liver everything but the baby. my name is marc lore and in 2005 we launched a business out of our garage. back then nobody was selling diapers or formula online with overnight delivery. for us that was a real opportunity. we've been using the american express open plum card. basically anythi we can put on that card, we do to take advantage of the early pay discount. so far we've saved over a million dollars with the plum card. booming is saving every time you spend. right now on msnbc sunday, nine days and counting. with the power of congress at stake, both sides go on the attack on the campaign trial. could the democrats pull some surprises? we'll show you the latest polls. rising prices. your grocery bills are about to go up. we'll tell you how high the prices could go. plus this -- >> i represent the rent is too

damn high party. you know why? because the rent is too damn high. >> our friends at snl have a little fun with the candidate who stole the show at the new york governor's debate. good morning to all of you. welcome to msnbc sunday. first we head to politics and the remaining nine days until voters decide the midterm elections. president obama is back at the white house this morning after a busy campaign swing through five states. in minneapolis yesterday, the president told thousands of supporters that their vote for him in 2008 was just the first step. >> the journey we began together was never about putting me in the white house. it was building a movement for change that endures. a clash of candidates in colorado, as ken baucus squared off with michael bennett. among other things, the two disagreed about a u.s. timetable

on withdrawal of troops from afghanistan. buck is up by three points. heading to florida, sarah palin joined michael steele at a fund-raising rally in orlando. she set her sites not only on state races bus also on washington. >> what do you do with any employee who is not doing their job? >> fire them. >> that's right, you fire them. you fire pelosi, you retire reid and their band of merry followers and we get back on putting the country on the right track. the president has several more stops planned between now and election day. mike is at the white house this morning. good morning. >> reporter: the president is at the white house briefly this morning after that five-state four-day swing through the west coast ending yesterday in minneapolis a rally for mark dayton. the president trying to rally democratic voters.

he had a number of rallies at campuses trying to get young people out. he a backyard issues forum for women in seattle, but so far there's that enthusiasm gap. they are not backing him in the same numbers and fewer people are turning out for the midterm electi election. the president goes to rhode island next, then chicago, pennsylvania, cleveland, and connecticut to help a democratic senate candidate, richard blumenthal, who is facing a tough challenge from linda mcmahon. the president trying to set up that fireball, trying to keep control of the senate for democrats. the house of representatives, many democrats will tell you privately it's all but gone at this point, which brings up another whole host of questions, we will be talking about the

obama agenda over the last two years of his first term as republicans can virtually block everything he wants to do. will the two sides come to a compromise? will the senate stay in democratic hands? will there be the tension twe between the senate and the house as they try to move forward. conflicts could be inevitable. there's still nine days to go before this campaign comes to a conclusion on november 2nd, election day. a lot of campaigning yet to be done by the president and democrats along the way. alex? >> mike, thanks for that. here's a programming note, rnc chairman michael steele will be david gregory's guest this morning on "meet the press." the death toll has risen to more than 200 in haiti from the outbreak of cholera. there is rising numbers of cases near the capital,

port-au-prince. at least three beaches on california's central coast are closed after that deadly shark attack on a body border. officials will make a decision tomorrow on when to reopen the beaches. college student lucas ransom was body boarding on friday when a shark attacked him. the 19-year-old died shortly thereafter. big concerns on the campus of georgetown university this morning after police say they discovered a drug lab inside a dorm room. officials arrested two students and one visitor for allegedly using chemicals to produce a hallucinogenic called dnt. >> it was shocking. i had no idea that people were even capable of manufacturing stuff like that in the dorm rooms, certainly not indicative of the culture of georgetown. >> medical teams are evaluating several people who were exposed to the chemicals. no one was injured. an early blast of winter in colorado this weekend.

the loveland ski area was able to open for the season one day early thanks to the snowfall. workers have fired up the lifts and the plows were also out on the highways clearing the way for the drivers and skiers. severe thunderstorms pounded north texas. the storms damaged numerous apartment buildings in ft. worth, ripping off parts of the roof. winds gusted up to 60 miles per hour in some areas. so for more now on the national weather headlines, let's check in with jeff morrow. good morning to you. >> good morning, alex. indeed, more severe weather could be on tap as we head through the course of the day today. what you're looking at here is this red-shaded area from east texas, not so much in dallas and ft. worth today, but further east. little rock, over to jackson, mississippi, st. louis, that's the area we could have big thunderstorms. you mentioned the snow in colorado. another dose is coming in. this is a big storm, smashing into the west coast. a lot of wind, up to 75 miles

per hour. the mountains of northern california could go over 100 miles per hour. heavy rainfall and snow down to about 4,000 feet. if all that weren't enough, we still have to talk about the tropics. we have tropical storm richard, which is close to becoming a hurricane. it will stay down here in the western caribbean. but central america and parts of the yucatan peninsula, probably will have to deal with richard's rain over the next couple of days. kind of transitioning from tropics to wintry weather across the country. very active today. alex? >> okay. thank you very much. for the forecast right where you are and the latest weather advisories head to weather.com. new information found in secret iraq war documents is raising questions about how much the u.s. military knew about the slaughter of iraqi civilians. the nearly 400,000 files were made public more than a day ago by the wikileaks website and they reveal new details about the day-to-day violence in iraq.

joining me from washington, d.c. is lisa curtis, senior research fellow at the heritage foundation. good morning. >> good morning. >> given that you had some time to look over things and this massive volume of documents what is your reaction? >> i think it's unfortunate these documents were released. there was such a negative reaction to the release of the $70,000 documents relate to the afghanistan war back in july, that the hope was that he would refrain from releasing these iraq war documents. i think the founder of wikileaks thinks he's some kind of hero. but i think the reality is that this information is classified for good reason, he's putting in jeopardy not only our u.s. troops but those iraqis and afghans who are cooperating with us and he's encouraging people to break the law. private manning, who is the army intelligence officer who was arrested for downloading hundreds of thousands of documents related to the iraq

war and may be the source for the wikileaks has been charged with over 50 years in prison. >> and he's the one who released those 77,000 documents, they believe, on afghanistan. let's get to what's in the report. it includes names of victims along with the times, locations of attacks. this contradicts statements by u.s. officials who say to journalists they did not keep any detailed record of civilian deaths or specific attacks. there is a discrepancy here. what do you make of that? >> certainly we need a better handle on how many people have died as a result of the war. again, i would say that we can get this information through media, through nongovernmental organizations who are tracking these issues. we don't need to release 400,000 sensitive documents. >> well -- >> in order to put this information together. >> lisa, you talk about the importance of finding out the numbers of people who have been victimized here. the group, iraq body count, says it has found about 15,000

previously unreported civilian deaths from these documents. that raises the total estimate to well over 100,000 civilian deaths since march of 2003. this information being out there now what kind of effect might that have on thousands of u.s. troops that are still there? is there genuine worry about their safety from a retribution aspect? >> i think what we have seen, the initial reaction from iraq is that the opposition to prime minister maliki's government is now trying to use the information to attack him, and this is the information on the security abuses by iraqi security services that we're seeing. so that the focus really has been not so much on the u.s. forces, which, of course, are drawing down in the country, but more on, you know, what did the iraqi government do to try to stop some of these abuses. >> lisa, the point needs to be underscored again what is being

released in wikileaks is not pointing an inflammatory finger at u.s. troops, it really is talking about the atrocities that were committed by iraqi police. do you worry that will be lost on iraqi civilians over there now? >> no. i think that the focus is on the iraqi government, and what they're going to do to rectify the situation in terms of stemming these abuses. again, i would come back to the fact that a lot of this information was known, the media has been reporting this information. and i don't think there is any surprise or shock among the iraqi populous on the information. >> okay. lisa curtis with the heritage foundation, thank you. >> thank you. tragedy in the pool for a member of the u.s. national swim team while competing abroad. and actress fran dresher is a cancer survivor and an author. i will talk to her about that

and what can be done to prevent it.

got him looking. the giants win the pennant! >> and with that, the san francisco giants eliminated the philadelphia phillies and advance to the world series where they will take on the texas rangers. game one is set for wednesday. the big celebration began immediately in san francisco where the fans all took to the streets and while the giants have not won the world series since 1954, it is the first time the rangers have ever been to the fall classic. got some new blood there for the fall classic. will be fun to watch. just nine days until the midterm elections, democrats are hoping the president's campaign machine from 2008 can help them again. "newsweek" poll shows the president's approval rating up to 54%, up from 48% in late september. and more registered voters say they are leaning towards democratic candidates. 48% support democrats, 42% are supporting the gop. eleanor clift is a

contributing editor for news week and jonathan ellen is from politico. both are in washington. good morning. >> good morning. >> ellen does that polling suggest that democrats are still capable of some kind of surprises on november 2nd? >> i think what this poll shows us is that this is a volatile electorate, and this is a snapshot, and the president's campaigning seems to be rallying democrats. i think the case they're making, that the programs and policies he put in place have drawn a backlash from corporate interests, i think that's beginning to penetrate the public, particularly women. they are making a particular pitch towards women. when you look at the power lineup on the republican side, despite all the talk about this being the year of the republican women, it's still -- their power structure is still heavily male. some of these arguments are getting through to rally the democratic base which is young people, latinos and principally

women. >> okay. jonathan what about conventional wisdom saying republicans have a good shot of winning the house. let's say democrats keep control of the senate. what do you think the end result is in washington? is this a gridlock nightmare? >> i don't think so. i think the president will have tremendous incentive to work with congress to get things done, to even work with some republicans, particularly in the senate, which is going to have a more balanced flavor. a bit less of a democratic dominance. you have a bunch of senators coming in in rob portman, probably rob blunt from missouri and marco rubio from florida, those folks are going to be making deals in the business of government behind closed doors while we're talking about the quotable newcomers who are a little more brash. >> okay. eleanor, all this talk of the republican takeover in the house has set up big expectations. if, however, the republicans do not win big on election day, what kind of impact might that

have on the republican party going forward? >> think i there will be civil war within the party there already is between the new tea party conservatives and the more establishment types. if they fall short of their expectations, particularly on the senate side, they're going to look at a couple of states, probably principally delaware, a seat that they would have had if they didn't go with somebody who was really a representative of the tea party. on the other hand, if they do make gains, even if they fall short of taking the majority, the new blood is thanks to the tea party energy and enthusiasm. they will have to make compromises within the party as to how they adjust to that. i hope jonathan is right, that they'll be interested in participating in governing. but when you look at how many of these candidates are campaigning, they are campaigning on its harasscy if you even deal with the other side. i don't see a lot of promise, frankly, if you believe what

they say on the campaign trail. >> what about, jonathan, the way the president has been trying to frame the discussion, this election is a choice between past policies and those he is trying to push forward today. does that resonate with voters? >> so far it don't seem to have been. we have to wait until election day, but the president has said you can go back with republicans or go forward with me. what we've seen from people so far from polls is they don't lie the direction the country is moving forward with the president. they would like to put the brakes on it or even move backward. the message is not resonating with voters or in public polling we have seen it isn't. wait until tuesday of the following week. >> the only thing the voters like less than the democrats are the republicans, a lot of people who are disappointed with the democrats don't want to put the brakes on what obama's doing. they don't think he has gone forward fast enough. i think there's a little more nuance in the electorate.

>> all right. guys, i'll let that be the last word for now. thank you much. >> take care. after last week's new york gubernatorial debate there was one candidate many new yorkers could not stop talking about. candidate jimmy mcmillan is known for a catchy campaign slogan, all of which became the highlight of "saturday night live." >> you probably look at me and thinking to yourself what is he, just another washington insider? what is it? what is it, part of the establishment? believe it or not, i have never been a governor anywhere. people ask if elected, how would you lower our rent? simple, the rent is too damn high. [ female announcer ] introducing splenda®

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our world view begins this morning in mexico w a deadly attack at a house party. at least 13 people were shot dead late friday in ciuda

ciudad juarez. three cars drove up to the home and opened fire. the dead were between 14 and 20 years old. it is the second such massacre in less than a week in that city. more than 2,000 people have been killed there this year in a turf war between drug cartels. an american world champion swimmer has died in the american world emirates during competition. 26-year-old fran crippen was competing in an open water competition south of dubai. he reportedly did not finish and was found in the water two hours later. fellow competitors described the conditions for that race as unusually hot. crippen won a gold medal at the pan american games. in paris, french drivers are stocking up on fuel amid concerns that strikes will continue against pension reform. an estimated quarter of france's gas stations are empty. france is trying to raise the

retirement age from 60 to 62. nicolas sarkozy's approval rating has dropped amid the pro tests. and dozens of blonds marched through the capital to raise money for infants. you probably noticed a lot of pink lately. everything from pink nfl cleats to airlines painting pink planes to the white house flooded in pink lights. october is breast cancer awareness month, and many companies, organizations and individuals are doing their part to bring attention to the issue. earlier i talked with actress and comedian fran dresher who is also a uteran companies survivor. >> we always say if you catch it on arrival, 95% survival. i feel like we're headed in a wrong direction in terms of a nation about our health.

we are so fixated on finding a cure and there's hardly any emphases on helping people find the early whispers of cancers, looking at the toxins that we inundate ourselves with on a daily president. the president's cancer panel came out with a 200-page report saying until we question everything that we expose ourselves to, there's not going to be any end to cancer. so rather than look for a cure, why not look for the cause, and eliminate it so that we can diminish the amount of cancer that seems to be on the rise in many different groups, age groups and ethnicities. we have the fran vans going out in different places all over america. we just launched it in new york, in los angeles, in appalachia and we hope to have one in every community that has need so women who are low-income, uninsured or

underinsured will get free mammographies and pap tests, and then be offered a patient navigator that will help them if, god forbid, something is wrong with them to lead them through free medical and so that they're not abandoned at that point. >> and that was just part of our conversation with fran dresher. there will be more later this morning. a trip to the grocery store will cost you more money soon. we'll explain why. plus there's already enough snow in colorado to go skiing and even more snow is on the way tonight. kind of fun. hey, babe. oh, hi, honey! so i went to the doctor today, then picked up a few extra things for the baby. oh, boy... i used our slate card with blueprint. we can design our own plan to avoid interest by paying off diapers and things each month. and for the bigger stuff, we can pay down our balance faster to save money on interest. bigger? bigger. slate from chase gives you extraordinary control over how you pay for life's surprises.

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here are the top stories at the bottom of the hour. fishermen in the gulf of mexico are finding new oil slicks from the summer's oil disaster. some of the spills are almost 400 feet wide and at least a mile long. illinois police believe a missing northern illinois university student was murdered.

human remains were found in a park where tony killer was believed to be going. pop star katie russell and russell brand were married yesterday in india. the couple got engaged there earlier this year. the count is on until election day, for many americans they have already done their part. millions of voters have already cast ballots for the midterm elections. early voting is under way in dozens of states. back in 2008 one-third of the votes cast were from early or absentee ballots showing how influential this part of the process has become. dominike montenar is a political reporter. is this a surge showing voters are not as disengaged as analysts might suggest. >> early voting is under way in 32 states, or there are 32 states that have some form of early voting, as in washington, d.c.

part of what is going on here is that democrats really do have a structural advantage. they have operatives who are very good at being able to knock on doors, call people to get out to the polls, and democrats are trying to lock in voters who should vote and make sure they don't forget so they can focus on a push for those undecided voters who may or may not lean democratic, so that they can hold in places that lean democratic to start with places like pennsylvania, places like nevada, california, oregon, washington state, where they can really make a push to hold the senate. >> hum. okay. with republicans claiming all the momentum now, as you look at the early voting, does it seem to be favoring democrats or republicans more? >> right now democrats certainly look like they're holding their own, if not with a small advantage. that's good for democrats. you know, but they still face a big enthusiasm gap in polling and what the real problem is,

the big question on election night everyone wants to know, are republicans going to take back the house. the senate seems like a steeper climb, but republicans still can take back the senate. in the house, the problem for democrats is of the 56 seats that they gained in the last two election cycles, many of those lean republican. so, you know, whether or not democrats go to the polls, that's good for democrats, but still they have to win over independents and maybe republicans who are open to voting for that democrat on specific local issues. that's what makes it difficult for democrats in trying to take back the house or try to maintain the house because, you know, structural advantages are one thing. but at the end of the day, the environment generally can trump those structural advantages. >> i guess i'm trying to figure out if the surge in early voting, though, does anything to depress active voting on november 2nd. i mean, or does it just have a build up in terms of the momentum. do you have any sense of that? >> well, you know, a lot of

states have made this push for early voting because a big problem that they found, you remember after the 2000 or during the 2000 election, really long lines, they're trying to get the most partisan voters to go vote who already know what they want to do. so you can kind of have everybody get the chance to vote on election day so you don't have these poll problems that you have seen in the past. you know, that's part of it. some people don't like early voting because they think, hey, look, i want to make my argument if i'm a candidate. if people go and vote what i say in the last two weeks may not have any effect on how somebody votes. so, in general, we've seen the table come up for the number of people who voted. in 2008 we saw a record 133 million people go to the polls. the record for midterm voting was in 2006, when 86 million people went to the polls. they hope to have a higher number this year. >> interesting point is, you make about the effect on the candidates, when people have

gone and voted, spending hundreds and millions of dollars on campaigns. really, do you need to? i guess it's a question. we'll see the answer from you later. thank you. for more on the political stories, check out firstre firstread@msnbc.com. hundreds are rallying in support of a man killed by a police officer. oscar grant was fatally shot by a transit officer while laying face down in 2009. the former officer was convicted of involuntary manslaughter in july and is scheduled to be sentenced in two weeks. union members want him to receive the maximum penalty of 14 years in prison. we will get a lot of news about housing just as bank of america, the nation's largest lender, resumes foreclosures on more than 100,000 homes. the repossessings had be s had

stopped due to dubious documents. ben bernanke will be speaking this week, and we'll get a check of the gross domestic product. general mills says it will increase prices next month on a quarter of its breakfast cereals. the company says it is dealing with rising costs including higher grain prices. for more on what this means for consumers, i'm joined by carmen. i can't imagine this is good news for consumers. >> this is rough news because the prices are enormous. wheat, corn, milk all up over 30%. these are huge increases in prices. there's only so much companies can do in terms of absorbing those costs. so they'll have to pass them on to the consumer at a difficult time for prices to go up.

>> so general mills is doing cereals. where else are we going to see problems? >> mcdonald's will raise prices in 2011. 2009 was the last time they raised prices. general mills, kraft, dominos. dominos pizza is saying the price of cheese for them is up 29%. they have to pass along the coast. they don't want to. how will this effect them in terms of earnings? all the companies have been doing fantastically well in terms of earnings. will this cut into that? there will be some push back. >> so how high will the prices go? >> they're all reporting that prices will be maybe 2%, 3%, 5% at the max up in the next year, but how much can we sustain in terms of the raising prices? right now we're all a bunch of bargain hunters, so we will be bargaining down. but where we will we switch to? everything has been going up in the grocery stores, and grocery

stores are happy about this because things have been rough the last couple of years. >> i wonder if it will get worse for the grocery stores, we are in a recession, tough times what happens if consumers say, no pushing back on that. >> that's the question, especially for folks like mcdonald's and general mills. how much are you willing to pay for a box of cereal? if prices are going up 10% in the next year, there will have to be some kind of revolution where consumers say we are not spending this much anymore, and companies saying this is cutting into the profit, we have to cut costs. >> thank you very much. >> thanks. bill clinton will be campaigning in michigan this afternoon. his 96th event this year. good memories of his time at the white house helped democrats at the polls just nine days from now? and ever wish you could come up with a million dollar idea? we will tell you where all those good ideas come from.

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always a big spender. we have a big deficit. the deficit when president obama took his hand off the bible was $1.2 trillion a year that he inherited. i gave them a $230 billion

surplus, and they turned it into a deficit. >> bill clinton campaign blitz, he's been tearing across the country stumping for democrats. today he has three rallies scheduled in michigan. what's behind it? phillip rucker writes the former president's friends say he is in disbelief that in the closing weeks of the midterm campaigns democrats have failed to articulate a cohere aren't message on the economy and, worse, have allowed themselves to become human pinatas. pretty good line there, the human pinatas. we figured out what that meant. clinton will have appeared at over 100 events by election day, washington is not orchestrating it, but he is single handedly trying to rescue the democratic party? really? >> that's what his top aides are telling us. he is going this on his own. the white house is not giving him talking points. he is going around the country to candidates that request his

team through his office. he put his charitable foundation on hold for a few weeks and he's tearing across the country. i followed him to three states. he does three, four, sometimes more events a day. it's really a grueling pace. did he it on its own. what's interesting, he doesn't read from a teleprompter and he doesn't reference his notes, he delivers just purely off the cuff remarks. a lot of them are rooted in the local issues that are defining these races. >> is he is a brilliant man and i'm sure studies ahead, but also delivers with passion and believes in the convictions with which he is trying to express there. with regard to democrats, even if they don't have a coherent message, do republicans have anything better? >> they have a message, and their message is the economic policies of this administration are not working. they're a bit short on specifics in these individual races. it doesn't get into how they would improve the economy at that specific level, but their message is really what we have now doesn't work, it's time for

a change or a different kind of leadership. president clinton and also president obama and many democrats are out there trying to say this is not a referendum on the current administration, it should not be a referendum on the economy, and the state of jobs right now in the country. >> do you think that voters think that way? i mean, does talking about solutions even matter? or is this election, in terms of the electorate, a referendum? >> i think for a lot of voters it is. it's been two years since they had a chance to vote in a national election like this for congress. and things are not good in their lives. we see this all around the country when we talk to voters. they are angry, angsty, it's a volatile electorate now. and they want change. frankly the democrats are the ones in power. so they're bearing the brunt of this mood. >> you've been to three events that bill clinton had there. tell me what kind of a draw he is for the crowds there and how does that compare to president obama? >> it is interesting you ask that.

i was with obama this week in his western campaign swing. in los angeles, he drew 35,000 people. bill clinton doesn't draw a crowd nearly that large in seattle, washington, bill clinton drew about 2,000 people in new mexico, where i was with him, he drew about 5,000. but people turn out to see him. he's still a former president. a very popular figure among the democratic faithful and among independent and republican voters. they still come out to see him. i think his message resonates in a particularly helpful way for those candidates. >> okay. phillip rucker, thanks for joining us. apple shipped more than 13 million iphones in the third quarter that means the popular smartphone overtook research in motion. this on heels of news that ipad is one of the quickly adopted electronics products ever.

so americans are using those deviceses more and more to connect with other people. a recent neilsen survey found the amount of time americans spent on social media increased by more than 40% this past year. twitter now has an estimated 75 million users. so with so many people connected, can we expect the exchange of ideas to speed up? steven johnson is the author of "where good ideas come from: the natural history of innovation." what role do you see the internet and social media playing in terms of developing great ideas and pushing us forward? >> one thing i try to do in the book is look at strategies that people can use to think in more innovative ways and studies have looked at this. one thing we found is exposing yourself to more diverse points of view, and diverse interests and professions and fields of expertise, is a great driver of creative, innovative thinking, because you are constantly

stumbling across something from another field that you don't know anything about that is useful if your own day-to-day lives. with twitter and facebook, we can set up social networks that are more interesting and more surprising and diverse than the normal group of people we would hang out with day-to-day. from that kind of collision of ideas, with get break through innovations. >> this book, where did all of this begin? in terms of the recent, you know, drive upward, trajectory upward? >> the web is a great example. the web evolved much faster than any other communications media in modern history. just the changes over the last 15 years. so part of the question is why? what is it about the web that made it go from just simple hyper text to youtube and twitter and facebook? >> was it the social networking? >> i think part of it was that you could build easily on other peoples ideas. in order to innovate on top of

the web, you didn't have to ask for permission. you could create a new start-up and go for it without having to get permission to build your new invention. >> do you see anything as being a pitfall of all this connectivity? is there a downside? >> we are distracted. we are certainly -- there's so much stimulus, it's harder to focus. some part of being creative involves focusing. you know, it's a question of are the benefits of connectivity, do they exceed the costs? i think in the long run they do we have to get better at focusing. >> you write chance favors the connected mind. that's what we could probably talk about for hours. but give that to me in a tv sound byte. w what does that mean. >> a large number of ideas in history came from people stumbling across something, or in the lab spilling something and, oops, i developed an x-ray.

>> like an accident. >> you want to capitalize on that accident and build something out of that lucky event. >> where do you think the next great idea will come from? >> i think it will come from interesting people collaborating electronically globally on this new platform. >> anything as big as the internet? you have one great idea and you think how can that be topped? then the internet came along. >> the question is really whether facebook is turning into a second internet on top of the internet. the web was built on top of the internet. now facebook is getting so big and people are building stuff on top of facebook, using that social connection of that network, whether that actually becomes a platform that is as powerful and as important as the web is an interesting question. it's important because facebook is owned by somebody. nobody owns the web. >> mark zuckerberg, right? >> there's a lot of power there and responsibility that comes from that. because it's powered by connection between minds,

there's an opportunity for interesting things to happen. >> have you seen "the social network?" >> i have. >> pretty good, right? >> it is. >> thank you so much. good to see you. appreciate you bringing the book in. steven johnson, about luck with it. candidates are in the final stretch of the campaign, just nine days until the midterm elections. the daily beast is making predictions next. of the season to get you in the mood to motor... including classics like, 'thirty one days of ways to save.' 'skidmarks and smokescreens?' 'kiss my resale value.'

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it's coming down to the wire for candidates across the country. campaigns are in overdrive to get the last votes, but there's an easy way to see how things are reading and trending with

"the daily beast." we will go through a bit of it with benjamin sarlin, correspondent for can the the daily beast." good morning. >> good morning. >> let's go to the nevada senate reyes. the oracle has sharron angle defeating harry reid. really? >> we give her a 60/40 shot. a closely divided race. >> you think 60/40 is close? >> yeah. it could swing very quickly the other way. we have seen it fluctuate quite a bit. they have been divided in the polls. sharron angle opened up a small lead and harry reid has not been able to close the deal with nevada voters. ho he's gotten republican leaders on his side, but as far as bringing over republican votes and candidates, he hasn't gotten there. >> let's talk about the florida governor's race. rick scott, you have him

defeating alex cink. this is back and forth, right? >> this is tight, and he opened up a small but significant lead in the polls. so we narrowly favor him at the moment. yes, this is a very close race. there are questions about his candidacy that florida voters still have. and some of the attacks against them have been effective. he's still in an anti-incumbent year going after a sitting politician, it's just an advantageous position. >> florida, we regard to the 2012 presidential race, florida is a place we are focused on. how important is this race to the president? >> it's very important. florida will be a key race again in 2012 when it comes down to the presidential map. once again, the governor of the state can do a lot for you. they can campaign for you, get supporters rallied up for you. florida is somewhere where obama has slipped a bit since he won in 2008, when he won that state.

so it's definitely not -- by no means can he count on it coming back for him in 2012. he needs all the help he can get. >> let's go to massachusetts where the president stumped last saturday for duval patrick, but this is closer than expected, this race between patrick and charles baker. do you think people in the white house are worried about another scott brown debacle in the bay state? >> i would caution, this is a little different. there is a long history of electing republican governors in massachusetts. in the senate it was much more surprising. on a federal level republicans just tended to be less successful in recent years there. but, the republican running, charlie baker, fits the mold of new england republican. he is socially moderate, even as he reports to be fiscally conservative. >> okay. we will see what happens. i think duval patrick is up by six at this point? i happened to be up at the bay state -- >> and there is a third party candidate which makes it

unstable. >> we'll have you back. thank you. >> thank. should your money troubles prevent you from getting a good job? you heard of the eating disorder anorexia, but have you heard about drunkrexia? it's a growing trend among college students. [ male announcer ] it's simple physics...

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