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Six Months Into Health Care Reform; Study: Merit Pay Doesn't Work; Sexual Lawsuit Against Megachurch Pastor

Aired September 22, 2010 - 14:00   ET

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

ALI VELSHI, CNN ANCHOR: The time is finally here for all you "American Idol" fans. No more rumors about who's replacing the judges. They've picked them.

Now, to recap, Gone are Simon, Ellen, and Kara. Simon Cowell and Ellen DeGeneres quit. Kara DioGuardi was not invited back. In their place, Jennifer and Steven. Jennifer is J.Lo, Jennifer Lopez. Steven is Steven Tyler, lead singer for Aerosmith, whom we featured a few weeks ago on this show. Those are the two names we heard most about in the rumor mill. They will join Randy Jackson.

There she is.

Where's Tyler? Is he there? Are we going to see him? No, maybe we won't. But trust me, those are your new judges on "American Idol."

All right. It is a new hour and a new "Rundown."

Merit pay long touted as a way to inspire teachers to teach better. Well, a startling new study says extra bucks don't translate into extra motivation or into smarter students. That is going to be an interesting one for us to delve into.

Plus, he leads one of the biggest churches in America. He presides over a global TV ministry. He's even been invited to the White House. Now a Georgia pastor is facing allegations that could forever tarnish his image and topple what he's built.

Also, she would be the first woman executed in America in five years, but here lawyers claim she is borderline mentally retarded. I've got some things to say about this case and the bigger picture in my "XYZ."

But first, six months ago this week, a top-to-bottom overhaul of the U.S. health care system, an overhaul that presidents dating back to Teddy Roosevelt had contemplated, debated, attempted, didn't work. This president did it. It was signed into law by President Obama six months ago.

Today, as you may have seen live here on CNN, the president is talking up provisions of that law which come into force this week. It's what the White House calls a Patient's Bill of Rights. He's just about the only Democrat likely to use the words "health" and "reform" in the sentence, because we're only 40 days away from congressional elections, midterm elections, where every single House seat and 37 Senate seats are up for grabs.

Voters are split, to say the least, on health care. A CNN/Opinion Research poll form last month shows 40 percent of Americans favor health care reform, 56 percent oppose it. But among the opponents, it breaks down this way. Most say it's too liberal, goes too far, too much, too big. But a sizable chunk of the opponents say it doesn't go far enough.

So if you add the people who favor it to the people who say it doesn't go far enough, you actually have a majority of people who like it. This makes it all very tricky as to what you do with this in a campaign.

And when we asked which party can handle the issue better, that's a little clearer. It's a dead heat. Forty-six percent say Democrats, 45 percent say Republicans.

All of this forming a remarkable backdrop to the president's visit to a family home in Falls Church, Virginia.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: And health care was one of those issues that we could no longer ignore. We couldn't ignore it because the cost of health care has been escalating faster than just about anything else. And I don't need to tell you all that.

Even if you have health insurance, you've seen your co-payments and your premiums skyrocket. Even if you get health care from your employer, that employer's costs have skyrocketed, and they're starting to pass more and more of those costs on to their employees. More people don't get health care from their employers.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

VELSHI: Republicans are vowing to undercut if not outright repeal health reforms if they win control of the House. In the meantime, 20 states are parties to a federal lawsuit in Florida calling health insurance mandates an unconstitutional power grab. You can see them there.

A ruling is expected next month on the administration's motion to throw that lawsuit out. Some of those lawsuits, by the way, were filed by attorneys general of states not supported by their governors or by their legislatures. We'll hear more about that.

But first, let's bring in Senior Political Analyst Gloria Borger and Senior White House Correspondent Ed Henry to discuss this.

Gloria, in those words that the president had in that home in Falls Church, Virginia, he said we could not ignore it, we could not wait any longer. In fact, opposition to the president and to health care reform, it was largely based on the fact that we could have waited longer. We waited a long time, and perhaps in the midst of the greatest recession since the Great Depression, it wasn't a good idea to do that. What's your take?

GLORIA BORGER, CNN SR. POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, you know, it's interesting. I think when Barack Obama came into office, he had a couple of choices.

He could have just done the agenda that was handed him, which was the terrible economy, or he could have done the agenda that he ran on, which was reforming health care and a whole host of other things. Instead, he decided to do both, Ali. Right?

He said he was doing the economy, did the stimulus package, and worked on health care reform for nine months. Instead of doing a more circumspect plan that was a little smaller which some in the White House advocated -- and Ed knows an awful lot about this -- and some moderate Democrats advocated, the president decided you could not reform health care without going whole hog if you really wanted to do it the right way and to save costs down the road. So he took a big gamble on this.

You know, we may discover in the midterm elections that it backfires on him. Ten years down the road, he may be considered a transformational president. At this point the jury is still out. We don't know what the long-term impact is.

VELSHI: Right, 10 years down the road versus 40 days down the road.

BORGER: Right.

VELSHI: Ed, the president was one of those guys who did want to go whole hog. He was liberal on health care. Really, his liberal critics, that 13 percent who don't think this goes far enough, thinks he only went half-hog, he didn't deal with the cost issue. He dealt with the coverage issue.

So this was going to be the president's silver bullet. And I think Gloria is right. In 10 years, history may look fondly on him. Maybe it won't, but maybe it will. But in 40 days -- or in the next 40 days, how does the White House handle this? Because there are some Democrats who would rather this not be the center point of the reelection campaign.

ED HENRY, CNN SR. WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, it's true. I think that 13 percent maybe wanted the president to bang his head against the wall for, like, another six months and do a single payer system or something that he just was not going to get through this Congress. And it's interesting because, you know, we've got this story breaking that Rahm Emanuel may be leaving as soon as October as chief of staff to go run as mayor of Chicago.

He was one of the guys Gloria was talking about who, behind the scenes last year, was pushing very much, as Gloria knows full well, telling the president, look, go a little smaller in health care, get one big bite of the apple, come back later, get back on jobs, et cetera. Now, you can say the president was right, because in the end he won on health care reform, but what did he really win?

Rahm Emanuel might have been right last year, that if he had done maybe half a loaf and had gone back to jobs, maybe he'd be in a better political position right now. We won't know, but you're right, for the next 40 days, this is one of the few health care events I bet we see this president doing in the final stretch.

He did it because this is the six-month anniversary of the bill being signed into law. They're going back to jobs and the economy, there's no doubt about it.

VELSHI: But let's talk about -- you just mentioned Rahm Emanuel leaving maybe early.

Gloria, I want to ask you about this.

A lot of changes. Larry Summers going back to Harvard. We saw changes in the Budget Office. We've seen Christina Romer leave and Austan Goolsbee take that job.

What's going on in the White House and how should we read this? Because you can't just read those headlines on their own.

BORGER: Right. I mean, you know, first of all, Rahm is kind of a separate category because he will leave go run for another office. Larry Summers and Peter Orszag and the rest of the folks who have left, after a couple of years you get a lot of burnout in this White House.

After two years of trying to fix the economy, you can excuse anybody for wanting to go back to what they did before. But it does give the president a real opportunity here, I think, to kind of change the narrative.

You know, this has been, some charge, a very insular White House that hasn't reached out to the business community. Ali, you know this better than I do. So what if they were to bring in somebody from the business community to take Larry Summer's place, for example? And for the Rahm Emanuel position, what if they were to bring in somebody from outside the inner circle to bring a fresh eye and maybe change the narrative of the way this administration has operated?

You know, we've seen lots of presidents who do that, because the chief of staff is so important as the gateway to the president. You know, maybe it would be good to have somebody with a kind of a fresh view over there.

VELSHI: All right. So you see it as an opportunity.

BORGER: I do.

VELSHI: Ed, we're going to get a chance to talk to you a little more in half an hour on the stakeout.

Ed Henry, our senior White House correspondent. And Gloria Borger, our senior political analyst. Thank you to both of you. Always a pleasure having you help us.

BORGER: We'll see if Ed agrees with me.

VELSHI: Right. Very good.

HENRY: Of course I do.

VELSHI: All right. Another topic that we like to talk about here on this show, schools, public education. It is one idea to help fix our schools, pay teachers based on merit. Then kids will learn more.

Well, a new study appears to blow a big hole in that theory. I'll discuss it on the other side.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

VELSHI: OK. In "Chalk Talk" today, a new study questions the benefit of teacher merit pay, which is weird, because we think everybody should get paid based on their performance. Nashville's Vanderbilt University did what is billed as the first scientifically rigorous test of merit pay for teachers.

The results? Merit pay did nothing to raise student test scores. The study looks at 296 middle school math teachers from 2006 to 2009. Half of the teachers were eligible for bonuses ranging from $5,000 to $15,000 if their students scored significantly higher than expected on a Tennessee assessment test.

Fifty-one of the eligible teachers got a bonus at least once. That's about 34 percent. Only 18 teachers got bonuses all three years. But overall, the students didn't test better or learn faster than those taught by teachers who were not eligible for bonuses.

Education Secretary Arne Duncan believes otherwise. The Department of Education continues to put a great deal of emphasis on getting school districts to try merit pay systems as part of the Race to the Top competition.

When asked about the results of this study, a spokesman for Duncan said, "While this is a good study, it only looked at the narrow question of whether more pay motivates teachers to try harder." He says it did not address the Obama administration's push to change the culture of teaching by giving all educators the feedback they need to get better.

We will continue to look at the study tomorrow. The head researcher will join us, and I'm going to ask some tough questions.

When Eddie Long preaches, his flock of 25,000 are all ears. Now they are definitely listening, because their leader is being sued for alleged sexual misconduct.

Details and a live report next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

VELSHI: When Bishop Eddie Long speaks, thousands packed into his megachurch in Atlanta listen. Now Long faces serious allegations of sexual misconduct that were filed yesterday in a lawsuit.

Long denies the allegations. Two young men, former members of Long's church, accuse him of coercing them into sexual acts.

During his tenure, Long has call far national ban on same-sex marriage. Long is the pastor of the sprawling New Birth Missionary Baptist Church which boasts 25,000 members. He's also got a global TV ministry.

He's been the pastor of New Birth since 1987. When he took over at that time there were only about 150 members.

CNN's Ed Lavandera is following this case. He joins us live from Atlanta -- Ed.

ED LAVANDERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, Ali, as you might imagine, this story has sent shock waves not only through the New Birth Missionary Baptist Church here, just outside of Atlanta, but across the world. As you've mentioned, Bishop Eddie Long has a spiritual empire that reaches around the globe, so these allegations very stunning.

And essentially what these two young men -- they're now 20 and 21 -- are alleging, that starting about the time that they were 17, 18 years old, that they had kind of fallen into Bishop Eddie Long's prey, if you will. And essentially, this lawsuit essentially saying that the bishop used his spiritual authority in the church to coerce them and manipulate them into a sexual relationship.

We want to be clear about this. At this point we're not looking at anything criminal. The age of consent in the state of Georgia is 16. Everything that we've read in these lawsuits, and in talking to the attorney representing these two young men, that they were of age when these relationships started, Ali.

So this is incredibly shocking. Allegations are being leveled against a bishop that is revered in his church. And this morning, Bishop Eddie Long's spokesperson basically came out and had some very harsh things to say about the two young men accusing Bishop Eddie Long of sexual abuse.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ART FRANKLIN, BISHOP EDDIE LONG'S SPOKESMAN: This is actually a case of retaliation and a shakedown for money by men with some serious credibility who are trying to mount their own defense. This is something that went from 48 hours of contact with the attorney, claiming outrageous demands to this dog-and-pony show that we're seeing that began yesterday.

(END VIDEO CLIP) LAVANDERA: Now, we've also had a chance to follow up with the attorney representing these two young men today as well. She says that these two young men were prepared for this kind of response, and that's why it's been so difficult for them to come forward.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

B.J. BERNSTEIN, PLAINTIFF'S ATTORNEY: The issue here is it had to be brought out to the public so that this stops. And these two young men -- it is incredibly difficult for young men to claim that they have had any sort of contact with another man, much less their pastor. This is bringing them scorn and ridicule, as you're already hearing from the church.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

LAVANDERA: And, Ali, of course as you might imagine, this is such a big deal, such big news here, given that Bishop Eddie Long has been so vocally opposed to gay marriage. He led a march here in Atlanta about six years ago against gay marriage, so obviously many people wondering, if this is indeed true, you know, many questions about hypocrisy here in light of the allegations that are being thrown at the bishop at this point -- Ali.

VELSHI: All right. Ed, this church for people who don't know about it, what's its history?

LAVANDERA: Oh, it's a massive church. And when Eddie Long took it over in 1987, it had 300 members. That has grown to more than 25,000 members in that church now.

When Coretta Scott King passed away a few years ago, Martin Luther King's family had requested that her funeral service be held at his church. We're talking about a man who has got a reach around the world, is one of the premier megachurch pastors in this country. So it is a loud voice that he has, a powerful voice that many, many people listen to.

VELSHI: Ed, good to see you, my friend.

LAVANDERA: You bet.

VELSHI: Thanks for following this. I cannot believe you're in Atlanta and I'm not there. We've missed each other once again.

LAVANDERA: Well, I'll hold the fort down here for you.

VELSHI: Please do that.

Ed Lavandera in Atlanta for us.

(NEWSBREAK)

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(WEATHER REPORT) VELSHI: Let's go "Off the Radar" for a moment.

CHAD MYERS, CNN METEOROLOGIST: OK.

VELSHI: Tonight is the autumn equinox.

MYERS: It is.

VELSHI: And that means?

MYERS: Twelve hours of daylight, 12 hours of darkness everywhere around the world.

VELSHI: Right. But during that darkness you may see something very interesting.

MYERS: Yes. During that darkness you will see a full moon that only happens every once in a while -- 14, 18 years, depending on -- now, why does that happen?

Well, if you have a calendar, if you look at the calendar, there's one day, and that's going to be your equinox. You have another -- and this is 30 or 31 days. Obviously, in September, 30.

VELSHI: Right.

MYERS: You have your lunar calendar which is about 28 days. They don't match up every year now, do they? Because 28 and -- they kind of rotate around, and all of a sudden your full moon and your harvest moon are at the same time, but your equinox keeps rolling around the calendar.

And so the thing is, with this one tonight, this is as close to the equinox as we could get, six hours away from where the equinox really takes place. When our moon comes up, 11:00, the sun will be directly behind the Earth, and it will be shining right at the moon. The moon will be bright, but so will Jupiter. You'll be able to see that in the lunar sky.

VELSHI: Oh, is that right? OK. And the moon is going to look redder, and it's going to look bigger than it normally does, but both of those are -- well, at least the bigger is the illusion and the redder is because it's low and there'll be more junk in between us and the moon.

MYERS: Maybe. I'm not buying all that.

VELSHI: You don't think it's going to look like it looks right behind you?

MYERS: Sure, if you can see it. You know what? What makes it look so big is because you have a house here and then a building here. And so it comes up over the horizon and it looks gigantic, and then another couple of minutes later it's up here and it looks much smaller, but in fact it's all an illusion.

VELSHI: See, you are a buzzkill some days.

(LAUGHTER)

MYERS: Yes.

VELSHI: I'm ought to come back to Atlanta and whip you into shape. Come on. It's a beautiful moon.

MYERS: It's going to be a beautiful moon.

VELSHI: People are going to kiss under the moon. They're going to do all sorts of fantastic things.

MYERS: And the farmers will continue to harvest all night long because the moon is so bright. That's where the story comes from.

VELSHI: All right. Fair enough. There you go. Thank you for bringing us a little joy today.

Chad Myers in the Weather Center, our good friend.

All right. President Obama making a major change in the way the U.S. helps developing countries. The plan is being unveiled in a short while at the United Nations. Details in "Globe Trekking" right after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

VELSHI: OK, "Globe Trekking" today, we're going to talk about the United Nations. The president of the United States is here in New York for the beginning of the U.N. General Assembly. And this is -- we sort of call it U.N. week, lots of stuff is going on. But at 4:45 Eastern this afternoon, just a little more than two hours from now, the president is going to make an important speech and in it he is going to talk about the way in which the U.S. financially helps other countries.

Jill Dougherty is following this very closely and she's got information on something the president is going to say that may have fundamentally changed the way they interacts with other countries.

What's he talking about?

JILL DOUGHERTY, CNN FOREIGN AFFAIRS CORRESPONDENT: Yes, you know, they're calling it global development policy. And let's think of how they do it now. How they do it now is you look at the countries, some of them, you might call them basket cases to coin a phrase. And they go in, they throw a lot of money at it, and then they hope that the country improves. They might do some education, et cetera.

What the Obama administration is saying, let's perform triage. Let's look at the successful or say the winner countries that do have problems, they're still developing, but we're going to concentrate on them.

And these would be countries that are, number one, they have a good government, they're globally connected, they're economically stable and then they also are marketed oriented. So they already have to come up to bar on certain areas.

Then, the U.S. government takes all of, you know, the different departments and says, OK, how do we go in and really buttress them, how do we go in and help them do what they want to do.

Now this, of course, raises the questions, what happens to the basket cases?

VELSHI: Or the people in those basket cases who are not party to the fact that their government may not fit the bill.

DOUGHERTY: Right, and that is a legitimate question. They say that they are not going to diminish help or anything like that, but it really -- it's a very different approach. It's very stainable.

And they're also going to use criteria. They're going to study what works, what doesn't work and use technology.

VELSHI: In some ways, this has been evolving over the years, right? The International Monetary Fund has done the same thing saying, we're going to pump money into your country, we need to see that you keep your records and it's not all going toward corruption or whatever the case it.

How is this going to go over?

DOUGHERTY: With whom?

VELSHI: Well, we will ignore domestic policy for a second, cause nothing the president is saying is going to go over all that well these days.

DOUGHERTY: Well, that's important because you have to sell it to the American public.

VELSHI: You do.

DOUGHERTY: But internationally, it should go over well, one would think. I mean, if you talk with the development experts, that's what they think because, number one, the president is saying we're not pulling out, we're not leaving, we're still going to help, but it's going to be much more sustainable and much more helpful to the countries that are going to work and it's also going to encourage countries to do the things that the United States believes --

(CROSSTALK)

VELSHI: Do we know yet a list of winners and losers under this sort of thing? Has that analysis been done yet?

DOUGHERTY: We tried to pin them down. They are mentioning Ghana as an example, a country that meets those criteria. They're not really talking specifically about a whole lot of other countries. Maybe --- I'm sure we're going to find that out.

VELSHI: Right. OK, that will be interesting to see who gains and who loses and what impact it has on potential recipient countries.

Jill, thanks very much. After the speech, you'll know more about this.

We'll, of course, continue to cover everything going on at the U.N. this year.

One veteran is not just serving on the battlefield. He's waging a war on poverty. That's our "Mission Possible" and it's coming up next. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

VELSHI: This week, the United Nations is holding a special summit to address one of the world's ugliest problems, poverty. One in every three people lives on less than a dollar a day. That's 2 billion people, by the way, in the world. The U.N. made a list of development goals back in 2000, 10 years ago, the Millennium Development Goals. They wanted to meet them by 2015. They want to address specific problems, eight of them to eradicate poverty and making world a better place. Eight main goals, ending extreme poverty -- you can see it there -- and hunger, universal primary education, gender equality, reducing child mortality, improving maternal health, combating HIV, AIDS and other diseases, environmental sustainability, and developing a global partnership.

Our "Mission Possible" today thinks that those goals won't just make this world a better place, they help create something called soft power. Now soft power, if you look in the dictionary, is the ability to achieve goals without force. It's not weapons or coercion or things that force someone into something. This week's U.N. summit may be a key to wielding our soft power.

Major John Ready is a retired Army Reserve major, he's here in New York. Major, thank you for very much for being with us.

MAJ. JOHN READY, U.S. ARMY RESERVE (RET.): Thank you. Thank you for having us.

VELSHI: You're an advocate, you're wearing the badge of something called ONE. Tell us about that.

READY: Yes, it a grassroots advocacy group, 2 million members strong and their main mission, our main mission is to combat poverty around the world, lack of water, lack of medicine and to help underdeveloped countries.

VELSHI: The idea that you -- you've been in the military.

READY: Yes.

VELSHI: You have served in Iraq.

READY: Yes, I did.

VELSHI: But you feel that our power, this soft power, could be an even bigger force.

READY: I've seen it myself.

When I got back from Iraq, I was looking for something like ONE to join and to get involved with, cause I've seen it myself, the use of soft power. I was a civil affairs officer over there, and I was executive officer of a CA battalion.

And one of our -- one of the villages around the Baghdad International Airport, they had no running water, they had no sewer, their canals were backed up, and there was no way to effectively irrigate their crops cause they had been neglected underneath the Saddam regime.

So with confiscated money, our civil affairs specialists acted as project managers, and over the next two months we rebuilt their water and sewer lines and we opened up their flood gates for their canals.

VELSHI: So we've heard, for instance in Afghanistan, that that kind of thing, improving people's lives, their education, their health, their accessible water, is going to win the hearts and souls of people possibly much more than military force will.

READY: Exactly, and this was a perfect example of that because there was -- there were some friends of ours, an active duty unit, they were getting ready to redeploy home. And they had -- just before, the night before, they had their vehicles all lined up in their logistical base near the airport and they were getting ready to line up on the MSR, the main supply route, to Kuwait.

And a village elder from that village came to the gate with a map, he couldn't speak a word of English, but they got a translator and they found out that some insurgents had buried some rocket launchers, grenades, machine guns, and AK-47s in his field.

So a reaction force they went down and caught them just before they started the ambush. And if they hadn't done there, there would have been probably 300 soldiers killed that morning as they were getting ready to leave.

VELSHI: Wow. It's interesting to hear a military man talk about that because what you do in the military is so specific and so definite. It has a specific end result. Here you're talking about a movement to win over hearts and minds of people to subscribe over it. I guess when you look at it, ten years to meet these very, very big goals. I think the world falls into two kinds of people. Those like you who are - or others I've talked to from One, or people who are involved in the Millenium Development or people like Ted Turner, people like Mohammed Eunice who think you can actually solve things like world hunger and disease and the passage of HIV. And then those who think they can't.

What do these meetings do? What -- what tangibly happens to make the soft power work?

READY: If you have enough people like myself and the other members of One who have actually had experience on the ground, we can prove to these world powers that this can be accomplished.

VELSHI: Yes.

READY: The village elder who I talked about before, they asked him why he did that, why he turned the bad guys in. He said because the American soldiers came to my village, and they got my water back and I can grow crops. And it wasn't -- they were talking about us, but he was referring to the U.S. Army. And that was -- that's just one instance where it wasn't on a global level, but a lot of Americans' lives were saved.

VELSHI: Right. But this will be one. All of these challenges, Millenium Development Goals will be won on individual levels and cases.

Great to see you, Major. Thanks very much. Major John Ready is retired Army, reserve major. He's with One. We talked to you a little bit earlier this week about One. For more information on it, go to CNN.com/ali.

Listen, I got this news just in I want to bring you. CNN has learned that a civil suit has been filed in Dekalb County now, in Georgia against Atlanta-based megachurch leader Bishop Eddie Long alleging coercion, deception and manipulation that involved a sexual relationship with a pastor when Jamal Parish, 23 years old, was a teenager.

This is the third suit filed in two days. The suit also names the church as a defendant. Long's spokesmen, Art Franklin, when reached on Tuesday about the first two lawsuits, told CNN, "We categorically deny the allegations. It's very unfortunate that someone has taken this course of action. Our law firm will be able to respond once attorneys have had an opportunity to review the lawsuit."

CNN is reaching out for a comment on the third lawsuit. Franklin also just told CNN that Long will hold a news conference tomorrow, Thursday morning. More details as we get them.

OK. When we come back, Ed Henry standing by. The White House chief of staff could be out by Halloween. Ed Henry not wearing a costume outside the White House. With "The Stakeout."

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

VELSHI: The White House chief of staff could be gone by next month. Ed Henry is on "The Stakeout" as he is always is at this time every day.

Ed, let me just ask you this. It's a big topic of discussion. I've seen it all over the place. We've talked about it. Tell me again for my viewers, why do we care? It's not like there won't be a chief of staff, right? I mean, he'll go, Rahm Emanuel will go run for mayor of Chicago -- probably win that. What's important about this?

ED HENRY, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Well, why do we care? White House chief of staff is one of the most important jobs in the world because if you think the president of the United States is important, as he clearly is, this is the person who sets the agenda. I mean, this was the person who was pushing on health care reform, Wall Street reform, the stimulus package. Behind the scenes, handles the president's schedule, who's going to get in to the Oval Office to see him. I mean, from top to bottom, national security crises, potential terror attacks. I mean, the way the White House chief of staff's job as evolved, it's remarkable that people like Rahm Emanuel stick around for even two years.

I mean, I remember Andy Card in the Bush administration stayed something like six-and-a-half, almost seven years, and it was unbelievable when you think about -- people don't understand. The White House chief of staff gets up usually about 4:00 a.m. I mean, we all get up early, we've got to do our work. But your job, you literally are working 18, 20 hours a day every day, basically Saturday and Sunday as well. Because the president, he never sleeps.

Why else do we care? Rahm Emanuel is a larger-than-life personality. That's part of the reason why he's probably going to run for mayor of Chicago. Thinking about Mayor Daley and his personality. Chicago's a big city, important city of the United States in the middle of the country. It seems likely he's going to run. Seems also likely he's going to step down as early as say, early, mid-October. And then they're going to have to search for a new chief of staff.

But this is a big, important job who sets the agenda for the lead of the free world.

VELSHI: Ed, the other issue the president is dealing with today, it's the sixth anniversary - sixth anniversary. Six month -- what do you call it? It's not really an anniversary.

(CROSSTALK)

HENRY: -- six years. He throws a lot of political capital into it. It feels like six years.

VELSHI: Six months since the president signed health care reform into law. And provisions of health care are taking effect. But more importantly, 40 days to go before the midterm elections, and some people are not thinking that a discussion about success with health care is going to help them in their re-election chances.

HENRY: They thought months ago after all the hard work of passing health care that they would have some benefits to tout now, like the president was today. And maybe that would be a political boon, it really hasn't materialized. I think the president had to do this today to kind of try to continue to fight the good fight and tout his accomplishment, but he's going to go back to jobs and the economy as quick as he can.

You probably just heard Marine One on the other side of the West Wing behind me here, out on the South Lawn. You just heard they were taking off. He's going to New York City now for the U.N. general assembly meetings you were talking about with Jill Dougherty and others.

And so, he still has foreign policy on his plate. It's like when I was talking about the chief of staff. You never sleep. There are a lot of issues coming at you all at once. Sometimes people accuse this president of taking on too much.

There's also a lot that gets thrown your way, whether you like it or not. He's got a few days in New York, a lot of important foreign policy to be dealt with. But you're right. Health care he is going to talk about today. He did. He's going to go right back to the economy and jobs next week. In fact, he's got a big swing. He's going to be hitting several states next week.

VELSHI: Right. And when the president's into it, when he's in campaign mood -- mode, you really see it. What's all the talk about the president's mojo?

HENRY: Well, you know, I've got a story on CNN.com. We spent the weekend in southeast Virginia. We picked that state in part because it's a state the president carried, the first Democrat to do so since 1964.

And we talked to Democrats, Republicans, independents across the board. While we talked a lot about angry voters and what not, I actually talked to lots of people across the board, no matter where they stand, who they think the president is a good person, heart in the right place. But many, including independent voters and Democrats who voted for him, were telling me they think he took on a little too much, too fast. One man said it's far more than any one man can do in 20 months.

And so, maybe in the next two years, when you talk to senior aides, they're probably going to be tightening the agenda ever so much, especially if they have a Republican Congress. It will be beyond their control. They're going to have to tighten that agenda, Ali.

VELSHI: Ed, what are you doing Friday night?

HENRY: Friday night --

VELSHI: I'm not asking you out. I'm just asking you - I'm not - that wasn't --

HENRY: Well, I'm just wondering. I'm going to be out of town. I'm busy. But you have a big movie premiere. "Wall Street 2."

VELSHI: I was going to say -- I assume if you're busy Friday night, Saturday could work out for you.

HENRY: Yes, I'm going to watch the premiere of your movie -- I'll call it your movie now instead of Oliver Stone's.

And by the way, Don Lemon and I decided yesterday in your absence that from now on, we're just going to -- it's like Madonna, Cher. Velshi. That's just your name. Velshi.

VELSHI: There it is.

HENRY: You're a movie star now.

VELSHI: Ed, you were my friend long before I am about to become famous. So, I'm going to remember that. I know who my friends are.

HENRY: And I may not be your friend long beyond that. I don't know. We'll see.

VELSHI: You have yourself -

(LAUGHTER)

VELSHI: Have a good day, Ed. Ed Henry, our senior White House correspondent at "The Stakeout." As he always is.

No need to wait, by the way. Early voting has started. In some of the midterm battles, you don't have to wait for more debates. "CNN Equals Politics" update, coming right up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

VELSHI: Time for a "CNN Equals Politics" update. CNN senior political editor Mark Preston. CNN deputy political director Paul Steinhauser. They are at the CNNpolitics.com desk in Washington.

Paul, kick it off. What's crossing now?

PAUL STEINHAUSER, CNN DEPUTY POLITICAL EDITOR: Ali, why wait until November? You know what? In three states, early and absentee voting is under way. Georgia, South Dakota, and Vermont all started on Monday. Iowa, Wyoming set to start tomorrow. And next week, Ohio and Nebraska. A lot of states moving toward early voting over the last decade or two.

You know what that means? Some of those campaign ads going up right now in the next few weeks? Too late for some voters. Mark, what have you got?

MARK PRESTON, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL EDITOR: You know, Ali, 26 years ago, it was morning in America. That was Ronald Reagan's theme. It helped him cruise to a reelection in 1984.

Well, the late president's close aides and associates have a new ad campaign out. They're resurrecting that theme. A little play on the words. They're calling it "Mourning in America." They're trying to focus on the fact that the economy is in such bad straits. They're putting the blame on President Obama. $400,000, Ali, over the next week on a national cable buy to really try to hit President Pbama. Back to Paul.

STEINHAUSER: Let's talk about the Tea Party Express. This is brand-new on the CNN Political Ticker this afternoon. Jay Jenkins, our cameraman, can you take a look at this? The Tea Party Express said that come Monday, they're going to announce their fourth Tea Party cross country bus tour.

But they put out a few details already. The name of the tour: Liberty at the Ballot Box. And Ali, I learned, a source told me it's going to be a two-week tour that's going to end on election day and it's going to end in Nevada, the home state of Harry Reid, the Senate majority leader. The Tea Party Express has really been gunning after Harry Reid.

Mark, you got one more thing, don't you?

You know, Ali, big news. Big news today. John King -- this has just been confirmed. John King, our chief national correspondent, will be moderating eight governors' debate down in Florida. That will happen just less than a week before election day. We're doing it in Tampa. Our partner is "The St. Petersburg Times." It's also going to happen 24 hours after Candy Crowley's going to do a Senate debate down there.

Ali, you know I love my debates. Let's not forget about Wolf Blitzer, who's going to be doing a Delaware Senate debate as well. So, a lot of debates in CNN's future. Maybe a few more might be announed.

VELSHI: Maybe a reason not to vote early, because we miss listening to you guys every day making this make sense for us. Preston and Steinhauser, thank you, guys. Always a pleasure.

All right. Taking a turn here. The death penalty. It is never an easy thing to talk about. There are never easy solutions to the battle surrounding it. I'm not saying I have those solutions. I've got thoughts. My "XYZ" up next.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

VELSHI: Time now for the "XYZ" of it.

Tomorrow, convicted murder Theresa Lewis is set to be executed by lethal injection as her final appeal for clemency is rejected by Virginia governor Bob McDonnell, and the U.S. Supreme Court denies her a stay. Of course, the death penalty is a hot-button issue in the United States and indeed around the world as proponents believe it can be a legitimate deterrent to a violent crime. Its detractors cite many reasons why Lewis shouldn't die tomorrow. Among them, her claim that she is mentally retarded, which would disqualify her for execution under federal law. She's also expressed remorse for the murder of her husband and her stepson in crimes she pleaded guilty for her part in. And the fact that the two men convicted for conspiring to murder with her have been spared the death penalty. But I come with my own baggage on the death penalty issue. I grew up in Canada, where the last time someone was executed for murder was 1962. Fears of wrongful convictions, concerns about whether the state should even be in the business of taking the lives of its citizens, and just plain old questions on whether the death penalty really deters crime. Well, all of those sentiments from the Canadian public coalesced into the complete elimination of capital punishment in 1976.

But there are other reasons to consider eliminating capital punishment in the United States. The death row in the United States, very costly. According to a report put out last year that polled police chiefs around the country, a good number of them don't believe the death penalty deters murder. And they're rated as one of the most inefficient uses of taxpayer money to fight crime. The report, which was put out by the Richard Dieter's group, The Death Penalty Information Center, says that maintaining a system with 3,300 people on death row and supporting new prosecutions for death sentences that likely will never be carried out is becoming increasingly expensive and harder to justify.

Looking back at Theresa Lewis's case ,she was convicted and sentenced in 2002 for her crime, and the significant cost of eight years of legal appeals to stay her execution has been borne by Virginia taxpayers.

Many appeals take much longer. Dieter's report claims the money spent to preserve this system, estimated to be $10 million per state per year, could be directed to effective programs that actually make society safer. And that's some more food for thought when looking at the ongoing debate over capital punishment in the United States.

That's it for me. Time now for "RICK'S LIST."