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Ballot Bowl: Stewart & Colbert Dominate National Mall; Obama Conferencing With World Leaders About Foiled Terror Plot; West Virginia GOP Bringing in the Big Guns

Aired October 30, 2010 - 13:00   ET

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

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

JESSICA YELLIN, CNN NATIONAL POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT: I'm Jessica Yellin in Las Vegas this is CNN's Special BALLOT BOWL coverage of the midterm elections. For the next five hours we will be bringing you campaign events from all over the country. These are the races that could alter the balance of power in Washington.

DANA BASH, CNN CONGRESSIONAL CORRESPONDENT: I'm Dana Bash in Bridgeport, Connecticut. President Obama will be right here behind me later this afternoon for a Democratic Party rally here. We'll of course bring that to you live.

Meanwhile, in the nation's capital a very different kind of gathering is getting under way. Call it the Rally to Restore Sanity or maybe the March to Keep Fear Alive. Either way, it's kicking off right now and they have been very mysterious about what exactly this rally is about. The hosts, John Stewart and Stephen Colbert, we expect will poke fun at the political class and maybe even make a few serious remarks as well.

YELLIN: There are just three days left until the election so settle in for the best political coverage anywhere. You know we'll bring it to you here.

And we will take you to West Virginia where Sarah Palin is going to take the stage to help the Republican running there in a very tight race for governor.

We are going to bring you rock-and-roller Ted Nugent who is expected to speak and if you can remember what songs he sang, tweet us at Ballet Bowl CNN because I can't remember. You don't want to miss Ted Nugent.

We'll also head to Ohio where former president Bill Clinton is trying to rally Democrats -- Dana.

BASH: We're not going to stop there. We'll also have the latest from Florida where Mr. Clinton this week found himself in the middle of that state's fascinating three-way race for California. And we'll held to California home to a pair of very important and very, very expensive high profile campaigns for governor and for the Senate. Plus, every hour we are going to bring you the latest updates on the terror plot to send explosive packages into the U.S. and our Fredricka Whitfield is standing by in Atlanta where CNN is tracking this developing story all over the world.

President Obama is campaigning in Pennsylvania. He is campaigning here in Connecticut and in Illinois, his home state, today. He spoke at a get out to vote rally in Philadelphia earlier today. Our senior White House correspondent Ed Henry was there and he's joining us by phone.

Hey, Ed, I think you're in the motorcade heading to the plane, right?

ED HENRY, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT (via telephone): That's right. We're heading back to the airport, Dana. I'm acutely going to be flying on to Chicago. The president is going to leaving on Air Force One shortly to get over to you in Connecticut.

This was a very short speech from the president, about seven minutes. Really just trying to focus on getting people here in Philadelphia to turn out the vote. Big Senate race here and a governor's race and a lot of House races.

As you know, before he came here you should note the president this morning got a briefing back at the White House by John Brennan, his principal Homeland Security adviser to get the latest information on that terror threat that you mentioned.

Also important to note, the president made two big phone calls. He called the British Prime Minister David Cameron to try to get an update on the situation and talk about their alliance. It was a big part of that cooperation between U.S. and British officials yesterday to help snuff out the plot.

But also the president called King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia. It was Saudi officials who passed on the key piece of intelligence according to White House officials yesterday that helped pull this -- make sure that this did not become an actual attack on U.S. soil to help snuff the plot out before it ever went there.

But interesting that as we drive through right now the streets of Philadelphia and the president is sort of back in campaign mode, I see street signs here on some of the telephone poles saying support Obama, vote November 2nd.

It's interesting because, as you know, the president and his chief advisers like David Axelrod who have been saying this is not a referendum on President Obama. This is instead a choice between the Democratic and Republican agendas. But people here on the ground in Philly are saying that you have to turn out for President Obama now to make sure his agenda moves forward.

They believe it's a referendum on him, and there's a big, big Senate race here with Joe Sestak as you know edging behind Republican Pat Toomey for a long time. He suddenly pulled this; this is one of several dead heats the Democrats are watching very closely. They're privately worried that they are going to lose the House. That's something they've known for a while. The worry about losing the Senate is starting to increase Dana.

BASH: Very interesting, Ed. Of course, the fact that those signs are out there is evidence of why President Obama is there in the first place. He knows he needs to go to the places where he is still incredibly popular to get those people out to the polls.

Ed, we are defiantly going to check back with you later as you make your way with President Obama as he travels for this campaign. Thanks, Ed.

And I'm going to toss it back to my co-anchor Jessica in Nevada.

Hey, Jessica.

YELLIN: Hey, Dana. There is so much going on. I want to let everyone know that Sarah Palin is speaking now in West Virginia. We're going to take that in a moment.

But there's also a very unconventional rally that is under way this hour in Washington, D.C. We have been talking about it; it's hosted by Comedy Central's Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert. And really, the name says it all, or does it? I don't know. They are calling it the Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear. So you make sense that as you will.

But I'll take you to two people who can really make sense for it for us. CNN's Kate Bolduan is on the National Mall along with Pete Dominick the face of CNN's new program "What's the Week" and he's also as we know a correspondent for "JOHN KING USA."

You guys have been talking to people who have made the trip to D.C. for the rally, so Kate, let's start with you. What are people telling you? Why did they come?

PETE DOMINICK, CNN CORRESPONDENT: I'm sorry.

YELLIN: I'm sorry. Pete Dominick, can you hear me?

Pete, can you give us a little sense. I think we're having trouble with Kate's mike. Tell us a little bit. I want people context. You used to be the warm-up on "The Daily Show" and "The Colbert Report." Tell us about the crowd there who came and why?

DOMINICK: Who came and why? Everybody seems to have come. Jon Stewart just opened the show and said there's at least 10 million people here, and they represent a perfect sampling of America, he said. Every demographic, he's literally having them count off, state their name, their race, maybe their sexual orientation.

Jon is having a good time. I've been talking to people all day as has Kate and everybody else. They came for a number of reasons and they came from all over. I talked to people from Texas, and from Ohio, from New Jersey and from New York. Stephen Colbert is about to come out right now.

But they came for a number of reasons. But it seems like a lot of people came to make other people laugh. There's some really funny signs and some really funny things being said. Everybody seems to be having a pretty good time. The show just started, though.

YELLIN: OK. It sounds interesting. I doubt there's really 10 million people there, but we'll check out the crowds later. And we're going to bring everybody, Pete, some of what Jon Stewart -- that's literal?

DOMINICK: Those are Comedy Central's numbers, I think. Those are Jon Stewart's exaggeration numbers.

Jon made a big point at the top of the show to say no littering, leave this place better than the way we found it. He's having a really good time. He just opened the show.

The Roots were here performing as was John Legend. And I think if I hear the music that I know so well, Stephen Colbert is on his way out as I introduced him at "The Colbert Report" as I did for five years, I always introduced him as the greatest American alive. He's coming out now.

YELLIN: All right. Well Pete we'll get back to you and we'll bring our viewers some of Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert coming up.

We are going to take a quick break, but stay with BALLOT BOWL for more of Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert and all our reporting coming up.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BASH: Welcome back to CNN's BALLOT BOWL. I'm Dana Bash in Bridgeport, Connecticut.

We're bringing you the rallies, the candidates and the campaigns in this final frenzied weekend of campaigning before Tuesday's very monumental and consequential midterm elections.

As we speak Sarah Palin is on the stage campaigning for the Republican Senate candidate in West Virginia. That's a very close race, one of the many that we're watching to see what happens with control of the United States Senate. We are going to bring that to you in a short while.

But first I want to turn it over to my co-anchor Jessica Yellin who is going to bring us to another quite different event going on in Washington.

YELLIN: You could say that. I'm not sure is it political, isn't it? People can make up their own minds. It's the Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear in Washington, D.C. As you know we've been talking about it, it's hosted by Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert. Stewart spoke a moment ago, we are going to bring you the sound, but Stephen Colbert is live on stage. Just want to set it up. He came up in what appeared to be -- looked like one of those Chilean miners' capsule and he's wearing a costume. We can't figure it out if it is Elvis or Capitan America, why don't you listen and decide.

(JOINED IN PROGRESS)

STEPHEN COLBERT, RALLY TO RESTORE SANITY AND/OR FEAR: Dear god, we're all down here on the mall. Hope you can see us. We're having a wonderful time. It's a group of wonderful, wonderful people. And we want to thank you for getting all of us here safely and making it so easy to find parking spaces.

YELLIN: OK. We're going to dip out of this. We think that's Father Guido Sarducci for anybody who remembers "Saturday Night Live." Wow, that is a blast from the past.

We will bring you back to this rally when other folks take the stage, but I'm going to toss it over now to Dana Bash who has an actual legitimate political event going on that we can listen into -- Dana.

BASH: The scary thing is I think you're right about that, that might be Father Guido Sarducci and I think we're dating ourselves that we both know who that is.

But in any event, speaking of maybe going back in time when you are talking about celebrities, Ted Nugent was supposed to be the big celebrity down in West Virginia today for the final push in that very important Senate race but late in the day yesterday we found out that Sarah Palin was going to be joining the Republican candidate John Raese there as she's speaking right now to help John Raese.

Let's listen to what she's telling the crowd there.

(JOINED IN PROGRESS)

SARAH PALIN, FORMER GOVERNOR OF ALASKA: This opponent is trying to say now Barack who? Never heard of him. It wasn't me. You know, you have to remind him that, no, he's the leader of their party and he would be expected to fall in line.

All you have to do is see what happened through Obamacare to realize even those blue dog Democrats, their arms were twisted and deals were struck. They did fall in line at the end of the day. That's what you would have to look forward to.

No, the finger to the wind political type posturing, that's not true leadership, and it's not reliable and our nation can't afford it and West Virginia deserves so much better.

Now, I know that there has been across the nation there has been a lot of mudslinging in the campaigns this cycle, but it's not negative campaigning to point out your opponent's record. And John's opponent has been all over the map when it comes to the Obama agenda. One minute he's for it, and the next minute he's aiming his rifle at it.

We know where John will be on the issues. He's steady and he is consistent. He has that strong spine that the rest of those in Congress need in order to do the right thing to put government back on your side. We know where John will be.

We have no idea what John's opponent would end up doing in -- once he gets to D.C. and gunning for whatever agenda it is that he actually embraces, so what we'll do is concentrate on what John Raese can provide to our nation and to West Virginia residents.

Again, it's not personal. He is a nice guy, this opponent, but this election is about the issues. And the crucial issues, they are jobs. It's about spending, it's about government's overreach and intrusion into our businesses and into our families, into our states.

It's about a disrespect coming from Congress and the White House of the Tenth Amendment of our constitution where states' rights and individual rights are supposed to be paramount. It's about our kids being bankrupt by an out of control White House and Congress.

John Raese knows that we can't keep racking up debt over a $13 trillion dollars in debt and Obama points backwards and blames everybody else, and yet he has perpetuated the problem in these last two years. Heck, before that, don't forget he was a United States senator casting those votes for those big old budgets and yet he wants to blame everybody else. That doesn't fly in West Virginia. You all are smarter than that.

Now, John Raese knows that our country can no longer afford worked out budgets full of sweet heart appropriation. We do need smaller and smarter government. The only way to get that is to change the leadership in Washington. The leadership in D.C. must change and it must start listening to we the people. The left's agenda will not get us there.

BASH: Start listening to we the people, that is a classic Sarah Palin line. We've heard her say that campaigning for many, many Republican candidates across the country.

But West Virginia is really interesting, because it was not on very many people's radar at all. It wasn't really a competitive race until about a month ago and Jessica, it is really fascinating I went down there may be about two weeks ago, and the dynamic is really stunning because the Democratic candidate Joe Manchin who happens to be the city governor is really popular. His approval rating is like 70 percent, which is pretty good for anybody these days in the political world.

He still was in a neck and neck race because people in West Virginia were so reluctant and they seemed to be reluctant to send somebody who is a Democrat to Washington. Because they're pretty angry at Democrats in Washington.

YELLIN: The sense I get, Dana, is that for a long time Republican -- well, about going up to about two, three weeks ago Republicans felt that they really had a great shot of picking up West Virginia. That they were going, that was a check-off, and that was going to be a Republican seat in the future. Now they're sort of feeling it's little bit slipping out of their grasp, Republicans are a little more anxious about this one.

Is that the sense you're getting as well?

BASH: Yes, I'm glad you asked me that. Because there's no question it is competitive, but I talked to a couple of pretty senior Republican sources who admitted to me this morning that even with Sarah Palin they're looking at the numbers ticking away from them, and they think that it is going to be tough at this point to beat Joe Manchin.

But as I said, just the fact that that Democratic governor has had this tough of a race it is pretty remarkable, very telling of the atmosphere out there and the anger, frustration is maybe a better word towards Washington. It is absolutely stunning.

John Raese who she is campaigning for has run many times. I think this is his fourth statewide campaign and never won for both governor and the Senate. But he told me when I was down there that he thinks his big anti-government message, even to the point where he said that minimum wage should be eliminated, that had resonated better this time than any years in the past, Jessica.

YELLIN: Just to remind viewers, for Republicans to take over the U.S. Senate they will need to pick up ten seats. This is one of those seats they would need to pick up and hope to pick up if they are going to get there. Again, possibly slipping out of their grasp. That's why so many people are hitting that state this weekend. Both sides fighting over that seat and so many others.

We're going to bring you to those events and we will also bring back to the Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear with Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert. It's coming up on the other side of this break, so stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Hello, from the CNN Center in Atlanta, I'm Fredericka Whitfield. More BALLOT BOWL in a moment, but first a look at our top stories.

Security officials worldwide are on alert in the wake of yesterday's foiled terror plot. In a phone call with British Prime Minister David Cameron, President Obama praised those who found the explosive in Dubai and in the United Kingdom and those working the case.

U.S. leaders say the devises have the hallmarks of al Qaeda. They were on cargo planes bound for the U.S. from Yemen. Cargo workers there are now being questioned and shipping companies have been asked to stop transporting cargo from Yemen at least through Monday. Let's get right to our Homeland Security correspondent Jeanne Meserve. You've been digging on this story for more than 24 hours now. What more are you hearing?

JEANNE MESERVE, CNN HOMELAND SECURITY CORRESPONDENT: Well President Obama clearly trying to keep up to date on the latest developments. One of our cameras this morning caught a picture through the windows of the oval office of his counterterrorism John Brennan talking with the president we would guess about this very situation.

In the meantime, as you mentioned, the president made a phone call to the British Prime Minister to say thank you very much for your assistance. The British, of course, are in possession of one of those devices, the one intercepted in the UK. They're doing the forensic analysis, and the British home secretary had some comments this morning about what they had found.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

THERESA MAY, BRITISH HOME SECRETARY: Our preliminary investigation is now complete. I can confirm that the device was viable and could have exploded. The target may have been an aircraft, and had it detonated, the aircraft could have been brought down. We do not believe that the perpetrators of the attack would have known the location of the device when it was planned to explode.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MESERVE: U.S. officials with whom we have spoke however, say they still are not certain exactly what the intended target of these devices might be. Yesterday we were looking at a lot of pictures of the device found in the UK.

We also have some pictures of device found in Dubai. If we take a look at those pictures you can very clearly see the white powder on this device, which has been identified according to our sources as PTEN, that is, indeed, the same explosive that was used by the so- called underwear bomber on Christmas Day.

The forensics on the bombs continue, officials still trying to determine what it could do, what the intended target was, and more specifically who made it and who might be behind it. Officials say they have seen nothing that dissuades them from their belief that it was al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.

Back to you, Fred.

WHITFIELD: All right. Jeanne Meserve in Washington thanks so much.

All right. Back to politics now. Some of the Republicans' brightest political stars are out this afternoon in West Virginia. See what happens when Sarah Palin and rocker Ted Nugent share the same stage.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

YELLIN: Welcome back to CNN's BALLOT BOWL. I'm Jessica Yellin in Las Vegas at the Garden of the Gods at Cesar's Palace.

We have an awesome setup here I have to say because there are events happening here and around the nation with Dana Bash, located on the other side of the country. We're monitoring the political and not so political events happening everywhere, including the Stephen Colbert, Jon Stewart rally where we understand Ozzy Osbourne is on the stage and as luck would have it Ted Nugent is at - oh, before we go to Ted Nugent, we are going to dip into that Jon Stewart Colbert rally and Ozzy Osbourne.

(JOINED IN PROGRESS)

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Where are you going?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Guys, come on. Guys, guys, come on. Way to go. Way to go.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Look what you did! You ruined everything.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You know what? Now we're here, and we have all these people and we got no train, no train.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That's what you do. You ruin things with reasonableness.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You ruin things! We got no train. Oh, god. Oh, god.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I went to so much trouble to get Ozzy.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What are we going to do?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don't know.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Oh, god. What was that? Wait. What was that?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What was that sound?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: People of the world.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Is that the sound of Philadelphia?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Was that the sweet Philly soul. I would get on the love train.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don't know if I could get on the love train, John. That doesn't sound fearful.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: STDs, heart break.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: That is scary. I'll get on the love train.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Ladies and gentlemen, the OJs!

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: People all over the world join hands start a love train, love train, people all over the world join in.

YELLIN: All right. Well we have some love train happening in Washington, D.C., but we have other action happening across a few states away in West Virginia.

Dana Bash, who is joining me from the other side of the country, has -- is going to bring us that. Ted Nugent and Ozzy Osbourne in the same day, Dana. How can we be so lucky?

BASH: You can't make this stuff up. First of all "Love Train" is actually bringing back memories, because you remember back in 2008 this was one of John McCain's rally songs that we use to hear over and over again. And by the way what was with Stephen Colbert's pants? Was he wearing pajama bottoms?

YELLIN: I think they were pajama bottoms.

BASH: I think they were they were pajama bottoms. Onto Ted Nugent, Jessica you were asking about what songs did Ted Nugent sing, thank god for iPad, I just pulled up a website that is the top ten greatest hits of Ted Nugent, "Strange Hold," "Cat Scratch Fever," "Spirit of the Wild Free-for-All," you can all get it on your own iPads as well.

But let's actually listen to Ted Nugent, he is headlining, one of the headliners at a rally in the state of West Virginia for the Senate race there, the Republican Senate candidate John Raese.

Let's listen to what Ted Nugent is telling the crowd.

(JOINED IN PROGRESS) TED NUGENT, ENTERTAINER: With my children and my wife and my neighbors and my co-workers and my band and my crew and all my hunting buddies, the people at church, the people at school, now we're talking about an army.

So here's what we need to do, John. I see a bunch of people out there, and I bet you know a bunch of people. I bet you got friends and I bet you got buddies that go hunting with you and go bowling and go hanging out and barbecue with you that are as frustrated as you and they're not here.

Go out into your lives, go back to work on Monday and go to church tomorrow and go trick-or-treating and don't just give away candy, go hey, kid, who you voting for?

Each of you - I am convinced -- I'm not in charge. I'm not the boss. But here's the ugly fact. If each of you, your enthusiastic and you got flags waving and you look good and you got some attitude.

God bless the attitude. I love your attitude. I got some spirit going wild out there today. You're really turning me on. But here's how you will win, and if you don't do this, you'll lose and Nancy Pelosi will keep her puppet. Here's how you fumigate the rats.

Every one of you between now and Tuesday you must convince 100 people. You kid, right there, Mr. Deer Hunter, you have to do it. Each of you has to find every member of your family, and if they're not voting Republican, fix them. If each of you don't get an army of voters to get John Raese to go to Washington and fix it, if each of you don't get all your friends, all your co-workers, all your neighbors, everybody in your life, you cannot relax between now and Tuesday. You might not even want to sleep. You might want to realize that it's not good over bad. It's good over evil.

If you believe, if you are sincere, if you are ready to really perform our absolute obligation to earn a we the people experiment in self-government, it doesn't come with your birth. You have to earn it every day.

Between now and Tuesday, if you earn it, you go to the polls and you get all your buddies, everybody you know. You need to convince, you need to educate, you need to embrace, and you might have to thump upside the head. Whatever you got to do, if you can go from here today, this nice gathering -- what a beautiful day, it is perfect, West Virginia perfect.

Take this spirit and charge up your friends who are not charged up enough and send John Raese into the battle to fight for what you believe in, being the best that you can be, being accountable. By the way, I want you to know, I don't have to make nothing up.

This morning I got up at 6:00 this morning to go to my tree stand. I didn't get nothing, but I will and you know what I poured into my stove, I opened up a bag of coal and I poured that coal into my stove. And I did a little coal warming dance, I burned coal, baby, and I took --

BASH: That's Ted Nugent, the singer Ted Nugent trying to rally the crowd.

You see John Raese, the Republican candidate for Senate right behind him in that suede coat and the hat. He's the one that they are trying to get voters to go out there and pull the lever for. On Tuesday it is a very tough race but talking to Republican sources earlier today they think that even with the help of Ted Nugent and as you saw earlier Sarah Palin that it might be tough, tough to take that particular Senate seat out of Democratic hands.

But Jessica, obviously we're watching a lot of Senate races over the entire country, and we're watching big names go out to try to get their various candidates help, to give them help to get voters to the polls with this very, very important election on Tuesday.

YELLIN: That's right. There are about a dozen races across the country where Republicans could pick up enough seats, they need ten to take over the U.S. Senate but many of them seem to be slipping out of their hands and still it's expected to an incredibly close election. Whether they can get to ten that is the big unknown to change the balance of power in Washington. So we will continue to watch those rallies around the country, and also we promise to bring you more Stephen Colbert and Jon Stewart from their rally to Restore Both Sanity and Fear out of Washington, D.C.

Also, on a more serious note, we have some new developments in that terror plot out of Yemen. Our reporters across the country and across the world will be bringing that to you out of Atlanta. We will have all that and more on the other side of this break, so stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

WHITFIELD: Hello, I'm Fredricka Whitfield in Atlanta. We will get back to BALLOT BOWL in a moment.

But this breaking story, now 48 hours -- nearly 48 hours after the discovery of explosive devices in plane cargo in the UK as well as the United Arab Emirates. And now we understand through government officials in Yemen CNN confirming this that they have surrounded the home of a woman who is suspected to have some ties to sending those explosive packages that made its way through the United Arab Emirates as well as the UK and that were apparently bound for the U.S., possibly Chicago specifically.

We heard from the president of the United States yesterday confirming that explosive material was indeed found in these devices, and now we're hearing from Yemeni officials that indeed they have surrounded the home of a woman who is believed to have a connection to these devices.

She being in Yemen of course when we get more information on this development of this continuing story, which is a worldwide terror probe now, we'll, of course, bring that to you.

I'm Fredricka Whitfield in Atlanta. Back to THE BALLOT BOWL after this.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

BASH: Welcome back to CNN's BALLOT BOWL, I'm Dana Bash in Bridgeport, Connecticut where we expect President Obama in just a little over an hour to try to rally the voters here in the state of Connecticut. But we're also watching political events in this frenzied last weekend before the election all over the country including in West Virginia.

We brought you a short while ago Sarah Palin campaigning for the Republican Senate candidate. But of course Sarah Palin is a political celebrity in her own right. And she, we have pictures of her signing autographs for the crowd who gathered in Charleston, West Virginia for really a surprise appearance by Sarah Palin. We didn't know that she would be there until last night.

Ted Nugent was the big headliner there until we found out about Sarah Palin. Very, very fascinating to watch her Jessica. Obviously we both have since 2008, the way that she has been backing candidates across the country but also making sure to keep herself out there as a potential candidate for 2012. We weren't sure if it really was going to happen, but in this interview she gave last week she left the door so wide open that there almost wasn't a door there to think about 2012, right?

YELLIN: Well, it being looks like she wants to keep everybody guessing and keep all eyes focused on her and so far it's working. We will, of course, bring people more of her events and the events happening there in West Virginia.

Also, want to point out Dana is in Connecticut with the president where the president is showing up later. I'm in Nevada which is a state which might have the most closely watched Senate contests of all Senate Democratic majority leader Harry Reid in a neck in neck race trying to keep his seat, not at all clear that he'll be able to.

We'll be talking about this race and others and we promise bringing you more of the Stephen Colbert, Jon Stewart rally to restore both Sanity and Fear which is happening in Washington, D.C. That and many more political events from around the country are on the other side of this break.

Thanks. Stay with us.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

YELLIN: Welcome back to CNN's BALLOT BOWL. We are watching political events and races across the country. We will bring you more of the Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert rally to Restore Sanity and Fear in Washington, D.C. and some of the rallies in West Virginia, Connecticut and across the country.

First, we are going to dip in and show you some of what happened earlier this week from the state of Ohio. I want to bring in my co- anchor, Dana Bash, who is in Bridgeport, Connecticut, to talk a little bit about; Ohio is a governor's race that people outside the state should care about.

Because one of the big things that happens next year, Dana, is redistricting where they get to shape the congressional districts and decide which party essentially could control power for the next ten years in Congress. This race could help decide that, couldn't it?

BASH: It absolutely could. I know you wrote a great piece on CNN.com about this from Ohio on this governor's race. You are right absolutely about redistricting. People like around Arnold Schwarzenegger have been talking about this for a long time that maybe one of the reasons why things are so polarized in Washington is because the Congressional districts are drawn to favor particular parties.

So that is one of the reasons why you have people sort of far on one side and far on the other and fewer and fewer people in Washington in the middle. So it is critically important. But Ohio, in particular, obviously is a bell weather state. It is a state that had gone pretty blue, Democratic, just a couple years ago. Now, of course we have that Democratic Governor Ted Strickland in a very tight race. Jess, you know he was pretty far behind, almost kind of left for dead, political dead not too long ago. But it looks like he might be inching back, right?

YELLIN: Yes. I think -- let's tell people about Governor Ted Strickland, the Democrat, trying for a second term there facing off against challenger, John Kasich, who is consistently ahead. One of the one-time presidential candidate, Mike Huckabee came to Ohio this week. He was there campaigning for John Kasich and he predicted a Republican tsunami is on the way.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

MIKE HUCKABEE, (R) FORMER PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: I think it is not only going to be a political tsunami in the House but I'm one of those few people and there aren't many of us, I believe we will take the Senate.

And the reason I say that is because if you look down at other cross tabs of a lot of the polls I think some of the polls are over sampling Democrats and under sampling the independent Republican leaders who will determine this race.

What's happening across the country, Democrats are approaching the election with leverage and the Republicans and Independents are approaching it with an extraordinary intense energy and that is not being factored in.

A lot of the polls are simply looking at indicators of preference and that is important but what really matters on Election Day is not preference it is intensity. The intensity factor could tip several Senate races and put them in the win column for the Republicans.

I may not be right on that, I reserve the right to be wrong. Because it is ever so close in about four or five states that could go either way. But if the wave that I see happening continues, and I see no reason it won't, I believe that what we are seeing is momentum that continues to crest towards the Republican candidates in every state. They know they are going to be wiped out next Tuesday.

This talk about they are going to win, they wouldn't be looking on down the road in two years if they thought that they really had any shot at winning these races next week. They have pulled out, they have given up. They have circled the wagons. They are having prayer meetings and closed door sessions and they are getting out the Kleenex and starting the crying.

They have done it to themselves. They push stuff right at the American people that the people kept saying, we don't want it, and we don't want it. This is like parents who kept feeding spinach to their kids when the kids hated it and one day they wonder why their kids won't come visit them more often. They don't want their spinach anymore.

That's what's going to happen next Tuesday; we don't want that spinach anymore. By the way I like spinach, just for the record.

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YELLIN: Mike Huckabees warning that Democrats are spinach in this cycle and people don't like it anymore and they don't like what they are getting, he is also predicting momentum. I will tell you in that race he is campaigning in, Ohio, the Democrats say they have such a strong get-out-to-vote and field operation that they feel confident they can make up the difference in the polls. We will see if ground work is enough to fight back the momentum the Republicans seem to be having this season, Dana.

BASH: That is right. Speaking of ground work, that is the name of the game Jess, as you know, for President Obama who is doing some last-minute campaigning. He is going to be right here where I am in Bridgeport in about an hour and a half.

But that's not all. He started the day in Pennsylvania and he is going to end the day in his home state of Illinois. We want to go to some of what the president told the crowd when he was campaigning earlier in the day in Philadelphia, he of course is campaigning for the Democratic candidate for Senate, Joe Sestak which was and still is I should say held currently by Arlen Specter.

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BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: In order for Joe Sestak to be successful and Dan Onorato (ph) to be successful and the entire Democratic ticket to be successful, you are going to need to talk to folks everywhere you can and make sure that you describe to them the future that you see for this country.

You want a country where every young person can get a decent education. You want a country where nobody is bankrupt because they get sick. You want a country where our seniors can retire with dignity and respect and Social Security is there not just for this generation but for future generations.

You want a country that has the best infrastructure in the world. We used to be number one. We can't have the best ground lines and the best airports built in China or Singapore. They need to be right here in the United States of America.

We don't want to be falling behind in math and science and technology. We have got to be first in research and development and technology to make sure that the new products and new services are developed right here in the United States.

We want clean energy here. We don't want solar panels and wind turbines and electric cars built in China or Europe. We want them built here in the United States with American workers.

So it is absolutely critical that you go out there and describe your hopes for the future, especially the young people here, because this election is not just going to set the stage for the next two years.

It's going to set the stage for the next 10, for the next 20 and for those of you who were so excited two years ago. I just want to remind you this, two years ago was not about me. It was about you and it was about this country.

I said then that change was going to be hard. Now, we have been involved in some tough fights over the last two years. We can't move backwards now.

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