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CNN Live At Daybreak

Campaign Ad Flap; 'Hot Topics'; Florida Voting Problems

Aired October 29, 2004 - 06:30   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.


CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Four days until Election Day. Polls give President Bush a slight edge, but it's a wobbly lead at best. You will decide on Tuesday.
Well, let's see where the candidates are today. President Bush will speak at campaign rallies in the battleground states of New Hampshire and Ohio today. As for Senator Kerry, he is in Florida. Kerry will make campaign appearances in Orlando, West Palm Beach and Miami.

Hawaii is traditionally a Democratic stronghold, but the race is unexpectedly close there this year. Al Gore, along with Kerry's daughter, Alexandra, will campaign in Hawaii today as a result. And Vice President Cheney will travel to the Aloha State on Sunday. Two recent polls put the race in a statistical dead heat in Hawaii.

The Bush campaign admits this morning it did doctor a photo used in a television commercial. Now it's scrambling to fix the ad and get it back on the air, despite criticism from the Kerry camp.

Here's CNN's Jeanne Meserve with more.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: ... sacrifice, we're defeating the terrorists...

JEANNE MESERVE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The Bush ad features a still photograph of soldiers, apparently listening to President Bush. But as the blog DailyKos.com first noticed, if you look closely, you see the same small groups of soldiers repeatedly.

The Bush campaign initially denied that there had been any manipulation of the image, but now acknowledges it was changed from this: a photograph taken at Fort Drum, New York, in July of 2002.

KEN MEHLMAN, BUSH CAMPAIGN MANAGER: In the bottom left-hand corner, the presidential podium blocked some people, and that part of the podium was removed, and some pictures of some additional soldiers were put back in.

MESERVE: Mark McKinnon, media adviser to the Bush campaign, says it was an unauthorized change made by an editor, that there was no attempt or need to deceive, that the crowd was impressive and real that day.

Computer programs make changing a photograph as simple and quick as moving a mouse. And it's been done before. For instance, two photographs of John Kerry and Jane Fonda were famously merged into one widely-distributed faked image.

The Kerry campaign is pouncing on the changes in the Bush picture, issuing a statement saying, "If they won't tell the truth in an ad, they won't tell the truth about anything else. This doctored commercial is fundamentally dishonest and insults the intelligence of the American people." It goes on to say, "Unless George Bush has changed its position on human cloning, it's got to pull this fundamentally dishonest ad immediately."

(on camera): The Bush campaign has pulled it. But after the offending image is replaced, they say, the ad will be right back on the air.

Jeanne Meserve, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COSTELLO: The doctored photos, do they really make any difference to voters? And FLOPA (ph). Who is winning this trifecta?

Our political editor and author of CNN's "Morning Grind," John Mercurio, joins us from Washington now.

Good morning -- John.

JOHN MERCURIO, CNN POLITICAL EDITOR. That's a terrible photograph.

COSTELLO: Oh! OK, let's start with that doctored photo. Behind the scenes, are Republicans kicking themselves? Or is this not such a big deal?

MERCURIO: You know, I've got to say, I don't think it's actually that big of a deal, frankly. Mike McCurry, who is one of Kerry's top campaign advisors, was on Paula Zahn's show last night, and he said the same thing. He said, you know, it's sort of a one-day story. They're not going to be spending a lot of time getting Bush over this.

But I think the bigger question that's interesting that hasn't been answered yet is sort of just how often something like this happens on both sides of the race and how often. If we caught them this one time, you've got to presume at some point this has been done before, that this is, you know, perhaps a strategy or a technique they use in the campaign.

COSTELLO: Well, and going a little beyond that, John, I may be a little cynical, but when I hear a campaign ad or see it, I'm always suspect. Don't voters expect to see something in a campaign ad to be not quite on the money?

MERCURIO: Sure. Sure, but I think that's why it's perhaps not as effective as a strategy at this point in the campaign for the Kerry campaign to use as a big deal, because voters sort of shrug and say, yes, you know, I expect that. I'm certainly not surprised. COSTELLO: OK, let's talk about FLOPA (ph). But first explain what FLOPA (ph) is.

MERCURIO: FLOPA (ph) is this imaginary fantasyland of the combination of the states of Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania. It's a fantasyland because both campaigns fantasize about taking all three of these states on Tuesday. It's pretty hard to see if one candidate wins all three, wins FLOPA (ph), how their opponent sort of comes back and reverses the trend and wins the race.

COSTELLO: Interesting. I know that you finagled the numbers, or came up with news numbers as far as the electoral vote. Give us the latest.

MERCURIO: Well, you know what, Carol? We found something earth- shaking, right? The race is very, very close.

COSTELLO: Oh, you're kidding!

MERCURIO: I'm not kidding you. Basically, we found that with four days until the election, Bush has a slight lead in the Electoral College, but just in terms of the states that he has locked up. There are eight states, we think at this point, that are just too darn close to call. Of those eight, if we had to force them into a column, four would go to Bush. We think they're New Mexico, Florida, Iowa and Wisconsin. Kerry has Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, Ohio and Minnesota.

But, again, you know, those eight states are just really, really close. Dead heat is probably in all of them this morning.

COSTELLO: All right, John Mercurio, thanks for educating us on FLOPA (ph) this morning.

For more information on Tuesday's election, go to CNN.com/election.

Here to lead us through that Web site, by the way, is our technology correspondent, Daniel Sieberg.

Good morning -- Daniel.

DANIEL SIEBERG, CNN TECH CORRESPONDENT: Carol, good morning. I wish I could take credit for this amazing content on CNN.com. I did used to work there, but they've done some fantastic work.

The first thing you want to know is how to get there, CNN.com/election. That is where the main page is for CNN.com's coverage. You can see it here where they're focusing on the showdown states. That really is what everyone is talking about right now.

From this site you can also go and find out everything from the background on the candidates. You can see here the information about President Bush.

If we go back to the main page there, you can get everything from also the campaign ad spending by state. You can click on each state and find out how much they've been spending on campaign ads there.

The electoral rating, this is how much is being spent basically on each state -- or the electoral rating for each particular state. You can see the ones that are solidly Kerry or solidly Bush.

And we can go back to this main page here. A lot of stuff, it's very deep coverage that they've got here. You can look at the money that's being spent, the Electoral College, and the poll tracker. Everybody wants to look at the poll tracker. You can see here the different candidates that are involved and each state, depending on who is leading in each state.

Now, we can also give you a sneak peek of what's going to be coming up on Monday. That's going to be a place where you can go to tailor your election results. This is not up yet, but it will be available on Monday. You can go here and type in your zip code, if you want to get specific races for where you live.

You can also follow up to 20 different races, and you can see that over here. You can type in 20 different places. You can follow them at the presidential level or down to the state level. From there, you can also see the results as they come in.

Up in the corner here, you can even see we've got a clock that's four days until the next poll closes. And each state is covered. You can follow as deep or sort of as far up as you want to go the House and Senate races as well.

Now, this is not out there yet. But, again, House and Senate, the presidential level. Basically whatever you want to know you can discover, depending on how much time you have and how much you want to get into this page. But some amazing stuff at CNN.com. Carol, really the beauty of it is you can get as much into it as you want or not, depending on how much time you have.

COSTELLO: Thank you very much. It's fascinating and just an amazing amount of work goes into that.

SIEBERG: Yes.

COSTELLO: So thanks for showing our viewers.

SIEBERG: All right.

COSTELLO: CNN.com/election.

Still to come on DAYBREAK, snafu with the Sunshine State? Florida already under a microscope. And guess who is leading a protest? It's Michael Moore. I'll talk to a reporter who is covering the early voting and all of the problems in Florida.

Plus, Nicole Kidman in another mysterious role. Ooh, this is a weird movie. Is it worth seeing? Our movie critic gives us his front-row critique at 6:50 Eastern.

But first, here's a look at what else is making news this Friday morning.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat now flying to Paris for medical tests. It's the first time in nearly three years that Arafat has been allowed by Israel to leave his compound in Ramallah on the West Bank. He was taken by helicopter this morning to Amman, Jordan, where he boarded a French plane for the flight to Paris.

Arafat has been sick for about two weeks, reportedly suffering from a shortage of blood platelets. It's unclear, though, what exactly is causing the deficiency.

On to the American election. Confusion has become part of the voting process in parts of Florida. Several thousand absentee ballots are due to be mailed out this morning after almost 60,000 ballots never found their way to voters. And what election problem would be complete without an appearance by Michael Moore? Moore joined a protest in Broward County over those missing ballots.

Let's talk more about those missing ballots. Erika Bolstad is a writer for the "Miami Herald." Thank you for joining us this morning, Erika.

ERIKA BOLSTAD, "MIAMI HERALD": Thank you for having me.

COSTELLO: You have been following potential voting problems in Florida. So, will Ohio be the new Florida? Or will Florida be the same old Florida?

BOLSTAD: That's a good question. I think Florida will be the same old Florida.

COSTELLO: Oh, no, you're kidding! That's not what we wanted to hear.

BOLSTAD: It's looking that way. We've got problems with absentee ballots. We have Republicans protesting Democratic voters, people who are on a phone list. We have Michael Moore coming to Fort Lauderdale. The list goes on and on.

COSTELLO: Your secretary of state, Glenda Hood, though, sounds positive. Here's what she had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GLENDA HOOD, FLORIDA SECRETARY OF STATE: All of the supervisors have been overwhelmed with the numbers of people who have chosen to early vote. We're seeing now long lines. We're seeing huge interest. And that's good news, because we have really promoted and encouraged people to take the opportunity to early vote if that's their choice.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: Well, she sounds pretty positive about it. But how is it really going? BOLSTAD: Well, I think she does have a good point that thousands of people are interested in voting this time around that probably weren't in 2000. You know, there are long lines everywhere. There are lots of people who requested absentee ballots that never have before. I think 2000 really made people want to come out and vote. They remember what happened, and they want to vote this time around.

COSTELLO: So, where are these absentee ballots that are not getting to the voters who requested them?

BOLSTAD: That's a good question. The Broward supervisor of elections office says that they think they're going to start to trickle in, that maybe they are in a post office somewhere. The post office says we've looked everywhere for absentee ballots. We don't know where they are. We have an e-mail from inside the post office that says that they had some concerns and that they were trying to make sure that their managers knew that absentee ballots were a priority.

COSTELLO: Wow! You know, you said Florida is expected to have this massive voter turnout, especially on November 2. Are there enough poll workers?

BOLSTAD: I think there's enough poll workers. That's one of those things that have been in place for years, and they generally have a good handle on that. The question is how many people turn out on Election Day and if, you know, there are thousands and thousands of people waiting to vote at 7:00 on election night in Florida. You know, there are still going to be lines here.

COSTELLO: Well, you know, the Justice Department is sending 250 civil rights personnel to the polls. There will also be monitors from the Democratic and Republican parties. For the poll workers, they'll be tough to deal with. For the voters, that may prove intimidating.

BOLSTAD: It may, and there's just so much pressure right now. You know, even right now with early voting in Florida, there are people at every single poll, you know, electioneering. They've got pamphlets. They've got signs. There are observers. It can be intimidating for a lot of voters.

COSTELLO: Erika Bolstad from the "Miami Herald," thank you for joining DAYBREAK this morning.

BOLSTAD: Thank you.

COSTELLO: Your news, money, weather and sports. It is 6:45 Eastern. Here's what's all new this morning.

COSTELLO: The judge has been meeting with the lawyers in the Scott Peterson double-murder trial in California. Closing arguments begin Monday, and the jury could get the case by Wednesday.

Cambodia's new king is being prepared for his coronation. The son of the outgoing king is becoming the nation's first new monarch in half a century. In money news, futures traders are betting the downside on Wall Street with the Dow opening down 13 points, the Nasdaq down 3.5, the S&P 500 down a point or so.

In culture, health officials want to scare you out of wearing special Halloween contact lenses. They point out that lenses sold without a prescription can cause serious eye injury, even blindness. And besides, they're illegal.

In sports, it's now a misdemeanor assault charge for Texas Rangers relief pitcher Frank Francisco. Back in September, Francisco threw a chair instead of a baseball, hitting a fan and breaking her nose. He threw the chair into the stands. The local D.A. has dropped the felony charge.

(WEATHER REPORT)

COSTELLO: Those are the latest headlines for you.

Let's head live to New York and check in with Bill and Soledad to see what's coming up on "AMERICAN MORNING."

Good morning.

BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, Carol.

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning.

Some of the stories that we're looking at this morning, we continue to talk about the missing explosives. New tape now suggesting that those explosives, in fact, were at the Al Qaqaa base when U.S. troops arrived. We're going to talk this morning with former U.N. weapons inspector David Kay.

HEMMER: It continues to be an issue on the campaign trail, too. Four days and counting now, right, election 2004? Arkansas may be closer than expected, so say the Democrats. We'll talk to the Republican governor, Mike Huckabee, about that and the Clinton factor. Bill Clinton goes there this weekend, Sunday I believe, in fact.

Also, Pennsylvania four years ago went for Al Gore. President Bush trying to take that away. We'll talk to the Democratic governor, Ed Rendell, about that state this year.

O'BRIEN: And we're continuing to talk about Yasser Arafat's health. What exactly are the implications of his condition on the chances of peace? We're going to talk with former Senator George Mitchell about that and much, much more, all ahead this morning on "AMERICAN MORNING" coming up in just a few minutes.

COSTELLO: All right, we'll see you then.

A musical mastermind of our era is about to be honored in film. Ray Charles, his life, his music, his story. Find out if the movie lives up to the man. That's next on DAYBREAK.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: We just want to hear jam, don't we? That would be so nice. But we have to work, as you do.

The magic of Ray Charles comes to light this weekend, though, through the acting of Jamie Foxx. And speaking of coming to light, "Birth" features Nicole Kidman as a widow who thinks her late husband has been reincarnated as a 10-year-old boy. It's a very strange movie, and there's a lot of controversy about this one.

Tom O'Neil of "In-Touch Weekly" joins us to discuss this weekend's new movies.

So, you want to start with "Ray?"

TOM O'NEIL, EDITOR, "IN-TOUCH WEEKLY": OK.

COSTELLO: OK.

O'NEIL: It's a good movie, Carol, and it's more than just an impersonation of Ray Charles. Jamie Foxx, the comedian, really wants to be taken seriously as an actor. We saw him in "Collateral" earlier this year. And here, he took this role so seriously. You know, he had his eyes glued shut so he could, you know, really grasp the blindness of Ray Charles.

But he also just nails that inner smoldering intensity he had as a human being, fighting racial prejudice, overcoming a personal handicap, and a heroin addiction, which we see fully dramatized in this film.

COSTELLO: Yes, this isn't a bio pic that shows only the positive about Ray Charles. It also shows much of the negative.

O'NEIL: Much of the negative. We really see him wrestling with drugs and with women. We see his infidelities, you know, right and left as he achieves stardom. This movie goes up to about 1965 and captures those years. Of course, everybody is saying Oscar, Oscar, for Jamie. He's certainly going to be nominated. And we know that Oscar voters love these films based on real people.

COSTELLO: Yes, yes. I'd actually be interested in seeing that one, just because it seems to be more true to life than the norm.

O'NEIL: Yes.

COSTELLO: Let's talk about this movie, "Birth." This is quite controversial. And it just sounds -- I don't know. It sounds rather ooky (ph) to me.

O'NEIL: Ooky (ph)?

COSTELLO: Ooky (ph).

O'NEIL: Ooky is probably a...

COSTELLO: I can't think of a better word now.

O'NEIL: Well, yes, ooky (ph) is probably good. Let's go with ooky (ph), because it's not quite suspenseful enough to be a really good horror movie, and that's the shame here, because Nicole is terrific. I love the premise. I thought, 'What a great setup.'

Now, what would this woman do if she really believed this 10- year-old boy was the embodiment of the dead husband she loved so much? It doesn't go there. It just spends two hours convincing Nicole.

Now, this controversy you referred to earlier is at one point, the boy takes his clothes off and gets into the bathtub with Nicole. When people saw this scene at the Venice film festival, they booed the screen right and left. And it's really quite innocent. But there is another scene when the boy kisses Nicole, which is pretty erotic.

COSTELLO: Right. And he kisses her on the lips, too, doesn't he?

O'NEIL: Yes, with some real intensity there. It's not a great movie. It's not a bad movie. It just could have been so much better.

COSTELLO: Yes. And when you have that ookiness (ph) in there, it's got to be a good movie. It does.

O'NEIL: She is great in it, though.

COSTELLO: Yes, she's always great. She's a fabulous actress. Let's talk about the movie, "Sideways," because this is one I really want to see, because, you know, I love wine. I go to Napa, and there are a lot of characters there.

O'NEIL: I didn't know that about you.

COSTELLO: Well, I do. But if you ever go there, you see all of these people, you know, tasting wine, and it gets to be kind of annoying after a while. But how does this movie portray that lifestyle?

O'NEIL: Well, Carol, have you ever heard me use the word "masterpiece" before?

COSTELLO: No.

O'NEIL: This movie is a masterpiece. This comes from the director and writer of "About Schmidt" and "Election." It's a buddy movie. These two guys are -- you know, one of them is about to get married, and they're taking this trip to the California wine country just for one last fling, maybe meet some gals along the way, too.

But it's my recommendation to you for the best date movie of the weekend, because the guys love this. It's such a wonderful buddy movie. But also there is a real romanticism to this film. It explores the real issues of romance and sex as these guys meet up with gals along the way. It is hilariously funny and deeply dramatic.

COSTELLO: Awesome! So how does the wine country play into that? Or is that just a prop?

O'NEIL: It's just a prop, but they wield it into the film in such a way, because Paul Giamatti, who is there on the screen now, is the wine snob, and he's teaching his buddy. And the woman he hooks up with here, Virginia Madsen, is a fellow wine snob. So they have that in common. It's a nice little hook.

COSTELLO: Yes, you know, and I can see, like the pretentiousness of that wine world, like the pretentiousness in relationships and that kind of thing, at least that's how I read it. I don't know.

O'NEIL: Oh, it's so good. You have to rush to see this film. It's terrific.

COSTELLO: All right. Tom O'Neil from "In-Touch Weekly" joining us, as usual, on Friday, we appreciate it.

O'NEIL: Thanks, Carol.

COSTELLO: The DAYBREAK mug winner will be announced in two minutes. But first, this is DAYBREAK for a Friday morning.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: We'd like to show you a cute animal picture, because, frankly, we have time to kill. So, here is what's his name? Colluk (ph)? He's a polar bear at the San Diego Zoo, and as you can see, he's in the Halloween spirit.

ROB MARCIANO, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Is that a real pumpkin?

COSTELLO: Yes, and probably this polar bear will eat the pumpkin, has eaten it already, shortly after this picture was taken.

MARCIANO: That's a real pumpkin?

COSTELLO: Yes.

MARCIANO: Oh, it's plastic, Carol. Take a better look. It's been a long week. And we never tire of polar bears holding on to plastic pumpkins.

COSTELLO: No.

MARCIANO: Not that we're killing time.

COSTELLO: It's koala bears, polar bears, et cetera, any kind of bear you put on television and people love them.

MARCIANO: And play a little Michael Jackson in the background, too, that kind of gets you in the Halloween spirit.

COSTELLO: Yes, it kind of gets you in the mood.

It's time to give away the mug. Questions of the day. MARCIANO: OK, let's do it. Yesterday we asked, what is the name of the legislation that will affect your checks? And it's called the Check Clearing Act of the 21st Century, or the Check -- yes, something like that. Anyway, according to Ben Mutzabaugh, which two airlines could benefit from the ATA bankruptcy? AirTran and America West.

And the winner is Greg Dunham from Akron, Ohio.

COSTELLO: Greg Dunham from Akron, Ohio, which used to be the rubber capital of the world, but...

MARCIANO: They don't make rubber there anymore?

COSTELLO: Not much.

MARCIANO: It's a nice place.

COSTELLO: Thanks for being with us this week.

MARCIANO: Thanks for having me, Carol.

COSTELLO: We appreciate it. And Chad will be back on Monday.

MARCIANO: Right.

COSTELLO: And he'll tell us all about his Las Vegas trip. "AMERICAN MORNING" starts right now.

TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com.


Aired October 29, 2004 - 06:30   ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL COSTELLO, CNN ANCHOR: Four days until Election Day. Polls give President Bush a slight edge, but it's a wobbly lead at best. You will decide on Tuesday.
Well, let's see where the candidates are today. President Bush will speak at campaign rallies in the battleground states of New Hampshire and Ohio today. As for Senator Kerry, he is in Florida. Kerry will make campaign appearances in Orlando, West Palm Beach and Miami.

Hawaii is traditionally a Democratic stronghold, but the race is unexpectedly close there this year. Al Gore, along with Kerry's daughter, Alexandra, will campaign in Hawaii today as a result. And Vice President Cheney will travel to the Aloha State on Sunday. Two recent polls put the race in a statistical dead heat in Hawaii.

The Bush campaign admits this morning it did doctor a photo used in a television commercial. Now it's scrambling to fix the ad and get it back on the air, despite criticism from the Kerry camp.

Here's CNN's Jeanne Meserve with more.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: ... sacrifice, we're defeating the terrorists...

JEANNE MESERVE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The Bush ad features a still photograph of soldiers, apparently listening to President Bush. But as the blog DailyKos.com first noticed, if you look closely, you see the same small groups of soldiers repeatedly.

The Bush campaign initially denied that there had been any manipulation of the image, but now acknowledges it was changed from this: a photograph taken at Fort Drum, New York, in July of 2002.

KEN MEHLMAN, BUSH CAMPAIGN MANAGER: In the bottom left-hand corner, the presidential podium blocked some people, and that part of the podium was removed, and some pictures of some additional soldiers were put back in.

MESERVE: Mark McKinnon, media adviser to the Bush campaign, says it was an unauthorized change made by an editor, that there was no attempt or need to deceive, that the crowd was impressive and real that day.

Computer programs make changing a photograph as simple and quick as moving a mouse. And it's been done before. For instance, two photographs of John Kerry and Jane Fonda were famously merged into one widely-distributed faked image.

The Kerry campaign is pouncing on the changes in the Bush picture, issuing a statement saying, "If they won't tell the truth in an ad, they won't tell the truth about anything else. This doctored commercial is fundamentally dishonest and insults the intelligence of the American people." It goes on to say, "Unless George Bush has changed its position on human cloning, it's got to pull this fundamentally dishonest ad immediately."

(on camera): The Bush campaign has pulled it. But after the offending image is replaced, they say, the ad will be right back on the air.

Jeanne Meserve, CNN, Washington.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

COSTELLO: The doctored photos, do they really make any difference to voters? And FLOPA (ph). Who is winning this trifecta?

Our political editor and author of CNN's "Morning Grind," John Mercurio, joins us from Washington now.

Good morning -- John.

JOHN MERCURIO, CNN POLITICAL EDITOR. That's a terrible photograph.

COSTELLO: Oh! OK, let's start with that doctored photo. Behind the scenes, are Republicans kicking themselves? Or is this not such a big deal?

MERCURIO: You know, I've got to say, I don't think it's actually that big of a deal, frankly. Mike McCurry, who is one of Kerry's top campaign advisors, was on Paula Zahn's show last night, and he said the same thing. He said, you know, it's sort of a one-day story. They're not going to be spending a lot of time getting Bush over this.

But I think the bigger question that's interesting that hasn't been answered yet is sort of just how often something like this happens on both sides of the race and how often. If we caught them this one time, you've got to presume at some point this has been done before, that this is, you know, perhaps a strategy or a technique they use in the campaign.

COSTELLO: Well, and going a little beyond that, John, I may be a little cynical, but when I hear a campaign ad or see it, I'm always suspect. Don't voters expect to see something in a campaign ad to be not quite on the money?

MERCURIO: Sure. Sure, but I think that's why it's perhaps not as effective as a strategy at this point in the campaign for the Kerry campaign to use as a big deal, because voters sort of shrug and say, yes, you know, I expect that. I'm certainly not surprised. COSTELLO: OK, let's talk about FLOPA (ph). But first explain what FLOPA (ph) is.

MERCURIO: FLOPA (ph) is this imaginary fantasyland of the combination of the states of Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania. It's a fantasyland because both campaigns fantasize about taking all three of these states on Tuesday. It's pretty hard to see if one candidate wins all three, wins FLOPA (ph), how their opponent sort of comes back and reverses the trend and wins the race.

COSTELLO: Interesting. I know that you finagled the numbers, or came up with news numbers as far as the electoral vote. Give us the latest.

MERCURIO: Well, you know what, Carol? We found something earth- shaking, right? The race is very, very close.

COSTELLO: Oh, you're kidding!

MERCURIO: I'm not kidding you. Basically, we found that with four days until the election, Bush has a slight lead in the Electoral College, but just in terms of the states that he has locked up. There are eight states, we think at this point, that are just too darn close to call. Of those eight, if we had to force them into a column, four would go to Bush. We think they're New Mexico, Florida, Iowa and Wisconsin. Kerry has Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, Ohio and Minnesota.

But, again, you know, those eight states are just really, really close. Dead heat is probably in all of them this morning.

COSTELLO: All right, John Mercurio, thanks for educating us on FLOPA (ph) this morning.

For more information on Tuesday's election, go to CNN.com/election.

Here to lead us through that Web site, by the way, is our technology correspondent, Daniel Sieberg.

Good morning -- Daniel.

DANIEL SIEBERG, CNN TECH CORRESPONDENT: Carol, good morning. I wish I could take credit for this amazing content on CNN.com. I did used to work there, but they've done some fantastic work.

The first thing you want to know is how to get there, CNN.com/election. That is where the main page is for CNN.com's coverage. You can see it here where they're focusing on the showdown states. That really is what everyone is talking about right now.

From this site you can also go and find out everything from the background on the candidates. You can see here the information about President Bush.

If we go back to the main page there, you can get everything from also the campaign ad spending by state. You can click on each state and find out how much they've been spending on campaign ads there.

The electoral rating, this is how much is being spent basically on each state -- or the electoral rating for each particular state. You can see the ones that are solidly Kerry or solidly Bush.

And we can go back to this main page here. A lot of stuff, it's very deep coverage that they've got here. You can look at the money that's being spent, the Electoral College, and the poll tracker. Everybody wants to look at the poll tracker. You can see here the different candidates that are involved and each state, depending on who is leading in each state.

Now, we can also give you a sneak peek of what's going to be coming up on Monday. That's going to be a place where you can go to tailor your election results. This is not up yet, but it will be available on Monday. You can go here and type in your zip code, if you want to get specific races for where you live.

You can also follow up to 20 different races, and you can see that over here. You can type in 20 different places. You can follow them at the presidential level or down to the state level. From there, you can also see the results as they come in.

Up in the corner here, you can even see we've got a clock that's four days until the next poll closes. And each state is covered. You can follow as deep or sort of as far up as you want to go the House and Senate races as well.

Now, this is not out there yet. But, again, House and Senate, the presidential level. Basically whatever you want to know you can discover, depending on how much time you have and how much you want to get into this page. But some amazing stuff at CNN.com. Carol, really the beauty of it is you can get as much into it as you want or not, depending on how much time you have.

COSTELLO: Thank you very much. It's fascinating and just an amazing amount of work goes into that.

SIEBERG: Yes.

COSTELLO: So thanks for showing our viewers.

SIEBERG: All right.

COSTELLO: CNN.com/election.

Still to come on DAYBREAK, snafu with the Sunshine State? Florida already under a microscope. And guess who is leading a protest? It's Michael Moore. I'll talk to a reporter who is covering the early voting and all of the problems in Florida.

Plus, Nicole Kidman in another mysterious role. Ooh, this is a weird movie. Is it worth seeing? Our movie critic gives us his front-row critique at 6:50 Eastern.

But first, here's a look at what else is making news this Friday morning.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat now flying to Paris for medical tests. It's the first time in nearly three years that Arafat has been allowed by Israel to leave his compound in Ramallah on the West Bank. He was taken by helicopter this morning to Amman, Jordan, where he boarded a French plane for the flight to Paris.

Arafat has been sick for about two weeks, reportedly suffering from a shortage of blood platelets. It's unclear, though, what exactly is causing the deficiency.

On to the American election. Confusion has become part of the voting process in parts of Florida. Several thousand absentee ballots are due to be mailed out this morning after almost 60,000 ballots never found their way to voters. And what election problem would be complete without an appearance by Michael Moore? Moore joined a protest in Broward County over those missing ballots.

Let's talk more about those missing ballots. Erika Bolstad is a writer for the "Miami Herald." Thank you for joining us this morning, Erika.

ERIKA BOLSTAD, "MIAMI HERALD": Thank you for having me.

COSTELLO: You have been following potential voting problems in Florida. So, will Ohio be the new Florida? Or will Florida be the same old Florida?

BOLSTAD: That's a good question. I think Florida will be the same old Florida.

COSTELLO: Oh, no, you're kidding! That's not what we wanted to hear.

BOLSTAD: It's looking that way. We've got problems with absentee ballots. We have Republicans protesting Democratic voters, people who are on a phone list. We have Michael Moore coming to Fort Lauderdale. The list goes on and on.

COSTELLO: Your secretary of state, Glenda Hood, though, sounds positive. Here's what she had to say.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

GLENDA HOOD, FLORIDA SECRETARY OF STATE: All of the supervisors have been overwhelmed with the numbers of people who have chosen to early vote. We're seeing now long lines. We're seeing huge interest. And that's good news, because we have really promoted and encouraged people to take the opportunity to early vote if that's their choice.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

COSTELLO: Well, she sounds pretty positive about it. But how is it really going? BOLSTAD: Well, I think she does have a good point that thousands of people are interested in voting this time around that probably weren't in 2000. You know, there are long lines everywhere. There are lots of people who requested absentee ballots that never have before. I think 2000 really made people want to come out and vote. They remember what happened, and they want to vote this time around.

COSTELLO: So, where are these absentee ballots that are not getting to the voters who requested them?

BOLSTAD: That's a good question. The Broward supervisor of elections office says that they think they're going to start to trickle in, that maybe they are in a post office somewhere. The post office says we've looked everywhere for absentee ballots. We don't know where they are. We have an e-mail from inside the post office that says that they had some concerns and that they were trying to make sure that their managers knew that absentee ballots were a priority.

COSTELLO: Wow! You know, you said Florida is expected to have this massive voter turnout, especially on November 2. Are there enough poll workers?

BOLSTAD: I think there's enough poll workers. That's one of those things that have been in place for years, and they generally have a good handle on that. The question is how many people turn out on Election Day and if, you know, there are thousands and thousands of people waiting to vote at 7:00 on election night in Florida. You know, there are still going to be lines here.

COSTELLO: Well, you know, the Justice Department is sending 250 civil rights personnel to the polls. There will also be monitors from the Democratic and Republican parties. For the poll workers, they'll be tough to deal with. For the voters, that may prove intimidating.

BOLSTAD: It may, and there's just so much pressure right now. You know, even right now with early voting in Florida, there are people at every single poll, you know, electioneering. They've got pamphlets. They've got signs. There are observers. It can be intimidating for a lot of voters.

COSTELLO: Erika Bolstad from the "Miami Herald," thank you for joining DAYBREAK this morning.

BOLSTAD: Thank you.

COSTELLO: Your news, money, weather and sports. It is 6:45 Eastern. Here's what's all new this morning.

COSTELLO: The judge has been meeting with the lawyers in the Scott Peterson double-murder trial in California. Closing arguments begin Monday, and the jury could get the case by Wednesday.

Cambodia's new king is being prepared for his coronation. The son of the outgoing king is becoming the nation's first new monarch in half a century. In money news, futures traders are betting the downside on Wall Street with the Dow opening down 13 points, the Nasdaq down 3.5, the S&P 500 down a point or so.

In culture, health officials want to scare you out of wearing special Halloween contact lenses. They point out that lenses sold without a prescription can cause serious eye injury, even blindness. And besides, they're illegal.

In sports, it's now a misdemeanor assault charge for Texas Rangers relief pitcher Frank Francisco. Back in September, Francisco threw a chair instead of a baseball, hitting a fan and breaking her nose. He threw the chair into the stands. The local D.A. has dropped the felony charge.

(WEATHER REPORT)

COSTELLO: Those are the latest headlines for you.

Let's head live to New York and check in with Bill and Soledad to see what's coming up on "AMERICAN MORNING."

Good morning.

BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning, Carol.

SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Good morning.

Some of the stories that we're looking at this morning, we continue to talk about the missing explosives. New tape now suggesting that those explosives, in fact, were at the Al Qaqaa base when U.S. troops arrived. We're going to talk this morning with former U.N. weapons inspector David Kay.

HEMMER: It continues to be an issue on the campaign trail, too. Four days and counting now, right, election 2004? Arkansas may be closer than expected, so say the Democrats. We'll talk to the Republican governor, Mike Huckabee, about that and the Clinton factor. Bill Clinton goes there this weekend, Sunday I believe, in fact.

Also, Pennsylvania four years ago went for Al Gore. President Bush trying to take that away. We'll talk to the Democratic governor, Ed Rendell, about that state this year.

O'BRIEN: And we're continuing to talk about Yasser Arafat's health. What exactly are the implications of his condition on the chances of peace? We're going to talk with former Senator George Mitchell about that and much, much more, all ahead this morning on "AMERICAN MORNING" coming up in just a few minutes.

COSTELLO: All right, we'll see you then.

A musical mastermind of our era is about to be honored in film. Ray Charles, his life, his music, his story. Find out if the movie lives up to the man. That's next on DAYBREAK.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: We just want to hear jam, don't we? That would be so nice. But we have to work, as you do.

The magic of Ray Charles comes to light this weekend, though, through the acting of Jamie Foxx. And speaking of coming to light, "Birth" features Nicole Kidman as a widow who thinks her late husband has been reincarnated as a 10-year-old boy. It's a very strange movie, and there's a lot of controversy about this one.

Tom O'Neil of "In-Touch Weekly" joins us to discuss this weekend's new movies.

So, you want to start with "Ray?"

TOM O'NEIL, EDITOR, "IN-TOUCH WEEKLY": OK.

COSTELLO: OK.

O'NEIL: It's a good movie, Carol, and it's more than just an impersonation of Ray Charles. Jamie Foxx, the comedian, really wants to be taken seriously as an actor. We saw him in "Collateral" earlier this year. And here, he took this role so seriously. You know, he had his eyes glued shut so he could, you know, really grasp the blindness of Ray Charles.

But he also just nails that inner smoldering intensity he had as a human being, fighting racial prejudice, overcoming a personal handicap, and a heroin addiction, which we see fully dramatized in this film.

COSTELLO: Yes, this isn't a bio pic that shows only the positive about Ray Charles. It also shows much of the negative.

O'NEIL: Much of the negative. We really see him wrestling with drugs and with women. We see his infidelities, you know, right and left as he achieves stardom. This movie goes up to about 1965 and captures those years. Of course, everybody is saying Oscar, Oscar, for Jamie. He's certainly going to be nominated. And we know that Oscar voters love these films based on real people.

COSTELLO: Yes, yes. I'd actually be interested in seeing that one, just because it seems to be more true to life than the norm.

O'NEIL: Yes.

COSTELLO: Let's talk about this movie, "Birth." This is quite controversial. And it just sounds -- I don't know. It sounds rather ooky (ph) to me.

O'NEIL: Ooky (ph)?

COSTELLO: Ooky (ph).

O'NEIL: Ooky is probably a...

COSTELLO: I can't think of a better word now.

O'NEIL: Well, yes, ooky (ph) is probably good. Let's go with ooky (ph), because it's not quite suspenseful enough to be a really good horror movie, and that's the shame here, because Nicole is terrific. I love the premise. I thought, 'What a great setup.'

Now, what would this woman do if she really believed this 10- year-old boy was the embodiment of the dead husband she loved so much? It doesn't go there. It just spends two hours convincing Nicole.

Now, this controversy you referred to earlier is at one point, the boy takes his clothes off and gets into the bathtub with Nicole. When people saw this scene at the Venice film festival, they booed the screen right and left. And it's really quite innocent. But there is another scene when the boy kisses Nicole, which is pretty erotic.

COSTELLO: Right. And he kisses her on the lips, too, doesn't he?

O'NEIL: Yes, with some real intensity there. It's not a great movie. It's not a bad movie. It just could have been so much better.

COSTELLO: Yes. And when you have that ookiness (ph) in there, it's got to be a good movie. It does.

O'NEIL: She is great in it, though.

COSTELLO: Yes, she's always great. She's a fabulous actress. Let's talk about the movie, "Sideways," because this is one I really want to see, because, you know, I love wine. I go to Napa, and there are a lot of characters there.

O'NEIL: I didn't know that about you.

COSTELLO: Well, I do. But if you ever go there, you see all of these people, you know, tasting wine, and it gets to be kind of annoying after a while. But how does this movie portray that lifestyle?

O'NEIL: Well, Carol, have you ever heard me use the word "masterpiece" before?

COSTELLO: No.

O'NEIL: This movie is a masterpiece. This comes from the director and writer of "About Schmidt" and "Election." It's a buddy movie. These two guys are -- you know, one of them is about to get married, and they're taking this trip to the California wine country just for one last fling, maybe meet some gals along the way, too.

But it's my recommendation to you for the best date movie of the weekend, because the guys love this. It's such a wonderful buddy movie. But also there is a real romanticism to this film. It explores the real issues of romance and sex as these guys meet up with gals along the way. It is hilariously funny and deeply dramatic.

COSTELLO: Awesome! So how does the wine country play into that? Or is that just a prop?

O'NEIL: It's just a prop, but they wield it into the film in such a way, because Paul Giamatti, who is there on the screen now, is the wine snob, and he's teaching his buddy. And the woman he hooks up with here, Virginia Madsen, is a fellow wine snob. So they have that in common. It's a nice little hook.

COSTELLO: Yes, you know, and I can see, like the pretentiousness of that wine world, like the pretentiousness in relationships and that kind of thing, at least that's how I read it. I don't know.

O'NEIL: Oh, it's so good. You have to rush to see this film. It's terrific.

COSTELLO: All right. Tom O'Neil from "In-Touch Weekly" joining us, as usual, on Friday, we appreciate it.

O'NEIL: Thanks, Carol.

COSTELLO: The DAYBREAK mug winner will be announced in two minutes. But first, this is DAYBREAK for a Friday morning.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

COSTELLO: We'd like to show you a cute animal picture, because, frankly, we have time to kill. So, here is what's his name? Colluk (ph)? He's a polar bear at the San Diego Zoo, and as you can see, he's in the Halloween spirit.

ROB MARCIANO, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Is that a real pumpkin?

COSTELLO: Yes, and probably this polar bear will eat the pumpkin, has eaten it already, shortly after this picture was taken.

MARCIANO: That's a real pumpkin?

COSTELLO: Yes.

MARCIANO: Oh, it's plastic, Carol. Take a better look. It's been a long week. And we never tire of polar bears holding on to plastic pumpkins.

COSTELLO: No.

MARCIANO: Not that we're killing time.

COSTELLO: It's koala bears, polar bears, et cetera, any kind of bear you put on television and people love them.

MARCIANO: And play a little Michael Jackson in the background, too, that kind of gets you in the Halloween spirit.

COSTELLO: Yes, it kind of gets you in the mood.

It's time to give away the mug. Questions of the day. MARCIANO: OK, let's do it. Yesterday we asked, what is the name of the legislation that will affect your checks? And it's called the Check Clearing Act of the 21st Century, or the Check -- yes, something like that. Anyway, according to Ben Mutzabaugh, which two airlines could benefit from the ATA bankruptcy? AirTran and America West.

And the winner is Greg Dunham from Akron, Ohio.

COSTELLO: Greg Dunham from Akron, Ohio, which used to be the rubber capital of the world, but...

MARCIANO: They don't make rubber there anymore?

COSTELLO: Not much.

MARCIANO: It's a nice place.

COSTELLO: Thanks for being with us this week.

MARCIANO: Thanks for having me, Carol.

COSTELLO: We appreciate it. And Chad will be back on Monday.

MARCIANO: Right.

COSTELLO: And he'll tell us all about his Las Vegas trip. "AMERICAN MORNING" starts right now.

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