Biden wins White House, ending Trump presidency

Democrat Joe Biden has won the White House, US media said Saturday, defeating Donald Trump and ending a presidency that convulsed American politics, shocked the world and left the United States more divided than at any time in decades.

CBS, NBC and CNN news networks announced the result just before 11:30 am (1630 GMT) as an insurmountable lead in Pennsylvania took Biden, 77, over the top in the state-by-state count that decides the presidency.

"America, I'm honored that you have chosen me to lead our great country," Biden said in a statement. 

"The work ahead of us will be hard, but I promise you this: I will be a president for all Americans — whether you voted for me or not. I will keep the faith that you have placed in me."

Trump quickly responded to the announcement by accusing Biden of falsely declaring himself the next president.

"We all know why Joe Biden is rushing to falsely pose as the winner, and why his media allies are trying so hard to help him: they don't want the truth to be exposed," Trump said in a statement.

"The simple fact is this election is far from over."

For Biden, who got more than 74 million votes, a record, the triumph after a tense contest conducted during a global coronavirus pandemic was the crowning achievement of his half century in US politics, including eight years as deputy to the first Black US president Barack Obama.

The result condemned 74-year-old Trump -- who made frantic attempts to claim fraud and stop the vote count -- to becoming the first one-term president since George H. W. Bush at the start of the 1990s.

The Republican, whose marathon press conferences, tweeting and raucous campaign rallies have made him a perpetual, noisy presence at home and abroad over the last four years, had no immediate reaction.

But ever since the night after Tuesday's election, when he prematurely claimed victory, Trump has been inhabiting a world increasingly disconnected from the reality of his approaching downfall.

Earlier Saturday, he left the White House for the first time since Election Day to play golf, tweeting: "I WON THIS ELECTION, BY A LOT!"

And in an extraordinary White House address to the nation on Thursday -- with Biden's lead in the partial results already consolidating rapidly -- he claimed "they are trying to steal the election."

Despite Trump's protests, the returns from vote counting offices around the country kept coming all week, with no credible reports of irregularities.

And when US television networks declared that Biden had taken an insurmountable lead in Pennsylvania, that put the Democrat over the magic number of 270 electoral college votes. Trump had no way back.

- Centrist in divided era -

The biggest ever turnout of voters -- some 160 million people, according to preliminary estimates -- poured out across the United States, ultimately favoring Biden's promise of calm to Trump's rollercoaster.

An old school centrist, Biden has fended off the energetic leftist wing of his party, while choosing Kamala Harris, the first Black woman on a major party presidential ticket, as his running mate.

Although a career politician -- a widely derided group today -- he is seen by many as a sympathetic character, humanized by having endured the loss of his wife and baby daughter in a car accident in 1972, then another son to cancer four decades later.

Yet despite his fervent promises to restore America's "soul," Biden will inherit a shaken, angry country.

Americans are bitterly split after an election campaign in which Trump deliberately stoked divisions over many of the country's most sensitive issues, including race, immigration and gun ownership.

And despite critics painting Trump as an aberration, he still won the votes of around 70 million people -- many of whom may not have liked Trump himself, yet consider Democrats as being out of touch with their traditional values.

That gulf in understanding between two Americas will likely continue to rage in Congress, threatening Biden's ability to govern at a time of economic upheaval and an accelerating coronavirus crisis.

- Humiliation -

For Trump, the defeat and his exit from the White House at the transition on January 20 will above all be a story of personal humiliation.

He shocked the country and the world when he stormed to victory in 2016 as a political newcomer taking down the seasoned Democrat Hillary Clinton in his first shot at public office.

Then for much of his administration he appeared invulnerable to the normal laws of politics.

His showbiz style of running the government made him perhaps the most watched -- and controversial -- individual on the planet.

He survived impeachment, tore up diplomatic norms, and was so omnipresent in the media that he lodging himself in the consciousness of ordinary Americans in a way never previously experienced.

A former reality TV star and celebrity real estate developer, he gave the impression of someone who always got his own way.

To crowds at rallies he loved to boast "we're going to win so much, you're going to be so sick and tired of winning." And to people he didn't like, his go-to insult was "loser." 

Yet now he's a loser himself -- as perhaps he already feared on the morning of the election.

"Winning is easy," he mused as polls opened. "Losing is never easy. Not for me."

- Pro-Biden or anti-Trump? -

Biden secured his win by recapturing the Midwestern states of Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin -- traditional Democratic territory that Trump had flipped in 2016 with his powerful appeal to white, working class voters.

The Democrat was also running slender majorities as vote counting approached an end in Arizona and Nevada, while the tally in Georgia was so close that the state declared it would hold a recount.

But it was the capture of Pennsylvania that sealed the deal, meaning that even if Trump somehow won all the other unannounced states he still wouldn't accumulate enough electoral college votes.

Biden built his campaign on driving inroads into Trump's working class base, while selling himself to the rest of the country as the responsible, steady leader needed to confront the Covid-19 crisis.

Rejecting Trump's erratic, often cavalier attitude to a virus that has killed more than 230,000 Americans, Biden promised to follow scientific advice and take the tough decisions needed to try and halt the pandemic.

He took a gamble, politically speaking, by not holding the traditional kind of mass rallies that Trump used to great effect, insisting that he wanted to set an example by following government guidelines on social distancing.

His campaign even held back from knocking on doors -- another basic, even essential tactic for rounding up supporters that Trump's team embraced to great effect.

And in a climate of ferocious political partisanship, where almost every aspect of life is now seen through Democratic or Republican lenses, Biden pledged repeatedly to "be a president for all Americans."

In many ways, though, the election was less about Biden, making his third presidential run, than a referendum on Trump -- a figure of hate for opponents and open adoration to his supporters.

Some Republicans pleaded for Trump to expand his coalition with a more moderate pitch aimed at independent voters. But this most polarizing of presidents took the opposite tack, focusing his energy on super-charging his core base.

In the last weeks before the election, Trump addressed rally after rally with extreme, often entirely fact-free speeches. He painted illegal immigrants as murderers and rapists, claimed that Biden opposed God, and said Democrats would strip Americans of their personal firearms and allow mobs to destroy suburbs.

"We love you!" the crowds chanted back.

Confronted with pre-election polls that pointed to his coming defeat, Trump appeared genuinely unable to comprehend what was happening.

"Running against the worst candidate in the history of presidential politics puts pressure on me," Trump said.

"Could you imagine if I lose?"

Agence France-Presse

Joe Biden to blitz Iowa back roads by bus in 800-mile hunt for support

Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden will crisscross Iowa by bus for eight days starting on Saturday, the longest trek of his campaign, to make a personal appeal for support in a critical state where he has lost ground in polls.

Biden, who served as vice president to Democratic former President Barack Obama, is seeking the party's nomination to face Republican President Donald Trump in the November 2020 election but is battling a historically large field of rivals, many with better-financed operations.

Iowa, the state that hosts the first nominating contest on Feb. 3, will be a key test. Tom Vilsack, the former Iowa governor and U.S. agriculture secretary, said many of the state's Democrats are still weighing their options.

"They're going to be looking for somebody who, at the end of the day, understands how to move the country forward in a way that's realistic but also progressive," said Vilsack, who endorsed Biden earlier this month.

Public opinion polls show Biden's one-time double-digit lead in the state has disappeared, and he is now fighting fast-rising Pete Buttigieg, the 37-year-old mayor of South Bend, Indiana, and U.S. Senators Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders for first place.

Biden, 77, still enjoys a lead in national public opinion polls.

"It really is time to start turning over our government to a younger generation," said Linda Murken, chair of the board of supervisors in Story County, Iowa, where Biden is expected to campaign on Wednesday. Murken has endorsed Buttigieg, saying younger leaders may inspire younger voters and have a greater sense of urgency about climate change.

Biden campaign manager Greg Schultz told donors earlier this month on a conference call the campaign does not have to win Iowa to secure the nomination. But Biden's fundraising pleas underscore the need to counter a wave of ads in Iowa for Trump and Biden's Democratic opponents.

"Our opponents' advertising blitzes and cash-on-hand advantage have turned into real support for them in Iowa," said one Biden campaign email to supporters last week.

Biden's campaign ended September with under $9 million in cash on hand, trailing Trump, Sanders, Warren, Buttigieg and Senator Kamala Harris, according to the most recent filings with the U.S. Federal Election Commission.

The post-Thanksgiving holiday bus tour by Biden will cover 18 counties and more than 800 miles (1,287 km). Biden is slated to start it with an appearance alongside his wife, Jill, at his campaign's field office in Council Bluffs.

"The goal is to have him connect with people one-on-one," said campaign spokesman TJ Ducklo. "It is a very close race as we get close to voting with the four folks. And that was always the expectation."

Biden won't have the state to himself. Buttigieg, Warren, Sanders, Harris and other candidates are all expected to campaign in Iowa at points during the same eight-day stretch. (Reporting by Trevor Hunnicutt in New York; Editing by John Whitesides and Cynthia Osterman)

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Gay mayor from 'Rust Belt' America launches presidential bid

SOUTH BEND - Pete Buttigieg, the gay, liberal mayor of a small American city in the conservative bastion of Indiana, officially launched his presidential bid Sunday, joining a crowded field of Democrats vying for their party's nomination in 2020.

The 37-year-old Rhodes scholar and Afghanistan war veteran is the two-term mayor of his hometown of South Bend -- a left-leaning bubble in America's so-called "Rust Belt" region, where the decline of industries such as steel and automobile manufacturing has hurt local economies.

Voters in states such as Michigan and Wisconsin helped hand Republican US President Donald Trump his victory in the 2016 election. 

Buttigieg, who is credited with helping turn South Bend around, has couched himself as a can-do reformer who can speak to voters across the political spectrum. The message has helped catapult him from relative obscurity to becoming one of the leading Democrats in the crowded presidential race. 

"My name is Pete Buttigieg. They call me 'Mayor Pete.' I'm a proud son of South Bend, Indiana, and I am running for president of the United States!" he told a jubilant crowd of supporters at a former assembly plant turned high-tech hub in South Bend.

"That's why I am here, to tell a different story than 'Make America Great Again'" he added, referring to Trump's campaign slogan. "This time it's not just about winning an election. It's about winning an era."

The official launch -- in which Buttigieg touched upon a number of liberal talking points such as racial justice, voting rights and health care reform, as well as his faith and marriage to Chasten Buttigieg -- is expected to give his surprisingly strong campaign an additional boost. 

Campaign staffers said they have been caught by surprise by the speed with which the mayor has generated nationwide political support, and are still staffing up the campaign. Buttigieg had no speech writer to help him prepare his remarks. 

'NEW GENERATION'

So many people showed up for the launch event that a large crowd was left outside in the rain to watch on a large video screen. Buttigieg braved the elements and thanked the crowd moments before making his official announcement indoors. 

"He represents a new generation of Democratic leadership. We love his vision," said Jenn Watts, 35, while her three-year-old daughter sat on her shoulders. 

They were in the cavernous event space in the former plant of defunct automaker Studebaker waiting more than two hours to see Buttigieg speak. 

"As a young mom with a young daughter, he represents what I want my daughter to see in leadership in this country," Watts added. 

In the three months since he declared an exploratory committee to test a presidential run, Buttigieg has raised $7 million, more than most other candidates, and jumped to third place in the latest polls of voters in Iowa and New Hampshire -- the earliest states to vote in next year's primary elections.

The popular mayor who speaks eight languages and plays classical piano has been the focus of countless news stories and profiles.

The fascination has been in no small part due to his background: he would be the youngest, first openly gay, first millennial and first mayor to become president. 

But Buttigieg must still overcome the perception that his youth and thin resume as mayor of a town of just 100,000 leaves him lacking the experience necessary for the presidency. 

"I recognize the audacity of doing this as a Midwestern millennial mayor," Buttigieg said. "But the moment we live in compels us to act."

Drew Corbin, a 24-year-old college student clutching four campaign T-shirts he had purchased for friends and wearing a campaign cap, said he still had not fully committed to the candidate. 

"There's a lot of candidates. I don't want to make up my mind so soon, almost a year before the primaries," Corbin said. "But he's definitely my favorite right now."

'DESTINED FOR NATIONAL POLITICS'

Buttigieg's launch at Studebaker called to mind the plant's closure in 1963 that was still reverberating in the city in 2011 when he was elected mayor. 

He set out to tear down decaying, abandoned homes and restore the blighted Studebaker complex to make it suitable for new high-tech companies.

In an unlikely feat, the city has reversed decades of population decline and attracted new businesses and development, with the mayor's popularity growing in the process.

"His appeal, for many people in South Bend, is his ability to look forward and to focus on better days ahead," South Bend-based political science professor Elizabeth Bennion of Indiana University told AFP.

"Once people looked at his resume and heard him speak, many started talking about the fact that he was destined for national politics."

nov/oh

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Menacing Mueller probe beginning to rattle Trump

US President Donald Trump's intensifying attacks this week against the Russia collusion investigation underscore a growing nervousness over the how much evidence investigators may have accumulated on the 2016 Trump campaign's ties to Moscow.

In new charges unveiled Thursday by Special Counsel Robert Mueller, former top Trump aide Michael Cohen admitted direct communications with Russian President Vladimir Putin's office on behalf of Trump's business through the first half of 2016.

Trump, who earlier tweeted that the Mueller probe was an "illegal Joseph McCarthy style Witch Hunt," blasted Cohen as a "weak person" who lied to get a reduced sentence. 

But the most recent news from the investigation suggests that Mueller, a cagey former FBI director, is holding back and could have more shocks in store for the US leader as he nears the conclusion of the 18-month-old investigation.

Cohen talked to top Putin aide

Cohen, who was Trump's personal lawyer and a senior executive in the president's real estate business, the Trump Organization, admitted to having lied to Congress about trying to negotiate a deal for a Trump Tower in Moscow well into the middle of 2016, even when Trump had wrapped up the Republican nomination for president.

Trump in the past denied any ongoing contacts with Moscow. But the criminal complaint filed Thursday depicts Cohen in regular contact with Putin's top spokesman Dmitry Peskov during that period, seeking to arrange a trip by Trump to Russia to meet Putin.

The complaint also says that Cohen kept senior Trump campaign figures, including members of Trump's family, informed of these efforts -- suggesting Trump himself might have been in the loop. That could be trouble for a number of people if they have denied to Mueller or Congress knowledge of Russia contacts during that period. 

The WikiLeaks nexus

Mueller has already shown he has evidence that the Trump campaign and Trump's family entertained offers of dirt on Clinton from Russia.

He is expected to soon charge conservative activist Jerome Corsi and campaign advisor Roger Stone in relation to their alleged attempts to coordinate with WikiLeaks over July-October 2016 as the group published Democratic emails damaging to Trump's election rival Hillary Clinton. 

The US says the emails were hacked by Russian intelligence which supplied them to WikiLeaks, aiming to tilt the election in Trump's favor. Mueller has already indicted 25 Russians as part of a criminal "conspiracy" to influence the election.

The key question is, does Mueller have evidence that, in trying to contact WikiLeaks, Corsi and Stone were working on behalf of and with the knowledge of Trump or top Trump campaign officials? And would that mean they could be seen as conspiring with the Russians?

Manafort's broken cooperation deal

On Monday Mueller accused former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort of violating a cooperation deal by lying to investigators. What the lies were about remains a mystery, but it could underscore what most observers believe: that Mueller has far more evidence than his targets know.

Trump has held out the possibility of a pardon to Manafort, who he says was treated "cruelly" by the investigation. Now questions are being raised on whether Trump has obstructed justice by suggesting the pardon.

Mueller's questionnaire for Trump

The new Cohen and Manafort charges came just after Trump returned answers to a long list of questions submitted to him by Mueller that focus on Russia contacts.

The White House delayed answering the questions since the beginning of this year, worried that Trump could be trapped in a possible lie by making statements contrary to evidence presented Mueller by others. 

Trump's anger about the investigation raises the possibility that his answers might be contradicted by Cohen, Manafort and others.

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Ex-Trump campaign chairman Manafort lied to FBI -special counsel

WASHINGTON - Donald Trump's former campaign chairman Paul Manafort lied to the FBI and special counsel investigators after pleading guilty to federal charges, breaching his plea agreement, according to a court filing on Monday.

Manafort said in the same filing he disagreed with Special Counsel Robert Mueller's assertion that he lied to investigators.

Both the special counsel and Manafort's attorneys agreed there was no reason to delay his sentencing and asked the court to set a date for that.

Mueller, who is probing Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election and possible collusion between Moscow and the Trump campaign, said in the filing that after signing a plea agreement: "Manafort committed federal crimes by lying to the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Special Counsel’s Office on a variety of subject matters."

Mueller said in the filing that those lies breached Manafort's plea agreement.

Manafort's attorneys said in the same filing that Manafort had met with the government on several occasions and provided information "in an effort to live up to his cooperation obligations."

They said Manafort disagreed with the characterization that he had breached the agreement.

Manafort, a longtime Republican political consultant who made tens of millions of dollars working for pro-Kremlin politicians in Ukraine, ran the Trump campaign as it took off in mid-2016.

He attended a meeting at Trump Tower in June 2016 with a group of Russians offering damaging information on Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton, who lost in an upset to Trump in the presidential vote that November.

Since September this year when he took a plea deal in return for reduced charges, Manafort has been cooperating with Mueller's inquiry.

Russia denies U.S. allegations it hacked Democratic Party emails and ran a disinformation campaign, largely on social media. Trump denies any campaign collusion and calls the investigation a political witch hunt.

source: news.abs-cbn.com

Pinoys celebrate Obama victory

LOS ANGELES - With chants of "Four more years" and "Free hot dogs", President Obama's Filipino supporters celebrated at Dodger Stadium with other Los Angeles county Democrats.


Despite neck-to-neck races in key battleground states, Filipino Democrats in the most Filipino-populated region of the country say they never doubted that Obama could win re-election.

"It's just great for the nation to be able to move forward all together as one," Kevin Ocupillo, an Obama supporter, said.

"We got the right guy for the job for the next four years," David Dantic, a Democrat, said.

Just as both President Obama and his rival Mitt Romney worked hard on the campaign trail, Filipinos say they also worked hard for Obama's campaign doing last minute voter canvassing and phone banking in the key swing states like Nevada.

"We had 9 buses that came from Los Angeles that went door-to-door knocking, hitting the pavement, boots to the ground and I met a few Filipinos there. It was wonderful to see the support for Obama," Jocelyn Rosenthal of Filipinos for Obama said.

The pro-Obama crowd jeered as they watch Mitt Romney's concession speech..

But were more than thrilled to hear President Obama's victory speech.

"I actually teared up because this win means so much to me. To my family. When ever i think about Mr. Obama, I think about my grandfather who believed in democracy and the power of the vote," said Melissa Ramosso of Filipinos for Obama.

Many Filipino Republicans in Southern California did not attend the Republican post-election party in Orange County.

But following Romney's concession, Republican Fil-Am politician Edith Fuentes of the  Filipino-American Business Association of Glendale, told Balitang America  that "the best thing for all of us now to do - is to move forward, forget about being a Republican or Democrat, but help those who got elected to do the best job they can - for the people of this country."

Now with the elections over, Filipino Democrats believe that four more years will be enough time for Obama to make good on his 2008 campaign promises of bringing change to a country reeling from an economic crisis.

source: abs-cbnnews.com

President Obama Wins, Gets Second Term

President Obama won a second term tonight as ABC News projects he will be re-elected, emerging victorious in what had been a deadlocked race into the final hours of the campaign.

Obama's lease on the White House was renewed with a crucial victory in Ohio.

Celebrations erupted in Obama's home town of Chicago, in New York's Time Square and outside the White House, while Romney's Boston headquarters went mournfully quiet.

The race is a validation, if not an overwhelming mandate, in support of the president's policies of the last four years, which included a major overhaul of the healthcare system and a drawdown of troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Obama built a coalition of young people, minorities, and college educated women and won by turning out supporters with a carefully calibrated ground operation to get out the vote in crucial states like Ohio, Iowa and Wisconsin.

For live coverage of President Obama's victory speech and Mitt Romney's concession speech, click HERE.
 
Nevertheless, it was a squeaker. In Florida and Virginia, states that were key to both candidates, Obama and Romney were separated by a single percentage point.

Ohio also was close, with the candidates also separated by a point late into the vote count.



Early on, the Obama campaign built an electoral firewall across the Midwest, focusing on Ohio, whose 18 electoral votes strategists saw as vital pathway to victory, and it was Ohio that secured the president's victory.

For ongoing political coverage check out ABCNews.com, and for a lighter take, Otusnews.com 
 
Before the Republicans had settled on a nominee, Obama was running ads in the state's blue-collar North. That effort paid off for the president, Ohio voters said they supported his bailout of auto manufacturers, an industry vital to the states economy, 59 percent to 36 percent.

The participants were themselves history making, the first black president running against the first Mormon presidential nominee to make it the general election. But for the most part the election turned not the politics of identity but of the economy.

The election took place against the backdrop of a slow economic recovery. From its outset, both campaigns knew the race would come down to the economy, and both tried to tailor their appeals to middle class families struggling with inflation and unemployment.

Obama routinely reminded voters he had inherited the worst economy since the Great Depression and pointed to policies he led, including the auto bailout, and signs of improvement including a drop in the unemployment rate.

Obama portrayed Romney as an out of touch millionaire intent on helping the rich at the expense of the middle class when they were hurting the most. That impression seemed to stick with voters who nationally said by 55 to 40 percent that they believed the economic system favors the wealthy rather than being fair to most people, according to exit polls.

The candidates also tangled over health care, abortion, and taxes, leading to a bevy of negative ads.

The campaign was the most expensive in history, with each candidate raising nearly $1 billion a piece.

source: abcnews.go.com

Obama inches toward victory in US vote

WASHINGTON - US President Barack Obama was inching towards victory on Tuesday as results poured in from the US presidential election, as Mitt Romney's struggled to win vital swing states.

While the most important trio of battlegrounds -- Ohio, Florida and Virginia -- remained too close to call, Obama grabbed Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania and New Hampshire, dramatically shrinking the Republican's chances.

At 10:30 pm (0330 GMT), US news network voting projections had Obama leading Romney by 173 to 163 electoral college votes, and the Democratic incumbent appeared to have a far clearer route to victory ahead of him.

As expected, Obama polled strongly in New England and the industrial northeast, grabbing densely populated states like New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, according to news network projections.

His rival Romney did predictably well in the southern Bible Belt and western prairie states, winning the major prize of Texas and taking back Indiana, which Obama won in 2008, for the Republicans.

But Romney failed to win Michigan, his home state where his father served as governor, and the key battleground states of Florida, Virginia, North Carolina and Ohio remained too close to call.

Obama also won New Hampshire, which had been considered a swing state, and Wisconsin, the home state of Romney's running mate Paul Ryan.

Polling was due to have ended in the east of the country, but there were long lines in many areas and officials kept polling centers open late, as the campaigns pleaded with their supporters to stay the course.

The final opinion polls published before voting began showed the two candidates in a dead heat nationwide, but gave Obama a slight advantage in the handful of swing states like Virginia and Ohio that will decide the race.

Each state has a quota of electoral college votes based on its population, and the eventual victor will be the candidate who secures the most.

source: abs-cbnnews.com

Obama, Romney make final pitches to US voters

MADISON, Wisconsin—Barack Obama and Mitt Romney made last-ditch appeals to American voters on Monday as campaigning drew to a close with the president holding a slender advantage going into election day.

On the eve of Tuesday’s vote, after a see-sawing 18-month battle, Romney was tied with Obama in national polls but the Democrat held narrow leads in ten of the 12 key swing states that will decide who wins the White House.

Both candidates had engaged in a weekend campaign marathon, going deep into the night Sunday in a frenetic 11th-hour search for votes before getting a few hours sleep and starting all over again.

Then Romney was first out of the gate on Monday morning, addressing a rally in the biggest swing state of all, Florida, barely 10 hours after wrapping up an event the night before in Virginia.

“We need every single vote in Florida,” Romney told a modest crowd at an airport hangar in Sanford outside Orlando, part of Florida’s critically important “I-4 corridor,” a string of communities cutting across the state.

“We ask you to stay at it all the way to victory on Tuesday night,” the Republican challenger said, calling on supporters to make last-ditch phone calls and door knocks as they chanted back: “One more day! One more day!”

Obama beginning his final day of campaigning in Madison, Wisconsin, told the crowd that Romney was nothing but a “good salesman” and that he, the president, was the only candidate who would bring real change.

“You have seen the scars on me to prove it. You’ve seen the gray hair on my head to show you what it means for fight for change, and you have been there with me,” he said.

Rock legend Bruce Springsteen took the stage before the president and gave a rousing speech dotted with acoustic guitar riffs.

“This election, it’s sealed because of this song, right here. Swing states, this is the tipping point,” he said.

After the performance, which included hits like “The Promised Land” and “Land of Hope and Dreams,” Obama came on stage and the two men bear-hugged.

“I cannot imagine not being fired up after listening to Bruce Springsteen,” Obama said to loud applause. “And I can’t thank him enough for everything that he’s done for this campaign.

“He is an American treasure. And I get to fly around with him on the last day that I will ever campaign. So that’s not a bad way to end things.”

After taking Springsteen with him to rallies in Ohio and Iowa, Obama returns to his hometown Chicago, where he hopes to celebrate on Tuesday night becoming only the second Democrat since World War II to win a second term.

As the clock ticked down to Tuesday’s vote, Romney’s efforts included a surprise foray on Monday night into Pennsylvania, a Democratic-leaning state that Republican strategists say is breaking his way.

“We’re taking back the White House because we’re going to win Pennsylvania,” Romney told a crowd of up to 30,000, according to US Secret Service estimates quoted by the campaign, who had gathered on a farm in frigid weather.

Obama advisers dismissed the trip as a sign of desperation from the challenger less than 48 hours from election day.

And yet a valuable character witness, former president Bill Clinton — the only other two-term Democrat — will headline four rallies for Obama on Monday in Pennsylvania, to counter Romney’s late push there.

Democrats said they were confident of Obama’s small but steady lead in key swing states, but acknowledged that everything now depends on getting out the vote.

After Florida, Romney held the first of two Virginia rallies before heading to potential kingmaker Ohio. He then returns to where he launched his campaign 18 months ago: New Hampshire.

US media reported that Romney was considering an unexpected campaign trip to Ohio on polling day itself and the candidate’s did nothing to knock back the reports.

“We’ll advise a schedule and until then we don’t have anything,” senior aide Kevin Madden said.

Obama aides have pointed at early voting advantages in Ohio and Florida as evidence that the president is close to sealing the deal but the race is still extremely tight and Romney’s camp also appeared confident of victory.

Three separate national polls of likely voters showed the race tied. Only one Pew poll found the president ahead, 48 percent to 45 percent.

But, crucially, Obama is up in 10 of the 12 key swing states and Romney only in two, according to RealClearPolitics, a website that aggregates all the polling.

Eight battleground races are within a three percentage point margin, meaning there is still everything to play for.

Florida, famous for the presidential election debacle 12 years ago which required the hand-counting of thousands of ballots, faced some new election-related problems ahead of Tuesday’s vote.

The state’s Democratic Party filed a federal lawsuit Sunday over long delays encountered by some voters who were unable to cast votes in southern Florida despite spending hours in line.

source: http://newsinfo.inquirer.net/302256/obama-romney-make-final-pitches-to-us-voters

Obama, Romney return to attack as campaign hits final stretch

GREEN BAY, Wis. - President Barack Obama and Republican Mitt Romney went back on the attack on Thursday, breaking a storm-induced campaign truce to hit the road and pound home their closing messages in the final stretch of a tight battle for the White House.

With five days left until Tuesday's election, Obama received an endorsement from New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, r e surrected his 2008 "change" slogan and said he was the only candidate who had actually fought for it.

Romney criticized Obama as a lover of big government who would expand the federal bureaucracy.

National polls show the race deadlocked, and Obama and Romney will spend the final days in eight swing states that will decide who wins the 270 electoral votes needed to capture the White House.

Obama made Wisconsin the first stop on a four-state swing on Thursday that also took him to rallies in Nevada and Colorado before going to Ohio for the night. Romney had a full day of campaigning across Virginia.

"You may be frustrated at the pace of change, but you know what I believe, you know where I stand," Obama told a crowd of 2,600 people on an airport tarmac in Wisconsin, a state that is a vital piece of his electoral strategy. "I know what change looks like because I've fought for it."

At a rally in Doswell, Virginia, Romney criticized Obama's comment that he would like to consolidate government agencies that deal with business issues in a new department under a secretary of business.

"I don't think adding a new chair to his Cabinet will help add millions of jobs on Main Street," Romney said.

Jobs will again be the focus of fierce debate on Friday when the government releases the unemployment figures for October. Any big change from the 7.8 percent number in September could potentially sway voters.

Obama and Romney had put campaigning on hold for several days as the historic storm Sandy pounded the eastern seaboard, leaving a trail of destruction and forcing Obama to turn his attention to storm relief.

That pause produced some unexpected political benefits for Obama, who won warm praise from Republican Governor Chris Christie of New Jersey, a Romney supporter, and he spent days directing federal relief efforts in a show of presidential leadership that largely sidelined Romney.

New York's Bloomberg - a Republican-turned-independent who did not back a candidate in 2008 - endorsed Obama and cited the Democrat's record on climate change, an issue that has gained more attention since the storm.

Bloomberg said Obama had taken significant steps to reduce carbon consumption, while Romney had backtracked on earlier positions he took as governor of Massachusetts to battle climate change. Obama said he was "honored" by the backing of Bloomberg, who flirted with White House runs in the past.

On their first day back on the trail, both Obama and Romney returned to political attacks but struck a slightly more positive tone than usual in trying to woo undecided voters and push their own supporters to vote.

In Doswell, Romney proclaimed his faith in the future and said, "The American people have what it takes to come out of these tough times."

In Wisconsin, Obama drew distinctions with Romney but dropped his usual reference to "Romnesia" - the term he uses to describe what he calls Romney's tendency to shift positions.

SWING-STATE ADVANTAGE FOR OBAMA

Obama has a somewhat easier path to 270 electoral votes than Romney, fueled primarily by a small but steady lead in the vital battleground of Ohio - a crucial piece of any winning scenario for either candidate - and slight leads in Wisconsin, Iowa and Nevada.

Barring any surprises elsewhere, Obama can win a second term by capturing the Midwestern bastions of Ohio, Wisconsin and Iowa, and his schedule was aimed at shoring up his safety net there.

Obama plans to visit Ohio on each of the last four days of the campaign, and plans two more trips to Wisconsin and Iowa. H e will conclude his campaign on Monday night with rock singer Bruce Springsteen in Iowa, where a 2008 caucus win launched his run to the presidency.

So far, Obama has planned just one visit each in the final days to Florida and Virginia, where most polls give Romney a slight lead. Romney will hit Wisconsin and Ohio on Friday, and New Hampshire, Iowa and Colorado on Saturday.

Romney plans to finish up his campaign on Monday night in New Hampshire, the state where he launched his bid last year.

Romney's campaign has aired ads in recent days in the Democratic-leaning states of Michigan, Pennsylvania and Minnesota, hoping to put them in play after polls showed the races tightening but Obama still ahead.

The campaign said Romney would visit Pennsylvania on Sunday, marking his first campaign visit since the nominating convention to one of his new target states. A win in Pennsylvania would be a crippling blow to Obama, but most public polls still show Obama leading there.

Romney aides said the moves into those three new states were a sign of their growing momentum, although Obama aides described them as a desperate ploy to find new paths to 270 electoral votes.

A Reuters/Ipsos national online poll on Thursday showed the race remained effectively deadlocked, with Obama at 47 percent to Romney's 46 percent. Most national polls showed roughly similar results.

Most swing-state polls have found Obama clinging to slender leads in five of the eight most heavily contested states - Ohio, Wisconsin, Iowa, Nevada and New Hampshire. In most polls, Romney has a slight lead in Florida, while Virginia and Colorado were effectively tied.

A Reuters/Ipsos online poll on Thursday showed Obama with a 5-point lead in Virginia, and 2-point leads among likely voters in both Ohio and Florida. Romney led by 1 point in Colorado in the Reuters/Ipsos polls.

source: abs-cbnnews.com

6 candidates vie to succeed Cooley as L.A. County D.A.

The June 5 election will be the first since 1964 in which an incumbent hasn't been on the ballot. If a candidate doesn't garner 50% of the vote the top vote-getters will meet in a November runoff.

It is the most powerful job in Los Angeles County's criminal justice system, a position that oversees the prosecution of 60,000 felons each year and can provide a steppingstone to higher office.

Six candidates are vying to become district attorney in next week's election, hoping to succeed Steve Cooley, who is retiring after three terms.

June 5 marks the first district attorney's election without an incumbent since 1964. Back then, voters had a choice of three white men. Today's group of candidates illustrates the changes that have taken place in the county's legal community in the last half century.

Three African Americans — Bobby Grace, Jackie Lacey and Danette Meyers — are hoping to make history in a county that has never elected a black district attorney, with two of them also aiming to become the first woman to hold the post.

To win outright, a candidate must garner more than 50% of the vote. Otherwise, the two top vote-getters will face each other in a November runoff.

Whoever wins the nonpartisan race will face daunting challenges in running the largest local prosecutorial agency in the nation. California's justice system is undergoing its most radical overhaul in more than three decades. The state, under a court order to reduce its prison population, is shifting the burden of housing and monitoring thousands of inmates to local counties, which are also struggling with overcrowded jails and underfunded budgets.

source: latimes.com

Romney wins big in Florida primary

TAMPA -- Mitt Romney trounced main rival Newt Gingrich in Florida's Republican primary on Tuesday, putting himself in a commanding position to win the nomination to take on President Barack Obama in November, US media projections showed.

The margin of victory -- 47 percent to 31 percent with more than two-thirds of the roughly two million votes counted -- dealt a bitter blow to former House speaker Gingrich, who faces a Herculean task to turn the race around.

Gingrich, 68, shocked the party establishment when he thumped Romney, 64, in South Carolina earlier this month, but his support sank fast in Florida and Romney is now the one with all the momentum.

While the battle for the right to challenge Obama, a Democrat, in November is still in the relatively early stages, Romney's thumping win in Florida demonstrates his ability to carry a major general election battleground state.

At the end of what had been a caustic Florida campaign, the multimillionaire former Massachusetts governor and venture capitalist summed up what the victory in the large, diverse state meant to him.

"How important is Florida? Today it is the most important thing in the world to me," he told reporters in Tampa, while defending his campaign's tactics and taking a few more shots at Gingrich.

"If we are successful here it will be pretty clear that when attacked, you have to respond and you can't let charges go unanswered."

Gingrich "really can't whine about negative campaigning," Romney added.

"His comments most recently are really quite sad and I think painfully revealing about the speaker and what he is willing to say and do to try to get the nomination."

The atmosphere inside the Tampa ballroom where Romney was to give his victory speech was euphoric as supporters watched the results trickle in, punctuating each gain with chants of "Mitt, Mitt, Mitt!"

"I'm pleased, but I'm not surprised -- it is really what I expected," Barbara Jaehne, a doctor from the Florida coastal town of Sarasota, told AFP as the growing crowd waved small American flags to the beat of country music.

"I feel like Newt is very polarizing -- he is like the guy on the volleyball team who didn't get picked, he is lashing out and people don't like that."

Gingrich acknowledged he faced an uphill battle in Florida, but promised to wage a long-haul battle for the nomination, taking the fight all the way to the party convention in August when the nominee will ultimately be crowned.

"I think ultimately it's going to come down to a conservative versus Massachusetts moderate primary fight across the whole country," he said at a campaign stop in Orlando.

Gingrich has urged fellow conservative Rick Santorum, who won the Iowa caucuses but has struggled since and looked set to finish a distant third in Florida, to drop out of the race.

Santorum, a former Pennsylvania senator, and libertarian-leaning Texas congressman Ron Paul did little campaigning in Florida.

The economy seemed to be on the minds of many voters, including businessman Paul Jackson, who said he voted for Romney.

"I voted for him because I think he has the best chance of beating the president -- the current president. I don't agree with everything that he stands for, but I need to see a change that satisfied my selfish needs as a small business owner," he said.

Florida has been badly hit by the "Great Recession" wrought by the 2008 financial crisis -- unemployment is close to 10 percent and the state was at the epicenter of the housing bubble.

Many residents have seen their homes repossessed or have mortgages now worth more than the value of their homes.

After the South Carolina setback, Romney used his much deeper campaign war chest to unleash an unrelenting barrage of negative ads in Florida.

Hitting Gingrich on ethics, Romney also frequently mentioned the former speaker's work as a highly paid consultant for mortgage giant Freddie Mac -- which is seen by some as complicit in the housing meltdown of 2008.

Romney admitted Tuesday that the defeat in South Carolina had helped steel his spine and toughen his resolve.

In recent days, he has appeared more relaxed and self-assured.

The usually stiff candidate even broke into song on the eve of the vote, warbling several bars of the patriotic anthem "America the Beautiful" at a campaign event as the crowd sang along.

Gingrich meanwhile has vowed to fight on, accusing his rival, one of the wealthiest individuals to ever seek the presidency, of trying to spend his way to the White House.

But with seven states voting in the next four weeks, Romney's deep pockets and political organization could play a key role as the candidates battle on multiple fronts.

Romney won five of those seven states in 2008, despite losing the eventual nomination to Senator John McCain. The next contests will take place in Nevada and Maine on Saturday.

source: interaksyon.com