|
(Continued from page 31)
ing governorships and state legislatures in the 2010 elections, the GOP was better able to draw new district lines reflecting the latest census to protect their incumbents and put Democratic House members in less friendly terrain.
• "My sense is no one will have a mandate coming out of this," GOP consultant Matt Mackowiak said Monday. "And clearly we're going to have divided government. And that's going to make the next two years very difficult."
• ___
While other issues have surfaced, economy remains single most important one in this election
• WASHINGTON (AP) -- The race for the White House is pretty much back where it started, after thousands of ads, billions of dollars in spending, two conventions and three presidential debates. Despite some detours, the emphasis is heavily on the nation's lukewarm economy and President Barack Obama's stewardship of it.
• But if Tuesday's election does amount to a referendum on the Obama economy, the outcome likely won't shine a bright light on how to fix it. There's too much polarization in the nation's capital and in the country as a whole -- regardless of who wins -- to produce a clear consensus plan for averting a looming "fiscal cliff" of higher taxes and deep automatic cuts in military and domestic spending.
• Last week's devastating East Coast storm, the campaign debates and controversy over the deadly terrorist attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, scrambled things a bit in the home stretch.
• But as millions of Americans vote for president, Congress and thousands of state and local posts, the excruciatingly slow economic recovery and continued high joblessness were clearly weighing on their minds.
• Obama's Republican challenger, Mitt Romney, doggedly tried to keep the focus on the economy. Its poor performance on Obama's watch has been his main theme. He cites his own business background in presenting himself as the person who can heal it and restore jobs.
• ___
Housing, voting, power: Problems abound post-Sandy, and another storm is on the way
• NEW YORK (AP) -- From trying to figure out where people would live to how they would be able to vote and when all the lights will finally come on, government officials are still facing multiple fronts in the efforts to recover from Superstorm (Continued on page 33)
|
|
