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Relieved by Debate, Obama Aides See a Slim Edge in Race - New York Times

Posted: 17 Oct 2012 09:36 AM PDT

By MARK LANDLER

Published: October 17, 2012

MOUNT VERNON, Iowa – For all the relief among President Obama's aides with his energetic performance on Tuesday night, there was less exuberance. After his listless performance in the first debate, Mr. Obama's aides believe the second debate essentially reset the race to where they long expected it to be: the president holding a narrow lead in enough battleground states that they hope will let him eke out victory over Mitt Romney.

David Plouffe, one of Mr. Obama's chief strategists, told reporters after the debate that, "our position has not really changed." The president, he said, was drawing roughly the same share of the vote in battlegrounds like Ohio, Nevada, and Iowa that he had before the first debate, which Mr. Romney was perceived to have dominated.

Before the debate, Mr. Romney had closed the polling gap in several of these states, Mr. Plouffe said, but he insisted that these were Republican-leaning independent voters that the Republican candidate would have corralled anyway. "That is almost all gains that we knew he was going to get," Mr. Plouffe said. "I think it is fair to say that it was accelerated by the debate performance."

Polls in September that showed Mr. Obama with a lead of eight or more percentage points in Ohio and elsewhere were a "fantasy," he said. The president's margin of victory in battleground states was going to be "1, 2, 3, 4 points at most."

"In those states, if the election were held today, I'm as confident as anything I've been in my life, that we would win the election," Mr. Plouffe said. "I assume tonight's debate performance will strengthen that a little bit. I think it will provide some more excitement for Democrats and our supporters as Romney got additional enthusiasm off his debate."

"But the structure of the race is pretty established," he added.

Mr. Romney's supporters directed some of their ire toward the debate's moderator, Candy Crowley, whom they said often cut their candidate off while giving Mr. Obama more time, suggesting she showed a clear bias toward the president. They also say she incorrectly fact-checked Mr. Romney's comments about Libya, handing Mr. Obama a crucial talking point during the debate.

There is no question that the debate buoyed the president's team. Before the debate, aides were nervous that another strong performance by Mr. Romney could propel him into a clear lead for the first time in the campaign. Afterward, Mr. Plouffe opted to peel off from Mr. Obama's retinue and travel to Iowa on the post-midnight press charter flight so he could talk further to reporters about its impact.

For all that, Mr. Plouffe insisted the ultimate outcome would be determined by a "cocktail of factors," from ads to knocks on doors by campaign volunteers to interviews given by the candidates to local media outlets.

A new report Wednesday morning showed a continuing rebound in the housing market, which helps the president's argument that the economy is slowly but surely recovering from the financial crisis. Historically, an economy that is growing in the year before an election, even an economy that remains weak, has benefitted an incumbent president.

One thing the debate may have done, Mr. Plouffe said, was to plant troublesome questions that could dog Mr. Romney over the last 20 days of campaigning. Chief among those was his assertion that he favored giving every woman the right to contraceptive services – a position at odds with his support of the Blunt Amendment, which allows employers to opt out of providing insurance for health-care services like contraception on moral grounds.

"He basically told tens of millions of Americans that he didn't support legislation that would allow employers to make contraceptive decisions for female employers," Mr. Plouffe said. "So now this issue is going to get more attention, I'm sure, because of the fact that he wasn't honest about his position."

The heated exchange on Libya could also reverberate, he said. Mr. Romney made a rare slip-up by insisting that it had taken Mr. Obama 14 days to acknowledge the attack on the American mission in Benghazi was an "act of terror." In fact, the president used the phrase "act of terror" the day after the incident in an address in the Rose Garden, though his reference was somewhat generic and other White House officials characterized the attack as a spontaneous protest gone awry, before shifting their narrative to a terrorist attack.

On Tuesday, Mr. Obama took responsibility for the security lapses that allowed the mission to be overrun, pledged a full investigation, and promised to hunt down those responsible for the attack, which killed Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens and three other Americans.

"My sense is voters will have a strong reaction to the president; his strength and clarity and his accountability and responsibility in that answer, versus Gov. Romney's who I think was starkly political," Mr. Plouffe said.

Armstrong Stepping Down as Livestrong Chairman - ABC News

Posted: 17 Oct 2012 09:24 AM PDT

Lance Armstrong stepped down as chairman of his Livestrong cancer-fighting charity and Nike severed ties with him as fallout from the doping scandal swirling around the famed cyclist escalated Wednesday.

Armstrong announced his move at the charity in an early-morning statement. Within minutes, Nike said that it would end its relationship with him "due to the seemingly insurmountable evidence that Lance Armstrong participated in doping and misled Nike for more than a decade."

Nike said it will continue to support Livestrong.

The U.S. Anti-Doping Agency released a massive report last week detailing allegations of widespread doping by Armstrong and his teams when he won the Tour de France seven consecutive times from 1999 to 2005.

The document's purpose was to show why USADA has banned him from cycling for life and ordered 14 years of his career results erased — including those Tour titles. It contains sworn statements from 26 witnesses, including 11 former teammates.

Armstrong, who was not paid a salary as chairman of the Lance Armstrong Foundation, will remain on its 15-member board. His duties leading the board will be turned over to vice chairman Jeff Garvey, who was founding chairman in 1997.

FILE - In this Aug. 22, 2010, file photo, cyclist Lance Armstrong greets fellow riders prior to the start of his Livestrong Challenge 10K ride for cancer in Blue Bell, Pa. Armstrong said Wednesday, Oct. 17, 2012, he is stepping down as chairman of his Livestrong cancer-fighting charity so the group can focus on its mission instead of its founder's problems. The move came a week after the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency released a massive report detailing allegations of widespread doping by Armstrong and his teams when he won the Tour de France seven consecutive times from 1999 to 2005. (AP Photo/Bradley C Bower, File) Close

"This organization, its mission and its supporters are incredibly dear to my heart," Armstrong said in a statement. "Today therefore, to spare the foundation any negative effects as a result of controversy surrounding my cycling career, I will conclude my chairmanship."

Foundation spokeswoman Katherine McLane said the decision turns over the foundation's big-picture strategic planning to Garvey. He will also assume some of the public appearances and meetings that Armstrong used to handle.

Kelley O'Keefe, professor of brand strategy at Virginia Commonwealth University, said the charity already may be permanently damaged and that Armstrong may never be able to fully resume his public role.

"From the brand perspective, Armstrong is done," O'Keefe said.

O'Keefe compared Armstrong to Tiger Woods and Michael Vick, who also were embroiled in controversy but were able to return to the playing fields to help redeem their image.

"Armstrong doesn't have that. He's just a retired athlete with a tarnished image," O'Keefe said.

Armstrong strongly denies doping, but did not fight USADA accusations through arbitration, saying he thinks the process is unfair. Once Armstrong gave up the fight in August and the report came out, crisis management experts predicted the future of the foundation, known mainly by its Livestrong brand name, would be threatened. They said Armstrong should consider stepping down.

Armstrong's inspiring story of not only recovering from testicular cancer that had spread to his lungs and brain but then winning the world's best-known bike race helped his foundation grow from a small operation in Texas into one of the most popular charities in the country.

Armstrong drew legions of fans — and donations — and insisted he was drug free at a time when doping was rampant in professional cycling. In 2004, the foundation introduced the yellow "Livestrong" bracelets, selling more than 80 million and creating a global symbol for cancer awareness and survivorship.

Kredit: www.nst.com.my

Rabu, 17 Oktober 2012