with contest winners who contributed to his re-election campaign.  Romney, right, and GOP vice-presidential candidate Paul Ryan greet supporters as they arrive at a rally in Lancaster, Ohio, on Friday.  Students walk past a political mural near Centre College in downtown Danville, Kentucky, where Vice President Joe Biden and Republican vice-presidential nominee Rep. Paul Ryan faced off Thursday, October 11.  Ryan greets his son Sam after the debate in Danville, Kentucky, on Thursday.  Romney, left, speaks with the Rev. Billy Graham during a visit to the Graham cabin in Montreat, North Carolina, on Thursday.  Obama greets supporters at a campaign rally at the University of Miami on Thursday.  Romney and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie talk with supporters at Buns Bakery and Restaurant in Delaware, Ohio, on Wednesday, October 10. Romney is campaigning in Ohio with less than a month to go before the general election.  Christie, left, and Romney walk up to the stage at Ariel Corporation in Mount Vernon, Ohio, on Wednesday.  Centre College students Ben Boone, left, a stand-in for U.S. Vice President Joe Biden, and Tommy Munoz, a stand-in for Republican Vice Presidential candidate Paul Ryan, wave during a rehearsal for the vice presidential debate in Danville, Kentucky, on Wednesday.  Members of the media watch as President Barack Obama arrives aboard Marine One on the South Lawn of the White House on Tuesday, October 9, in Washington. The president was returning from a two-day campaign trip to California and Ohio.  Obama addresses supporters during a campaign event at The Ohio State University on Tuesday.  Two Obama supporters, one holding a Big Bird book and the other clutching a picture of the president, listen while he speaks at a rally at Ohio State on Tuesday.  Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney departs a Wendy's restaurant with his dinner order in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio, on Tuesday.  Supporters cheer as Romney delivers remarks on the James Koch Farm in Van Meter, Iowa, on Tuesday.  Allan Banojakedjian, left, and Jesus Romero fill out their voter registration forms at the Miami-Dade Elections Department on the final day of registration for the upcoming presidential election.  Rain doesn't keep Romney from campaigning in Newport News, Virginia, on Monday, October 8.  Obama holds a campaign event Monday at the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium in San Francisco.  Obama takes the stage at a campaign concert at the Nokia Theatre in Los Angeles on Sunday, October 7. The president has been on a three-day trip to California and Ohio.  Air Force One leaves a shadow as it passes over the Forum on approach to Los Angeles International Airport on Sunday.  Obama leaves the White House on Sunday to board Air Force One.  Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney and his wife, Ann, greet workers at the Tin Fish restaurant following a rally Sunday in Port St. Lucie, Florida.  Romney casts a shadow on a banner as he speaks during a campaign event in Apopka, Florida, on Saturday, October 6.  A supporter holds a photograph of Romney in Apopka on Saturday.  Jon Bon Jovi performs at an Obama for America event at the House of Blues in Las Vegas on Saturday. It was the last day people in Nevada could register to vote in the upcoming presidential election.  Romney speaks during a campaign event in St. Petersburg, Florida, on Friday, October 5.  Romney supporters listen during Friday's campaign event in St. Petersburg.  Obama smiles as he speaks during a campaign rally in Fairfax, Virginia on Friday.  Obama is assisted with putting on a raincoat onstage during a campaign rally at Cleveland State University on Friday.  Romney speaks in Fishersville, Virginia, as Secret Service members keep guard on Thursday, October 4. A day after the first presidential debate in Denver, Romney headed to Virginia to continue campaigning.  Romney supporters bow their heads in prayer during Thursday's event at the Augusta Expoland in Fishersville, Viriginia.  Obama addresses the crowd at the University of Wisconsin in Madison on Thursday.  Romney greets police officers before boarding his campaign plane in Denver on Thursday.  Obama speaks at a campaign rally in Denver on Thursday. He accused his Republican challenger of dishonesty over tax policy and other issues brought up in Wednesday night's presidential debate.  Audience members cheer as Obama makes his way onto the stage at Sloan's Lake Park in Denver on Thursday.  Reporters watch the final minutes of the debate between Romney and Obama in Denver on Wednesday, October 3. The first of four debates for the 2012 election -- three presidential and one vice-presidential -- was moderated by Jim Lehrer of PBS.  A member of the U.S. Secret Service keeps watch from the top of a building as Obama takes part in a debate walk-through at the University of Denver on Wednesday.  A seat is assigned to first lady Michelle Obama prior to Wednesday's debate.  Obama stands at the podium as he speaks during the debate on Wednesday.  Michelle and Barack Obama, left, join Mitt Romney and his family at the conclusion of the first presidential debate.  University of Denver student Sam Garry sits at the moderator's desk before a presidential debate dress rehearsal at the University of Denver on Tuesday, October 2.  Volunteers sit in for on-air television reporters on Tuesday in preparation for the first presidential debate in the Ritchie Center at the University of Denver.  Romney greets a father and his daughter after having lunch Tuesday at a restaurant in Denver.  Obama stares at the Hoover Dam in Nevada during a visit Tuesday.  Romney boards his campaign plane in Bedford, Massachusetts, on Monday, October 1. The Republican candidate was heading to Denver for the first presidential debate on Wednesday.  Obama hugs Chasstiry Vazquez after she indroduced him at a campaign event at Desert Pines High School in Las Vegas on Sunday, September 30.  Obama supporters cheer during Sunday's event in Las Vegas.  Romney leaves his campaign headquarters in Boston on Sunday.  A boy reaches out to shake hands with Obama on Sunday in Las Vegas. The president was in Nevada ahead of Wednesday's presidential debate in Denver.  Romney arrives at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Belmont to attend Sunday services.  Obama talks on the phone with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel in the Oval Office on Friday, September 28.  Romney speaks during a rally at Valley Forge Military Academy and College in Pennsylvania on Friday.  Romney talks to journalists aboard his campaign plane about his phone call with Netanyahu on Friday.  Cadets listen to Romney speak at a campaign rally Friday at the Valley Forge Military Academy and College in Wayne, Pennsylvania.  Romney addresses Friday's rally at the Valley Forge Military Academy and College.  Vice President Joe Biden hugs U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee, as he arrives for a campaign event Friday in Boca Raton, Florida.  Romney speaks at a Veterans for Romney campaign event in Springfield, Virginia, on Thursday, September 27.  Obama supporters cheer at a campaign rally Thursday in Virginia Beach, Virginia.  Veterans at the American Legion Post 176 pray before Romney speaks Thursday in Springfield.  People listen to Obama speak at the Farm Bureau Live arena in Virginia Beach on Thursday.  Obama delivers remarks Thursday in Virginia Beach.  Supporters cheer as Romney speaks at SeaGate Convention Centre in Toledo, Ohio, on Wednesday, September 26.  Romney speaks during a roundtable discussion on manufacturing at American Spring Wire in Bedford Heights, Ohio, on Wednesday.  Supporters wait to see Obama on Wednesday at Toledo Express Airport in Bowling Green, Ohio. Air For One aborted an initial landing attempt in Ohio due to weather conditions.  Obama addresses supporters at Bowling Green State University on Wednesday.  Romney delivers remarks during a campaign rally Wednesday at Westerville South High School in Westerville, Ohio.  Former President Bill Clinton introduces Obama during the Clinton Global Initiative annual meeting in New York on Tuesday, September 25.  Supporters cheer during a Republican campaign rally Tuesday with Romney and his running mate, Paul Ryan, at Dayton International Airport in Vandalia, Ohio.  Ryan speaks Tuesday in Vandalia as Sen. Rand Paul, from left, Sen. Rob Portman and Romney listen.  Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush hugs a waitress as they wait for Ryan's arrival during a campaign stop at a restaurant in Miami's Little Havana neighborhood on Saturday, September 22.  Supporters cheer as they listen to Romney speak during a Juntos Con Romney Rally at the Darwin Fuchs Pavilion on Wednesday, September 19, in Miami.  Romney shakes hands with supporters during the Juntos Con Romney Rally in Miami on Wednesday.  Obama and David Letterman speak during a break in the taping of the "Late Show with David Letterman" on Tuesday, September 18, at the Ed Sullivan Theater in New York.  A crew member opens the door to Air Force One after the jet arrived at John F. Kennedy Airport in New York on Tuesday.  From left to right: Romney, his wife Ann, and son Tagg watch one of Tagg's sons play soccer in Belmont, Massachusetts, on Saturday, September 15.  Ryan arrives onstage to address the Family Research Council Action Values Voter Summit on Friday, September 14.  Supporters wait for Romney to speak at a campaign rally at Lake Erie College in Painesville, Ohio, on Friday, September 14.  Obama arrives at Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland on Thursday, September 13. Obama returned to Washington after a two-day campaign trip with events in Nevada and Colorado.  Supporters cheer as Romney speaks at a campaign rally in Fairfax, Virginia, on Thursday.  An Obama supporter attends a rally in Las Vegas on Wednesday, September 12. Obama focused on economic policies during his two days of campaigning in Nevada and Colorado.  Former President Bill Clinton speaks in support of Obama during a campaign stop in Miami on Tuesday, September 11.  Obama is lifted up by Scott Van Duzer, owner of Big Apple Pizza and Pasta Italian Restaurant, during a visit to the restaurant in Fort Pierce, Florida, on Sunday, September 9. Obama was on a two-day bus tour across the state.  President Obama greets supporters during a campaign stop at the Palm Beach County Convention Center in West Palm Beach, Florida, on Sunday.  Mitt Romney walks through the garage area during a rain delay before the start of the NASCAR Sprint Cup Series Federated Auto Parts 400 at Richmond International Raceway on Saturday, September 8, in Richmond, Virginia.  Ann Romney, wife of Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney, waves to the crowd before speaking at a rally in Leesburg, Virginia, on Friday, September 7.  Supporters try to stay dry in between rain showers while waiting for President Obama to speak at the University of Iowa on Friday. It was Obama's first day of campaigning after accepting the presidential nomination at the Democratic National Convention in Charlotte, North Carolina.  A girl listens to President Obama speak at the University of Iowa on Friday.  Vice President Joe Biden, first lady Michelle Obama, President Obama and Biden's wife, Jill, wave after Friday's campaign event at the University of Iowa.                                                                                                                                                                      
(CNN) -- President Barack Obama and Republican challenger Mitt Romney barnstormed their way across more than a half-dozen battleground states on Sunday, making closing arguments to a closely divided American electorate before Tuesday's vote. Obama stumped in New Hampshire in the morning, flew to Florida and was headed west to Ohio and Colorado in the evening. Romney spent Sunday heading east from Iowa to Virginia, with a stop in Ohio and a foray into Pennsylvania in between. Along the way, Obama painted Tuesday's vote as a choice between policies that had moved the country out of the depths of recession and ones that got it into one in the first place. "On the one hand, you can choose to return to the top-down policies that crashed our economy," Obama told supporters in Hollywood, Florida, north of Miami. "Or you can join me in building a future that focuses on a strong and growing middle class." And stumping with former President Bill Clinton in Concord, New Hampshire, he said Romney is trying "to repackage the same old ideas and pretend they're new."   Boehner very confident on Romney in Ohio  538 votes will decide the election  Courting the women's vote  How history will judge Obama "We know what change looks like, and what he's selling ain't it. It ain't it," Obama said. Campaign spokeswoman Jen Psaki said the president was "reflective" and "nostalgic" working the crowds. "He's enjoying himself," Psaki said, adding, "He's taking in every moment." New national poll: It's all tied up In Des Moines, Iowa, and Cleveland, Romney told voters that Obama's record, particularly on the economy, didn't warrant returning him to Washington. "Throughout this campaign, using everything he can think of, President Obama has tried to convince you his last four years have been a success," Romney told a rally in Cleveland. "So his plan for the next four years is to take all the ideas from his first term -- the borrowing, Obamacare and all the rest -- and do them all over again. He calls his plan 'forward'. I call it forewarned." In Des Moines, Romney said that would mean "continued, crippling unemployment. It means stagnant take-home pay. It means depressed home values and a devastated military. "Unless we change course, we may be looking at another recession," he said. "We're only two days away from a very different path, from a fresh start." National polls show the race locked in a virtual dead heat. A new NBC/Wall Street Journal survey shows Obama with a 1-point lead, 48%-47%, and an ABC News/Washington Post poll showing Obama and Romney tied at 48%. CNN will release its final national poll at 8 p.m. Sunday. Romney's next stop was in Pennsylvania -- a state most published polls show leaning Democratic. But Romney's running mate, Wisconsin congressman Paul Ryan, made a stop there Saturday, and Romney was headed for the Philadelphia suburbs Sunday evening. Is Pennsylvania really in play? Romney adviser Kevin Madden told reporters on the campaign plane Sunday that Obama is "under-performing" in Pennsylvania, "and it's presented us an opportunity."  Deja vu on the campaign trail  Dueling campaign phone banks In Ohio  The Jewish vote In Florida  Calculating who will win the presidency "We have a really strong volunteer infrastructure that we think could make a difference," Madden added. "And that's why we're traveling there with two days to go, and we have spent a lot of time in the last few weeks concentrating on expanding the map." The Obama campaign discounted Romney's chances of reclaiming Pennsylvania, which hasn't gone for a Republican presidential candidate since 1988. Psaki compared the GOP effort to "climbing Mount Everest without a guide, without a map and without support staff." But she added, "We're not taking a single vote for granted," and Clinton will be campaigning all over the state on Obama's behalf. Obama's running mate, Vice President Joe Biden, visited Cleveland on Sunday. He told a crowd at a high school that Romney and his running mate, Paul Ryan, are "running away from what they've stood for the last decade faster than you can imagine." "But like a little kid, they can't run away from their shadow until the sun goes down," Biden said. "It's going down Tuesday." Ryan started his day with a brief appearance at Lambeau Field, where he tailgated with fellow Green Bay Packers fans ahead of the team's 31-17 win over the Arizona Cardinals. He left before kickoff for Mansfield, Ohio, where he focused on shuttered auto plants and defense cuts in a state where Romney's opposition to the 2008 federal auto bailout of the U.S. auto industry has hurt the GOP. Mansfield was home to plant that made body parts for General Motors before the company's restructuring, when it was shut down. "It's not going the right way in some places in America, and you know what it doesn't have to be like this. We don't have to settle for this," Ryan said. "This may be the best that President Obama can do, but it is not the best that America can do." CNN Election Calculator: You do the math The polling numbers are slightly different in the battlegrounds, where Obama holds a small edge in more states than Romney. But most of those leads are well within the polls' sampling errors. Obama ends his blitz Monday with three rallies with rocker Bruce Springsteen in Madison, Wisconsin; Columbus, Ohio, where he'll be joined by rapper Jay-Z; and Des Moines, Iowa. First lady Michelle Obama will introduce the president to a crowd in Iowa, where Obama's 2008 Democratic campaign took off with a surprise win in the caucuses there. The couple then will head to Chicago, where they'll spend Election Day. Romney's other stops include Sanford, Florida; Lynchburg and Fairfax, Virginia; Columbus, Ohio; and a finish in Manchester, New Hampshire, before making the short trip to Boston, where he'll spend Election Day. Five things to watch in the Latino vote Extra day of voting possible in New York John Avlon: What's really at stake in this election CNN's Dan Lothian, Shawna Shepherd and Ashley Killough contributed to this report.   |
11/04/2012
Final countdown: 48 hours, dozens of stops
Four nightmare election scenarios for what could go wrong
| In Florida, voters cried out in frustration as polling stations became overwhelmed, and the Democratic Party had sued to extend early voting after some people were stuck on lines for hours trying to meet Saturday's deadline. NBC's Michael Isikoff reports. By Michael Isikoff, NBC News With more than 90 million Americans expected to cast their ballots on Tuesday, election officials across the country are bracing for what some fear will be a "perfect storm" of election day problems that could result in tense confrontations at polling stations and a rush to the courthouse to file legal challenges. The list of actual and potential problems is unusually long this year, ranging from concerns about machine failures to confusion over new rules governing voter ID and provisional ballots. Another big wild card: the impact of groups such as "True the Vote," a Tea Party off-shoot, that is vowing to swarm polling places with an army of hundreds of thousands of "citizen" poll watchers to look for fraud and challenge ineligible voters. It's a threat that civil rights groups are vowing to fight with their own rival armies of poll watchers -- to "monitor the monitors," says one activist. "Our election system has probably never been under as much strain as it is right now -- anything that can go wrong, probably will go wrong," said Victoria Bassetti, a former Senate Judiciary Committee counsel and the author of the new book, "Electoral Dysfunction: A Survival Manual for American Voters." Bassetti notes that the camps backing both President Barack Obama and Republican nominee Mitt Romney have "pre-positioned their legal assets" by deploying thousands of volunteer lawyers to battleground states in order to challenge decisions by election supervisors, in court if necessary. In Florida, the litigation is already heating up. On Sunday, the Florida Democratic Party filed emergency lawsuits to extend early voting -- challenging GOP governor Rick Scott's refusal to do so -- after some voters were stuck in lines for up to six hours trying to meet Saturday's deadline for early ballots. When the Miami Dade election office reopened to allow in-person absentee balloting, and then temporarily shut it down, frustrated voters started shouting, "Let Us Vote! Let Us Vote!"-- stirred up by a man wearing an Obama campaign tee shirt. It could be a preview of what happens Tuesday. "We can expect lots of yelling and screaming- and lawsuits," said Bassetti. The upshot is that, if the voting is as close as some (but not all) polls suggest, the winner of the presidential election may not be known for days, if not weeks, after Election Day. "We're going to be in sudden death overtime," predicts John Fund, a former Wall Street Journal editorial writer and the co-author of "Who's Counting: How Fraudsters and Bureaucrats Put Your Vote at Risk." To be sure, disputes about voting are hardly new -- and some of the potential problems most frequently cited by advocates on both sides of the political fence could prove to be overblown. But experts interviewed by NBC News identified a number of so-called "nightmare scenarios" that could complicate the counting of returns on Tuesday. Here's a look at four of those scenarios: 1) The national vote count for president is thrown into doubt because of the impact of Hurricane Sandy. The devastation wrought by Hurricane Sandy in the Northeast appears likely to hold down vote totals in the region. In New Jersey, hundreds of polling stations may be without power -- late last week nearly half of the 240 locations in Hudson County were out of commission and officials are scrambling to find alternatives. On Saturday, Gov. Chris Christie's administration announced that it will allow voters to download ballots off a state Website and return them by e-mail -- a system that some experts have warned could lead to tampering by hackers. (A voting group called the Verified Voting Foundation has repeatedly warned about the security risks from Internet voting.) On Thursday, the state's lieutenant governor, Kim Guardagno, said the state will deploy Defense Department trucks with "Vote Here" signs, protected by National Guard members. But that plan prompted concerns among some Democrats that military trucks could intimidate voters, especially in minority neighborhoods, and there were signs over the weekend that officials may be backing away from it. "Obviously, this is uncharted water for us -- getting hit with this at this late date just before a huge election," said Michael Harper, the clerk of elections in New Jersey's Hudson County, during a tour of damaged and flooded polling stations on Saturday. While the hardest hit states like New Jersey, New York, and Connecticut are all considered reliably Democratic and safely in the Obama column, the aftermath of the hurricane could affect the president's total national vote counts -- and raise questions about his mandate or even legitimacy if he loses the popular vote but wins the Electoral College (just as some Democrats questioned President George W. Bush's legitimacy after he lost the popular vote in 2000.) 2) A large number of provisional ballots makes the Electoral College winner impossible to determine on election night. The situation appears most acute in Ohio, a crucial battleground, where some experts have warned about a counting disaster stemming from what are expected to be as many as 200,000 provisional ballots. The background: in an effort to impose uniformity, GOP Secretary of State Jon Husted over the summer directed that absentee ballot applications be mailed out to all of the state's 6.9 million registered voters -- regardless of whether they had asked for them or not. About 1.3 million voters filled out those applications and received absentee ballots in the mail. But as of this weekend, 238,678 voters who got absentee ballots had not returned them. If those voters don't return their ballots by mail by tomorrow and try to go to the polls on Tuesday instead, they along with others whose eligibility could be questioned or who show up at the wrong polling station, will have to cast provisional ballots to make sure they haven't vote twice. And under Ohio law, those ballots can't even be counted until Nov. 16, ten days after Election Day. "There's a realistic chance that we will not know which candidate won the presidential election in Ohio because of the existence of provisional ballots, that we will be in overtime," said Edward Foley, an election law expert and professor of law at Ohio State University. The issue intensified on Friday when Husted issued a new directive that puts the burden on voters, rather than poll workers, to properly fill out a form recording what ID was presented for provisional ballots -- and instructing election boards to throw out provisional ballots if the forms are incomplete or contain any mistakes. The directive has triggered a last minute law suit by voting rights groups, increasing the likelihood of disputes over the counting of provisional ballots in a pivotal battleground state. 3) Disputes over ballot printing errors, machine errors, and a lack of paper trail could bog down the counting in other battleground states. This problem has already arisen in Florida. About 27,000 absentee ballots in Palm Beach County, Florida -- famous for its "butterfly" ballots and hanging chads during the 2000 Florida recount -- can't be read by voting machines because of a printing error. This forced election officials last week to begin the arduous process of hand-copying those ballots in order to feed them into the machines -- while lawyers from both sides looked on, raising challenges. An exasperated Susan Bucher, the country's election supervisor, was caught on camera admonishing lawyers over what she termed "frivolous" objections and threatening to eject them. But questions about machine failures are far broader than that. Last week, lawyers for the Republican National Committee wrote letters to attorneys general in six states asking for investigations after receiving reports that some voters had complained that machines had recorded their votes for Mitt Romney as being for Obama. Two voting experts warned on Saturday "we risk catastrophe" if recounts are required in Virginia and Pennsylvania "because most of their votes will be cast on paperless voting machines that are impossible to recount." 4) Legions of citizen poll watchers on both sides create confusion and even chaos at some polling stations. "True the Vote," the Texas-based Tea Party inspired group, has launched an aggressive national effort to root out vote fraud, providing training videos and computer software (that contain data on property records and death indexes) to help volunteers identify ineligible voters who show up at the polls on Tuesday. Hans Von Spakovsky, a former Federal Election Commissioner who serves as one of the group's advisers, defends the effort, telling NBC News that in a close election "any bogus vote" needs to be stopped. "Anytime you have a close election, a small amount of fraud could make the difference." But voting rights groups say "True the Vote" and its affiliates threaten to intimidate legitimate voters -- a prospect they aim to combat with their own battalions of citizen poll watchers on Tuesday. Judith Browne Dianas, co-director of the "Advancement Project," a civil rights group, says her organization has lined up thousands of lawyers and poll watchers in 20 key states to look for "suspicious activity" by True the Vote and its affiliates. "We will also be watching the poll watchers making sure they aren't acting as bullies," she says. |
In mad dash, candidates seek every vote
| Mitt Romney, striking a hopeful tone in the final days of the 2012 race, returned to Iowa, the state that launched his campaign. By Tom Curry, NBC News national affairs writer With the hours quickly running out before voters render their verdict, Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney reached out Sunday for the votes of independents who may be disenchanted with President Barack Obama, telling a crowd in Cleveland, "He promised to do so very much, but frankly he fell so very short. He promised to be a post-partisan president, but he's been most partisan, he's been divisive, blaming, attacking, dividing. And by the way, it's not only Republicans that he refused to listen too, he also refused to listen to independent voices." Later in his speech Romney added another pitch to the independents in Ohio: "Now so many of you look at the big debates in this country, and you don't look at them as a Republican or as a Democrat, but first as an American…. You hoped that President Obama would live up to his promise to bring people together to solve big problems, but he hasn't. And I will." After campaigning with former president Bill Clinton in New Hampshire Sunday morning, Obama touched down in Florida Sunday afternoon, and was then headed to Ohio in the evening and will arrive in Colorado in the middle of the night. As he has for several stops in the last two days, Romney alluded at his Cleveland event to Obama's comment on Friday that "voting's the best revenge," by saying, "In his closing argument, President Obama asked his supporters to vote for revenge. For revenge. Instead, I ask the American people to vote for love of country." Alluding to her battle with Parkinson' disease and cancer, Romney's wife Ann told the crowd her life was "not always a fairy tale," but introducing Romney she said "One thing I can tell you about this guy is he will always stand by my side... and he'll always do what's right for America." President Obama stopped in Concord, N.H. Sunday to garner support for his re-election bid, as the presidential campaign heads into its final two days. Two hours earlier, only eight miles away from the Romney event, Vice President Joe Biden campaigned in Lakewood, Ohio, accusing Romney and his running mate Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin of playing "a con game" in the waning days of the campaign. "They're running away from what they believe." He appealed to Democrats to get out the vote in the state that decided the 2004 election and whose 18 electoral votes might well decide the election: "We need you Ohio. We need you. We win Ohio, we win this election." In a NBC News/Wall Street Journal/Marist poll released Saturday, Romney was trailing Obama in Ohio 51 percent to 45 percent among likely voters, including those who were undecided yet leaning toward a candidate and those who voted early. The survey found that 3 percent were undecided. Ryan was also campaigning Sunday in Ohio with a stop in Mansfield. As his first event Sunday Ryan, dressed in a Green Bay Packers jacket, arrived at Lambeau Field in Green Bay, Wisc., to attend a tailgate party. Green Bay has ranked among the nation's top presidential campaign TV ad media markets in recent weeks. Meanwhile Obama opened his day by rallying Democrats in the small but vital battleground of New Hampshire which has only four electoral votes of the 270 needed to win the presidency. George W. Bush carried the state in 2000 but Democrat John Kerry won it in 2004 and Obama won it in 2008. "Just as we did when Bill Clinton was president, we gotta ask the wealthiest to pay a little bit more so we can reduce the deficit and still invest in the things we need to grow," Obama told a crowd in Concord, N.H. The president told the crowd that on Saturday night he had consulted with his campaign advisers. "I looked at David Plouffe, some of you know he's my big campaign poo-bah smart guy. But Plouffe and I looked at each other and we said, 'You know what. We're no longer relevant. We're props. Because what's happened is that now the campaign falls on these 25-year old kids who are out there knocking on doors, making phone calls, and then we realized, you know, pretty soon after they do their jobs then they're not relevant either because it's now up to you." And Clinton reminisced with the crowd about his second-place finish in the 1992 New Hampshire primary that kept alive his faltering campaign: "Twenty years and nine months ago, New Hampshire began the chance for me to become president." He added," It's no secret that I never tire of coming here, that I never forget anything that happened here and I'm still looking for someplace I haven't yet been. And it is a very good thing that in the closing days of this campaign you have the chance to send the president back where he belongs to four more years in the White House." Romney will hold his final rally of the campaign Monday night in Manchester, N.H., underscoring again the significance of tis four electoral votes. In his first event Sunday in Des Moines, Iowa, Romney played on the theme of a smaller federal government which doesn't over-promise. "Paul and I have not promised you a bigger check from the government," Romney told the crowd. "And we haven't promised to take from some people to redistribute to you. We've instead promised to rebuild the economy and to tame the growth of government and restore the principles that made America the greatest nation in the history of the earth." He remind his supporters how vital Iowa is to his campaign strategy: "I need Iowa – I need Iowa so we can win the White House and take back America, keep it strong, make sure we always remain the hope of the earth. I'm counting on you. Will you get the job done?" A new Des Moines Register Iowa poll released Sunday showed Romney trailing Obama 47 percent to 42 percent. Romney will head Sunday afternoon to campaign in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, just north of Philadelphia, in an eleventh-hour foray that came as a surprise to most outside observers. No Republican presidential candidate has won the state since 1988, but a recent Franklin & Marshall poll of Pennsylvania voters has Romney trailing Obama by only 4 percentage points among likely voters. A Romney victory in Pennsylvania would be one of the campaign's biggest surprises. Asked by a reporter Sunday whether it is a little too late for Romney to invest time campaigning in Pennsylvania, Romney senior advisor Kevin Madden said, "No, because this is one of those states that came into view right after the first debate. And as a result it just presented a great opportunity…. And here you are with an incumbent president under 50 (percent in polling). We're essentially tied. We're overperforming in many of these critical areas of the state, like the Philadelphia suburbs, areas like Scranton, southwest Pennsylvania. So we see it as a great opportunity and traveling there today we think can help make a difference. And this is actually the perfect time given that you're 48 hours from people making a decision, given that that they don't have early voting there." In addition to his stop in Pennsylvania, Romney was slated to campaign Sunday in Virginia and Florida. NBC News's Carrie Dann, Garrett Haake and Ali Weinberg contributed to this story |
Nonvoters: Too busy, fed up or pessimistic
 Courtesy photos For different reasons, Suzann Holland, of Monroe, Wis., Heather Felton, of Parrish, Fla., and Ryan King, of Buffalo, N.Y. will not be voting in the Nov. 6 elections. By Isolde Raftery, NBC News Tabitha Brown, 29, of Oregon, says she won't vote because she finds her ballot too confusing. "I'm just a simple girl," she said. "Dumb it down for us." In Buffalo, N.Y. Ryan King, 19, said he won't vote because he doesn't know if he's registered. He mailed in a registration form, but no one replied, so he doesn't know where to show up. Further south in the Bronx, Lala, a woman who is staying at a shelter, said she won't vote because she thought she needed a state ID, which she can't afford. When she learned she didn't need an ID, it was too late to register. Political pundits say undecided voters will determine the election, but little is said about people like Brown, King and Lala, who aren't voting. Since the 1960s, voter turnout has steadily declined in the U.S., which already ranks near the bottom among established democracies. In 2008, 64 percent of voting-age citizens voted, compared with 93 percent in Chile, 86 percent in Germany and 74 percent in Canada. NBC News recently asked readers via Twitter, Facebook and through NBCNews.com to tell us why they won't cast their ballots. Their responses paralleled those from a 2008 survey by the U.S. Census Bureau: They don't like their choices, they're busy or they're not interested. Broken down, the least likely voters have the lowest level of education. In fact, the most pronounced voting gap in 2008 was not between young and senior (49 to 72 percent) but between those without a high school degree and those with advanced degrees – 39 percent to 83 percent. The wealthier are more likely voters -- 52 percent of those whose annual family income is less than $20,000 voted versus 80 percent among those whose families bring in more than $100,000. That could be partly because low-income people have more trouble taking time off work to vote. "Everyone's pressed for time these days and therefore whether or not an employer is actively allowing people to vote the employees may feel time-pressed or constrained to take that legally protected time," said Susan Schoenfeld, senior legal editor for Business & Legal Resources, which provides guidance to employers on human resources issues. Although some states require that employers give workers time off to vote, human resource experts say those laws are sometimes too confusing for employers and employees to understand. About 13 percent of those responding to the Census survey said they didn't vote because they didn't like the 2008 candidates. That theme emerged among our readers too – many of them women in their 30s and 40s – who said not voting was itself political. "It feels like a third choice," said Suzann Holland, a 41-year-old public library director from Monroe, Wis. "We tend to think we have two choices because third parties are not viable, but there is a third choice – to let other people decide because sometimes either choice goes against everything we believe in." Holland has voted in the past but this year, she said the debates between President Barack Obama and former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney "cemented my distaste for both candidates." Breeanne Findley, 32, of Moline, Ill., is also fed up with Obama and Romney. She and her husband have five children between the two of them; she is a stay-at-home mom and is devoutly Pentecostal. "I kept going back and forth, I looked online at who else was running for president – the Green Party and some other independent groups – but I didn't like those guys either," Findley said. Her sister-in-law was appalled, she said. "She says that I'm not allowing my voice to be heard, saying that I should reconsider because my vote matters, there these are things I need to be voting for." She has decided it doesn't matter who becomes president: "I'm a Christian and I believe that God is in charge. If this guy wins, it's not the end of the world because God is still God." In Florida, Heather Felton, 37, said she found herself lost in the political middle. She is Catholic, opposed to abortion, but also opposed to the death penalty and in favor of gun control. She has nuanced views about immigration. "I posted to my Facebook page, 'Who should I vote for? Give me a good moral reason," she said. "But people aren't giving me a good moral reason. They're presenting negative inflammatory language." Back in New York, Ryan King, a student at Cansius College, is not alone in struggling with registering to vote. Six percent of nonvoters between the ages of 18 and 24 didn't vote in 2008 because they didn't know how or where to sign up, according to the Census data. After mailing in a voter registration form, he looked online for clues about where he should vote. He asked the College Democrats and the College Republicans at his school, but they told him they didn't know. Increasingly jaded, King now questions whether his vote would count. (Which lands him in another Census category: Four percent of nonvoters said they didn't register because they didn't believe their vote would make a difference.) "I just feel so disenfranchised voting in New York," he said. "It doesn't matter anyway. If I voted for Obama, it wouldn't count, so why bother?" He added: "If you want me to vote so bad, at least meet me halfway," he said. In the Bronx, Lala was slightly sheepish to find out she didn't need an ID to vote. (She used to live in Georgia, where ID is required.) But mostly, she said, she feels increasingly apathetic. More pressing was food for dinner and ultimately, a job. She checked her wallet – she had $30 to her name. She said she read Romney's five-point plan but found it lacking and disjointed. "As much as I would love to be bitter about living in poverty during the Obama administration, I have to consider that the alternative is a man without a plan," Lala said. Then she grew contemplative. "All I need is something as simple as a job," she said. "I could have my quality of life back. I don't know how voting is going to meet my immediate needs." NBC's Allison Linn contributed reporting to this story.
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Delphi retirees say the government betrayed them
| By Talesha Reynolds and Lisa Myers, NBC News At first glance, David Kane, 63, appears to be solidly middle class. He has a home on a lovely suburban street in Sandusky, Ohio, and a boat docked in the nearby marina. But looks can be deceiving. Kane doesn't have television or even a functioning wristwatch. He and his wife Dianne live on their boat, a 1976 Trojan Tri-Cabin in need of repair, for part of the year to save on utility costs. He does outdoor maintenance at the marina to pay for the docking fees. After a 35-year career at Delphi, the primary parts supplier for General Motors, Kane expected retirement to look much different. He left the company at age 54 as it was downsizing, and he was offered a buyout. But in 2009, Kane received word that, as part of the bailout to save General Motors, the pensions that he and 20,000 fellow Delphi salaried employees were promised would be reduced 30 to 70 percent. Kane lost almost half his pension and now receives only $1,600 a month. He says it has been devastating. "It's just a beat down, day in and day out, to struggle to get through." What makes it more difficult is that other Delphi workers who worked alongside Kane, members of the powerful United Auto Workers union, did not suffer the same fate. They are receiving their full pensions. When the government stepped in to bail out GM, providing a total of $50 billion from taxpayers, it also had to deal with Delphi, which already was in bankruptcy, because GM needed Delphi's parts to build its cars. In the process, Delphi's pensions were handed over to the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBCG), a government-backed entity that insures private pensions. The PBCG terminated the pension plans, which were underfunded at the time. Then General Motors did something that the Government Accountability Office, Congress' investigative arm, later called "unusual." GM agreed to top up the pensions of 22,000 Delphi members of the United Auto Workers union – at a cost of $1 billion. That enabled the UAW workers to still get their full pensions. But there was no such sweetener for the company's salaried employees or for the non-UAW hourly workers. And because the PBGC has statutory limits on how much it can pay in benefits, their payments were reduced sharply. "We were the group that was just kicked to the curb like yesterday's trash," said Bruce Gump, vice-chairman of the Delphi Salaried Employees Association. Now, two congressional committees and the Special Inspector General for the Troubled Asset Recovery Program (SIGTARP) are investigating the basis and motivation for this decision. Was this a political favor for a powerful union that backed President Barack Obama, as critics claim? Or was this a business decision by GM, based, according to the company, on an agreement originally negotiated in 1999 during Delphi's spin off from the automaker? What role did the Obama administration play? Inspector General Christy Romero, has said she's looking into "whether the (administration's) auto task force pressured GM to provide additional funding for those pensions." In a later agreement with the new GM, two other unions, IUE and USWA, were also topped up. Members of the Delphi Salaried Employees Association say they do not begrudge the union retirees their pensions, because they earned them. The salaried workers just want equal treatment, and they want answers from the government. Retirees hard hit by 'broken promises' "It's a struggle every day, and every time anything breaks, it's a near disaster," she said, adding that she hasn't had a working dishwasher for two years. Miller had been counting on her full pension to help her start new career as a life coach. "My plan was, 'OK, I have a pension and I have health care. And I have a son in high school and sons in college -- and a daughter also. But if we live very simply, I can make that pension stretch so that I can really have my dream." Miller started the business anyway, but she says it is growing slowly because of the economy. Miller has a friend, a former colleague at Delphi with whom she worked closely for several years in the same role, though he was paid hourly while she was drawing a salary. She can't understand why he was treated differently. "What made the work that that person did more valuable than the work I did? What was greater about the promise he received when he went to work for GM and Delphi than what I was told?" Gump, who worked for General Motors and Delphi for almost 33 years and was a senior engineer when he retired, lost about 30 percent of his pension. "Inside our organization we have lots of people that have seen their homes foreclosed," he said. "They've had to declare personal bankruptcy. There's been some families that have broken up over the stress associated with this. There's even been a couple suicides." The DSRA retirees are a politically diverse group – Republicans, Democrats and Independents – but regardless of political stripe, many of them believe the Obama administration betrayed them. Howard Collins, a Democrat, said he voted for Barack Obama in 2008 but isn't sure he would do so again. "I don't know if I will decide until I actually go in the voting booth," he said. Did the government pick winners and losers? "What I think is a fair surmise is that General Motors made a judgment that there was a commercial necessity for treating the UAW the way they did," says Bloom. There was concern that the unions might interfere with the flow of parts from Delphi to the auto company, which could harm new GM. Topping up the union pensions ensured the work would continue. "The UAW had commercial leverage in this case, which they utilized." Bloom now says he feels for the Delphi workers. "There's no making it nice. There's no saying it's OK. The only thing one can say is that it was done in a responsible and fair way relative to the rules of the road in a bankruptcy." His position was echoed by Treasury Spokesman Anthony Coley, who told NBC News, "As has been exhaustively documented, Treasury's consistent approach to the auto restructuring was to defer to GM's business judgment and not approve or disapprove individual business decisions. While the GM restructuring involved painful concessions from all stakeholders, President Obama's decision to stand behind GM and the American auto industry saved more than a million jobs." But Bruce Gump, the Delphi salaried workers representative, calls that justification a "smoke screen." "I believe that what really happened was that this administration simply wanted to take care of their political base," he said. The administration has turned over thousands of documents related to Treasury's discussions between GM, Delphi and the PBGC, but not to the satisfaction of members of the House Oversight Committee, House Ways and Means Committee, or attorneys for the salaried Delphi employees They accuse the Treasury Department of stonewalling and withholding key documents. Ron Bloom and key Task Force members Harry Wilson and Matthew Feldman refused to be interviewed by the special investigator general of TARP about the Delphi pension decisions for almost a year, until July, when they were called to testify before a house subcommittee. Rep. Mike Turner, R-Ohio, called their refusal to answer questions "a happy train of silence." The three have now complied and the special investigator general's audit is nearing completion. Emails and testimony from lawsuits and ongoing investigations suggest the administration was deeply involved in GM's decisions and considered a list of "politically sensitive" issues, but so far there is no proof the pension decisions were driven by political favoritism. For its part, General Motors maintains that by topping up the union pensions, the company was fulfilling an agreement made at the time of the Delphi spin-off. And GM holds that the fate of the salaried employees was in the hands of the new Delphi. "Delphi's salaried pension plan was fully funded, and it was transferred to Delphi at the time the new company was created," GM spokesperson Greg Martin said in a statement to NBC News. "Responsibility for the future health of that plan – including funding levels and asset allocation – rested solely with Delphi. The new GM is not in a position to fund salaried Delphi pensions twice." In 2010, then UAW President Ron Gettelfinger expressed support for Delphi's salaried pensioners. "This is a grave injustice," Gettelfinger wrote in a letter to the Delphi Salaried Retirees Association. "While the restructuring of America's auto industry requires shared sacrifice and responsibility, Delphi's salaried retirees/former employees are being forced to bear extra burdens that are not warranted." Seeking resolution Last week Rep. Dave Camp, R-Mich., chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, sent a letter to Department of Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and the White House Counsel requesting compliance with a congressional request for documents. Sen. Sherrod Brown, a Democrat from Ohio, has introduced legislation that would restore the salaried pensions using proceeds from the sale of the government's shares of GM stock. But legislation takes time. The group representing the salaried workers would prefer to receive their full pension directly from the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, which they say would not cost taxpayers a dime, because it receives its income from the premiums paid by the companies whose plans it insures. Whether or not they believe the decision was made to appease an influential ally of the administration, the salaried retirees say that after a three-year struggle, it is just time to put things right. "Really, that's in the past to be honest with you," said David Kane. "You can't do anything about history. It's locked in. Where do we go from here? I'm more focused on what we do now to change the future. That's the only thing we can change." Kane's wife, Dianne, lost her job around the same time his pension was reduced. Together, the couple has nine part-time jobs, but they are still barely making it. "Our finances were based upon this scale, if you will, of expected income. And even with all the number jobs that we're working, it doesn't replace what we lost. It was easier sliding down the hill than to climb back up it," Kane said. Kane's health has created additional challenges. Months before his pension was cut, he was diagnosed with prostate cancer. He also suffers from chronic fatigue syndrome. Kane is still looking for full-time work but has had no luck. He suspects his age and poor health are a factor. Nevertheless, he remains hopeful. "What I would like to see now is that portion of our pensions restored to the levels that they were before Delphi exited bankruptcy and did away with our pensions," he said. "If I can get that portion back, I can make it. It's just too tough without it." Lisa Myers is NBC's senior investigative correspondent and Talesha Reynolds is an NBC investigative producer. |
If states legalize pot, will feds still crack down?
| Three states will decide on Tuesday whether to take the unprecedented step of legalizing marijuana. NBC's Pete Williams reports. By Bill Briggs, NBC News contributor Marijuana-legalization backers believe they're well schooled on all things leafy – from cannabis to political tea leaves. With pro-pot measures leading in recent polls in Washington and Colorado, proponents don't foresee federal agents interceding in those states if voters approve the initiatives. Their rationale: Two years ago, when California voters considered a similar proposal to legalize the adult possession of an ounce or less of pot, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder publicly vowed the feds would continue to prosecute anyone in that state caught possessing marijuana — even if the law passed. It failed. This year, in contrast, federal anti-drug authorities have repeatedly declined to discuss decriminalization proposals in three states — including a measure in Oregon that would end the prohibition of marijuana there. (That initiative trailed in recent polls.) The response routinely delivered by U.S. Department of Justice spokeswoman Allison Price, including in an e-mail to NBC News: "We are not going to speculate on the outcome of the various ballot initiatives in each of the states." "That, to me, is significant because they didn't just copy and paste what they did and said in 2010. We feel pretty good about that," said Alison Holcomb, campaign director for Washington's Initiative 502, which seeks to regulate and tax marijuana production and distribution in that state. According to a poll released Thursday, Initiative 502 had the support of 55 percent of Washington voters. But Dr. Kevin A. Sabet, former senior drug policy advisor to the Obama Administration and director of the Drug Policy Institute at the University of Florida, predicts a far different law-enforcement reality on the ground in Washington — as well as in Colorado, where Amendment 64 would allow the state to regulate marijuana as it does alcohol. "Once these states actually try to implement these laws, we will see an effort by the feds to shut it down," Sabet said. Sabet's vision of post-election pot realities in Washington and Colorado — where Amendment 64 has majority support, according to a recent poll — seems to suggest a possible weed war between the feds and the states. "We can only guess now what exactly that would look like," Sabet said. "But the recent U.S. Attorney actions against medical marijuana portends an aggressive effort to stop state-sponsored growing and selling at the outset." (That includes, he said, letters sent by federal prosecutors last January to medical marijuana dispensaries in Colorado operating within 1,000 feet of schools, ordering those businesses to halt sales.) "The question voters should be asking themselves," Sabet said, "before voting on these initiatives is this: Is your right to buy pot from a store down the street worth the risk of increased teenage drug abuse, increased enforcement action by the feds, and increased problems like 'stoned driving?' " Whether a legal showdown is ignited or not, some state-legalization proponents see their measures as possible footholds in a march toward national marijuana decriminalization. "Exactly 80 year ago, Colorado voters approved a ballot measure to appeal alcohol prohibition, and that came prior to it being repealed by the federal government," said Mason Tvert, co-director of the Yes on 64 campaign in Colorado, a state that already regulates the sale of medical marijuana. "And it was the individual states taking that type of action that ultimately resulted in the federal (Prohibition) repeal. "The same kind of thing is underway with marijuana," he added. "Whether there's going to be a critical mass, who knows?" In Washington, Holcomb echoed that uncertainty: "I'm not sure how that's going to play out." "It may be there's going to some generational evolution on this. Medical marijuana was introduced in the mid-90s and we were still talking to a lot of people that were coming out of the 'Reefer Madness' era, who had a lot of fear. And (medical marijuana) was a really powerful way to help them see that marijuana is not this terribly scary thing that they had been told," Holcomb said. Indeed, the most recent poll on Colorado's Amendment 64 found that 73 percent of state state's residents who are under age 30 want pot legalized. At the same time, more than half of seniors are against decriminalizing marijuana. Anti-drug watchdog Sabet, meanwhile, sides with most current political leaders — "the overwhelming majority of Congress (and) both major presidential candidates" — as well as the American Medical Association standing against the decriminalizing of marijuana: "I don't envision national legalization as a realistic possibility in the near future." "The state-level efforts could soon prove to be a tipping point for more aggressive legalization initiatives," Sabet said. "However, there is a growing consensus within the medical and treatment community — who deal with the problems of marijuana use and addiction everyday — to reject both extreme prohibition and lax legalization. I think we'll end up with a policy that is more centrist, for example, not punishing people by barring them from a job for a past marijuana arrest, but also not allowing marijuana to be marketed and sold like alcohol or cigarettes." Do you support the legalization of marijuana? More content from NBCNews.com:
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Boy falls into zoo exhibit, mauled to death by dogs
 Gene J. Puskar / AP file An African painted dog yawns at the Pittsburgh Zoo in March 2009. Officials say a young boy was mauled to death after falling into the wild dog exhibit on Sunday. A young boy fell into an African painted dog exhibit at a Pittsburgh zoo and was mauled to death by the wild animals, zoo officials said. The child, about 3 years old, was with his mother visiting the Pittsburgh Zoo & PPG Aquarium when he somehow fell from a 14-foot-high observation deck into the exhibit at about 11:45 a.m. He was immediately attacked by several dogs and died, zoo President and CEO Barbara Baker said. The zoo quickly moved visitors into buildings as animal keepers tried to coax the dogs into an off-exhibit area. Many of the 11 dogs in the exhibit moved away immediately, and several others were scared away from the child by the zookeepers. A remaining dog would not leave the child, and a Pittsburgh police officer shot the animal.  NBC News Officials gather near the scene of a fatal child mauling at the Pittsburgh Zoo on Sunday. Baker pointed out these types of dogs typically hunt in packs, so this behavior is not considered unusual. No visitors on the observation deck saw the child fall into the exhibit, Baker said. The zoo was closed for the day while police and zoo officials investigate. African painted dogs, also known as African wild dogs, Cape hunting dogs, spotted dogs, and painted wolves, are found in the open plains and sparse woodlands of sub-Saharan Africa. The long-legged canines have only four toes per foot. According to the zoo's website, African painted dogs are the size of medium domestic dogs, weighing on average between 37 and 80 pounds and measuring 24 to 30 inches high. The dogs are classified as an endangered species. Last spring, nine of the 11 painted dogs escaped a section of their enclosure, causing a brief shutdown of the zoo. The dogs were coaxed back into their exhibit area with food. No one was hurt. NBC's Betsy Cline contributed to this story. More content from NBCNews.com:
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