Russian President Vladimir Putin has dismissed Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov after his ministry was caught up in a corruption scandal.
Anatoly Serdyukov has been replaced with a former emergencies minister and loyal ally to Vladimir Putin, Sergei Shoigu.
Russia’s top investigative agency is investigating the sale of ministry assets at prices below market value.
Vladimir Putin said he had removed Anatoly Serdyukov to create “conditions for an objective investigation”.
Last month, Russian investigators raided the offices of a state-controlled military contractor and began investigating the company on suspicion that it had sold assets to commercial firms at a loss of nearly 3 billion roubles ($100 million).
Oboronservice’s activities include servicing military aircraft and arms and constructing military facilities.
President Vladimir Putin has dismissed Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov after his ministry was caught up in a corruption scandal.
Anatoly Serdyukov was a furniture store executive and head of the Russian tax service before being appointed defense minister in 2007.
In the six years that Anatoly Serdyukov had been minister he had tried to reform Russia’s outdated armed forces by cutting costs and personnel and by boosting efficiency.
But he had made enemies along the way, and fell out with his own father-in-law, the former deputy prime minister Viktor Zubkov.
Anatoly Serdyukov may now face questioning as part of the fraud investigation.
Barack Obama won election in Hart’s Location, one of two tiny New Hampshire villages that get to cast the first votes of the presidential race on Election Day.
Barack Obama won with 23 votes, Mitt Romney received 9 and Libertarian Gary Johnson received 1 vote.
In 2008, Barack Obama received 17 of the 29 votes cast.
Barack Obama won election in Hart’s Location, one of two tiny New Hampshire villages that get to cast the first votes of the presidential race on Election Day
President Obama and Mitt Romney tied in Dixville Notch, the other New Hampshire town that enjoys first-vote status.
Each candidate received five votes – the first tie in Dixville Notch history.
In 2008, Barack Obama received 15 of the 21 votes cast.
The towns have proudly held their first-vote status since 1948.
Tens of millions of Americans head to the polls on Tuesday to decide whether to re-elect President Barack Obama or hand the job to Republican Mitt Romney.
The voting ends a hard-fought race that began nearly two years ago and has cost more than $2 billion.
Polls will begin closing in eastern states at 19:00 EST – a winner could be known by midnight.
Polls show the race is neck and neck, although the president holds a slender polling lead in crucial swing states.
National polls by Washington Post/ABC News and the Pew Research Centre both give Barack Obama a three-point edge over his rival.
As many as 30 million voters have already cast their ballots, with more than 30 states allowing either absentee voting or in-person early voting.
On the stroke of midnight, the first votes were cast and quickly counted in the tiny village of Dixville Notch in New Hampshire. They resulted in a tie with five votes each for Barack Obama and Mitt Romney.
Barack Obama has already voted in his adopted hometown of Chicago, becoming the first sitting presidential candidate ever to vote early. Mitt Romney is expected to cast his own ballot in Belmont, Massachusetts, later on Tuesday.
The election is decided by the electoral college. Each state is given a number of electoral votes in rough proportion to its population. The candidate who wins 270 electoral votes – by prevailing in the mostly winner-take-all state contests – becomes president.
Tens of millions of Americans head to the polls on Tuesday to decide whether to re-elect President Barack Obama or hand the job to Republican Mitt Romney
Also on Tuesday’s ballot are a handful of state governors, one third of the seats in the 100-member US Senate and all 435 seats in the House of Representatives.
Republicans are expected to keep control of the House, while Democrats were tipped to do the same in the Senate.
The presidential candidates spent Monday frantically criss-crossing the crucial battleground states including Ohio, Florida, Iowa and Virginia, making final appeals to voters. Their task: Push their own supporters to the polls while persuading the sliver of undecided voters to back them.
In speeches, Mitt Romney kept up his attack on Barack Obama’s record, reciting a litany of statistics he says illustrate the president has failed to lift the US economy out of the worst downturn since the Great Depression that followed the stock market crash of 1929.
“If you believe we can do better, if you believe America should be on a better course, if you’re tired of being tired… then I ask you to vote for real change,” Mitt Romney told a rally in a Virginia suburb of the capital, Washington DC.
The president appeared at rallies with singer Bruce Springsteen and rapper Jay-Z. He acknowledged frustration with the still-lagging economy but told voters “our work is not done yet”.
“We’ve come too far to turn back now,” the president said in Ohio.
“We’ve come too far to let our hearts grow faint… We’ll finish what we started. We’ll renew those ties that bind us together and reaffirm the spirit that makes the United States of America the greatest nation on Earth.”
With observers anticipating a close race, both sides have readied teams of lawyers for possible legal fights, especially in the critical battleground state of Ohio.
Some analysts fear the election will not be decided on Tuesday night if the state’s vote becomes mired in legal battles.
On Tuesday Mitt Romney is to hit the campaign trail again with events in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and Cleveland, Ohio, before holding an election night rally in Boston.
Barack Obama will hold his own election night rally at a convention centre in Chicago.
Volunteers armed with drums and whistles are being used under a new scheme to shame people going to the toilet in public in the western Indian state of Rajasthan, officials say.
The scheme was launched on Monday in 34 villages in Jhunjhunu district.
Four to five people will “shout, beat drums or blow a whistle” if they see anyone urinating or defecating in the open, said an official.
Repeat offenders may even be asked to pay a fine, he said.
Nearly half of India’s 1.2 billion people have no toilet at home and they defecate in the open.
Correspondents say spitting, urinating and defecating in public are a common sight across India, and in rural areas many people continue to go out in the open even when they have toilets at home because they prefer the outdoors.
But the authorities in Jhunjhunu now want to change that behavior.
“Nearly 80% [of] villagers in the district have toilets at home and we’re trying to motivate the remaining 20% to build toilets at home,” said Ramniwas Jat, head of Jhunjhunu district council.
“We are also giving financial assistance of 9,100 rupees [$166] to people who wish to construct a toilet. We want people to not defecate in the open,” he said.
Spitting, urinating and defecating in public are a common sight across India
Officials say cultural and traditional factors, a lack of education and too few toilets are the prime reasons why millions of Indians defecate in the open.
Those with no access to toilets have to go to farms and fields and women have to go before dawn or after dark in order to preserve their modesty.
Last year, in Madhya Pradesh a newly-wed woman left her husband’s home two days after her marriage because the house had no toilet.
Defecating in the open is also blamed for the spread of a number of diseases such as tapeworm.
Diseases spread by human waste
Ascariasis: An intestinal infection from a large roundworm (growing up to 30 cm) whose eggs are found in contaminated soil. Kills 60,000 a year
Cholera: A global public health threat with up to five million cases a year, it results in profuse diarrhoea/vomiting and can kill within hours
Dysentery: Highly contagious bacterial infection. Outbreaks are likely in areas where poor hygiene practices exist
Typhoid fever: An infection of the intestine and bloodstream causing fever, headache and diarrhoea. 17 million cases a year
Trachoma: Infection which turns the eyelid inwards, causing eyelashes to rub and scar the eyeball. An estimated six million worldwide are blind due to the disease
Conservatives feared SEAL Team Six, the film about the raid on Osama bin Laden’s compound, was an underhanded propaganda ploy by President Barack Obama’s supporters.
But the made-for-TV movie, released two days before the elections, was a flop. When it debuted on Sunday, it was panned by TV critics as a “dim and simple-minded work of fiction” – incapable of swaying even the most ambivalent voters.
SEAL Team Six was produced by one of Barack Obama’s biggest backers in Hollywood, Harvey Weinstein, who rushed it forward to ensure it debuted before November 6.
Harvey Weinstein also oversaw editing changes that played up Barack Obama’s role in ordering the May 2011 commando assault into Pakistan that killed the al-Qaeda leader.
Fact-checkers also point out several inaccuracies in the movie – including the idea that then-Defense Secretary Robert Gates opposed going after Osama bin Laden.
SEAL Team Six: The Raid on Osama Bin Laden was billed as a political game-changer – released just a two days before the dead-even election between Barack Obama and Republican Mitt Romney, conservatives feared it would give the president free propaganda and unfairly sway voters at a critical time.
Barack Obama has campaigned on his role in the death of the 9/11 mastermind – frequently touting: “GM is alive and Osama bin Laden is dead.”
The film casts the president as an “edited-in-costar”, writes Ken Tucker, an Entertainment Weekly film critic.
Baltimore Sun critic David Zurawick panned the movie as suffering the same flaws as most made-for-TV docu-dramas – but he said the film had a clear political objective.
“<<SEAL Team Six>> feels more like propaganda at times than it does prime-time entertainment. Yet it will still leave you with a feel-good surge, if not a lump in your throat, at the end when the team returns from its mission. And that visceral response makes you want to believe even more in the heroic actions you just witnessed. One of those heroes is President Barack Obama,” he wrote.
SEAL Team Six was produced by one of Barack Obama’s biggest backers in Hollywood, Harvey Weinstein, who rushed it forward to ensure it debuted before November 6
It splices in several pieces of real-life footage of the president at the time – including footage of him cracking jokes at the White House Correspondents dinner on the eve of the raid, as well as his remarks to the country after Osama bin Laden’s death.
But TV critics say the movie, which aired on National Geographic, fizzled.
“As either propaganda or realist fiction <<SEAL Team Six>> is ineffective. It’s on the level of those <<The army is just like a character-building video game!>> enlistment ads you see before movies, simple-minded and, at most, superficially rousing. Barack Obama probably isn’t wild about help this dim,” writes Willa Paskin of Salon.com.
Ken Tucker said the cheesy banter between the actors playing Navy SEALS sounded like it had been “checked out from a well-preserved World War II supply closet”.
Example: “In this world you don’t get to live free without working for it. You gotta earn it every day, and that day we did,” a commando named Cherry, played by Anson Mount, declares.
Among the other sins in the movie is its unhealthy blend of fact and fiction, critics say. It even gets several key points dead wrong.
It portrays Defense Secretary Robert Gates as opposed to the raid – a role that makes Barack Obama’s decision to attack even more heroic.
However, Robert Gates was initially skeptical of sending commandos into Pakistan because he wasn’t certain bin Laden was actually at the compound in Abbottabad. He later changed his position when it was confirmed the terrorist leader was inside.
The movie also shows a dramatic firefight in the building where Osama bin Laden was killed. Most accounts of the raid say that the only exchange was fire was in a guest house when Osama bin Laden’s courier shot at the SEALs.
Barack Obama and Mitt Romney have spent the day before the election visiting key swing states and making final pitches to voters.
Mitt Romney went to Florida, where polls suggest he has the edge, and then to Virginia, New Hampshire and Ohio.
President Barack Obama appeared in Iowa, Wisconsin and Ohio, joined at rallies by Bruce Springsteen and rapper Jay-Z.
The election will be decided in just a handful of states, with Ohio in particular seen as crucial to victory.
Barack Obama closed his re-election campaign in Des Moines, Iowa, – the city where his bid for the presidency began in early 2007.
At a late-night rally, he told the crowd that Iowa had started “a movement that spread across the country”.
Mitt Romney, meanwhile, was due to end his campaign with a late-night rally in New Hampshire but made the surprise announcement that he would extend campaigning into election day itself – visiting Ohio and Pennsylvania on Tuesday.
Barack Obama and Mitt Romney are running almost neck-and-neck in national polls, in a campaign that has cost more than $2 billion.
But surveys of the nine or so battleground states that will determine the election show Barack Obama narrowly ahead.
On the stroke of midnight, the first votes were cast and quickly counted in the tiny village of Dixville Notch in New Hampshire. They resulted in a tie with five votes each for Barack Obama and Mitt Romney.
The race has been most intense in Ohio – no Republican has ever made it to the White House without winning there.
Mitt Romney would become the first Mormon president of the US if he wins on Tuesday.
Barack Obama and Mitt Romney have spent the day before the election visiting key swing states and making final pitches to voters
In Fairfax, Virginia just outside Washington DC, the former Massachusetts governor said the president had failed to make good on the promise of his 2008 campaign and it was time for a new direction.
“Look at the record,” he exhorted supporters.
“Talk is cheap, but a record is real and it’s earned with effort. When the president promised change, you can look and see what happened. Four years ago then-candidate Obama promised to do so very much but he’s done so very little.”
He summed up his pitch to voters: “Do you want four more years like the last four years? Or do you want real change?”
In Ohio, Bruce Springsteen and rapper Jay-Z helped warm up a crowd for Barack Obama before the president appeared.
“I’ve got a lot of fight left in me and I hope you do,” Barack Obama told the rally, his voice hoarse from nearly non-stop campaigning.
“The folks at the very top in Washington don’t need another champion. They’ll always have a seat at the table. The people who need a champion are the people whose letters I read every day.
“We’ve come too far to turn back now. We’ve come too far to let our hearts grow faint.”
Thirty million Americans have already cast their ballot through early voting across 34 states. In the 2008 presidential election, 130 million people voted.
With the election expected to be decided by a razor-thin margin, both sides are readying teams of lawyers for legal fights.
Democrats in Florida have filed a legal case demanding an extension of time available for early voting, citing unprecedented demand after voters reportedly queued up for hours on Sunday,
In Ohio, Republican election officials were going to court on Monday to defend an 11th-hour directive to local election officials that tightens requirements needed for provisional ballots to be counted.
In New York, Governor Andrew Cuomo has signed an order allowing residents to vote at any polling place, not just the one to which they had been assigned.
The city and surrounding areas were devastated by super-storm Sandy last week. Many residents remain without power and many polling places were damaged.
Activists have been stepping up efforts across the crucial swing states.
In Wisconsin, student volunteers have been putting in 14-hour days in an effort to deliver the state for Barack Obama.
Average of national opinion polls shows Barack Obama heading into election day with a single-point lead among likely voters, 49% to 48%.
Mitt Romney remains favored among whites, older people and evangelical Christians; Barack Obama among women, non-whites and young adults.
In the crucial swing state of Ohio, a RealClearPolitics.com average of polls shows Barack Obama leading Mitt Romney 49.6% to 46.6%.
The election is decided by the electoral college. Each state is given a number of electoral votes in rough proportion to its population. The candidate who wins 270 electoral votes becomes president.
A handful of governors, the entire House of Representatives and one-third of the Senate are also up for election on Tuesday.
Republicans are expected to keep control of the House, while Democrats were tipped to do the same in the Senate.
A new study has revealed that some of the earliest signs of Alzheimer’s disease have been found in the brain, more than two decades before the first symptoms usually appear.
Treating the disease early is thought to be vital in order to prevent damage to memory and thinking.
A study, published in the Lancet Neurology, found differences in the brains of people destined to develop an early form of Alzheimer’s.
Experts said the US study may give doctors more time to treat people.
Alzheimer’s disease starts long before anyone would notice; previous studies have shown an effect on the brain 10-15 years before symptoms.
It is only after enough brain cells have died that the signs of dementia begin to appear – some regions of the brain will have lost up to 20% of their brain cells before the disease becomes noticeable.
However, doctors fear so much of the brain will have degenerated by this time that it will be too late to treat patients. The failure of recent trials to prevent further cognitive decline in patients with mild to moderate Alzheimer’s disease has been partly put down to timing.
A team at the Banner Alzheimer’s Institute in Arizona looked at a group of patients who have familial Alzheimer’s. A genetic mutation means they nearly always get the disease in their 40s. Alzheimer’s normally becomes apparent after the age of 75.
Brain scans of 20 people with the mutation, aged between 18 and 26, already showed differences compared with those from 24 people who were not destined to develop early Alzheimer’s.
The fluid which bathes the brain and spinal cord also had higher levels of a protein called beta-amyloid.
The researchers said differences could be detected “more than two decades before” symptoms would appear in these high-risk patients.
Dr. Eric Reiman, one of the scientists involved, said: “These findings suggest that brain changes begin many years before the clinical onset of Alzheimer’s disease.
“They raise new questions about the earliest brain changes involved in the predisposition to Alzheimer’s and the extent to which they could be targeted by future prevention therapies.”
Prof. Nick Fox, from the Institute of Neurology at University College London, said some of his patients had lost a fifth of some parts of their brain by the time they arrived at the clinic.
He said: “I don’t think this pushes us forwards in terms of early diagnosis, we already have markers of the disease.
“The key thing this does is open up the window of early intervention before people take a clinical and cognitive hit.”
However, he said this raised the question of how early people would need to be treated – if drugs could be found.
Greece is braced for a 48-hour general strike across public and private sectors in protest at a proposed new wave of spending cuts.
Protest marches – which regularly end in running battles with police – are planned for the centre of Athens.
The action coincides with a debate in parliament on the austerity measures, with a vote by MPs due on Wednesday.
Greece must back the measures, and the 2013 budget, to receive the next part of a bailout and avoid bankruptcy.
The latest strike starting on Tuesday includes public transport workers, lawyers, air traffic controllers, taxi drivers, journalists and hospital staff.
Some transport and media workers downed tools on Monday as well.
With proposals for a fifth consecutive cut to pensions, an increase in the retirement age and reductions to salaries, benefits and healthcare, the fury among Greece’s population is growing.
Greek ministers say the package should save a total of 13.5 billion euros ($17 billion) by 2016.
Approving the tough reforms and passing the 2013 budget are key to receiving a 31.5 billion-euro installment from the International Monetary Fund and European Union that has been on hold for months.
However, the Democratic Left Party which is the junior member of the three-party governing coalition, is refusing to back the package.
The second biggest coalition party, the socialist Pasok, is also facing a rebellion by some MPs.
Prime Minister Antonis Samaras has tried to reassure the public, who have endured repeated rounds of austerity and a five-year recession.
“These will be the last cuts in wages and pensions,” he said on Sunday.
“We promised to avert the country’s exit from the euro and this is what we are doing. We have given absolute priority to this because if we do not achieve this everything else will be meaningless.”
Claudio Sciarpelletti, a computer technician, has gone on trial in the Vatican City charged with aiding and abetting Pope’s former butler, Paolo Gabriele, in stealing papal documents.
Claudio Sciarpelletti has been accused of helping Paolo Gabriele leak the confidential documents while working in the Vatican’s Secretariat of State.
His lawyer argued that his client has no case to answer and the trial should be dropped.
Paolo Gabriele was given an 18-month prison sentence by the same court last month.
He admitted passing documents to a journalist, but said he did it out of love for the church and the Pope.
Paolo Gabriele is serving his sentence in a special detention room inside the Vatican’s police station, amid talk that he may be pardoned by Pope Benedict XVI.
Claudio Sciarpelletti, 48, handled secret communications in the Vatican’s Secretariat of State, the nerve centre of the Roman Catholic church.
His lawyer said an anonymous tip-off led Vatican police to search Claudio Sciarpelletti’s desk last May – finding an envelope addressed to Paolo Gabriele containing copies of sensitive documentation that had been leaked to the Italian media.
Claudio Sciarpelletti has been accused of helping Paolo Gabriele leak the confidential documents while working in the Vatican’s Secretariat of State
During his brief arrest, he is said to have given confused and contradictory explanations to investigators.
Defence lawyer Gianluca Benedetti denied the claims that the former butler and Claudio Sciarpelletti had been good friends, and said his client had been in an “emotional state” in his interviews with investigators.
The Vatican has since said he played a “marginal” role in the scandal.
Senior Vatican communications officer, Greg Burke, said that although Claudio Sciarpelletti was being charged with aiding and abetting Paolo Gabriele, it was “more like an obstruction charge” relating to his contradictory testimony, the Associated Press reports.
However, the judge refused Gianluca Benedetti’s request to drop the trial, and said the next hearing would be scheduled for Saturday. Analysts say his trial is likely to be shorter than Paolo Gabriele’s which lasted for a week.
Interest in the case centres on who the witnesses called to give evidence may be, correspondents say. A senior cleric and two top Vatican security officials are expected to be called, as well as Paolo Gabriele himself.
It is thought the trial may shine a light on the extent to which other Vatican employees, including clerics, may have been involved.
Much of the stolen information ended up in a best-selling book by journalist Gianluigi Nuzzi about corruption, scandals and infighting at the Vatican.
Paolo Gabriele confessed to taking the papers, but said he believed the Pope was being manipulated, and that he hoped to reveal alleged corruption at the Vatican.
The Vatican authorities have limited press access to Claudio Sciarpelletti’s trial and no TV cameras were allowed in court.
Mila Kunis and Ashton Kutcher had to be pretty enamored with Ampersand in Sydney’s Paddington neighborhood to visit the place two days in a row.
The lovebirds hit up the cafe and bookstore first on Friday, which prompted the chef to excitedly announce that he’d cooked for the Hollywood pair.
In response to questions about what they ate, the chef said: “Mila had our Mediterranean poached eggs & Ashton had muesli, fruit, yoghurt & creamed rice.”
The Mediterranean eggs were accompanied by spinach, halloumi cheese, tomatoes and sourdough bread, suggesting that Mila Kunis, 29, has a healthy appetite… especially for a Hollywood siren.
Ashton Kutcher’s eclectic breakfast is more of a bafflement.
Mila Kunis and Ashton Kutcher had to be pretty enamored with Ampersand in Sydney’s Paddington neighborhood to visit the place two days in a row
Ashton Kutcher, 34, opted to mix business with pleasure by taking his girlfriend along on a work related trip to Australia.
So far he’s held a dinner to celebrate his successful business investment Airbnb, that was attended by Spice Girl Mel B and Brian McFadden.
In their downtime, Mila Kunis and Ashton Kutcher have been spotted in the seaside suburb of Bondi and later walked along the scenic coastline to the neighboring Bronte beach.
They put on an affectionate show during the stroll, holding hands and later walking arm in arm.
Mitt Romney’s chances of winning presidential election were boosted today by two polls which gave him a slender lead over Barack Obama.
Polls by Gallup and Rasmussen both gave Mitt Romney 49% of the national vote, ahead of Barack Obama on 48%, flying in the face of other polls which had appeared to show the President in the driving seat over the weekend.
The slim advantage could allow Mitt Romney to snatch victory in the key swing states which he needs to win in order to carry him to the White House.
The odds had appeared to be stacking up against Mitt Romney winning on Tuesday. Among political journalists, campaign reporters and most pollsters, there was a congealing conventional wisdom that President Barack Obama was about to be re-elected, particularly after Hurricane Sandy.
On Sunday, a raft of new national polls from Pew put Barack Obama up three, and NBC/Wall Street Journal, which gave him a one-point advantage. Fox, GWU/Politico and ABC/Washington Post found a tie nationally.
Rasmussen poll released on Monday
The Gallup poll, released at lunchtime on Monday, was the first since the firm suspended operations during Sandy, and showed a small swing to Obama. Its last poll before the hurricane gave Mitt Romney 51% of the vote with the President on 46%.
Both candidates were plunged into frantic activity on the last full day of campaigning before Tuesday’s election.
Gallup poll released on Monday
Barack Obama scheduled appearances in Wisconsin, Ohio and Iowa alongside A-list celebrities including Bruce Springsteen and Jay-Z, while Romney planned a whistle-stop tour of four different swing states – Florida, Virginia, Ohio and New Hampshire.
The fact that both men included Ohio on their itineraries shows the crucial importance of the state, which both campaigns consider almost indispensable to their victory hopes.
Barack Obama is counting on former President Bill Clinton and Bruce Springsteen, top surrogates for his campaign, to carry his message.
But he also has enlisted an army of A-list performers and public figures – from Lady Gaga to Billie Jean King, from Jay-Z to Crosby, Stills and Nash – to promote his re-election.
The Obama campaign provided a who’s-who of 181 actors, musicians, authors, athletes, mayors, Congress members, and more that fit any and all demographic groups in the president’s target zone.
All are being deployed to carry his message to television and radio in the waning days of a nip-and-tuck campaign.
On Saturday, Stevie Wonder played an unannounced concert for voters waiting in line to vote early in Cleveland.
Stevie Wonder opened a rally for Barack Obama by rocking the arena at the University of Cincinnati with a rendition of Keep on Running.
Stevie Wonder opened a rally for Barack Obama by rocking the arena at the University of Cincinnati with a rendition of Keep on Running
Songwriter John Legend, actor Laurence Fishburne, and congressman and civil rights hero John Lewis from Georgia were among those who went to Ohio to lead a Souls to the Polls effort with local churches.
The list includes some of Hollywood’s big names – Samuel L. Jackson, Anne Hathaway, and Scarlett Johansson – who were talking to Top 40 radio stations.
Samuel L. Jackson and comedian Chris Rock were on stations with primarily African American audiences urging voters to go to the polls Tuesday.
Danny DeVito and members of the FX sitcom It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia have canvassed neighborhoods in Wisconsin, made phone calls and visited colleges in the state.
A new research has found that people who walk with a slouched body posture are more likely to feel depressed.
A study from San Francisco State University found that a slouched or despondent body posture can lead to decreased energy and feelings of depression.
But researchers found that mood and energy levels can be increased simply by changing the body posture to an upright position.
Professor of Health Education Erik Peper, writing in the journal Biofeedback, said: “When you choose to put your body in a different mode, it’s harder to drop into depression.”
Previous research has found that exercise and movement can increase energy and happiness. But Erik Peper said these feelings can also be achieved by people sitting in more upright body positions.
He said if people start introducing more body movements into their daily life, it can boost energy levels and improve quality of life.
“It’s very similar to the principle of <<fake it till you make it>> – you can convince your body to have more energy.”
A total of 110 students were asked to walk down a hallway in a slouched position and then skip down the hallway.
Following the exercise, the students were asked to rate their energy levels.
The entire group found that walking in a slouched position decreased energy levels but skipping increased energy.
Students also answered questionnaires to rate how depressed they felt.
Those who felt more depressed reported lower energy levels after slouched walking than those who did not feel depressed.
Slouching has also been linked to causing career problems. Those who walk slouched are perceived as being not vital, reports NBC News.
It is also linked to an increased risk of death and disease, making people look heavier, cutting off circulation and stressing people out.
New York’s Attorney General has launched an investigation into hundreds of complaints of prices being increased in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy.
Eric Schneiderman said the largest number of complaints concerned increased fuel prices, but other emergency supplies were also affected.
“Price gouging” of essential consumer goods is forbidden under New York law.
More than one million people in New Jersey and New York are still without power a week after the storm hit.
Although fuel supplies are reaching petrol stations across the region, around one-quarter are still closed in metropolitan New York.
At the weekend, long queues of cars and people carrying red canisters built up at petrol stations.
As a result of the storm, 8.5 million homes and businesses were left without power, prompting a surge in demand for generators and hotel rooms. Tens of thousands of people have been displaced.
Eric Schneiderman said that consumers had contacted him to report “possible gouging for emergency supplies like generators, hotels raising rates due to ‘high demand’, as well as increased prices for food and water”.
New York’s Attorney General has launched an investigation into hundreds of complaints of prices being increased in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy
In a statement, the attorney general said that under New York state law, retailers were not allowed to charge “unconscionably excessive prices” for goods required for personal, family or household purposes when there was an abnormal disruption of the market.
He pledged to do “everything we can to stop to stop unscrupulous individuals from taking advantage of New Yorkers trying to rebuild their lives”.
Transport authorities opened more subway lines on Monday, as more commuters returned to work and one million students returned to school for the first time since the storm.
But platforms were teeming with travelers, trains were overcrowded and limited bus services struggled to meet the demand for services into New York City.
Hundreds of people joined queues early on Monday for the Jersey City ferry service to New York.
As overnight temperatures fell close to freezing, forecasters warned of a new storm approaching the US east coast.
According to the National Weather Service, the coastal storm could reach South and North Carolina late on Tuesday before spreading northwards, strengthening as it moves up towards New Jersey with gusts of up to 50 mph (80 km/h) by Thursday.
“Prepare for more outages,” Weather Service meteorologist Joe Pollina told Associated Press.
Justin Bieber unveiled a large inking of an owl on his left forearm, while on stage in Philadelphia.
This is the second tattoo Justin Bieber has obtained in a matter of weeks.
At the start of last month Justin Bieber revealed a crown design on his upper chest on the right side on his Twitter page, before explaining the reasons behind the etching.
He tweeted: “New tattoo its a crown if you couldn’t tell.”
Justin Bieber unveiled a large inking of an owl on his left forearm, while on stage in Philadelphia
Despite his tender age the teen has a collection of tattoos.
Justin Bieber underwent his first inking of a bird on his hip at the tender age of 16, and followed it with the Hebrew word for Jesus on his ribcage when he and his dad opted to get matching tattoos during a trip to Israel.
Continuing with his collection of religious tattoos, Justin Bieber later had an image of Jesus etched onto his left leg.
In March Justin Bieber had a praying hand inking etched onto his leg, which is thought to represent the power of prayer and the Almighty.
And in July he debuted a tattoo on his right arm – the Japanese Kanji symbol for music.
Florida is suffering from a bottleneck of voters ahead of Election Day, with some waiting up to nine hours to cast their ballots.
On Saturday – the last day of early voting – residents there were either forced to wait in long lines for up to nine hours or turned away from the polls altogether.
Despite the ordeal, Florida Gov. Rick Scott said he would not be extending the early voting hours.
Rick Scott told WSVN-TV: “People are getting out to vote, they’re voting absentee, they’re voting early voting. I’m focused on making sure that we have fair, honest elections.”
Also in Florida, some voters reported receiving fake letters that claimed their citizenship status was being questioned.
“The Sarasota County of Elections has received information from the Florida Division of Elections regarding your citizenship status, bringing into question your eligibility as a registered voter,” reads the letter signed by Sarasota County Supervisor of Elections Kathy Dent.
Kathy Dent said the letter is fake and that her signature was forged. Most of the letters appeared to be targeting Republicans, according to election officials.
The Florida situation was just one case of voting irregularities popping up in key swing states where people have already begun casting their ballots, drawing concern among both Democrats and Republicans that their opponent’s party could be trying to illegally sway the election.
Reported voting problems include claims of faulty polling machines, late-arriving absentee ballots, voter intimidation, forged absentee applications and lengthy lines outside polling locations.
Democrats say the long lines outside early voting sites, some of which kept people waiting at least eight hours before they could cast a ballot, are effectively suppressing voter turnout in areas highly populated by minorities.
The period for early voting in Florida is shorter than it was in 2008.
Florida is suffering from a bottleneck of voters ahead of Election Day, with some waiting up to nine hours to cast their ballots
Meanwhile in New Hampshire, another battleground state, a few out-of-state voters have complained that their absentee ballots haven’t yet arrived in the mail.
Some voters have discovered that their ballots were lost in the mail, while others are still waiting for them to arrive.
New Hampshire voter Pamela Keilig didn’t find out until last week that her application for an absentee ballot was lost in the mail. She is now planning to make the 75-minute drive across state lines to cast her vote on Tuesday, according to ABC News.
While some in the Granite state anxiously await the arrival of their ballots in the mail, many Iowa voters have received out-of-state voting ballots that they never requested.
Recipients of unwanted mail notified the state and the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation pulled the applications for the ballots to find out where they originated. Investigators discovered that the signatures on the applications had been forge and the state is still investigating the matter.
Absentee ballots have also caused some problems in Ohio, where many voters failed to put enough postage on their ballots before returning them to the state.
Some of the ballots were thicker than others, due to additional ballot questions concerning local issues in some counties, and required more than the standard 45-cent stamps.
U.S. Postal Service spokeswoman Patricia Licata said with or without the right postage, the ballots will be mailed, however.
Outside of the potential for human error in the voting process, election officials are also concerned about the possibility of technological glitches.
Republicans, in particular, are concerned about voting machines in six states, including the hotly contested states of Ohio and Colorado.
The Republican National Committee wrote a letter to election officials claiming that voters have reported that some machines were switching their votes for Mitt Romney to votes for President Barack Obama.
RNC spokesman Tim Miller said a “few dozen” people had run into machine problems and he didn’t accuse anyone of wrongdoing.
Democrats, on the other hand, are pointing fingers at Republicans and accusing them of trying to suppress minority turnout at the polls.
Robert Bauer, general counsel for the Obama campaign, issued a memo Friday that linked Mitt Romney’s campaign to efforts to send people to polling centers to challenge voter eligibility.
Democrats are also upset over Spanish-language billboard ads in Pennsylvania that instructed voters to show ID at the polls, even though that won’t be required in the upcoming election.
A national poll of more than 36,000 voters in 27 states forecasts that Barack Obama will win re-election by two percentage points and 303 electoral college votes to Mitt Romney’s 235.
In what it bills as “one of the most extensive polls ever conducted”, British-based YouGov conducted its survey via the internet between October 31stand November 3rd.
The survey included all the battleground states along with the largest states such as New York, California and Texas.
The figures are much more optimistic for Barack Obama than other polls conducted over the weekend.
ABC/Washington Post, Rasmussen, George Washington University/Politico, and Fox News polls all found the race as tied. NBC/Wall Street Journal gave Barack Obama a one-point advantage.
YouGov projects that Barack Obama will win 18 states comfortably, giving him a base of 237 electoral college votes, 33 short of his target. Mitt Romney is projected to win 24 base states, giving him 191 electoral college votes, 79 short of victory.
There are 110 electoral college votes up for grabs in the remaining nine states, with Barack Obama needing to win just under a third of them and Mitt Romney needing almost three-quarters of them.
But Peter Kellner, president of YouGov, hedged his bets by saying that “while the President looks set for re-election, a Romney victory cannot be ruled out”.
Such an outcome, however, “would need YouGov’s figures – and those of almost all other pollsters – to be systematically wrong”.
Latest national poll shows Barack Obama will win re-election by 2 percentage points and 303 electoral college votes to Mitt Romney’s 235
YouGov identified the following as sources of possible error: a late swing towards Mitt Romney; different turnout to what the pollsters predicted; inaccurate methodology; or response rates that over-represent Barack Obama’s support.
Peter Kelner said: “We are predicting that Obama is going to hang on to the presidency, but by a smaller margin than in 2008. It’s even possible that Obama will narrowly lose the nationwide popular vote and still win the electoral college.
“Mitt Romney could win one million more votes than Obama across American and still lose the election. There have been elections when the winner of the popular vote has lost the Electoral College, most recently in 2000 when Al Gore won the popular vote, but still lost the election to George W Bush.
“In such a tight race, no doubt the Democrats are not only concerned about losing the White House, but are also worried about the cloud that could hang over Obama’s second term if he does not win the popular vote. Whatever happens tomorrow, this will undeniably be an historic election.”
Barack Obama maintains a polling edge in all-important Ohio with a 2.8% lead in the RealClearPolitics average. Mitt Romney leads by 1.4% and 0.3% in Florida and Virginia respectively – two swing states he must win if he is to oust Barack Obama.
But the Romney campaign remains strikingly confident that a surge in Republican turnout and a swing among late-deciding voters will put them over the top.
Rich Beeson, Mitt Romney’s political director, told Fox News on Sunday: “There’s an intensity factor out there on the side of the Republicans, that is a significant gap and we see it out on the ground.
“We see it when people are knocking on the doors, we see it when people are making the phone calls and again, it gets back to the simple fact that Governor Romney is out there talking about big things and big change, not about small things.”
There were “two numbers to keep in mind” he said.
“One is independents. Independents are going decide this race in all of these states. Governor Romney consistently leads among independents because they have seen his message, for creating 12 million jobs, real recovery and strengthening the middle class.
“The second number is you’ve got an incumbent president who has been running for this job for the last four years since the day he got elected, will have raised and spent over $1 billion and he is stuck well below 50, at 48, 47, 46, in all of these polls.
“When you’re an incumbent under 50, and well under 50, that’s a bad place to be.”
New Jersey Governor Chris Christie defended his praise for President Barack Obama’s support after Hurricane Sandy, but said he would stick with his Republican ticket and vote for Mitt Romney in this Tuesday’s election.
“The fact of the matter is what New Jerseyans expect from their governor is to work for them, not to work for any particular political party,” Chris Christie told Israel’s Channel 2 television in an interview broadcast on Sunday.
“I’m a Republican and I have endorsed Mitt Romney, I support him and I intend to vote for him on Tuesday,” said Chris Christie, interviewed in his home state by a visiting Israeli television reporter.
Chris Christie, a popular governor widely seen as a possible Republican contender in 2016, had frustrated some in the Romney campaign who feared he had given what could be a critical boost to Barack Obama, a Democrat.
He referred to Barack Obama’s pledge of federal aid during a visit to help New Jersey recover from the storm that knocked out power to some 2.4 million of its residents and said: “If the president of United States comes here and he’s willing to help my people and he does it then I’m gonna say nice things about him because he’s earned it.”
Barack Obama “provided help to my people at one of the worst crises that this state has ever faced”, Chris Christie added.
“When somebody does a good job, they deserve credit.”
“Anybody who is upset in the Republican Party about this, they haven’t been to New Jersey. Come see the destruction, come see the loss.”
New Jersey Governor Chris Christie said he would stick with his Republican ticket and vote for Mitt Romney
Chris Christie’s reaffirmation of support for Mitt Romney comes after the typically-brash governor spent a significant amount of time this week praising the President for his handling of the Hurricane Sandy aftermath.
Barack Obama visited New Jersey on Wednesday, taking a helicopter tour of the damaged areas with Christie before walking around the town of Brigantine and talking to survivors.
“I want to thank the president for coming here today [Wednesday, October 31st]. It’s really important to have the president of the United States acknowledge all the suffering that’s going on here in New Jersey and I appreciate it very much.”
Barack Obama returned the kind words, telling the crowds of beleaguered New Jersey residents who had gathered that their Republican governor was “working overtime to make sure that as soon as possible everybody can get back to normal”.
Governor Chris Christie changed his partisan tune after the storm, regularly singing President Barack Obama’s praises in relation to the federal aid given toward disaster relief support.
“The president has been outstanding in this and so have the folks at FEMA [the Federal Emergency Management Agency],” Chris Christie told the Today Show on Tuesday.
He later told news anchor Soledad O’Brien that President Barack Obama “has been incredibly supportive and helpful to our state, and not once did he bring up the election”.
VP Joe Biden, who has previously misremembered what state and what century he was in, now seems to have forgotten that Barack Obama is the president.
Speaking to a crowd of 1,200 people at a high school in Lakewood, Ohio, Joe Biden was slamming a “pernicious” Mitt Romney ad claiming that Jeep will move jobs out of Ohio to China.
The vice-president said that the ad claimed that “President Clinton bankrupted Chrysler so that Italians could buy it to ship jobs overseas to China”.
Bill Clinton was the 42nd president of the U.S. and left office in January 2001. Barack Obama became the 44th president in January 2009 and for the past nearly 4 years Joe Biden has served as his vice-president.
In Joe Biden’s defence, there was perhaps a Freudian element to the slip. Bill Clinton, who previously enjoyed testy relations with Barack Obama, has been mobilized by the current president to be his most prominent campaigner and the two men made joint appearances in Virginia on Saturday and New Hampshire on Sunday.
Joe Biden’s gaffes are numerous and legendary in political circles. He recently referred to Tim Kaine, a former Democratic National Committee chairman and the current Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate in Virginia, as “Tom”.
VP Joe Biden, who has previously misremembered what state and what century he was in, now seems to have forgotten that Barack Obama is the president
On a previous stop in Ohio, Joe Biden complained to an audience in the town of Marion about television ads “here in Iowa”. In Danville, Virginia, he declared: “We can win North Carolina!”
In August, Joe Biden asked a Blacksburg, Virginia crowd: “Folks, where’s it written we cannot lead the world in the 20th Century in making automobiles?”
The 20th Century ended on December 31st 1999, nearly 27 years after Joe Biden first took his seat in the U.S. Senate and almost 9 years before he became vice-president.
Last week, Joe Biden joked about his gaffes while at the same time putting a slightly more favorable gloss on his mixing up Ohio and Iowa.
Speaking to campaign volunteers in Davenport, Iowa, Joe Biden said: “I’ve been living in Ohio like I used to live in Iowa. As a matter of fact, I got in trouble [with] the press, which never points out any mistake I make. I was in Ohio talking about it and saying <<it’s good to be here in Ohio>> and then I said <<and in Iowa>>.”
Wreck-It Ralph has scored an impressive weekend at the US box office with $49.1 million in ticket sales.
Disney animated film Wreck-It Ralph, about a video game villain who tries to become a hero, earned almost twice as much as the number two movie, Denzel Washington’s Flight.
Ben Affleck’s Argo, based on the true story of a 1979 hostage crisis in Iran, came third with $10.2 million.
Cinema attendance was up this week in areas hit by Hurricane Sandy.
Dave Hollis at Walt Disney Studios said audiences in areas affected by the storm were “very healthy” and had been boosted by school closures on Friday.
“In a nice way, Wreck-It Ralph ended up actually becoming an opportunity to relieve yourself from the reality that might be going on around you,” he told the Reuters news agency.
“I don’t know if it was a function of cabin fever or just escaping by getting into a movie theatre, but there was definitely a gravitating towards the theatre phenomenon.”
Last week the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences named Wreck-It Ralph as one of 21 features eligible for next year’s best animated film Oscar.
Others include Brave, which has so far earned $235.8 million after 20 weeks on release, and Frankenweenie, which has brought in $33.3 million in North American ticket sales.
Wreck-It Ralph has scored an impressive weekend at the US box office with $49.1 million in ticket sales
The Man with the Iron Fists, starring Russell Crowe, brought in $8.2 milion to take the number four spot in this week’s Top 10.
Liam Neeson’s action film Taken 2 came fifth, while Cloud Atlas, in which Tom Hanks and Halle Berry play six different roles across 500 years, was ranked sixth.
Rounding off the Top 10 was Silent Hill: Revelation, the latest in the horror film franchise, which earned $3.3 million in ticket sales the weekend after Halloween.
Skyfall enjoyed another successful second weekend internationally, earning $156 million in overseas ticket sales.
The new James Bond film, starring Daniel Craig and Javier Bardem, will be released in the US and Canada on November 9th.
Kourtney Kardashian accidentally flashed a pair of Spanx when she stepped out for lunch in Miami on Sunday.
As she was dressed in a beach cover-up due to the warm weather, Kourtney Kardashian’s shapewear was visible when she turned to the side.
She’s not the only one who is a fan of Spanx as her sisters Kim and Khloe Kardashian have also been spotted using the underwear to smooth out any lumps and bumps.
Kourtney Kardashian, 33, in fact had flashed a similar pair of the nude underwear during a photo shoot last week.
The star had been getting set to pose in a green gown when a gust of wind caused her to have something of a Marilyn Monroe moment.
Kourtney Kardashian accidentally flashed a pair of Spanx when she stepped out for lunch in Miami on Sunday
But it was a slightly less glamorous affair on Sunday as she headed for a meal with her partner Scott Disick and their two children Mason and Penelope.
Kourtney Kardashian carried little Penelope, who was shielded by a blanket, in a convertible car seat while Scott Disick took charge of 3-year-old Mason.
The reality star showed off her legs as she headed into the Florida eatery in her white and gold printed cover-up, which she teamed with matching flip flops and large round sunglasses.
The previous evening the happy couple had been seen going for a spin on Scott Disick’s black scooter.
If President Barack Obama will be out of a job in 48 hours, First Lady Michelle Obama could step into a new career as a chat show host.
TV executives believe Michelle Obama would be a natural to become a talk show host.
Michelle Obama has even been compared to Oprah Winfrey, the queen of chat show hosts and one of the most recognizable names in show business.
“Personally I would like to see her in the White House,” said Hilary Estey McLoughlin., president of syndication company behind the Ellen DeGeneres show.
“But if she were not going to be in the White House, I’d love to see her as the host of a show. She’s amazing.”
And former CNN president Jon Klein agreed that Michelle Obama would be snapped up by TV chiefs if her husband does not win a second term in office.
“Daytime syndicators are desperate for a new voice and she is tailor made for it,” he told TV Guide magazine.
“She’s thoughtful. She’s committed. She’s a working mom. She’d be a strong voice on issues important to her.”
If President Barack Obama will be out of a job in 48 hours, First Lady Michelle Obama could step into a new career as a chat show host
Since moving into the White House Michelle Obama has been one of the most visible of First Ladies with more TV appearances than any other.
Michelle Obama has regularly appeared on The Tonight Show with Jay Leno and The Ellen DeGeneres Show.
Even The View has been graced by Michelle Obama while her appearance on the Dr. Oz show helped her promote her campaign for healthy eating.
Michelle Obama became the first president’s wife to appear on a reality show when she took part in the Iron Chef series with ingredients from the White House garden being used in food preparation.
Hilary Estey McLoughlin, whose Telepictures Productions syndicates the Ellen DeGeneres show, even talks about Michelle Obama as someone to take over Oprah Winfrey’s crown as chat show queen.
“She reminds me of Oprah Winfrey as someone who has the ability to make people understand complex things in a simple way.”
The New York state Board of Elections is preparing for the worst as they are releasing information about possible back-up scenarios if the election turn out is significantly lower than expected because of damage from Hurricane Sandy.
If less than 25% of registered voters show up to polling stations on Tuesday, they are prepared to extend the voting deadline past Tuesday evening, meaning that New Yorkers may have two days to cast their ballots.
The news comes just a day after neighboring New Jersey, which is considered the worst-hit of all of the East Coast because of the hurricane, announced that they will allow residents to email their votes in if they are unable to get to a polling station.
Election organizers are grappling with ways to make sure that the presidential election is not thwarted by any turnout issues stemming from Monday’s storm.
The New York board, which consists of two Democrats and two Republicans, will make the final decision Tuesday over whether or not they will hold a second day of voting.
They will be comparing this year’s turnout to that of previous elections, where typical turnout hovers around 60% of registered voters.
While power was restored to Manhattan on Friday, thousands remain in the dark. Progress is being made daily, but Governor Andrew Cuomo has urged utility companies to prioritize polling sites so that voters can cast their ballots safely.
“We’ve provided lists of poll sites to local utilities, and some of the voting machines do have battery backup,” board of elections spokesman Tom Connolly said.
“We are also planning to get generators to polling sites, but it’s not like we have an unlimited supply of generators.”
New York may extend voting for an extra day due to Hurricane Sandy
Hurricane Sandy, that barreled down on New Jersey and New York on October 29, has claimed 110 lives, displaced thousands and left millions without power for days.
Flooding, damaged roads and power outages have forced many Jerseyites from their homes and the electronic option will allow first responders who are working away from home and those displaced by the storm to cast their ballot.
New Jersey Governor Chris Christie and his counterpart in New York, Governor Andrew Cuomo, have been reviewing how to prepare their respective states for November 6 – while simultaneously trying to restore electricity and access to food and water.
New Jersey will allow any state resident that has been displaced by the storm to qualify as an overseas voter, meaning they can submit their ballot by fax or email.
Governor Chris Christie also mandated that county clerks open their offices over the weekend to allow early voting and has called for paper ballots to be sent to polling stations still without power.
The odds appear to be stacking up against Mitt Romney winning the 2012 presidential election on Tuesday.
Among political journalists, campaign reporters and most pollsters, there’s a congealing conventional wisdom that President Barack Obama is about to be re-elected.
On Sunday, new national polls from Pew put Barack Obama up three, and NBC/Wall Street Journal, which gave him a one-point advantage. Fox, Rasmussen,GWU/Politico and ABC/Washington Post finds a tie nationally.
More worrying for Mitt Romney is the state polls, particularly in Ohio, where the RealClearPolitics average has Barack Obama with a lead of 2.8%.
If everything goes Mitt Romney’s way on election day it is possible he could achieve out a victory that would stun Democrats and turn the polling world upside down.
Based on conversations with the Romney campaign, including a frank discussion with a senior Mitt Romney adviser, here’s how they see the Republican nominee winning.
Of course, campaign aides spin reporters because they want their optimistic scenarios to become part of a media narrative that helps drive voters. They are also part of a self-reinforcing campaign bubble in which belief in eventual victory is a prerequisite of getting through grueling days.
But the adviser quoted here, for what it is worth, correctly identified to me weeks beforehand that the first debate would be a game-changing moment for Mitt Romney, has always predicted a very close race and is honest enough to identify states such as Nevada which Romney probably won’t win.
If we look at the 2008 electoral college map, when Barack Obama beat Senator John McCain by an electoral college landslide of 365 to 173 (and seven percentage points in the popular vote), we can view the terrain on which the 2012 contest is being fought.
The distribution of electoral college votes (which are based on congressional districts and U.S. Senate seats) has changed slightly in 2012 to produce this map. Because of the changes, Barack Obama’s advantage has shrunk to 359 to 179 in the electoral college. The winner needs 270 votes. So for Mitt Romney to win, he needs to take 91 electoral college votes from the states that Barack Obama won in 2008.
We can immediately give one vote in Nebraska (based on winning a congressional district) and 11 in Indiana to Mitt Romney. Barack Obama is not campaigning for those. Next up is 15 in North Carolina. Barack Obama won it by just 14,000 votes in 2008 and early voting patterns indicate he’s probably going to lose there.
Then we have Florida – its 29 votes are a huge prize. The latest Miami Herald/El Nuevo Herald poll has Barack Obama being crushed by six points there. That’s the next state Mitt Romney needs. The Romney adviser was very confident, saying: “North Carolina’s baked. Florida’s baked.”
From there, it gets more difficult. Virginia, with 13 votes, is tighter than Florida but, again, early voting patterns suggest Mitt Romney will win it, though not by much. The Romney adviser said that “Virginia’s baked” though he added that it was “much closer than Florida”.
At this point, the Obama campaign would be really sweating. But so too would Mitt Romney’s team. We’d be down to Ohio, just as President George W. Bush was in 2004. This year, it has 18 electoral college votes.
If Mitt Romney bags Ohio, he’s on 266 electoral college votes and has multiple opportunities to get the four more he needs. Colorado’s nine, New Hampshire’s four, Iowa’s six and Wisconsin’s 10 look most likely. It’s very hard to see Mitt Romney winning Florida, Virginia and Ohio and Barack Obama keeping the White House.
Mitt Romney’s aides seem very bullish about Iowa – more so, even, than Colorado, where they say he took a hit in their internal polling with women independents after Barack Obama’s handling of Hurricane Sandy. The latest Des Moines Register poll gives Barack Obama a five-point advantage. But the Romney campaigns that the same poll put Barack Obama up 17 in 2008 and he won the state by 10 points.
How Mitt Romney can still win US presidential election
Privately, the Romney campaign has effectively conceded Nevada, which has six votes.
“Nevada, we’ll probably fall short,” said the Romney adviser.
“That’s just tough.”
Mitt Romney hasn’t travelled there since October 24th, just as Barack Obama has stayed away from North Carolina.
More remarkably, the adviser said that Minnesota, 10 votes, and Pennsylvania, 20 votes, were distinct possibilities. He even predicted a possible win in Minnesota.
Pennsylvania is intriguing. There’s a Susquehanna poll that puts the two candidates dead level. Barack Obama has to be a heavy favorite – no Republican presidential candidate has won there since George H.W. Bush in 1988
But the Obama campaign has sent Bill Clinton to do four events in Pennsylvania on the eve of Election Day. After Barack Obama himself – and perhaps even ahead of Obama – Clinton is their most valuable campaign resource. There is clearly some worry there.
So that’s the electoral college arithmetic. There is not too much difference between the way the two campaigns view it.
The more difficult case to make is how Mitt Romney’s vote is lifted so that on the spectrum of Barack Obama states to capture (the order in terms of confidence seems to be Indiana, North Carolina, Florida, Virginia, Iowa, Ohio, Colorado, Wisconsin, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Minnesota, Nevada and Michigan) it is a tide that rises above the Ohio threshold.
For that, several things have to happen: the battleground polls have to be wrong; undecideds have to vote for Mitt Romney; Romney’s turnout has to be very high; Barack Obama’s vote has to be depressed.
Can so many polls be wrong? The short answer is yes. It is worth remembering that in January 2008 virtually no one in the political world believed that Hillary Clinton could win the New Hampshire primary over Barack Obama, fresh off his Iowa victory. But win it she did.
This year, apart from Gallup and Rasmussen, pollsters have consistently over-sampled Democrats compared to Republicans.
The Romney adviser said: “The samples that they’re using are geared towards 2008 results. So you get Democrats plus four on Pew, you’ve got Democrats plus eight on PPP.
“It’s going to be a Republican plus one or Republicans plus two election. It’s not 2008, it’s not 2004, it’s not 2000. It’s a new election. It’s 2012 and a completely different dynamic. Every election we re-write history on turnout.
“Gallup looked at it a week ago and decided it was going to be a more Republican electorate and they had it right.”
The closer you get to an election, the more likely undecideds are to break against the incumbent. Mitt Romney will also have voter enthusiasm on his side. Whether that’s enough, remains an open question but the Romney campaign thinks so.
“What’s going on here is when you have intensity and momentum,” said the Romney adviser.
“You ask voters who they’re voting for and they say 48, 47 points Obama. And then you look at the people who are eight, nine,10 on the intensity scale, Republicans have a high single digits to low double digits advantage.
“That’s what you see in the early voting. We keep narrowing the gap of the early vote advantage in some of these states. That trend line goes right into election day when you just don’t want to get in the way of a Republican heading into the polls.”
Certainly, in Florida, North Carolina and Colorado, the early voting evidence is encouraging for Mitt Romney supporters. In Ohio, the picture is more mixed. The Romney adviser predicted a win in Ohio by as little at 20,000 votes. In 2004, George W. Bush won it by 119,00 votes and in 2008 Barack Obama won it by 262,000.
It appears that Mitt Romney was damaged by Hurricane Sandy – he was virtually absent from the television screens for four days, the discussion turned away from jobs and the economy and Barack Obama’s double act with Governor Chris Christie of New Jersey burnished his bipartisan credentials.
But the Romney adviser said that this has been turned around.
“Sandy didn’t flip us with independents but it narrowed. Then on Friday we got back in business with the <<revenge>> ad. Finally, we got back into business.
“Then Mitt just hit it in speech after speech and it got people back, particularly independents. Again saw Obama as divisive, petty, the negative partisan guy that they’d been seeing since the November 2nd debate.”
Can the Romney campaign envisage Barack Obama winning? The adviser responded: “I don’t see it. But his easiest path to that would be Ohio.
“He takes Ohio because Democratic men, hardworking lower middle class men, we don’t get the margin we think we’re getting. He somehow ekes it out. He gets Nevada, he gets Colorado, he gets New Hampshire. That’s probably the scenario.”
The Obama campaign believes that is indeed the scenario that will deliver them the White House. On Tuesday, we will know which of the two very different versions – almost parallel universes – of this race presented by the two campaign worlds will be the one that represents reality.
