CNN news 2011-11-10
AZUZ: A bit of breaking news from yesterday afternoon, many of you know who Michael Jackson was. The self-titled "King of Pop" died of a heart attack two years ago at age 50.
AZUZ (voice-over): Yesterday a jury found that Jackson`s personal doctor, Conrad Murray, was guilty of involuntary manslaughter. Michael Jackson had trouble sleeping, and what Murray did was give Jackson Propofol, a drug used to keep people asleep during surgery.
That, along with other sleeping drugs is what killed Michael Jackson. Dr. Murray could be sentenced to four years in prison for the crime.
AZUZ: It`s Election Day in the United States. A lot of local elections are happening for positions like city council, mayor and judge. The big presidential vote is 363 days from now. And while it`s pretty certain that no Democrats will challenge President Obama for his party`s nomination, we don`t know yet who will represent the Republicans.
AZUZ (voice-over): The Republican debates you`ve heard about help voters hear what the candidates have to say, and the process of deciding the Republican nominee will start early next year in a series of decisions called primaries and caucuses.
AZUZ: Typically an incumbent president, a leader who`s running for reelection, has some advantages in campaigning against his challengers. Jessica Yellin explains what these advantages are, and why President Obama isn`t taking advantage of all of them.
JESSICA YELLIN, CNN REPORTER (voice-over): Whether it`s Air Force One, "Hail to the Chief," or even the White House itself.
GEORGE H. W. BUSH: This crisp, cool day in the Rose Garden.
YELLIN (voice-over): . part of the reelection playbook is leveraging the power and prestige of the presidency to overshadow your opponent. Though it hasn`t always worked, the so-called Rose Garden strategy has been deployed by most modern presidents.
DOUGLAS BRINKLEY, PRESIDENTIAL HISTORIAN: Most of the predecessors of Barack Obama would use the White House as a staging platform. They want to remind people that they are the commander in chief, that there`s just an inherent power of seeing the Great Seal of the United States behind you from the White House.
YELLIN (voice-over): Burned by Washington gridlock, President Obama is taking a different approach.
ANITA DUNN, FORMER WHITE HOUSE COMMUNICATIONS DIRECTOR: Washington, right now, is politically as toxic as you can get, and as most people can remember it being. I think the president enjoys going out and talking to the American people.
YELLIN (voice-over): So over the past three months, he`s repeatedly hit the road to small towns, looking more like Candidate Obama than commander in chief, often ditching Air Force One for a bus, rolling up his shirt sleeves, sometimes skipping "Hail to the Chief" altogether.
BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Everybody say cheese.
YELLIN (voice-over): The image mirrors the message.
OBAMA: It was time to get out of Washington.
YELLIN (voice-over): The president wants to distance himself from Washington and the partisan politics that he promised but failed to fix.
OBAMA: Some folks in Washington don`t seem to be listening.
What`s broken is our politics.
The problem is, is that we`ve got the kind of partisan brinksmanship that is willing to put party ahead of country.
YELLIN (voice-over): You`ll hear him say throughout the campaign that he`s tried to fight the gridlock, something he explained at a recent press conference.
OBAMA: I used up a lot of political capital and I`ve got the dings and bruises to prove it.
YELLIN (voice-over): Democrats say this message can work.
PAUL BEGALA, DEMOCRATIC STRATEGIST: He can go out there and say, I`ve been trying to change the system, I`ve been fighting the established order, I`m pushing my jobs bill, which is, really, I think, the best thing he`s got going for him right now.
YELLIN (voice-over): But Republicans are already building a case against it.
WHIT AYERS, REPUBLICAN POLLSTER: The problem is that he`s the head of the government in Washington. And his party controls half the Congress in Washington. It just becomes a very, very difficult sell to the American people to persuade them that the head of the Democratic Party that controls the Senate, and the head of the entire government is running against the government that he heads.