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CNN Live Today
Record-Shattering Cost of This Year's Election; "Daily Dose"; Cassini's Titan Flyby
Aired October 27, 2004 - 11:31 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.
RICK SANCHEZ, CNN ANCHOR: Thirty minutes after the hour. Welcome back, everyone. I'm Rick Sanchez.
DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: And I'm Daryn Kagan. Let's take a look at what's happening "Now in the News." Six days to go, five states to cover today. President Bush and Senator John Kerry will campaign across five different states. The president will hit Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Michigan. And Senator Kerry will stump in Iowa and Minnesota.
The Japanese prime minister says that his country's troops will stay in Iraq, despite threats from insurgents to behead a Japanese hostage. Video on an Islamic Web site shows the man seated in front of three masked men. Officials say the man is a 24-year-old Japanese resident. They don't know why he was in Iraq in the first place. Officials say an emergency task force is working to bring him home safely.
Astronomers have waited a long, long time for this one, a closeup picture of Saturn's moon titan. The Cassini spacecraft sent back these picture last night, taken from less than 800 miles away. Scientists believe that large bodies of liquid methane and ethane lie beneath the foggy atmosphere. We'll have more on this historic moment in just a few minutes.
And the Red Sox, speaking of history, Red Sox fans are saying, curse, be gone. Boston is just one game away from winning its first World Series since 1918. Tuesday, in St. Louis, the Red Sox beat the Cardinals 4-1. Boston could go on for a clean sweep tonight in game four.
Well, as my illustrious co-host told you just moments ago, six days and counting until Election Day. President Bush is reaching out to swing voters and undecided Democrats today. John Kerry is targeting middle-class voters, hammering the president over both the economy and the situation in Iraq. President Bush does hold a slim lead over Senator Kerry in our average of national polls. It shows Mr. Bush with 49 percent, compared to Senator Kerry, with 47 percent. The margin of error is four percentage points on that.
The record-shattering cost of this year's election is nearing an estimated $4 billion. More than $1 billion of it has been spent just on the presidential race.
Larry Noble is the executive director of the Center for Responsive Politics. That's a nonpartisan research group, we should add, that compiled those dollar figures for us, and He's joining us now from our nation's capital.
$3.9 billion, Mr. Noble. That's an awful lot of money. How'd we get to that?
LARRY NOBLE, CENTER FOR RESPONSIVE POLITICS: Well, it is a lot of money. It's about a 30 percent increase over what we saw in 2000, and we got to it a number of ways. For one thing, the McCain/Feingold campaign finance reform bill doubled the amount of contributions that an individual can make to a candidate and to a party. We're seeing activity by the so-called 527 organizations. And also the political parties have done a great job in raising the new hard money they have to raise under the federal election campaign laws.
SANCHEZ: And am I hearing you say that McCain/Feingold hasn't worked? Are you inferring that?
NOBLE: No, not at all. Actually McCain/Feingold has worked. McCain/Feingold was supposed to separate the political parties and the federal office holder from the old soft money contributions. Those were the contributions that were coming in in six and seven-figures to the political parties.
SANCHEZ: Aren't they still getting that money through the back door?
NOBLE: Well, they're not. The 527s are not supposed to be connected to the political party, and they're not supposed to be coordinating with the political parties.
SANCHEZ: Yes, but have you seen them? They sure look like they're connected to them.
NOBLE: Sure, and there's some very serious questions about whether or not they are, in fact, coordinating with the political parties, and that, I think, has to be investigated by the Federal Election Commission. But the reality is that the money going to these 527s is not going to the political parties, and one of the effects of that, has been that corporations are less likely to give to these 527s, in part, because they're not giving directly to political parties, they're not getting the same access. Also keep in mind, that in 2000, we also had the 527s.
What we're seeing now is that the political parties are raising as much or more money in hard money as they raised in soft money and hard money the last time around.
SANCHEZ: Can you understand, though, pardon me for interrupting...
NOBLE: Sure.
SANCHEZ: ... but how someone is watching this show right now in Topeka, Kansas, who probably is having a tough time making ends meet, and he or she is sitting there thinking, $3.9 billion, you know how much that could help people in this country and we're spending it on elections? NOBLE: Oh, absolutely. It's staggering sum, I mean, there's no doubt about that, you know, but it is very expensive to run elections in this country. It's very expensive to put on the ads.
SANCHEZ: I guess.
NOBLE: It's very expensive to move the candidates around.
SANCHEZ: Let me ask you this. Let's try and break it down. Who's giving money to -- traditionally people have thought the fat cats gave money to the Republicans and it was more of a grassroots thing with the Democrats. Does that hold true, or is it pretty much the same?
NOBLE: The reality is both parties, or both candidates, get money from many of the same industries. The securities industry is very big, lawyers are very big, the real estate industry is very big, so they're all getting money from a lot of the same people.
What we are seeing, though, is that the political parties are relying more and more on the small donors. And this has had a bigger impact on the Democratic Party, which used to rely on the big soft money donors. Now they actually had to spread out and find more money from individuals. But generally, the candidates in the political parties get a lot of their money from the same type of industries.
SANCHEZ: The George Soros and the Mellenscaithes (ph), there's a lot of those guys out there, or are they kind of few and far between?
NOBLE: Well, there are a number of those guys out there. It's not their numbers that really matter; it's the amount that they can spend. And those are the guys that are now putting money into the 527 organizations. And those 527 organizations are having an impact. There's a real question about the legality of what they're doing, but they are having an impact on this election.
But you know, it's still a small part of that $4 billion that we're seeing. So, you know, so they are having an impact, and also the 527s on the Democratic side are raising about three times as much as on the Republican side, but that's because the Republicans got started later, and they're doing everything they can to catch up with the 527s.
SANCHEZ: Larry Noble, thanks so much here for being with us. We learn a lot when we talk to someone like yourself. Appreciate it.
NOBLE: My pleasure. Thank you.
SANCHEZ: All right -- Daryn.
KAGAN: We talked earlier about politics and money. Now a look at politics and religion. President Bush's openness about his faith is part of his appeal among conservative Christians in the U.S., but some Europeans are uncomfortable with Bush's blending of politics and piety.
Senior international correspondent Walter Rodgers takes a look at that.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
WALTER RODGERS, CNN INTL. CORRESPONDENT (voice over): It is said in Kitty Kelly's book, "The Family," that his mother calls him the chosen one. George W. Bush has reportedly told people he was called to the presidency.
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I believe that God wants everybody to be free. That's what I believe. And that's part of my foreign policy.
RODGERS: But in an increasingly irreligious Europe, Mr. Bush's sense of diving calling is troubling to some.
MICHAEL WEINRICH, THEOLOGY PROF., UNIVERSITY OF BERLIN: He is the president of the United States and the most powerful man in the world, and the decisions of the president can't be made by emotions. And if he refers to God, he is not giving reasons for his decisions. He's just saying that is my -- it comes out of my prayers.
RODGERS: European churchgoers are graying. Now the only way to catch many European politicians in church is when they're wed or when they're dead.
SIR BERNARD INGHAM, THATCHER'S FORMER PRESS SECRETARY: A politician portrays himself as pious. He's thought to be, not to put too fine a point on it, lying.
RODGERS: As governor of Texas, Mr. Bush's evangelical Christianity, his openly avowed position that only Christians go to heaven, got him in trouble with Jews. He wrote a letter apologizing for that to the Anti-Defamation League. As president, he's further trimmed his sails.
BUSH: If you're a Christian, Jew or Muslim, you're equally an American.
RODGERS: Ironically, Europeans accommodate Muslim leaders' open Islamic religiosity, even while sneering at an American president's professions of faith.
Gary Streeter is an evangelical Christian member of the British Parliament.
GARY STREETER, BRITISH PARLIAMENT MEMBER: We don't have a level playing field for faith at all at the moment. If you are a Muslim, you are given sort of all kinds of scope and room to speak and act in the cause of your faith. Trying that as a Christian, it really doesn't work.
RODGERS (on camera): Perhaps this divide is much greater than an American president's religiousosity. Europeans have long thought and expected Americans to be just like this, without ever understanding how really different Americans are.
Walter Rodgers, CNN, London.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
KAGAN: Have some health news ahead for you, some possible side effects of antacids that you probably don't know about.
SANCHEZ: Pneumonia, of all things. The reason for this might be enough to put a knot in your stomach and give you more (INAUDIBLE). Your "Daily Dose" of health news is coming up next.
KAGAN: And later, a close encounter with one of Saturn's moons. It might provide a glimpse into Earth's distant past. Some incredible pictures from space are coming up.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
SANCHEZ: Heart surgery that normally takes about five hours was performed on a premature newborn in just two minutes, we learned. Surgeons in Oklahoma City had little close but to speed it up. The infant would not have survived more than a few minutes after birth, because of a severe heart defect. The parents have named the little girl "Divine Miracle," appropriately so.
Ads for medications to treat acid reflux disease are all over the airwaves these days, and a lot of people depend on the medications for relief. But there's a new study that's some raising concerns about a possible risk. And this has been in the news for several reasons, as a matter of fact this week.
Medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen is here with details on our "Daily Dose" of health news.
Hi, Elizabeth.
ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Hi there.
Who would put Ashlee Simpson and the "Journal of the American Medical Association" together, you know, go figure? Anything can happen, right? Well, as you mentioned, these drugs are very big. A lot of people depend on them. We brought some of them here. These are various drugs that help people control heartburn, ulcers, acid reflux. Some of them are prescription, some of them are over the counter, and people use them both ways.
Well, what this study of some 300,000 people shows is that when people take these drugs there's an increased risk of getting pneumonia, and I'll explain why in a minute. When people take Pepcid, Zantac, Axid, and Tagament, in this study, there was a 63 percent increased risk of getting pneumonia. When people took a set of drugs that worked a little bit differently -- that would be Prilosec, Prevacid, Nexium, Acefects (ph) and Protonix, those people had an 89 percent increased risk of getting pneumonia. And the reason for that is all that stomach acid that makes you feel so awful, well, it's actually doing something useful in a way. It's killing bacteria. If you suppress, if you get rid of some of that acid, bacteria can grow and cause pneumonia. Well, we asked for a response from some of these companies. The makers of Prevacid had this response. They said in clinical trials of Prevacid involving over 10,000 patients worldwide there was no increase in pneumonia compared to placebo. Pneumonia is, however, reported in the Prevacid package insert as a rarely observed adverse event, less than 1 percent of patients, and that does bring up what even the study authors would say, which is that even though there was an increased chance of getting pneumonia, still the sheer number of people who got pneumonia was indeed very small, but It is a side effect that people should think about; especially with the over-the- counter ones, people think, one is good, two must be better, right? You don't want to do that?
SANCHEZ: People do overmedicate themselves from time to time.
Let me turn you into our medical/entertainment reporter now. What do you make of the Ashlee Simpson comment, that the reason she messed up on "Saturday Night Live" was because of that, acid reflux?
COHEN: Well, not only am I not a doctor, I'm not her doctor, and I don't know her doctor.
However, I can say that we did talk to some doctors, and they said that it is possible, in fact, it truly does happen that acid reflux can affect someone's voice. So she's not making up that as a reason. I don't know if it truly is her reason, but it can, in fact, affect someone's voice.
SANCHEZ: Is there anything she could have done as an alternative the night before -- and I'm using her name, but anybody else who goes through this. What are some of the alternatives we can possibly think about to make sure we reduce this situation for ourselves?
COHEN: Right, there are alternatives to drug. You don't have to get to the point where you take one of these drugs. For example, if you're overweight -- not that she is, but other people, if you're overweight, you can lose weight, and that will greatly reduce your chances of getting acid reflux. You can also avoid high-fat, greasy foods, especially before going to bed. You can quit smoking. You can cut back on alcohol and coffee, and those things will help you. Sometimes people say, heck, why am I going to do all that, I can just pop a pill? Well, the study really is a reason why you don't just want to pop a pill; you want to try other things first.
SANCHEZ: You really shouldn't stuff your face just before going to sleep.
COHEN: That's right. What was the example you gave earlier?
SANCHEZ: Pizza and scotch.
COHEN: Pizza and scotch, yes, a bad combination right before bed, bad combination.
SANCHEZ: Thanks so much, Elizabeth. Appreciate it.
COHEN: OK, thanks.
SANCHEZ: Well, for your "Daily Dose" of health news online, you can log on to our Web site. You'll find the latest medical stories, special reports and a health library as well. The address, CNN.com/health.
KAGAN: Well, it is flying rings around Saturn and giving us an incredible glimpse of one of its moons, Titan. A prominent stargazer joins me next to look at the view from the Cassini spacecraft. We're going to the moon, after this, when we come back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
KAGAN: Take a look at this amazing view of a heavenly body. Has never been -- before been seen by anyone before now. Seven years after leaving Earth's orbit, the Cassini spacecraft has come within 800 miles of Titan. That is the largest moon of Saturn. Titan is a mysterious moon that has intrigued astronomers for decades.
Not only is it larger than the planets Mercury and Pluto, it's also the only known moon with its own atmosphere. Analysis for these images is just getting underway, and radar images of Titan's surface are expected later today.
Astronomer David Dundee of the Fernbank Science Center here in Atlanta joins me with his first impressions. Good morning.
DAVID DUNDEE, FERNBANK SCIENCE CENTER: Good morning.
KAGAN: Technical term here -- on the oh wow factor, how cool are these pictures?
DUNDEE: Oh, very cool. I think we're up to a scale of 10 easily. This is the closest we've ever been to the moon. And the fascinating thing about Titan, not only does it have an atmosphere, but it has a thick atmosphere.
KAGAN: Let's look at these things. Now, what are we seeing?
DUNDEE: Well, you're seeing swirls of haze and methane and ethane clouds around this moon. What is enticing and we hope to find out later today is whether or not we have evidence of great oceans on the moon.
Now, remember, the surface temperature of this moon is...
KAGAN: Little chilly.
DUNDEE: It's about 300 degrees below zero Fahrenheit, so a bit chilly. So, it's not going to be water oceans. It may be liquid ethane or methane oceans on this moon.
KAGAN: Because whenever we talk about oceans or bodies of water, things like that, especially with the Mars mission, we're always talking about looking for life. That's not really what we're looking for here. We're not looking for... DUNDEE: Well, now, you can't rule it out. There might be some sort of simple life that might exist on this moon. This...
KAGAN: What do you see in this image?
DUNDEE: Well, you're seeing some of the swirling clouds near one of the poles of Titan. And what's very enticing about Titan is this atmosphere is probably very much like the Earth's atmosphere was before there were significant biology and before there were volcanoes erupting on the surface of the planet.
So, you're looking perhaps at a frozen snapshot of what the Earth looked like perhaps four billion years ago.
KAGAN: So, perhaps looking into our past?
DUNDEE: Perhaps, and maybe getting clues about the Earth's past by looking at this atmosphere.
KAGAN: There's going to be a news conference later today with NASA. What are you looking to hear, or what kind of pictures are you looking for?
DUNDEE: Well, we're looking to hear for definite evidence of oceans. We're looking to see the first, perhaps, maps of the surface of the surface of the moon. That's never been done before. We've had glimpses, but never close up.
Of course, the most exciting thing about Titan, Christmas Eve, the probe separates from the main Cassini spacecraft. And then, on January 14th...
KAGAN: It will actually land is the idea.
DUNDEE: Yes, goes in through the atmosphere, and we'll get live pictures back on the Web as it goes through the atmosphere of Titan.
KAGAN: Be very exciting. You'll have to come back and tell us what we're seeing then.
DUNDEE: Absolutely, be glad to.
KAGAN: All right. Very cool oh wow stuff from Titan and the Cassini spacecraft. David Dundee from Fernbank, thank you...
DUNDEE: Thank you.
KAGAN: ... so much. Over to Rick.
SANCHEZ: Hey, thanks guys. While you're looking up into space, there's something else to see tonight. There's a lunar eclipse. We're going to have the weather for it plus business news. Stay with us, we're coming right back.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(STOCK MARKET UPDATE)
(WEATHER REPORT)
KAGAN: All right, thank you.
SANCHEZ: We'd like to thank the staff of AMERICAN MORNING for sending us some of their candy corns.
KAGAN: ... credit. Meg Cronin (ph) brought this down. She felt bad for us, because the big fancy AMERICAN MORNING, you had candy in New York City and we didn't. So...
SANCHEZ: She wanted us to be equal to the...
KAGAN: When she brought it down, it was like up to here. And a couple of us have a little sweet tooth.
Anyhow, we'll have to make sure that Wolf Blitzer gets a little candy corn up there in...
SANCHEZ: No acid reflux, though.
KAGAN: No.
SANCHEZ: Don't eat them before going to bed, Wolf.
WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Acid reflux -- a serious problem indeed for a lot of Americans out there. Thanks for that informative report. Thanks to Elizabeth Cohen, as well. And thanks to Daryn and Rick.
I'm Wolf Blitzer in New York. Lots unfolding this hour.
Less than a week to go -- six days, to be precise -- and the presidential candidates are running like there's not tomorrow. And chasing an explosive issue -- we'll take you live to where the campaigns are heading today.
Well, what if again? What if again there's no clear winner the day after the election? Our senior legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin joins us to sift through some of the legal ramifications, and they're very serious.
And what about those states where opinion polls indicate the race is still way to close to call? I'll ask the governors of two of them: Republican Bill (sic) Huckabee of Arkansas and Democrat Bill Richardson of New Mexico.
First, some headlines now in the news.
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Aired October 27, 2004 - 11:31 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
RICK SANCHEZ, CNN ANCHOR: Thirty minutes after the hour. Welcome back, everyone. I'm Rick Sanchez.
DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: And I'm Daryn Kagan. Let's take a look at what's happening "Now in the News." Six days to go, five states to cover today. President Bush and Senator John Kerry will campaign across five different states. The president will hit Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Michigan. And Senator Kerry will stump in Iowa and Minnesota.
The Japanese prime minister says that his country's troops will stay in Iraq, despite threats from insurgents to behead a Japanese hostage. Video on an Islamic Web site shows the man seated in front of three masked men. Officials say the man is a 24-year-old Japanese resident. They don't know why he was in Iraq in the first place. Officials say an emergency task force is working to bring him home safely.
Astronomers have waited a long, long time for this one, a closeup picture of Saturn's moon titan. The Cassini spacecraft sent back these picture last night, taken from less than 800 miles away. Scientists believe that large bodies of liquid methane and ethane lie beneath the foggy atmosphere. We'll have more on this historic moment in just a few minutes.
And the Red Sox, speaking of history, Red Sox fans are saying, curse, be gone. Boston is just one game away from winning its first World Series since 1918. Tuesday, in St. Louis, the Red Sox beat the Cardinals 4-1. Boston could go on for a clean sweep tonight in game four.
Well, as my illustrious co-host told you just moments ago, six days and counting until Election Day. President Bush is reaching out to swing voters and undecided Democrats today. John Kerry is targeting middle-class voters, hammering the president over both the economy and the situation in Iraq. President Bush does hold a slim lead over Senator Kerry in our average of national polls. It shows Mr. Bush with 49 percent, compared to Senator Kerry, with 47 percent. The margin of error is four percentage points on that.
The record-shattering cost of this year's election is nearing an estimated $4 billion. More than $1 billion of it has been spent just on the presidential race.
Larry Noble is the executive director of the Center for Responsive Politics. That's a nonpartisan research group, we should add, that compiled those dollar figures for us, and He's joining us now from our nation's capital.
$3.9 billion, Mr. Noble. That's an awful lot of money. How'd we get to that?
LARRY NOBLE, CENTER FOR RESPONSIVE POLITICS: Well, it is a lot of money. It's about a 30 percent increase over what we saw in 2000, and we got to it a number of ways. For one thing, the McCain/Feingold campaign finance reform bill doubled the amount of contributions that an individual can make to a candidate and to a party. We're seeing activity by the so-called 527 organizations. And also the political parties have done a great job in raising the new hard money they have to raise under the federal election campaign laws.
SANCHEZ: And am I hearing you say that McCain/Feingold hasn't worked? Are you inferring that?
NOBLE: No, not at all. Actually McCain/Feingold has worked. McCain/Feingold was supposed to separate the political parties and the federal office holder from the old soft money contributions. Those were the contributions that were coming in in six and seven-figures to the political parties.
SANCHEZ: Aren't they still getting that money through the back door?
NOBLE: Well, they're not. The 527s are not supposed to be connected to the political party, and they're not supposed to be coordinating with the political parties.
SANCHEZ: Yes, but have you seen them? They sure look like they're connected to them.
NOBLE: Sure, and there's some very serious questions about whether or not they are, in fact, coordinating with the political parties, and that, I think, has to be investigated by the Federal Election Commission. But the reality is that the money going to these 527s is not going to the political parties, and one of the effects of that, has been that corporations are less likely to give to these 527s, in part, because they're not giving directly to political parties, they're not getting the same access. Also keep in mind, that in 2000, we also had the 527s.
What we're seeing now is that the political parties are raising as much or more money in hard money as they raised in soft money and hard money the last time around.
SANCHEZ: Can you understand, though, pardon me for interrupting...
NOBLE: Sure.
SANCHEZ: ... but how someone is watching this show right now in Topeka, Kansas, who probably is having a tough time making ends meet, and he or she is sitting there thinking, $3.9 billion, you know how much that could help people in this country and we're spending it on elections? NOBLE: Oh, absolutely. It's staggering sum, I mean, there's no doubt about that, you know, but it is very expensive to run elections in this country. It's very expensive to put on the ads.
SANCHEZ: I guess.
NOBLE: It's very expensive to move the candidates around.
SANCHEZ: Let me ask you this. Let's try and break it down. Who's giving money to -- traditionally people have thought the fat cats gave money to the Republicans and it was more of a grassroots thing with the Democrats. Does that hold true, or is it pretty much the same?
NOBLE: The reality is both parties, or both candidates, get money from many of the same industries. The securities industry is very big, lawyers are very big, the real estate industry is very big, so they're all getting money from a lot of the same people.
What we are seeing, though, is that the political parties are relying more and more on the small donors. And this has had a bigger impact on the Democratic Party, which used to rely on the big soft money donors. Now they actually had to spread out and find more money from individuals. But generally, the candidates in the political parties get a lot of their money from the same type of industries.
SANCHEZ: The George Soros and the Mellenscaithes (ph), there's a lot of those guys out there, or are they kind of few and far between?
NOBLE: Well, there are a number of those guys out there. It's not their numbers that really matter; it's the amount that they can spend. And those are the guys that are now putting money into the 527 organizations. And those 527 organizations are having an impact. There's a real question about the legality of what they're doing, but they are having an impact on this election.
But you know, it's still a small part of that $4 billion that we're seeing. So, you know, so they are having an impact, and also the 527s on the Democratic side are raising about three times as much as on the Republican side, but that's because the Republicans got started later, and they're doing everything they can to catch up with the 527s.
SANCHEZ: Larry Noble, thanks so much here for being with us. We learn a lot when we talk to someone like yourself. Appreciate it.
NOBLE: My pleasure. Thank you.
SANCHEZ: All right -- Daryn.
KAGAN: We talked earlier about politics and money. Now a look at politics and religion. President Bush's openness about his faith is part of his appeal among conservative Christians in the U.S., but some Europeans are uncomfortable with Bush's blending of politics and piety.
Senior international correspondent Walter Rodgers takes a look at that.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
WALTER RODGERS, CNN INTL. CORRESPONDENT (voice over): It is said in Kitty Kelly's book, "The Family," that his mother calls him the chosen one. George W. Bush has reportedly told people he was called to the presidency.
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I believe that God wants everybody to be free. That's what I believe. And that's part of my foreign policy.
RODGERS: But in an increasingly irreligious Europe, Mr. Bush's sense of diving calling is troubling to some.
MICHAEL WEINRICH, THEOLOGY PROF., UNIVERSITY OF BERLIN: He is the president of the United States and the most powerful man in the world, and the decisions of the president can't be made by emotions. And if he refers to God, he is not giving reasons for his decisions. He's just saying that is my -- it comes out of my prayers.
RODGERS: European churchgoers are graying. Now the only way to catch many European politicians in church is when they're wed or when they're dead.
SIR BERNARD INGHAM, THATCHER'S FORMER PRESS SECRETARY: A politician portrays himself as pious. He's thought to be, not to put too fine a point on it, lying.
RODGERS: As governor of Texas, Mr. Bush's evangelical Christianity, his openly avowed position that only Christians go to heaven, got him in trouble with Jews. He wrote a letter apologizing for that to the Anti-Defamation League. As president, he's further trimmed his sails.
BUSH: If you're a Christian, Jew or Muslim, you're equally an American.
RODGERS: Ironically, Europeans accommodate Muslim leaders' open Islamic religiosity, even while sneering at an American president's professions of faith.
Gary Streeter is an evangelical Christian member of the British Parliament.
GARY STREETER, BRITISH PARLIAMENT MEMBER: We don't have a level playing field for faith at all at the moment. If you are a Muslim, you are given sort of all kinds of scope and room to speak and act in the cause of your faith. Trying that as a Christian, it really doesn't work.
RODGERS (on camera): Perhaps this divide is much greater than an American president's religiousosity. Europeans have long thought and expected Americans to be just like this, without ever understanding how really different Americans are.
Walter Rodgers, CNN, London.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
KAGAN: Have some health news ahead for you, some possible side effects of antacids that you probably don't know about.
SANCHEZ: Pneumonia, of all things. The reason for this might be enough to put a knot in your stomach and give you more (INAUDIBLE). Your "Daily Dose" of health news is coming up next.
KAGAN: And later, a close encounter with one of Saturn's moons. It might provide a glimpse into Earth's distant past. Some incredible pictures from space are coming up.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
SANCHEZ: Heart surgery that normally takes about five hours was performed on a premature newborn in just two minutes, we learned. Surgeons in Oklahoma City had little close but to speed it up. The infant would not have survived more than a few minutes after birth, because of a severe heart defect. The parents have named the little girl "Divine Miracle," appropriately so.
Ads for medications to treat acid reflux disease are all over the airwaves these days, and a lot of people depend on the medications for relief. But there's a new study that's some raising concerns about a possible risk. And this has been in the news for several reasons, as a matter of fact this week.
Medical correspondent Elizabeth Cohen is here with details on our "Daily Dose" of health news.
Hi, Elizabeth.
ELIZABETH COHEN, CNN MEDICAL CORRESPONDENT: Hi there.
Who would put Ashlee Simpson and the "Journal of the American Medical Association" together, you know, go figure? Anything can happen, right? Well, as you mentioned, these drugs are very big. A lot of people depend on them. We brought some of them here. These are various drugs that help people control heartburn, ulcers, acid reflux. Some of them are prescription, some of them are over the counter, and people use them both ways.
Well, what this study of some 300,000 people shows is that when people take these drugs there's an increased risk of getting pneumonia, and I'll explain why in a minute. When people take Pepcid, Zantac, Axid, and Tagament, in this study, there was a 63 percent increased risk of getting pneumonia. When people took a set of drugs that worked a little bit differently -- that would be Prilosec, Prevacid, Nexium, Acefects (ph) and Protonix, those people had an 89 percent increased risk of getting pneumonia. And the reason for that is all that stomach acid that makes you feel so awful, well, it's actually doing something useful in a way. It's killing bacteria. If you suppress, if you get rid of some of that acid, bacteria can grow and cause pneumonia. Well, we asked for a response from some of these companies. The makers of Prevacid had this response. They said in clinical trials of Prevacid involving over 10,000 patients worldwide there was no increase in pneumonia compared to placebo. Pneumonia is, however, reported in the Prevacid package insert as a rarely observed adverse event, less than 1 percent of patients, and that does bring up what even the study authors would say, which is that even though there was an increased chance of getting pneumonia, still the sheer number of people who got pneumonia was indeed very small, but It is a side effect that people should think about; especially with the over-the- counter ones, people think, one is good, two must be better, right? You don't want to do that?
SANCHEZ: People do overmedicate themselves from time to time.
Let me turn you into our medical/entertainment reporter now. What do you make of the Ashlee Simpson comment, that the reason she messed up on "Saturday Night Live" was because of that, acid reflux?
COHEN: Well, not only am I not a doctor, I'm not her doctor, and I don't know her doctor.
However, I can say that we did talk to some doctors, and they said that it is possible, in fact, it truly does happen that acid reflux can affect someone's voice. So she's not making up that as a reason. I don't know if it truly is her reason, but it can, in fact, affect someone's voice.
SANCHEZ: Is there anything she could have done as an alternative the night before -- and I'm using her name, but anybody else who goes through this. What are some of the alternatives we can possibly think about to make sure we reduce this situation for ourselves?
COHEN: Right, there are alternatives to drug. You don't have to get to the point where you take one of these drugs. For example, if you're overweight -- not that she is, but other people, if you're overweight, you can lose weight, and that will greatly reduce your chances of getting acid reflux. You can also avoid high-fat, greasy foods, especially before going to bed. You can quit smoking. You can cut back on alcohol and coffee, and those things will help you. Sometimes people say, heck, why am I going to do all that, I can just pop a pill? Well, the study really is a reason why you don't just want to pop a pill; you want to try other things first.
SANCHEZ: You really shouldn't stuff your face just before going to sleep.
COHEN: That's right. What was the example you gave earlier?
SANCHEZ: Pizza and scotch.
COHEN: Pizza and scotch, yes, a bad combination right before bed, bad combination.
SANCHEZ: Thanks so much, Elizabeth. Appreciate it.
COHEN: OK, thanks.
SANCHEZ: Well, for your "Daily Dose" of health news online, you can log on to our Web site. You'll find the latest medical stories, special reports and a health library as well. The address, CNN.com/health.
KAGAN: Well, it is flying rings around Saturn and giving us an incredible glimpse of one of its moons, Titan. A prominent stargazer joins me next to look at the view from the Cassini spacecraft. We're going to the moon, after this, when we come back.
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KAGAN: Take a look at this amazing view of a heavenly body. Has never been -- before been seen by anyone before now. Seven years after leaving Earth's orbit, the Cassini spacecraft has come within 800 miles of Titan. That is the largest moon of Saturn. Titan is a mysterious moon that has intrigued astronomers for decades.
Not only is it larger than the planets Mercury and Pluto, it's also the only known moon with its own atmosphere. Analysis for these images is just getting underway, and radar images of Titan's surface are expected later today.
Astronomer David Dundee of the Fernbank Science Center here in Atlanta joins me with his first impressions. Good morning.
DAVID DUNDEE, FERNBANK SCIENCE CENTER: Good morning.
KAGAN: Technical term here -- on the oh wow factor, how cool are these pictures?
DUNDEE: Oh, very cool. I think we're up to a scale of 10 easily. This is the closest we've ever been to the moon. And the fascinating thing about Titan, not only does it have an atmosphere, but it has a thick atmosphere.
KAGAN: Let's look at these things. Now, what are we seeing?
DUNDEE: Well, you're seeing swirls of haze and methane and ethane clouds around this moon. What is enticing and we hope to find out later today is whether or not we have evidence of great oceans on the moon.
Now, remember, the surface temperature of this moon is...
KAGAN: Little chilly.
DUNDEE: It's about 300 degrees below zero Fahrenheit, so a bit chilly. So, it's not going to be water oceans. It may be liquid ethane or methane oceans on this moon.
KAGAN: Because whenever we talk about oceans or bodies of water, things like that, especially with the Mars mission, we're always talking about looking for life. That's not really what we're looking for here. We're not looking for... DUNDEE: Well, now, you can't rule it out. There might be some sort of simple life that might exist on this moon. This...
KAGAN: What do you see in this image?
DUNDEE: Well, you're seeing some of the swirling clouds near one of the poles of Titan. And what's very enticing about Titan is this atmosphere is probably very much like the Earth's atmosphere was before there were significant biology and before there were volcanoes erupting on the surface of the planet.
So, you're looking perhaps at a frozen snapshot of what the Earth looked like perhaps four billion years ago.
KAGAN: So, perhaps looking into our past?
DUNDEE: Perhaps, and maybe getting clues about the Earth's past by looking at this atmosphere.
KAGAN: There's going to be a news conference later today with NASA. What are you looking to hear, or what kind of pictures are you looking for?
DUNDEE: Well, we're looking to hear for definite evidence of oceans. We're looking to see the first, perhaps, maps of the surface of the surface of the moon. That's never been done before. We've had glimpses, but never close up.
Of course, the most exciting thing about Titan, Christmas Eve, the probe separates from the main Cassini spacecraft. And then, on January 14th...
KAGAN: It will actually land is the idea.
DUNDEE: Yes, goes in through the atmosphere, and we'll get live pictures back on the Web as it goes through the atmosphere of Titan.
KAGAN: Be very exciting. You'll have to come back and tell us what we're seeing then.
DUNDEE: Absolutely, be glad to.
KAGAN: All right. Very cool oh wow stuff from Titan and the Cassini spacecraft. David Dundee from Fernbank, thank you...
DUNDEE: Thank you.
KAGAN: ... so much. Over to Rick.
SANCHEZ: Hey, thanks guys. While you're looking up into space, there's something else to see tonight. There's a lunar eclipse. We're going to have the weather for it plus business news. Stay with us, we're coming right back.
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(STOCK MARKET UPDATE)
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KAGAN: All right, thank you.
SANCHEZ: We'd like to thank the staff of AMERICAN MORNING for sending us some of their candy corns.
KAGAN: ... credit. Meg Cronin (ph) brought this down. She felt bad for us, because the big fancy AMERICAN MORNING, you had candy in New York City and we didn't. So...
SANCHEZ: She wanted us to be equal to the...
KAGAN: When she brought it down, it was like up to here. And a couple of us have a little sweet tooth.
Anyhow, we'll have to make sure that Wolf Blitzer gets a little candy corn up there in...
SANCHEZ: No acid reflux, though.
KAGAN: No.
SANCHEZ: Don't eat them before going to bed, Wolf.
WOLF BLITZER, CNN ANCHOR: Acid reflux -- a serious problem indeed for a lot of Americans out there. Thanks for that informative report. Thanks to Elizabeth Cohen, as well. And thanks to Daryn and Rick.
I'm Wolf Blitzer in New York. Lots unfolding this hour.
Less than a week to go -- six days, to be precise -- and the presidential candidates are running like there's not tomorrow. And chasing an explosive issue -- we'll take you live to where the campaigns are heading today.
Well, what if again? What if again there's no clear winner the day after the election? Our senior legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin joins us to sift through some of the legal ramifications, and they're very serious.
And what about those states where opinion polls indicate the race is still way to close to call? I'll ask the governors of two of them: Republican Bill (sic) Huckabee of Arkansas and Democrat Bill Richardson of New Mexico.
First, some headlines now in the news.
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