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Romney 17, Us 12, Wisconsin 9, U.s. 8, Hoboken 8, Warner 8, New York 7, Obama 7, Brown 6, Virginia 6, Arizona 6, Manhattan 6, Margaret 6, America 4, Nevada 4, Florida 4, Pennsylvania 4, Jonathan 4, Tamara Keith 3, Ohio 3,
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    November 1, 2012
    5:30 - 6:29pm PDT  

the massive force of the storm's destruction along the jersey shore came fully into view today. town after town presented stark scenes of wrecked homes and boats, underscoring the long process of rebuilding that lies ahead. one of those towns was the long beach community north of atlantic city, where army national guard troops arrived to assist. >> a lot of devastation. the island has been hit very hard. from what i understand there is roughly 18,000 homes without power, there is severe gas leaks, so right now we are just trying to get everything together for the office of emergency management here and the different municipalities and just assist them with whatever needs they have going on. >> brown: and even three days later, some long beach residents still could not believe the power of the storm. >> this was the deepest water i have ever seen, in my lifetime of being here. i was 11 in the '62 storm and the water came an inch from our house and this time it was a
foot deep in our house. >> brown: in point pleasant, the damaged boardwalk was a backdrop for workers who carried lumber and dug holes for new fencing. and shelters like this one at the brigantine beach community center were open for those searching for a place to stay. >> even though we don't have any staff, we have had incredible support from volunteers. to the north, in hoboken, across from new york city, emergency and national guard trucks moved through the flooded streets overnight. when "sandy" hit, the storm surge on the hudson river swamped a quarter of the city, leaving 20,000 people stranded in their homes and inhe dark. >> it's really scary. we don't have that much food. we prepared a little bit. >> reporter: for others across new jersey, the loss of electricity meant no way to pump gas, which led to long lines at places where fuel was available. >> an hour and 40 minutes almost. crazy.
i'm out of gas though, i have less than a quarter tank, so i had to get out today. >> brown: and financial help was >> there's nothing more precious to people than their homes. homes are where their families are, memories and possessions of their lives and there's also a sense of safety to home. you feel like when you get in that place and you close that door that there's a sense of safety there. that sense of safety was violated on monday. with water rushing into people's homes at an enormous rate of speed and people having to literally swim, climb, jump for their lives. >> brown: and financial help was on the way. the federal government promised eight new jersey counties it would cover all costs for emergency power and transportation for another week. meanwhile, in new york, new
images from long island showed tons of sand washed ashore by the storm and major damage to beachfront neighborhoods. at the same time, a return to heavy city traffic early today was a sign of progress. police tried to manage the situation, by turning away cars with fewer than three passengers on select bridges into manhattan. mayor michael bloomberg pressed for people to be patient with the traffic and the broader effort to get back to normal. >> we are all in this together. we are desperately trying to help everybody. we're trying to prioritize. first thing is safety. inconvenience is down the list. if we had some people in the wrong places it was the first day getting it going. hopefully it will be better tomorrow. you have to bear with us. >> reporter: still, city officials warned that gridlock was likely to linger through the day and into the weekend, as the public transportation system comes back online. 14 of new york's subway lines resumed limited service this morning. fares were waived today and tomorrow to encourage people to use mass transit.
>> i walked about five miles yesterday to and from work, so i'm happy to have the subways back for the time being. >> reporter: but for these commuters outside the barclays center in brooklyn the subway still wasn't an option. instead, long lines stretched around the block as people waited for buses to shuttle them into manhattan. things were looking up, though, for air travelers. laguardia rport reopened today. that meant all three major new york-area airports are now up and running, albeit not yet at full speed. >> woodruff: now to some on-the- ground reports from both states on how people are coping with the aftermath. ray suarez begins with two dispatches from the embattled state of new jersey. >> suarez: we turn to mike schneider, the managing editor and anchor of "new jersey today." he's at their studios in montclair. mike, has it really started to dawn on people now just how dly e sate was it?
>> i think so, ray, you go through this kind of psychological roller coaster as the storm approaches and people gear up for what they believe is coming. then think live through the event itself, then the next day they get outside and look around and realize exactly what has happened. inform this case there was no way to anticipate what was going to happen because the destruction on this level has never occurred in this state before. it's the worst storm in the history of new jersey and according to some people maybe, in fact, one of the worst storms ever to hit the united states. >> suarez: how are the people in the worst damaged areas managing to get through basic necessities of everyday life: food, shelter? >> it's tough and it varies. in the more urban area you've seen swift boat crews go out, rescue these people and take them to shelters where they will be fed and have a place to sleep and depending upon what level of shelter they go to they might be able to get home sooner rather than later. but at that this point if you're from the barrier islands, the ones hardest hit down the shore,
governor christie issued an executive order telling everybody to get off the beach-- his famous phrase-- some pple didn't listen and, in fact, they were kind of trap there had right now. some of them have been rescued as well. the governor at this point is talking about lifting some of the travel bans in some select communities, curfews remain in effect in all those communities, however. but for many of these people it's a case of getting to family or friends or shelters and hoping that those necessities will be there for them at that place. >> suarez: was today the day when a lot of people really got to take stock of just what they had lost? their first look at their homes? >> well, it's interesting you shld say tha, r, cause so many people in the state don't have power it's hard to say how many people know exactly how widespread this damage has been. governor christie took a tour yesterday of the inland areas before his encounter with president obama and he went to a town called sayerville where he went door to door meeting with the people who came out to talk to him, shake hands.
he was bolstering their spirits but in some cases there were people who broke down in his arms and cried and he became more than the chief executive of this state, he became the consoleern chf, iyou ll. and that is a story that repeated itself a number of times later in the day. the governor and president obama took a helicopter ride over the area from atlantic city down to an area where the governor had told people to get off and in many cases they didn't and he kind of jokingly but firmly let them know when they were speaking a couple minutes after the video you're seeing right now, he let them know he was not happy with them but he'd give them a break this time around. but it's just a very, very kind of like -- this is a -- you know it's not a big state geographically but it's a very densely populated state and very diverse when it comes to geography as well. the highlands took a tremendous hit because that's where the winds seemed to be the strongest and trees came down and power is out there and there's no telling
when it will be restored. along the shore, of course, you're seeing some of the damage that occurred there where once stood houses there are now waves in some cases. then you go up farther north closer to new york city across the hudson and you have places like jersey city and hoboken, places that are populated with an awful lot of people. in fact, those two cies have been rerredo a the most densely populated areas in the united states. and they were underwater. they simply did not expect that level of damage and destruction to come their way and those people had to be boated out as well. there's no telling when they can go back. >> suarez: you touched on it before but i want to talk about the restrictions because often post-flood areas are dangerous to be in. there are things in the water you can't see. the houses themselves have gas leaks, sometimes electcity problems. are there tight controls on who can get in, who can get out and how long they can stay? >> absolutely, ray. in some of these communitys the
restrictions remain in effect no getting off. in some places the governor didn't have to issue that order. bridges are out in a number of communities as well. in some of the video you can see behind me right now, they've had encounters dw w gas leaks. just this afternoon one of the gas companies, new jersey natural gas, announced it was cutting off the gas flew to that area to stem those fires. as a result i psume that some people with gas service might lose that service for a while but in places like the ones you see behind me right now, there are no people who use the gas service there because no people basically can stay there. you're taking a look at places that were lovely beach side communities, bay state communities and now it basically houses lifted off their foundations and surrounded by the beach. >> suarez: michael schneider is with us from new jersey. nighttime temperatures dropping tonight, michael, so it's probably going to be pretty cold for those people trying to shelter in their homes. thank for joining us. >> thank you, r.
>> suarez: next we get to katie zez that of the associated press. we're talking to her by phone in hoboken, new jersey because we couldn't get studio community there is. hoboken is a densely populated place, built up high, rises, what's it like there? >> the floodwaters have receded in hoboken, the streets are completely dry but the mayor estimates 95% of the residents are still without power and that power could take us seven to ten days to get back. but fema officials are here working with t utitys so they stressed it could be much sooper and they want it to be much sooner than that. >> suarez: there must have been a lot of water in basements, in any place below ground level, though. >> there is, yeah. there's a lot of damage, as there is all around new jersey, from rising waters. one other issue they have in hoboken because there are a lot of high-rises many people, especially elderly people, stayed in their high-rises. so now that there's no power they're not able to get back down.
so there's a concerted effort to get around to especially elderly housing complexes and deliver those people food and water and meicine as wl. they have a few pharmacists, nurse practitioners going around to people helping them get the medication they need if they're unable to get out of their homes. >> suarez: aren't there towns very close to hoboken north and south on the hudson river that aren't as heavily affected? >> there are. jersey city is one. jersey city did get water but in the downtown area much of the power is back already. some of it came back yesterday. so there are towns aroundhat e not as hard hit, they didn't taken a on the amount of water that hoboken did. >> suarez: let's head down the shore to seaside heights where you've also done reporting. what's it like there? >> it's scene of absolute devastation. it holds seaside heights and a few other towns, it's a barrier island and it's devastated.
in seaside height there is's a famous board walk which for years it has been used by families for summer vacation and more recently it was made famous by mtv's "jersey shore." the board walk is completely destyed. thereas a number of amusement park rides there. one at casino pier, the rides are completely gone. they're not there anymore. most dramatically in the ocean there is a massive roller coaster just bobbing in the waves. >> suarez: a lot of the houses are smaller frame structures. they seem to be off their foundations, moved around, scattered, crashed into each other. what's it like? >> absolutely. there is a house that got pushed into the middle of route 35 which is the main thoroughfare on the island. the house is completely turned on its side almost like a doll house, just pushed over. roofs are buckled in, there's debris in lawns, roofs are kind of here ised off almost like a sardine can, they just kind of came off and you can see them
hanging there. there's been one very dramatic scene on the beach when you come over the bridge, there's a red pickup truck that's in a sinkhole. it's unbelieve to believe see this car sticking out of the ground. >> suarez: is anyone allowed to spend the night there or is there a curfew in effect in seasidheights? there is a curfew in effect. a number of people did ride out the storm and officials are still going door to door doing search-and-rescue efforts to see if there's anyone left in their home. those who are there are going to be asked to leave because there's still gas fires burning. there's still gas lines and there's still power lines down and there's a significant amount of damage. the people who did stay there, i spoke with one, he said -- his exact quote was "it was like being at ground zero." the water came in, the wind, the ra. he said it was completely frightening being there. and he walked over the bridge to get there because residents
won't be allowed back until this weekend at the earliest to gather their belongings and check on their homes. >> suarez: katie zezima of the associated press, thanks for joining us. >> thank you. >> brown: now, back to new york. hari sreenivasan is in manhattan today examining the impact the storm has had on businesses struggling with flooding and other damage. >> it got to about here. >> reporter: marco pasanella knows first hand how high the water got in his wine store because he and his family rode out the storm in their apartment above. >> all of a sudden, we saw like a sheet of water come through the front door, within minutes it just, bam, opened up there was like four feet immediately, and we ran upstairs and we looked out the window, all of south street was just a black river. it was scary. >> reporter: the fear is gone, but he is left with the uncertainty of what will be
covered by insurance as he tries to rebuild. he says it will cost him into the hundreds of thousands of dollars to replace everything in his store six feet and below, from the warped wood to the not so drywall. for his business, the timing could not have been worse. >> we're entering the holiday season and a wine and liquor store like ours can often earn up to 60% of their revenue in the last two months of the year. 2118 so this is going to hurt us hard. >> reporter: around the historic south street seaport neighborhood of lower manhattan, most of the businesses took a direct hit as the east river surged. most of the walls willave to e reaced before mold and mildew can creep in. >> until they get power, until they get electricity, until they clean out their systems, until they can get the board of health to look at the conditions, make sure everything is okay, it could take a couple of months. >> reporter: richard berry helped develop the property featuring nearly a hundred apartments and a dozen small businesses. he says they still have to check to see if the buildings were moved by the rivers surge.
now the concern is whether everyone was insured properly. >> water damage insurae, wch you cover automatically its not flood insurance if water comes up its a flood, if water comes down its water damage. >> reporter: varying insurance estimates place the costs of sandy above $7 billion, as much as a third of that could come from new york alone. those costs keep bubbling upward each night as parts of the financial district and the city's transportation tunnels keep pumping millions of gallons water out. and as night after night a third of manhattan island remains without power, in the dark and out of work. >> i have 30 employees out of work right now, and we probably won't be able to get everybody back to work for another week or so, that's unfortunate.
>> reporter: david trotta knows that those are paychecks that matter for the employees of jack's coffee, and he says they're sprinting as fast as they can to rebuild a sense of community by getting back to business. >> so in some form i wld gss that myself and the old manager of this store will be here with a six foot table, a couple of burners and some kind of camp setup and just making french press coffee tomorrow. >> woodruff: and there's more about the storm online. you can scroll through images of the overwhelming scenes from the new jersey coastline. those are on our website. >> brown: still to come on the "newshour": five days and counting until election day; big spending on senate races; a contest to watch in arizona and the outreach to voters online. but first, the other news of the day. here's kwame holman. >> holman: some 150,000 people were in shelters in southern india today, after a tropical storm slammed ashore. at least six people were killed
there, and in neighboring sri lanka. the storm brought heavy winds and rain, flooding streets and subway tunnels in the indian city of hyderabad. it also grounded an oil tanker with 37 crew on board. most were rescued, but five remained missing. in syria, rebels killed 28 government soldiers in a series of attacks in the northern part of the country. anti-regime activists said gun battles erupted at three military checkpoints surrounding the city of saraqeb in idlib province. the checkpoints line major supply routes to aleppo, the country's largest city and a major battleground. the ousted president of penn state university graham spanier will face cover-up charges in a child sex abuse scandal. prosecutors today filed counts of perjury, obstruction and failing to report suspected abuse. in addion, ey add couts against athletic director timothy curley, and gary schultz, a former penn state vice president.
the scandal revolved around jerry sandusky, the former assistant football coach now in federal prison for sexually abusing young boys. october turned out to be a big month for u.s. auto sales. figures out today showed toyota led the way with a sales gain of almost 16%. chrysler reported its best october since 2007 with a 10% increase. g.m. sales were up 5%, while ford's numbers increased not quite half a percent. wall street headed higher after new reports showed consumer confidence and manufacturing on the rise. the dow jones industrial average gained 136 points to close at 13,232. the nasdaq rose more than 42 points to close at 3,020. those are some of the day's major stories. now, back to judy. >> woodruff: after devoting the first half of the week to hurricane sandy and its aftermath, the president returned to the campaign trail today. with the election around the corner, mr. obama received a
surprise endorsement. with the devastation of the megastorm consuming his attention, new york city mayor michael bloomberg surprised the political world today by endorsing president obama for re-election. in a statement, bloomberg said the hurricane's cost "in lost lives, lost homes and lost business brought the stakes of tuesday's presidential election into sharp relief." he credited mr. obama with taking major steps to reduce carbon consumption and noted not only president obama's position onclime ange, but also on woman's right to choose and marriage equality as evidence of a vision different from that of mitt romney. the news came as the president returned to the campaign trail, stopping first in green bay, wisconsin. he revived his own slogan of 2008 to question mitt romney's ideas. >> governor romney has been using all his talents as a
salesman to dress up these very same policies that failed our country so badly, the very same policies we've been cleaning up after for the past four years. and he is offering them up as change. ( laughter ) he's... he's saying he's the candidate of change. well, let me tell you, wisconsin, we know what change looks like. ( cheers and applause ) and what the governor's offering sure ain't change. >> woodruff: polls currently give the president a slight edge in wisconsin. but nationally, they are mostly dead even. romney spent his day in virginia, a tied state, telling a crowd in roanoke, that the president is clueless when it comes to business. >> and so we came up with an idea last week, which is he's going to create the department of business. ( laughter ) i don't think adding a new chair in his cabinet will help add millions of jobs on main street.
over the weekend. we explore the race and the states in play with jonathan martin of politico and margaret talev of bloomberg news. welcome to you both. so let me start with you, jonathan. the president's back on the trail today. what is the state of this race? how do two campaigns see it? >> both are projecting confidence because that's what you do when you're four days out from election day, judy. but looking at the maps and the polling it's clear that president obama still has a narrow advantagin terms of hw you get to 270 electoral votes. two big developments to me have happened in the last 48 hours. the first one is the kind of ads governor romney is running. you mentioned one of them in your piece, that's the one in florida linking president obama to chavez and castro. the other one in ohio where governor romney for the first time brings up the auto issue where he's been battered on.
neither of those ads were released to the press, they were just put on the air. that, as you know, is a giveaway that they don't want that ad to e wrten aboutthey wnt voters to see it. and that to me says they still have to move numbers in both florida and ohio and the second big thing, judy, the fact that governor romney on sunday is going to be in the philadelphia suburbs, that really speaks to the fact that they're looking for a way to 270 besides ohio. >> woodruff: margaret, you cover the white house, you're talking to them. they're hearing what the romney people are doing, what are the obama people saying? >> they sure feel better than they did about a week ago and while they don't like to talk publicly about the liage between the superstorm sandy and political impact it's clear that they feel that they have derived political advantage from this. it stopped the perception of momentum for romney, it changed the subject. it focused the dynamic on president obama being able to be bipartisan and it put governor romney out of play because he
wasn't in the position to do anything official. and so at least from the perception standpoint they do feel as if things are turning more in their favor in the final days. >> woodruff: jonathan, what are you picking up about the storm and the pac of it happening? the impact that it happened at all and the role that the president has played in the storm and the aftermath on the campaign? >> i think the major impact is it really suspended the campaign for effectively 48 hours. there was no campaign. and really still now two days later much of the news coverage is devoted to the storm. so i think that has hurt governor romney who has tried to really drive an aggressive message against president obama. he for two days couldn't do that at all and that has not been helpful to him. ain, any time a president has the opportunity to show himself as above politics, as being a commander-in-chief, the public service element of the job not the political side of the job is
beneficial for the incumbent. and certainly images of this president and perhaps the most famous governor in america, chris christie, a republican, side by sidewalking around the board walk on the jersey shore, that's what president obama could not have asked for for the final five days of this campaign judy. >> woodruff: margaret, what about these states? i looked again at this list of ateshe preside isoing to over the next several days. it's the same battleground states we've been focused on. we showed them there in the a.p. map of the states considered tossups. do they see movement in one state or another? and how do they read the romney going to pennsylvania, running ads in minnesota? >> sometimes when you go to a state that's a reach it's because you want to expand your win. they're not reading this that as what governor romney is doing in pennsylvania. as jonathan said, they're looking at it as governor romney looking for an alternate path to 270. don't forget, president obama is closer than he wants to be in a lot of places: colorado, nevada, nevada should have been tucked away a while ago.
>> wisconsin even. >> wisconsin. and so the fact that he is returning to these places again and again and again, they'll say we're doing everything we can, of course we're going to fight to the end. but it's more than that. it's a sign that they are not entirely secure. on the other hand, ohio is looking stronger for them, a little bit more secure for them and that's important. >> woodruff: pick up on that, jonathan. why is ohio still the state that both campaigns are so focused on and spending so much timen? >> because if governor romney doesn't have ohio he has to effectively draw an incite strait to get the 270. he has to put together an array of other states that almost certainly include wisconsin. and i was in wisconsin last week. it's close, president obama's going back to milwaukee and madison here in the coming days but it leans towards president obama. so that's why governor romney is so focused on ohio and for president obama, his campaign thinks if they can keep romney out of ohio, if they can deny romney ohio he cannot get to the
president. that's why you're seeing both candate there is so much. but one more fast point and that is that both -- all of these states are pretty much three or four point states. look at the map as to where president obama and governor romney are going to in the final days. that list of seven or eight states, they're almost all competitive under five points so while it does narrowly favor president obama right now, keep in mind, these are all very competitive states, three, four points. >> woodruff: and, margaret, to that point and the point you were making a minute ago, what is it that the obama folks feel they ndto in the final days? >> if today is a road map for the next few days, what they feel they need to do is return to the high ground, so to speak. today you did not here a lot of rom indonesia, you heard a lot of "look at the storm, this is what we can do -- romnesia" we need to hold hands and buckle down. they want that to be the message and for president obama to be able to close the final days of
this race with him saying i'm your president and i will continue to be a president and bring everyone together. he would love to return to th hope and change message. he hasn't been able to do so in recent weeks because they were playing from a weakened position. this allows them make that transition and they'll take it. >> woodruff: well, we hear you both. you guys will be watching from now until election day and we'll watch with you. margaret talev, jonathan martin, thank you both. >> thank you, judy. >> woodruff: does the electoral college system work? political analyst eric black of minn post, a nonprofit news site, considers that question and offers some historical perspective, on our website. >> brown: and we turn from presidential politics to two looks at the battle for control of the senate. the "newshour" and npr have partred wi kanr media/c- mag to examine television advertising spending this campaign season. the final part of the project looked at competitive senate contests. among the most expensive races: in ohio, the candidates, their parties and outside groups have spent more than $41 million to air 62,000 spots.
in massachusetts, the total is $38 million on more than 50,000 spots, with little outside spending. in virginia, $37.5 million dollars have been used to air nearly 44,000 ads. concticut, more than $32 million has been spent on 19,000 ads. and in wisconsin there's been nearly $30 million on almost 66,000 spots. tamara keith has taken a close look at the data. she joins us now. you've taken a close look at all of those houses of ads, too, right? >> or maybe just the top one, the most popular hits. >> suarez: now those sound like really big numbers, thousands and thousands of ads, lots of millions of dollars. is it? how doe itcompare to the past? >> it is definitely bigger than in the past. these outside groups have been freed up by some recent legal cases to spend significantly
more money or receive significantly more money, much of it has far less disclosure than in the past and they are just all in, the u.s. chamber of commerce is celebrating their 100th year in business and they said that this year they are going to be bigger, bolder, more aggressive than ever before and that's absolutely what they're doing. they're in 15 senate races. >> brown: this is one of the places where you see the changes this campaign season is in the advertising, in the dollars. >> absolutely. there is just so much money involved. we were all stranded -- many of us were stranded at home in the washington, d.c. media market on monday during the hurricane and saw a lot of these ads in the virginia race. and it was just non-stop left right left right beating each other up. many funded by the outside groups and not the candidates themselvess. >> brown: let's focus on one
case, ohio, tell us what you see there in terms of campaigns versus the outside groups. >> well, especially on the republican side, the outside groups are a huge factor. the republican candidate josh mandel has been outspent 3-1 by the outside groups in support of him. so he's been hugely helped by these groups. sherrod brown, obviously, s -- as the incumbent, had the incumbent advantage in terms of the money that he has available to spend but he' also getting a lot of help from outside groups. they are flood there had in ohio and the remarkable thing is that ohio is this big presidential state. it's not like the airwaves are free and clear. >> brown: never. >> so they're having to spend a ton of money. these aren't cheap media markets and they're especially not cheap in the presidential cycle.
it's big. >> brown: when we're talking about outside gups, who do we mean? who are you talking about? give us an example and where's the money coming from? >> (laughs) now that --. >> brown: those are two different questions, let's start with the first one. who are the outside groups? >> the biggest one is cross roads g.p.s., the group founded by karl rove. behind them in terms of total dollars of the numbers we crunchd is majority pac which is a democratic group. coming after that we've got the club for growth and the u.s. chamber of commerce which has spent a ton of money now the second question --. >> brown: the harder part. >> where it comes from. we know majority pac is a democratic graup and their donors are known. however the republican spending cross roads g.p.s., the chamber of commerce, those two groups who have spent huge amounts of money on television advertising we don't know who their donors are because they are the types
of groups that don't have to disclose their donors and they absolutely don't want to disclose their donors. that was part of the deal in getting the monfromhese folks. democrats will say it's 12 billionaires somewhere in america shoving money over there there's no way to actually know unless someone admits it and thus far there hasn't been a lot of that. >> brown: they will say we're playing by the rules." >> absolutely. those are the rules. it's the law. they are allowed to do that until the law changes they are well within their legal rights to do it. >> brown: so where else? stay with the outside spending playing a big role. wre d youee that? >> one state where it's sort of reversed is in indiana where the democratic candidate has been getting more of a benefit. in that state joe donnelly has spent less of his own money on
ads than the outside democratic groups so that's another big one. and virginia is huge and i've been told by people who watch these things closely, the people who watch who's up and who's down that it's made a significant difference in virginia the republican candidate george allen has been vastly outspent. i think he's spent about $3 million on ads. outside groups have spent about $14 million on ads and that has allowed him to complete blow for blow with tim cain. >> brown: the interesting other case is massachusetts, lots of money, tons of money but not from outside, right? >> exactly. the two candidates, scott brown and elizabeth warren agreed very early on that they weren't going to have outside money in their ce. they weren't going to support it there's been a little outside money but largely speaking there's been two candidates who have raised so much money and
they're just going at each other a lot. >> brown: finally, of course, we're talking money, numbers. but the content is largely negative. >> overwhelmingly negative. >> brown: you say that with a nice smile. that's nice. >> well, it's very negative. it is very negative. >> brown: all right,tamara keith from npr, thanks very much. >> thank you. >> woodruff: and to part two on the senate landscape. it comes from special correspondent axel gerdau, who traveled to arizona to report on a surprisingly tight race. >> reporter: on the streets of phoenix, it doesn't look arizona politics are about to change in any fundamental way. but richard carmona wants to do something no arizona democrat has done since 1995. >> i am nancy porter. >> hi, nancy. how are you? >> reporter: the former u.s. surgeon general is running to replace retiring senator jon kyl, a republican. despite the state's conservative reputation, carmona actually could win the senate se.
>> things are going well. we have exceeded expectations. >> reporter: on the other end of town, carmona's opponent, jeff flake, is gearing up for the final days of a tight election most political analysts thought he would win easily. but after a tough republican primary the six-time congressman is running in a dead heat with his democratic challenger. >> arizona cannot afford to send president obama's handpicked >> these open seats in arizona come along with the frequency of halley's comet. we've only had ten u.s. senators in a hundred years. so they tend to serve a long time. so when there's an open seat, then it's heavily contested. >> reporter: flake is convinced his record of fighting against national debt and spending policies will convince policies will convince arizonans to cast their ballots for him. >> i think the state is more concerned than ever with our fiscal situation. and so i think that that is reflected in how people vote. it's first and foremost, what are we going to do with this debt and this deficit? that's mostly what i have worked on the house over the past 12 years. >> reporter: meanwhile, richard carmona's most obvious political asset is his life story.
born in new york to pueo rican parents, carmona lived homeless as a child and dropped out of high school. he joined the u.s. army and became a decorated vietnam veteran before attending medical school. he was eventually appointed surgeon general by president george w. bush. carmona also served as sheriffs deputy along the u.s. border with mexico. democrats hope that bipartisan background can appeal to the independents, who make up a third of the state's voters. the candidate talks about republican efforts to recruit him while he served in as rgeon genel. >> the republican party did ask me to become a republican. i said why? i was an independent my whole life, because i always thought that there were good sides-- both sides had good solutions to problems. unfortunately, we got so partisan now that democracy's in the gridlock, because nobody can agree on compromising. compromise becomes a four-letter word. >> reporter: and in the grand canyon state one issue and one
hispanics make up 15% of arizona's registered voters, and a recent survey showed they favor carmona over flake by a six-to-one ratio. but in arizona, like elsewhere in the country, hispanics have not turned out to vote in the same numbers as other groups. if democrats can mobilize latinos in large enough numbers, they could win the election and that turns daniel valenzuela into one of richard carmona's most important allies. >> it's a campaign for social behavioral change. >> reporter: the firefighter made an underdog bid for city council last year and won by doing what political operatives across the country had failed at for years. valenzuela and his volunteers increased turnout among hispanic voters in his district by 500%, and 300% city-wide. he says his efforts will make carmona the first latino senator to represent arizona and turn the state competitive on the presidential level in the future. >> we are knocking on thousands of doors from now until the election to teach people about
empowerment of the political process. >> reporter: according to valenzuela, voters support his efforts in part due to their opposition to arizona's new anti-immigration law and the reputation of joe arpaio. the self-proclaimed toughest sheriff in america runs detention centers for illegal imigrants. >> legislation such as s.b. 1070 and the behavior of the maricopa county sheriff. it does cause frustration in neighborhoods like the one i am standing in. what we have done through hard work is to help people organize and mobilize and use that frustration in a positive manner. we are now voting, and we vote people in who will best represent the people of arizona. >> reporter: but not all hispanics feel the same way. soal conservatives like tony rivero support congressman flake. recently, the city councilman from peoria organized a lunch at a church to give mr. flake the opportunity to introduce himself
to latino voters. >> i am a christian, i am fiscally responsible, i am pro- life, i am pro freedom, i support marriage, i support smaller government and i support a complete solution on immigration. and i believe that congressman flake agrees with where i stand. >> reporter: in affluent scottsdale, a 30-minute drive north of phoenix,eah campos sees herself as a free-market conservative. the daughter of a mexican father and a spanish mother competed in a republican congressional primary and now supports mr. flake. >> congressman flake has always been steadfast in his defense of americas free-enterprise system, in the idea that what makes america great and unique is that we have always championed economic liberty. >> reporter: campos also recorded a spanish language ad that alleges mr. carmona, who she has never met, has character problems. >> my information on his personality quirks has been what
i have been told, what i have read in the newspapers and from a colleague of his who also did an ad recently. >> reporter: that tough television ad was made by carmona's former boss cristina beato on flake's behalf. it started running the same day early voting began. >> carmona is not who he seems. >> reporter: the carmona campaign dismissed the allegations as unfounded and countered with an ad featuring a retired female police captain who was carmona's swat team commander when he served as sheriffs deputy in pima county. >> congressman flake should be ashamed. >> reporter: because the race is so close, a single constituency or a single issue could make all the difference in the election. carmona also returned the favor >> woodruff: tomorrow night, we'll go to iowa, where the issue of immigration is bubbling to the surface. >> brown: and now part of our regular look at the campaign as it plays out in social media and on the web. margaret warner has that. >> warner: and we're joined again by howard kurtz from the website daily download.
he's also newsweek's washington bureau chief and host of cnn's "reliable sources." daily download's editor in chief lauren ashburn could not be with us tonight. howie, welcome back. >> thank you. >> warner: so in this final week or ten days of the campaign we've seen this frantic get out the vote drive, people knocking on doors, making phone calls. what kind of last-minute message are people get on their computers and mobile devices. >> the campaign is pulling out the stops on line, on twitter, for example, lauren ashburn got a direct message signed barack obama saying "use your twitter influence to help us turn out the vote." so using that network to get people engaged. e-mails are becoming fast and furious to potential supporters. i seem to get an e-mail from barack obama, michelle, joe biden has been texting me lately. there's no escape. another interesting thing, margaret, is i got an unsolicited anti-obama text message from an anonymous source and lots of people in the washington area got there. mine said "seniors can't afford
how extense livery the campaigns >> there is a company that has quantified it according to a piece in the "new york times," and we can put the graphic up. it shows the number of tracking programs or surveillance programs each campaign is using. president obama's camign 76 different tracking programs to follow what potential voters and supporters are doing online compared to best buy 74. so more than a major retailer. mitt romney's campaign playing at 40 different tracking programs. these are software programs, margaret, that -- look at your browsing history, they can find out what kind of things you buy, whether you have financial problems, your dating history. just about anything you do online is fair game. we've become accustomed, i think stocks-to-seeing retailing giants do this. but in political campaigns this is something new. >> warner: des voter knowf they're being trackd? >> the average voter doesn't know but if you are suspicious or curious you can go to a free program called get toery and find --
>> warner: ghostery? >> ghostery, kind of like ghost busters and find out which company might be tracking you. but it's hard to avoid these days and i find it a little unsettling. i understand, i get served ads for a shirt company because i bought some shirts recently. but just because i went to mitt romney's web site to check his position on something i've been getting mitt romney ads and in this "new york times" story somebody who's a fervent barack obama supporter but went to mitt romney's site to look at something is also getting these ads so it's not perfect in its targeting. >> warner: do you t campaigns have any way of knowing how effective all of this -- you and lauren have been hearing for months how the social media -- do you have any way of knowing how effective it's been? >> they can't know for sure but there are several rough indication. for example, as we know, both campaigns have raised a lot of money online and through text messagin.
>> pelley:. >> warner: and that's easy to see? >> sure, and the obama campaign in particular tried to match the turnout if it can of 2008 in registering voters and we were talking about how 25,000 new voters registered based on a piece of information or web site the campaign put up and there are studies showing, margaret, that people are more likely to be influenced by their friends and their twitter fans and their facebook followers because these are people they know, they trust more so than some impersonal e-mail,mass e-mail sent out by a campaign. so there are lots of signs it's working, we don't know how it will translate into actual voting behavior next tuesday. >> warner: we have to hope whoever is designing the exit poll questions, there's a question did you make your decision at the last minute or a week ago, what influenced you? >> it would be a gold mine. >> warner: it would. howard kurtz, thank you so much. >> thank you. >> woodruff: again, the major developments of the day: the death toll topped 90 in the
wake of hurricane "sandy". largearts of new jeey's coast were in ruins, even as new york city took new steps toward getting back to normal. and president obama and republican challenger mitt romney returned to full-scale campaigning, with the election just five days off. we have follow-up online to our story on the street drugs known as bath salts. kwame holman has the details >> holman: state officials in maine are linking the abuse of bath salts to increased rates of child neglect. we look at that and the latest scientific research on the drug. spencer michels examines propositions and congressional races on the ballot in california. and older americans are working longer and returning to the workforce after retiring. you can help paul solman look into that demographic shift. if you're an older worker, fill out a questionnare on the rundown. all that and more is on our website newshour.pbs.org. jeff?
>> brown: and again, to our honor roll of american service personnel killed in the afghanistan conflict. we add them as their deaths are made officialnd photographs become available. here, in silence, are eight more.

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