Election night was a good night for Calif., civility and statheads

By Jeff Greenfield

Forgive me if I don’t offer thoughts on the impending Republican civil war, the brilliance of the Obama campaign team, the effect of Hurricane Sandy, the demographic nightmare confronting the GOP, or prospects for the 2016 Iowa caucuses, now just a short 1,100 days or so away.

There’s plenty of that for your Wednesday pleasure. But Tuesday night produced other news that’s worth your attention.

First, California’s voters made two decisions that will have a profound impact on the state’s fiscal and political life. They approved Proposition 30, Gov. Jerry Brown’s proposal to increase sales taxes and income taxes on the affluent to ease the state’s perennial budget dilemma. (California’s 34-year-old Prop 13 requires a two-thirds vote in the legislature to increase taxes, an all but unreachable level). Had Prop 30 failed—and most thought it would—the already draconian cuts on California’s schools, public universities, and other services would have been just a prelude to further slashes.

Second, the state’s voters rejected Prop 32, which would have banned labor unions and corporations from raising money for state political purposes through paycheck deductions. Because corporations rarely use this tactic, Prop 32’s real impact would have kept tens of millions of dollars from aiding Democratic Party candidates in the state—one reason why business interests contributed some $120 million in a futile effort to pass the Proposition.

While Democrats might cheer the result, it also means that labor unions will continue to hold outsize power with the party—meaning that Brown’s efforts to rein in pension benefits for public employees may have gotten a lot harder.

Second, civility in the House of Representatives just took a step forward, as two of the most rhetorically combative members lost re-election. Allen West, a Florida Republican and Tea Party favorite who once declared that “there’s about 78 to 81 members of the Democrat Party that are members of the Communist Party,” lost his seat. Across the aisle—way, way across the aisle—Pete Stark of California, a 40-year veteran whose temper tantrums are the stuff of legend, was defeated by a fellow Democrat.

On the other hand, Minnesota’s Michelle Bachmann narrowly survived re-election, meaning we may be treated to at least two more years of her idiosyncratic approach to history (locating the battle of Lexington and Concord in New Hampshire) and medicine (vaccines cause mental retardation because someone she just met told her). And Florida’s Alan Grayson, who once said the Republican health care plan was for older people to die quickly, will return to the House. Cable news networks now have their hot-ticket debaters for the coming year.

Third, the ability of the Obama campaign to target supporters and lure them to the polls, and the ability of analysts like the New York Times’ Nate Silver to predict the outcome of a race with near precision, means that those of us who got into politics because we were told there’d be no math have got to get a clue.

If you care at all about politics, your two pieces of required reading are Silver’s “The Signal and the Noise” and Sasha Issenberg’s “The Victory Lab.” Silver explains why predictions from the world of sports, finance, science and politics fail, and should offer a permanent rebuke to those pundits who write and speak in gaseous terms of gut instincts, vibes and a mystical ability to detect sweeping forces that will drive elections. Issenberg’s book details precisely how the combination of behavioral psychology and data crunching enables campaigns to find supporters and persuade them to go to the polls.

This just-concluded campaign demonstrated forcefully that if you do not understand this brave new world, you will not understand politics, no matter how well you know the history of the Electoral College.

Finally, let me end with a concession. I plan to spend this day searching the websites of all of those who so confidently asserted why and how Obama was destined to lose. I’m particularly eager to read the wisdom of Dick Morris, the most consistently, hilariously ignorant pollster/strategist, who wrote just a few days ago “Here Comes The Landslide.” Mr. Morris’ continued employment is an inspiration to all those who believe that a career should in no way be limited by a total lack of competence.

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China hauls away activists in congress crackdown

BEIJING (AP) — During her 30-hour train journey to Beijing, Wang Xiulan ducked into bathrooms whenever the conductors checked IDs. Later, as she lay low in the outskirts of the capital, unidentified men caught her in a nighttime raid and hauled her to a police station. She assumed a fake identity to get away, and is now in hiding again.

Wang's not a criminal. She's a petitioner.

She's among many people attempting to bring local complaints directly to the central government in an age-old Chinese tradition that has continued during the Communist Party era. But police never make that easy, and this week, as an all-important leadership transition begins, a dragnet is aimed at keeping anyone perceived as a threat or a troublemaker out of Beijing.

"There is no law in China, especially for us petitioners and ordinary folk," Wang, 50, said in an interview with The Associated Press. "Even common gangsters and hoodlums get to leave after they serve time for crimes, but for us, if we get locked up, we never know when we might be freed."

Authorities want no surprises as the handover of power begins in the capital Thursday. The transition already has been rocked by the party's messiest scandal in decades, involving a former high-flying politician now accused of engaging in graft and obstructing the investigation into his wife's murder of a British businessman.

Rights groups say the wide-ranging crackdown on critics bodes poorly for those who hope the incoming generation of leaders will loosen restrictions on activism.

"China's top political leaders are very nervous, as they have since early this year been consumed by one of the most destabilizing and disharmonious power struggles in decades," said Renee Xia, international director of the Chinese Human Rights Defenders. The group estimates that hundreds or thousands of people have come under some kind of restriction in preparation for the party congress.

Lawyers have been held under illegal house arrest, dissidents sent back to their hometowns and activists questioned. Internet users report difficulties accessing many websites and the failure of software meant to bypass Internet filters.

Veteran activist Huang Qi, who runs a website on petitioners like Wang, said nearly 1,000 people have contacted him over the past few weeks to complain that authorities have hired thugs to harass and beat them.

"I hope that the Chinese authorities will face up to the social problems," Huang said in an interview. "Using violence will only escalate the resistance."

The crackdown reflects the leadership's nervousness as slowing economic growth exacerbates public outrage over corruption, social injustice, pollution and favoritism toward state-run agencies and the elite at the expense of ordinary people.

Under normal circumstances, petitioners are relatively safe once they reach Beijing's outskirts, though in their home provinces they are almost perpetually on the run from hostile local officials or thugs-for-hire who want to nab them before they can get an audience with central government agencies.

Now, however, even the capital's fringes are off limits.

Wang, a petite woman with shoulder-length hair neatly tied back, has been trying for two decades to draw central government attention to what she says was police mishandling of a serious assault she suffered in her native Harbin. Not only did her attacker go unpunished, but Wang ended up getting dismissed from her job years later.

Wang arrived in late October in Lu Village in Beijing's southwest, where petitioners have sought refuge for years. A police post guards the road into the village, and residents say officers have lately blocked petitioners from entering.

Wang had rented a bed — a wooden plank on bricks — in a tiny concrete room shared with two others. A gang of two dozen men barged in one night at 11 p.m., demanded to see her ID, searched her belongings and grabbed her cellphone.

"I was scared to death when they suddenly barged in here," Wang said, pointing at the door, where the lock had just been replaced.

The men refused to identify themselves and bundled her into a minivan with other petitioners. At another stop, she saw a couple dragged into the vans in their pajamas, the woman wearing only one shoe.

All were taken to a police station in nearby Jiujingzhuang village, where many petitioners say police process them for return to their hometowns. Using someone else's identity, Wang was able to evade police suspicion and was released. Many of the others were sent back, she said.

The raids are having an effect. The compound that houses her room and others now has only a handful of residents, down from about 30.

"They've all been chased away, caught or scared home," said Liu Zhifa, a 67-year-old petitioner from Henan province and one of the holdouts. Liu confirmed Wang's description of the Oct. 31 raid and described his own encounter with thugs breaking his lock and entering his room three times in one night in mid-October.

"I asked them to show their identifications, and they yelled at me, saying 'What right do you have to see our identification? Who do you think you are?" said Liu. "They were ruthless. The authorities and the police are working with people in the underworld."

A police officer who would only give his surname, Wei, answered the phone at a Jiujingzhuang police station (not 'the' because the police station has another name) and denied that authorities were raiding petitioners' villages. "We only act according to the law," Wei said. Questions about the broader crackdown were referred to the Beijing public security bureau, which did not respond to faxed questions.

The crackdown has extended to lawyers such as Xu Zhiyong. He said Beijing authorities have held him under informal house arrest since mid-October, stationing four or five guards outside his apartment in Beijing around the clock.

Xu has campaigned for years against Chinese authorities' use of "black jails," or unofficial detention centers run by local governments to hold petitioners. The government has denied the existence of such facilities, but even the tightly controlled state media have reported on them.

"The illegal restriction of a citizen's personal freedom for a long period of time is criminal behavior," Xu wrote in an email. "In an authoritarian state, this type of crime takes place everywhere."

Authorities in Shanghai also have ratcheted up pressure on critics, sentencing veteran women's rights activist Mao Hengfeng to a year and a half of labor camp. Mao, accused of disturbing social order, had been detained in Beijing in late September, said her husband, Wu Xuewei, who indicated she was being put away to silence her before the party congress.

Even dissidents' relatives have come under pressure. Beijing activist Hu Jia said he was warned by police to leave town, and that even his parents told him that police had told them to escort him to his hometown.

"My parents said to me: 'Hu Jia, you don't know what kind of danger you are in, but we know,'" he recounted in a phone interview from his parents' home in eastern Anhui province. "They said: 'Beijing is a cruel battlefield. If you stay here, you will be the first to be sacrificed. Don't do this.'"

___

Follow Gillian Wong on Twitter at twitter.com/gillianwong

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ABC raises nearly $17 million for hurricane relief

NEW YORK (AP) — ABC says its national "Day of Giving" raised nearly $17 million for Superstorm Sandy relief.

Throughout its programming Monday, the network urged viewers to contribute to the American Red Cross to help victims of the storm, which affected several Northeastern states, but hit New Jersey and the New York metropolitan area particularly hard.

Appeals were aired all day on ABC programming, on Disney's syndicated shows and across other Disney-owned networks.

Major contributors include ABC personalities Barbara Walters, George Stephanopoulos and Mark Cuban, the Dallas Mavericks owner and star of ABC's "Shark Tank." The Samsung Corp. also made a major gift.

In addition, the Walt Disney Co. made a $1 million contribution to local charities.

NBC held a telethon Friday for storm victims that raised nearly $23 million.

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Study: Stem cells from strangers can repair hearts

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Researchers are reporting a key advance in using stem cells to repair hearts damaged by heart attacks. In a study, stem cells donated by strangers proved as safe and effective as patients' own cells for helping restore heart tissue.

The work involved just 30 patients in Miami and Baltimore, but it proves the concept that anyone's cells can be used to treat such cases. Doctors are excited because this suggests that stem cells could be banked for off-the-shelf use after heart attacks, just as blood is kept on hand now.

Results were discussed Monday at an American Heart Association conference in California and published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

The study used a specific type of stem cells from bone marrow that researchers believed would not be rejected by recipients. Unlike other cells, these lack a key feature on their surface that makes the immune system see them as foreign tissue and attack them, explained the study's leader, Dr. Joshua Hare of the University of Miami.

The patients in the study had suffered heart attacks years earlier, some as long as 30 years ago. All had developed heart failure because the scar tissue from the heart attack had weakened their hearts so much that they grew large and flabby, unable to pump blood effectively.

Researchers advertised for people to supply marrow, which is removed using a needle into a hip bone. The cells were taken from the marrow and amplified for about a month in a lab at Baltimore's Johns Hopkins University, then returned to Miami to be used for treatment, which did not involve surgery.

The cells were delivered through a tube pushed through a groin artery into the heart near the scarred area. Fifteen patients were given cells from their own marrow and 15 others, cells from strangers.

About a year later, scar tissue had been reduced by about one-third. Both groups had improvements in how far they could walk and in quality of life. There was no significant difference in one measure of how well their hearts were able to pump blood, but doctors hope these patients will continue to improve over time, or that refinements in treatment will lead to better results.

The big attraction is being able to use cells supplied by others, with no blood or tissue matching needed.

"You could have the cells ready to go in the blood bank so when the patient comes in for a therapy — there's no delay," Hare said. "It's also cheaper to make the donor cells," and a single marrow donor can supply enough cells to treat as many as 10 people.

Dr. Elliott Antman of Harvard-affiliated Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston who heads the heart conference, praised the work.

"That opens up an entire new avenue for stem cell therapy, like a sophisticated version of a blood bank," he said. There's an advantage in not having to create a cell therapy for each patient, and it could spare them the pain and wait of having their own marrow harvested, he said.

The study was sponsored by the National Institutes of Health. Hare owns stock in a biotech company working on a treatment using a mixture of cells.

Juan Lopez received his own cells in the study, and said it improved his symptoms so much that at age 70, he was able to return to his job as an engineer and sales manager for a roofing manufacturer and ride an exercise bike.

"It has been a life-changing experience," said Lopez, who lives in Miami. "I can feel day by day, week by week, month by month, my improvement. I don't have any shortness of breath and my energy level is way up there. I don't have any fluid in my lungs."

And, he said happily, "My sex drive has improved!"

___

Marilynn Marchione can be followed at http://twitter.com/MMarchioneAP .

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Scenes from Election Day: America votes

A polling station in Los Angeles, California Tuesday. Kevork Djansezian/Getty Images)

The most expensive presidential race in American history—some $2.6 billion was spent—is finally coming to an end. The barrage of political ads is quieting, and voters now have the chance to speak.

Polls close in Virginia, Indiana, Georgia, Kentucky, South Carolina and Vermont at 7 PM ET, with other states following close behind. Alaska's polling stations, the last to close, finally shutter at 1 AM Wednesday. In the meantime, we'll be gathering all the latest news about the candidates, polling stations and swing states here.

1:45 PM: NBC has confirmed that an electronic voting machine in Pennsylvania changed a vote from Obama to Romney earlier today. The machine has been taken out of service.

1:20 PM: An estimated 50 million eligible Americans will not vote today. Here's why.

1:00 PM: Better late than never? Google searches for "who's running for president" spiked in November.

12:25 PM: You might want to think twice before posting your filled out ballot to Facebook, Flickr, or Instagram. Propublica reports that some states have laws that prohibit people from showing their ballots to anyone. Violating the rule can result in having your ballot thrown out. See if it's legal in your state at the Citizen Media Law Project site.

12:18 PM: In Washington D.C., There are reports that some lines are so long at polling sites that people are giving up on voting. How was your polling place? Let us know in the comments.

12 PM: Republican National Committee official Tim Miller is complaining on Twitter that a Philadelphia polling place has put up voting booths right next to a mural of Obama. The location of the polling site is 35th ward-D18 Franklin School, according to the Weekly Standard. Miller wrote that the Pennsylvania GOP has filed a complaint. Electioneering is not allowed within 10 feet of a polling place. The Philadelphia City Commissioners' office is looking into the complaints.

Obama mural in Philadelphia. (Tim Miller)

11:40 AM: Elections officials in Pinellas county in Florida mistakenly sent hundreds of robocalls telling voters they had until 7:00 PM Wednesday to vote, the Tampa Bay Times reports. (The last polls close at 8 PM Tuesday in the state.) Elections officials sent a second message to alert voters who received the calls of the mistake. A majority of the county voted Democratic in 2008.

11 AM: A Chrysler official wrote on Twitter that the car company has given its entire workforce the day off to vote. Late last month the company had strongly denied the accuracy of an ad from Mitt Romney's campaign stating that the automaker was moving its Jeep production to China. The company, in fact, said it recently added 1,100 jobs in the swing state of Ohio, where one in eight jobs is connected to the auto industry.

10 AM: All four major candidates have cast their ballots. President Barack Obama voted weeks ago in Chicago as part of his campaign's push to get their supporters to vote early in states that allow it. Voting on Tuesday: Vice President Joe Biden, at a Wilmington, Del., high school; Gov. Mitt Romney and his wife, Ann, near their Belmont, Mass., home; and Paul Ryan cast his ballot in his hometown of Janesville, Wis.

9:40 AM: The first election results are in—and it's a tie. In New Hampshire, Dixville Notch's 10 registered votes split evenly 5-5 between Romney and Obama. The small village has cast its ballots at midnight since 1960, giving political junkies an early look at how candidates are faring in the Granite State. President Obama carried the small village in 2008, but Dixville Notch went to George W. Bush in both 2000 and 2004.

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Pakistan army chief issues warning in rare message

ISLAMABAD (AP) — Pakistan's army chief warned against efforts to undermine the military in a rare public statement Monday that analysts interpreted as a response to unprecedented pressure from the government, media and judiciary.

Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani's cryptic message triggered some concern within Pakistan because of the army's history of seizing power in military coups. But experts saw the statement as less of a threat and more of a sign of the shifting power balance in Pakistani politics.

"Armed forces draw their strength from the bedrock of the public support," Kayani told a group of officers at army headquarters in the city of Rawalpindi. "Therefore, any effort which wittingly or unwittingly draws a wedge between the people and the armed forces of Pakistan undermines the larger national interest."

The army is still considered the strongest institution in the country, but the generals have slowly ceded power to Pakistan's civilian leaders and judges in recent years. The shift has occurred as the army has been bogged down in a bloody war against a domestic Taliban insurgency.

Several recent actions by the Supreme Court have brought home the end of the army's once inviolable status. In a landmark ruling, the judges recommended last month that the government launch legal proceedings against a former army chief and head of intelligence for allegedly bankrolling politicians in the 1990 election.

The court has also pressured the military for allegedly snatching scores of people off the street in southwest Baluchistan province, where the government faces a separatist insurgency, and holding them without charges.

Kayani appeared to be hitting back at the judiciary in his comments Monday.

"We all agree that strengthening the institutions, ensuring the rule of law and working within the well-defined bounds of the constitution is the right way forward," said Kayani. "Weakening of the institutions and trying to assume more than one's due role will set us back."

The chief justice of the Supreme Court, Iftikhar Chaudhry, showed no indication of backing down in a speech he made Monday after Kayani issued his statement. He cited the Supreme Court's constitutional "supremacy over all other institutions and authorities."

"Gone are the days when stability and security of the country was defined in terms of number of missiles and tanks as a manifestation of hard power available at the disposal of the state," Chaudhry told a group of civil servants. He said it means providing people with "social security and welfare nets and to protect their natural and civil rights at all costs."

The media has also become more critical of the army, especially after it was unable to stop the U.S. from staging a unilateral raid to kill al-Qaida chief Osama bin Laden last year. This scrutiny has made it more difficult for the generals to interfere openly in politics.

The government has applied some pressure by investigating retired army generals for alleged corruption.

"I think it is a turning point in the history of institutional balance in Pakistan," said Rasul Bakhsh Rais, a political science professor at Lahore University of Management Sciences. "I think the army feels a little bit isolated and somewhat powerless to manage the institutional balance the way it did for decades."

Cyril Almeida, a columnist for Dawn newspaper, said he thought Kayani's comments were likely driven by pressure from within the army.

"The army is facing a period of unprecedented public criticism of its handling of security affairs and the untouchable status of army officers, and that has created some unease among the rank and file and the leadership," Almeida said. "Kayani was probably trying to allay some of those concerns and reassert himself as the leader who will stand up for his institution."

____

Associated Press writers Zarar Khan and Rebecca Santana contributed to this report.

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Apple sells 3 million iPads over first weekend

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Aerosmith plays free outdoor concert in Boston

BOSTON (AP) — Hundreds of people have gathered in a student neighborhood in Boston to hear a free live performance by Aerosmith.

The band played Monday outside the apartment building where they got their start in the city's Allston neighborhood. Patriots quarterback Tom Brady is there along with Boston Mayor Tom Menino's wife and others.

The band is promoting its new album, "Live From Another Dimension," and encouraging people to vote.

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Even fit baby boomers won't escape heart problems

CHICAGO (AP) — Here's a reality check for health-conscious baby boomers: Even among those in good shape, at least 1 in 3 will eventually develop heart problems or have a stroke.

The upside is that that will happen about seven years later than for their less healthy peers.

The findings come in an analysis of five major studies involving nearly 50,000 adults aged 45 and older who were followed for up to 50 years.

The best odds are in the healthiest adults — those who don't smoke, have diabetes, high blood pressure or high cholesterol. Still, among 55-year-olds in that category, about a third can expect to develop heart or other cardiovascular problems as they age.

Dr. Vincent Bufalino, a Chicago area cardiologist and spokesman for the American Heart Association, said the study is "a wake-up call that this disease is very prevalent in the United States and even if you're doing a good job, you're not immune."

The researchers estimated risks older people face for developing these ailments in their lifetime, or by their 80s or 90s. They also estimated how many years they'll live free of heart disease and related problems, depending on the most common risk factors.

Pooling follow-up data from the five analyzed studies, the researchers found that the healthiest 45-year-olds lived up to 14 years longer free of heart ailments than those with at least two risk factors. The healthiest 55-year-olds lived up to about seven years longer than their less healthy peers.

The study was published online Monday in the Journal of the American Medical Association and released in connection with the American Heart Association conference meeting in Los Angeles. The National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute paid for the research.

The authors estimated higher lifetime risks than previous studies, but their analysis involved a broader range of ailments, including heart failure and strokes.

While prevalence of heart disease and related deaths have declined nationwide in recent years, more than 82 million Americans — roughly one-third — have some form of cardiovascular disease, according to the American Heart Association.

Most people in the analysis had high blood pressure or at least one of the other risk factors.

The results shouldn't be discouraging, said lead author Dr. John Wilkins, an assistant professor of preventive medicine and cardiology at Northwestern University's medical school in Chicago. Maintaining an optimal lifestyle, by eating sensibly and staying active, is still the best way to live a long, healthy life, he said.

Heart disease remains the nation's leading cause of death, and the study reinforces the idea that "cardiovascular disease is part of the aging process," said Cleveland Clinic heart specialist Dr. David Frid, who was not involved in the research. Bodies wear out, "and ultimately, just exposure to living is going to cause people to develop some of these underlying problems," Frid said.

___

Online:

JAMA: http://jama.ama-assn.org

American Heart Association: http://www.heart.org

___

AP Medical Writer Lindsey Tanner can be reached at http://www.twitter.com/LindseyTanner

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Sandy could cast doubt on election results

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The devastating storm that slammed into the U.S. East Coast last week could send winds of uncertainty through Tuesday's presidential election, narrowing an already close contest and casting doubt on the legitimacy of the outcome.

Though superstorm Sandy is unlikely to determine whether President Barack Obama or Republican Mitt Romney wins the White House, experts said it could expose flaws in how the United States conducts elections, leading to protracted legal wrangling and lingering bitterness in a country already fractured along partisan lines.

In a worst-case scenario, the storm disruption could cause Obama to lose the popular vote and still win re-election, stirring up vitriolic memories of the contested 2000 battle that allowed Republican George W. Bush to triumph over Democrat Al Gore.

Last-minute changes imposed by election officials also could

further arm campaign lawyers looking to challenge the result.

At minimum, low turnout would add another wild card to an election projected to be among the closest in U.S. history. Voting could be an afterthought for hundreds of thousands of people still struggling with power outages, fuel shortages and plummeting temperatures.

"It's a possibility that we'll see significant drops in turnout in some of these densely populated areas," said George Mason University professor Michael MacDonald, a voter turnout expert.

"The effects could be quite dramatic in terms of the popular vote," he said.

ONE MORE HEADACHE

Tuesday's election presents yet another headache for local officials in New York and New Jersey, which were hardest hit by the storm. Rescue workers are still recovering bodies, 1.9 million homes and businesses have no power, and tens of thousands of people are without heat as temperatures dip near freezing.

Sandy, one of the most damaging storms to hit the United States, hammered the region with 80-mile-per-hour (129-kph) winds, while walls of water overran seaside communities. At least 113 people in the United States and Canada died.

Election authorities now face unprecedented challenges. In New York City, 143,000 voters have been assigned new polling stations. New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg on Sunday called the city's elections board "dysfunctional" and warned that it needs to clearly communicate changes to poll workers.

In New Jersey, where 25 percent of homes and businesses have no power, officials are allowing displaced voters to cast their ballots by email. In battered Monmouth County, officials are spreading the word about new polling locations in at least 29 towns and setting aside paper ballots to use if electronic voting machines fail.

"Whatever it takes, Asbury Park is voting," City Manager Terence Reidy said.

Legal experts said the late changes, however well-intentioned, may give the losing candidate a basis to challenge results.

"The devil is in the details and no doubt these new rules will be fertile ground for those who choose to challenge the results in the election." said Angelo Genova, a New Jersey election law expert who represents Democratic candidates in this election.

The post-Sandy chaos also could expose flaws in the arcane electoral college system the United States uses to elect presidents.

Candidates are not required to win the popular vote nationwide, but they must amass a majority of the 538 "electoral votes" that are awarded to each state based on population. The system was set up when the United States was founded, as a compromise between slave states and free states.

Usually the electoral college winner also wins the popular vote. But in two elections - 1876 and 2000 - the results diverged, creating historic controversies.

This year, Obama is expected to handily win New York, New Jersey and Connecticut, the states most impacted by the storm. But his popular vote total could fall by hundreds of thousands if large numbers of storm-hit voters in Democratic areas are unable to participate. Conceivably, Obama could win the White House while losing the popular vote.

Several experts said they consider that outcome unlikely.

"You'll see lower turnout, yes, but it's not going to change the outcome of the election," said Hunter College political-science professor Jamie Chandler, who predicts Obama will win by at least 1 million votes.

If Obama carries the popular vote by a narrow margin, it could have implications on his ability to govern effectively, according to Ruy Teixeira, a senior fellow at the liberal Center for American Progress.

"The more Obama has a solid popular margin the better his victory," he said.

On Sunday, several Republicans said the storm gave Obama an advantage in the campaign's final week by shifting public attention away from the sluggish economy and other topics they hoped to emphasize.

"The hurricane is what broke Romney's momentum," former Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour said on CNN.

Obama campaign officials said that they are confident the storm will not interfere with the voting process. But they intend to have legal experts on standby just in case.

"We're going to have lawyers who are ready to make sure people can exercise their right to vote. We're going to protect that as fiercely as we can," Obama senior adviser David Plouffe said on Friday.

(Fixes typo in quote in 14th paragraph) (Additional reporting by Jeff Mason, Erin Smith, Jonathan Spicer, Philip Barbara and Andrew Longstreth; Editing by Marilyn W. Thompson and Paul Simao)

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