The race for the White House is close and the outcome might not be known until the day after the election. That’s the take from Karl Rove, the GOP political strategist whose American Crossroads super PAC and its affiliate, Crossroads GPS, have budgeted more than $300 million on presidential, U.S. Senate and U.S. House races this year.

The Erie Times-News interviewed Rove on Thursday about the election and his upcoming visit to Erie. Rove will speak Nov. 14, at 7:30 p.m., as part of the Jefferson Educational Society’s fourth Global Summit. Rove, a former deputy chief of staff to President George W. Bush, predicts that Republican nominee Mitt Romney will win the Nov. 6 election. "I think Romney is going to win this, but it’s going to be a very, very close election,” he said. Rove said in an opinion piece in Wednesday’s Wall Street Journal that President Barack Obama’s problem remains the sluggish economy. Rove’s super PAC is doing its part for Romney, spending money on television commercials, mailings and Internet ads in the key swing states of Nevada, Colorado, Iowa, Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio, New Hampshire, Virginia, North Carolina and Florida. "We’ve had activity in all those states,” he said.

Rove’s groups are also involved in about a dozen U.S. House and another 12 Senate races, he said. It has not spent money on the tightening U.S. Senate race in Pennsylvania between incumbent Democrat Bob Casey and Republican nominee Tom Smith. Both Obama and Romney are spending a lot of time in Ohio, and the campaigns and PACs are blitzing the state with commercials. But Rove said Ohio — and its 18 electoral votes — is not the only key to the White House. And he doesn’t agree with the oft-cited argument that a Republican cannot reach 270 electoral votes without Ohio. "It’s always easier to win with Ohio, but there are 11 combinations given the current (electoral) map,” he said. Asked whether he thinks Pennsylvania is out of play for Romney, Rove said he thinks the Republican nominee has a chance. "If you take a look at the public polls, the state has moved in Romney’s direction as the country has,” he said. No money has been spent on the presidential race in Pennsylvania since August, and the state — traditionally one of the battlegrounds — has seen few visits from the candidates. But Rove noted that GOP vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan campaigned near Pittsburgh last Saturday. Rove left open the possibility that his super PAC could spend money in Pennsylvania.

Asked about Colin Powell’s endorsement Thursday of Obama, Rove called that expected since Powell, a moderate Republican, backed the president four years ago.Rove doesn’t think the endorsement from Powell, secretary of state under President George W. Bush, will make much of a difference. "Endorsements are overblown, particularly when they’re expected. It had more impact in 2008,” he said. "It had a man-bites-dog kind of surprise to it.”With less than two weeks until the election, both candidates must work to ”close the sale with the people that are up for grabs,” Rove said.

President Barack Obama made one candid admission in an interview with The Des Moines Register that originally was off-the-record but subsequently released after some pressure by the publication.

Here’s the key quote:

"The second thing I’m confident we’ll get done next year is immigration reform. And since this is off the record, I will just be very blunt. Should I win a second term, a big reason I will win a second term is because the Republican nominee [Mitt Romney] and the Republican Party have so alienated the fastest-growing demographic group in the country, the Latino community. And this is a relatively new phenomenon. George Bush and Karl Rove were smart enough to understand the changing nature of America. And so I am fairly confident that they’re going to have a deep interest in getting that done. And I want to get it done because it’s the right thing to do and I’ve cared about this ever since I ran back in 2008."

Rome, Italy, Oct 25, 2012 / 04:00 am (CNA/EWTN News).- As the country approaches election day in two weeks, Archbishop Charles J. Chaput of Philadelphia is encouraging Catholic voters to place their faith above their allegiance to political parties.

“I’m always encouraging our people minimally to vote, maximally to run for political office, and make sure that they’re Catholic prior to being Democrat or Republican and that they put that into practice politically,” he told CNA in Rome on Oct. 22.

Archbishop Chaput echoed the calls of other American bishops to have their flocks consider their faith in the voting booth.

“We do believe in the separation of church and state, but we don’t believe in the separation of faith from our political life,” he said.

“It’s very important for Catholics to make distinctions when voting that they never support intrinsic evils like abortion, which is evil in all circumstances. That’s a lot different from different economic policies” that people can reasonably disagree on, the archbishop explained.

His remarks come as an Oct. 22 Gallup poll shows the “economy in general” is the issue rated most important by Americans as the election nears.

“But people who are practicing Catholics cannot have alternate views on abortion,” he stated. “Such foundational issues have a huge impact and it’s important that Catholics make those distinctions.”

“A person (candidate) might be right on a lot of secondary issues but wrong on the foundational issues. And if that’s the case, it would be very difficult for a Catholic to vote for someone who, for example, favors unlimited access to abortion … undermines the meaning of marriage or supports policies that really undermine the foundation of our culture.”

Archbishop Chaput sees Philadelphia as a great example of both Catholic and civic virtue. He noted that it both produced two canonized saints, John Neumann and Katherine Drexel, and was the location of the signing of the Declaration of Independence and the writing of the U.S. Constitution.

Khazen.org congratulates the Lebanese nation, the Maronites and the Catholic Maronite Church  on the nomination of our Patriarch Cardinal Mar Bechara el Rai.

By Cindy Wooden
Catholic News Service

When others began congratulating the patriarch, Archbishop Thottunkal continued his brief interview, saying, "For our church, it’s a great honor from the Holy See, recognizing our apostolates as well as our missions in India and all over." The cardinal-designate said the appointment also is an honor for India: "It’s great culture and people," and the Vatican recognizes "the great unity in diversity of our country." Cardinal-designate Tagle said a bishop’s job often involves keeping secrets, so spending the morning with other synod members and not breathing a word about the news was not a huge challenge. He told CNS that Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, Vatican secretary of state, informed him of the pope’s decision just before 5 p.m. the previous evening. "Listening to the text of the pope’s letter being read out to me, I also felt like — here it comes," he said, fighting back tears, — "it felt like someone far greater than I am is here. Very near." He told Vatican Radio the announcement was "a spiritual experience for me," and that his initial reaction was "to respond with the words of the prayer before Communion: ‘I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof,’ but I felt that someone greater than me has come to call me."

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Wednesday shows Mitt Romney attracting support from 50% of voters nationwide, while President Obama earns the vote from 46%. Two percent (2%) prefers some other candidate, and two percent (2%) are undecided.

This is the second straight day with Romney enjoying a 4-point advantage. Prior to that, with the exception of the convention bounces, neither candidate had led by more than three points for months. However, it is not clear whether this represents a lasting change in the race or is merely statistical noise. See daily tracking history.

These updates are based upon nightly telephone interviews and reported on a three-day rolling average basis. As a result, approximately two-thirds of the interviews for today’s update were completed before the end of Monday night’s presidential debate. The single night of interviews conducted after the debate is similar to the two-point advantage Romney has enjoyed recently rather than the current four-point spread. As always, caution should be used when interpreting a single night of data in a tracking poll. Friday morning will be the first update based entirely upon interviews conducted after the final debate.

Mitt Romney has advanced to a slight lead over Barack Obama in trust to handle the economy, and Obama has slipped beneath a clear majority in who better understands the public’s economic problems – two key metrics of the 2012 presidential race. These trends in the latest ABC News/Washington Post daily tracking poll aren’t strong enough to change current preferences, nor is the 2-1 view that Obama won Monday night’s final debate. But they’re among the underlying dynamics making the race seem closer now than a month ago. See PDF with full results and charts here.

The candidates remain essentially tied, with 49 percent of likely voters for Romney, 48 percent for Obama in this poll, produced for ABC by Langer Research Associates. That includes vast and sharpening gaps among some groups, with highs for both candidates among core supporters.

One example is white men, in particular those who lack a college degree; almost all of the recent shifts in trust on the economy and perceived economic empathy have occurred in this group. Romney’s support among white men is its highest of the campaign, a 2-1 margin, 65-32 percent. That compares with 57-41 percent, McCain-Obama, in the 2008 exit poll.

While it’s closer among white women, 53-44 percent, Romney-Obama, that very broad support among white men lifts Romney to a new high among whites overall, 59 percent. And it expands the gender gap to a new high as well: A 17-point lead for Romney among men, 57-40 percent, compared with a 15-point advantage for Obama among women, 56-41 percent.

And it’s men, compared to four years ago, who are making it close. Obama beat John McCain among women in 2008 by 13 points, similar to his margin over Romney today. But McCain only tied Obama among men, a far cry from Romney’s large advantage in this group now.

Obama pushes back among other groups. One example is Hispanics, whom Obama described as crucial to his re-election in a Des Moines Register interview released today. While they make up a small share of the national electorate in this survey, 8 percent (about the same as in 2008), Obama is supported by 75 percent of Hispanics – a new high this season, and more than his 67 percent in the 2008 exit poll. They indeed could be critical in close states, or in those with larger concentrations of Hispanic voters.

  Following events in Lebanon from the United States, as I have done during the past week, leaves one with the impression that most media in the U.S. are eager to see a resumption of the devastating and wasteful civil war that ravaged Lebanon for 15 years until 1990. Virtually every story on Lebanon is […]

  President Michel Suleiman carried on his consultations on Wednesday with Lebanese foes over the deteriorating situation in the country and the possibility of resuming the national dialogue sessions as soon as possible. Suleiman held talks on Wednesday with Hizbullah’s Loyalty to the Resistance parliamentary bloc head MP Mohammed Raad at the Baabda Palace. The president will […]

By Michelle Bauman

Washington D.C., Oct 23, 2012 / 05:03 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- An analysis of Catholic women during the 2012 election season shows significant levels of agreement with Church teaching on contraception, as well as unity with other Americans in being concerned about the economy.

“I think the data here paint an interesting picture of Catholic women, in that Catholic women are more likely to agree with the Catholic Church hierarchy on both the social justice issues and also the social issues such as abortion,” said Melissa Deckman, political science professor at Washington College.

In an Oct. 22 panel discussion at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., Deckman analyzed how Catholics fit into “the gender gap in American presidential elections.”

The women’s vote is historically important, she said, noting that there are more women registered to vote and likely to vote than men in the U.S.
 
For decades, women have preferred Democratic candidates, she explained, and this held true in the 2008 election, in which Obama received 56 percent of the women’s vote while only receiving 49 percent of the men’s vote. In contrast, Republican candidate John McCain received only 43 percent of the women’s vote.

“This summer, it looked as though Obama was likely to maintain a double digit advantage among women voters come November, but polls in recent weeks demonstrate that the race for women voters is tightening,” Deckman said.

Despite the recent focus on the “women’s issues” of abortion and free employer-funded contraception, she observed that “women have been more likely to vote Democratic not because of reproductive rights issues, historically, but because of their attitudes about the social safety net.”

    Lebanese soldiers in armored vehicles fanned out across the country on Monday to break down civilian roadblocks and chase gunmen off the streets as tempers flared over the killing of a top intelligence official who was a powerful opponent of Syrian involvement in Lebanon. Sectarian clashes killed at least five people. A sixth person […]

  Future bloc MP Ahmad Fatfat told CNN on Monday that slain Internal Security Forces intelligence chief Wissam al-Hassan was on his way to meet with Future bloc MP Ammar Houri to discuss a recent threat allegedly linked to Syria when he was assassinated on Friday in Beirut’s Ashrafieh. According to Fatfat, the blast which went […]

  French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius called Progressive Socialist Party leader MP Walid Jumblatt on Sunday and voiced France’s support for Lebanon’s stability, the PSP said in a statement. The statement also said that Fabius voiced France’s solidarity with Lebanon “in this critical phase” as well as “support for Lebanon’s stability.” Earlier on Sunday, demonstrators congregating in […]