Legion of Angels News Archive

MELBOURNE, Florida (CNN) – Call it travels with Charlie.

We spent much of Monday crisscrossing Florida with the state’s popular Republican governor, Charlie Crist, while he campaigned for Sen. John McCain and Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin.

I had the chance to talk to Crist for about an hour on arguably the most important jewel up for grabs in two weeks — Florida and its 27 electoral votes.

Crist is keenly aware the stakes here couldn’t be higher. The governor says he’s puzzled by news reports that allege a rift between him and McCain. Crist also has been accused of not doing enough for the GOP presidential ticket.

“It’s all hands on deck. I am committed to doing everything I can to help him win,” Crist said aboard a charter jet that ferried him and his entourage around the state.

“I think it’s important to our country,” Crist said, adding, “He’s my friend.”

Crist took a moment to say how much he likes CNN — especially Wolf Blitzer. “You know Wolf’s mom lives in South Florida,” he said. I didn’t. Now I do. Not sure what to do with that nugget, but I’ll drop in on Wolf at some point.

I asked Crist what happened to McCain’s summertime lead in the polls in Florida.

It’s not that Sen. Barack Obama has about 450 campaign workers here, compared with 100 for McCain. Or the fact that Obama is outspending McCain 3-to-1. Plain and simple, it’s the economy, Crist said.

“McCain’s got to stay on topic and talk about how he’ll improve the economy,” he said.

Like many states around the country, Florida is feeling a harsh bite — unemployment is up, construction is drying up.

“We have nearly 20 million people here, 12 million voters,” he said. “When things aren’t going well, voters tend to blame the political party in charge, and there’s no mistaking it: Republicans run Florida.”

For those who haven’t been on one of these mini-marathon swings, it’s amazing how fluid and well-coordinated they seem. At each stop — Sarasota, West Palm Beach, Melbourne and finally Tallahassee — Crist and other party faithful repeat the same speech nearly word for word with unbridled enthusiasm.

Crist is a consummate politician, moving effortlessly through crowds. Who knows — if things would have played out differently, maybe Crist, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal or former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney would be sharing the ticket with McCain.

Remember this summer when McCain invited them all to his Arizona ranch? There was widespread speculation that it was a beauty contest of sorts — that perhaps McCain wanted to see who, if anyone, would be a good vice presidential fit. Crist says he never got the impression they were being judged.

“To me, it was like a holiday Southwest barbecue,” he said.

I asked Crist if he thought Palin was going to lure undecided voters to the ticket.

“I think we both know the answer to that,” he said. “But there’s no question she fired up the base.”

Florida’s most eligible bachelor is getting married in December. His fiancée, Carole Rome, traveled from city to city with the governor, with Crist announcing, “Today’s her birthday.”

She was snacking on a cookie from the Gun Club Cafe. (Crist turned to an aide and asked, “Is it really called that?”)

She said, “I really shouldn’t be doing that — I have a wedding coming up.”

“Please,” I said. “Not only should you be eating the cookie — but it should have a candle on top.”

The governor did four cities in four hours. There was a healthy turnout on a Monday morning and lots of local news coverage.

We know Crist will have one big reason to celebrate when he weds in December. The question is, will he have a reason to offer a toast before that?

Source — CNN

WASHINGTON (CNN) – Officials in early voting states are reporting record turnout with Election Day still two weeks away.

The numbers indicate a record percentage of voters could participate in the presidential election, a voting expert said.

Michael McDonald, an associate professor of politics and government at George Mason University, said at least 2.2 million people already have voted using absentee or other types of ballots that allow them to vote before the polls open on November 4.

Twenty-nine states were accepting early ballots as of Tuesday, and two more — New Jersey and Oklahoma — will begin accepting early ballots next week.

In North Carolina, which has developed into a battleground state, nearly 500,000 voters have cast absentee ballots, according to the State Board of Elections. Officials at the State Board of Elections expect to surpass numbers from the 2004 election, when 700,000 people voted early.

Fifty-six percent, of those voting early in North Carolina were Democrats, while 28 percent were Republicans and 16 percent were not registered as a member of a party, the elections board said.

Officials in Houston, Texas, said more than 39,000 people voted on the first day of early voting Monday, nearly double the amount for the initial day in 2004, CNN affiliate KHOU-TV in Houston reported.

Early voting has also begun in the critical battleground states of Florida, Colorado, Ohio, Nevada and Virginia.

A record numbers of voters lined up to vote when Florida opened its early voting stations Monday, with some waiting hours to cast their ballots. The early polling stations will remain open until the weekend before Election Day.

Jennifer Davis, spokeswoman for the Florida secretary of state’s office, said several counties are reporting numbers far exceeding the 2004 turnout.

In Sarasota County, 4,700 people cast ballots Monday, compared with 2,088 on the first day four years ago, Davis said, leading officials there to believe that half the county’s ballots could be cast before November 4.

In Martin, St. Lucie and Indian River counties, 6,688 people already had opted for early voting, compared with 1,088 on the first day in 2004.

The Jacksonville Times-Union reported long lines in northeast Florida, with at least two counties reporting problems with voting machines. In Duval County, 7 of 15 optical scanning machines used to count ballots had to be replaced, the newspaper reported.

The number of voters who already have cast their ballots could be much higher, McDonald said, because many states have not reported the number of ballots they have received so far.

Early voting suggests a record 213 million people are eligible to vote this year, said McDonald, who also works with the consortium that conducts election exit polling for broadcast and news networks.

“This will be the election in which the most people have ever voted in an American election in the history of our country,” he said.

McDonald said early voting is often a good prediction of the level of turnout on Election Day, and heavy early voting indicates the turnout this year will exceed the 60 percent turnout in the 2004 election.

“We have a very good chance of beating the 64 percent turnout in the 1960 election,” McDonald said. “We really could be looking at a historic election in modern American history.”

That race saw the highest level of turnout in American history, except the 66 percent turnout in the 1908 presidential election.

McDonald pointed to the record number of early votes already cast in Georgia as an example of the high interest in the race.

More than 690,000 Georgians already have voted, more than the entire number that cast ballots before Election Day in 2004, McDonald said. That figure represents nearly 21 percent of all the 3.3 million presidential votes cast in 2004, he said.

“If we see this persist across all states, we really could be in for an election of historic proportions,” McDonald said.

Of Georgians who voted early, a majority, 56 percent, were women, according to the Georgia secretary of state’s office. About 60 percent of those voting were white, while 35 percent voting early were black, the office said.

Turnout was so heavy in Charlotte, North Carolina, that Mecklenburg County officials are extending voting hours and opening 20 voting sites this weekend instead of the originally planned five, WSOC-TV in Charlotte reported.

Like Georgia, a majority of those voting early in North Carolina — 56 percent — were women, the election board said. The board also reported that 68 percent of those voting early were white, while 28 percent were black.

When early voting began in Virginia last Wednesday, election officials in Mason District, in the northern Virginian county of Fairfax, had to turn their largest meeting room into a seating area to handle the number of voters wanting to cast early ballots.

“We needed to have enough room for people, so they wouldn’t go into the parking lot,” Supervisor Penny Gross said.

Gross said she had expected large numbers because “I had people in my office for weeks, asking if they could vote,” but said even she was caught off guard by the turnout.

“I was pleasantly surprised by the crowd, surprised at the variety and quite frankly, the numbers,” she said.

Source — CNN

FROM CNN’s Jack Cafferty:

Senator John McCain says when it comes to foreign policy he’s light years ahead of Barack Obama. Over and over again, McCain has insisted Obama lacks the necessary experience to conduct business with foreign countries on behalf of the United States.

So how do you explain this?

Citizens of dozens of foreign countries prefer Barack Obama over John McCain as our next president by a margin of almost 4 to 1, according to a massive poll conducted by the Gallup Organization. About 30 percent of those surveyed prefer Obama, while just 8 percent favor McCain.

This was no daily tracking poll either. Gallup polled people in 70 countries in Africa, Europe, Asia and North and South America, representing nearly half the world’s population, between May and September of this year.

Citizens of the Philippines and Georgia were the only ones who preferred McCain to Obama. Not exactly the super-powers we’re looking to mend fences with.

Here’s my question to you: Why do citizens in 70 foreign countries prefer Barack Obama to John McCain by a margin of nearly 4-1?

Interested to know which ones made it on air?

Justin from North Carolina writes:
Barack Obama is the candidate of reason. Only a fool would think of supporting the ticket with the oldest presidential nominee and a woefully inept vice presidential candidate are in the best interest of America or the world especially when the current disaster of a president proves to be more coherent than the both of them.

Kevin writes:
They prefer him because he’s a patsy and they know he’s going to pander to them. Kennedy was on medication during meetings with Khrushchev and Khrushchev called him a pygmy. No fear whatsoever. Good thing Kennedy did stand up to him during the Cuban missile crisis. Obama needs some testosterone shots. Putin, Chavez, the Castro’s, the Girl Scouts of China…anybody could chew him up, push him around, and spit him out.

F.S. from Rollinsford, N.H. writes:
Jack, just to let you know that from my wife’s and my visit to Europe for 3 weeks just recently, we couldn’t find anyone in 4 countries that wanted McCain for President. They all think he is warmonger and that Palin is a joke. Do they know something we don’t?

Jackie writes:
To be fair, I think McCain’s negativity rests with the “R” after his name. He is a decent man who, because of his age and knowing this is his last chance, sold his soul to the Republican National Committee.

Mike writes:
It’s simple. It may sound racist, but it’s really not. Foreign countries are tired of old white men bossing them around and looking down on them. They finally see someone who will respect & approach them as equals.

Zach writes:
Let’s see, Jack…where to begin…They don’t want to get bombed? They want to work with a well-spoken, even-keel U.S. President for a change? They’re smarter than almost half of the people in our own country?

Source — CNN

WASHINGTON (CNN) – A recorded phone call from one of U.S. Sen. Ted Stevens’ longtime friends kicked off the prosecution’s closing arguments Tuesday in the Alaska lawmaker’s corruption trial.

“Ted gets hysterical when he has to spend his own money,” Bob Persons told a mutual friend in the recording, which was played for jurors by Joe Bottini, the assistant U.S. attorney for Alaska.

Persons is a restaurant owner in the small Alaska ski town of Girdwood, where the Stevens family owns a residence that had doubled in size by 2001 after extensive renovations.

Prosecutors say the senator did not pay for some of the improvements, and that he was required to report the value of the changes as gifts on Senate financial disclosure forms.

Stevens, who spends most of his time in Washington, gave Persons power of attorney so he could get the required building permit to work on the chalet Stevens has owned since 1983.

Persons made the comment about the senator during a phone conversation wiretapped by the FBI with the consent of Bill Allen, then CEO of VECO Corp., who was at the other end of the line.

Persons also confided to Allen that he didn’t believe Stevens had enough money to do the remodeling.

Allen has admitted trying to bribe two Alaska state senators, and agreed to testify against Stevens in an attempt to get less jail time.

Stevens, the Senate’s longest-serving Republican, has pleaded not guilty to seven felony counts of making false statements. The indictment accuses him of knowingly accepting home repairs and gifts worth more than $250,000 from VECO, an oil services company, and failing to report them on disclosure forms from about 2000 through 2006.

Stevens is not charged with bribery.

Defense attorney Brendan Sullivan, who began to present his closing arguments after Bottini, told jurors that “to believe the government’s version of the evidence, you have to think [Stevens is] some kind of mastermind of conspiracy.”

Bottini had told jurors there is “substantial” evidence of Stevens’ guilt. A significant example, he said, was a generator that Stevens requested from Allen to protect against possible utility system failures related to Y2K, the millennium bug.

But since the generator is not among the gifts listed in the indictment as allegedly concealed, the defense has moved to have the item stricken from the jury’s consideration. The judge will address limitations on the evidence Wednesday when he instructs the jury before sending them to deliberate.

Stevens, during more than two days on the witness stand, testified he wanted a small, rented generator “with a rope-pull to start it like a snowblower,” but said Allen, without his knowledge, arranged to have a $6,000 automatic generator permanently installed behind the home.

“Is there any question the defendant asked for the generator?” Bottini asked Tuesday. “Remember the e-mail from Stevens: ‘I asked Bill Allen to hook up a generator at the chalet for Y2K just in case.’”

“He knew if he asked for a generator he was going to get one,” the prosecutor said. He added that Allen sent VECO employees to Stevens’ home to install it, and the transfer switch alone cost $930.

“We’re talking about a free benefit to the defendant of well over $6,300,” Bottini said. “It was his obligation to report this.”

“If he didn’t want such a large generator why did he go to Allen? Why didn’t he go down to the local hardware store and spend $300 to $400 like everyone else? Because the price is always right when it’s free.”

Sullivan, the defense attorney, told the jury Tuesday that Stevens and his wife, Catherine, repeatedly tried to get a full accounting from Allen as to the cost of materials and labor Allen was arranging.

“The Stevens family paid 160,000-plus [dollars] for this renovation. They paid fair value for what was received,” Sullivan said.

The attorney referred to a 2002 e-mail in which Stevens told Allen, “Thanks for all you did on the chalet. You owe me a bill.”

In that same e-mail, Stevens also warns Allen to “remember Torricelli” and reminds him he’s running for re-election, the lawyer said.

It was during the same period that the Senate Ethics Committee admonished Sen. Robert Torricelli, D-New Jersey, for accepting and failing to disclose expensive gifts from a campaign contributor. Torricelli dropped his re-election bid.

“The government has not proven its case beyond a reasonable doubt because they have not proven he knowingly and materially concealed” anything, Sullivan said.

U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan, no relation to the defense counsel, said he wants closing arguments finished Tuesday. He plans to give jurors their instructions Wednesday so they can begin deliberating.

Source — CNN

PALM BEACH COUNTY, Florida (CNN) – As Election Day approaches, Brad Merriman does a lot of praying.

“Our motto right now is we’re gonna plan for a recount and pray that we don’t have one,” he said jokingly.

Merriman, a county administrator, was brought in to oversee the upcoming general election after a botched judicial election this August in Palm Beach County, Florida.

Eight years ago in Florida, all eyes were on the hanging chad. The chads are gone and so are the ATM-style touch screen voting machines. They’ve been replaced by voting machines called optical scan, which provide an old-fashioned paper trail, something many critics felt was missing in the event of a recount.

The entire state has switched to the optical scan technology. More than half of the state’s 10.75 million voters will use the system for the first time and for most Floridians, this will be the third voting system in eight years, leaving plenty of room for confusion.

Florida Gov. Charlie Crist eliminated the touch screen machines to boost voter confidence, which has been shaken in places like Sarasota, Florida, where 18,000 non-votes were recorded in a 2006 race for a congressional seat.

“Confidence in our system is the oil of the engine of democracy,” said Buddy Johnson, who is supervisor of elections in Hillsborough County. “Whatever it takes to secure confidence in the system is worth it.”

Confidence was also shaken in Palm Beach County, home to the butterfly ballot in 2000 and synonymous with the presidential recount that resulted in the presidency for George W. Bush. During a recent judicial election, a recount found 3,500 missing ballots.

“They weren’t lost. They were in the warehouse. They just were never counted,” Merriman said.

Merriman said he found an office staff that was disorganized and unfamiliar with the recount process. The ballots were put in the wrong box, he said. Merriman said the office is doing a better job of ballot control and ballot management.

“We’re treating these paper ballots like they’re evidence. There has to be a good chain of custody,” said Merriman.

Palm Beach County is one of 15 counties using the system for the first time. In Palm Beach County alone, the potential landmines are everywhere: 700,000 voters have never used the system, the ballot is two pages long and this will be the first time many of the poll workers have used the new system.

Floridians will mark their vote for president and other offices with a pen, by filling in an oval or by connecting a line on a paper ballot. The machines then use optical scanners to read the paper ballots, which are retained for verification purposes in the event of any problems.

Elections staff must be trained on the new voting system. So do the thousands of Election Day temporary workers and volunteers who will staff thousands of polling locations across the state.

“It’s a familiarization process that really makes it — I wouldn’t say difficult — but it makes it so very important,” said Johnson.

CNN recently visited a poll worker training session in Tampa, Florida, where elections official Rich Cervetti tutored a class of eight, including one poll watcher from the Democratic Party.

Cervetti schooled his class on how the optical scan system works and some of the things that will undoubtedly pop up on Election Day, including miss-marked ballots by voters.

“It’s looking inside the oval out,” explained Cervetti. “If it doesn’t see anything, a blank space, even though the voter circled, it’s a blank ballot.”

Retiree Nancy Bailey, who will work the polls on Election Day, says she wants to get it right.

“They called us ‘Flori-duh.’ And, I think we need to be represented better than that,” said Bailey.

She said her training is good and thinks the system works well, but she’s feeling the pressure to make sure things go smoothly.

“I’m a little nervous about this election, because I think it’s going to be a huge, huge major turnout and I want it to go well ’cause we don’t want Florida in the news again,” Bailey said with a laugh.

Voting education is not limited to poll workers — it’s needed for the general public as well.

The state is spending millions of dollars to educate the public. Elections supervisors statewide are broadcasting public service announcements, distributing DVDs and offering community outreach classes on how to use the optical scan machines.

What if there are problems on Election Day?

“We have a system, a GPS, radio-dispatched technical team that can be anywhere in the county within 10 or 15 minutes, to any site if there’s an issue,” says Johnson.

Add to the mix statewide voter turnout, which could be 90 percent, and include half a million first-time voters.

“We build the racetrack for all the cars to run on. We don’t care who comes onto the track to run. We don’t care who wins,” said Johnson. “But the track needs to be smooth and that’s what we’re all about.”

Source — CNN