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By Burgess Everett (@burgessev or
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WAKE-UP TO POLLS: With just two weeks and a day until voters cast their mid-term ballots, POLITICO is out with some new mood music for you political junkies. Our new poll out finds voters lack confidence in the government response to ebola and have lots of concern over the rise of the Islamic State. The takeaway, per Alex Burns: "An overwhelming majority of voters in the most competitive 2014 elections say events in the United States feel like they are 'out of control.'" Rather than a single-issue election, this November's all about Americans feeling overwhelmed by global events.
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SHOCK -- Obama wants to avoid Congress on Iran: President Barack Obama has a bit over a month to nail down a more comprehensive nuclear agreement with Iran, which would likely include rolling back some sanctions. And if he succeeds, he doesn't want Congress to mess with it, reports the New York Times's David Sanger. "The Treasury Department, in a detailed study it declined to make public, has concluded Mr. Obama has the authority to suspend the vast majority of those sanctions without seeking a vote by Congress, officials say."

"But Mr. Obama cannot permanently terminate those sanctions. Only Congress can take that step. And even if Democrats held on to the Senate next month, Mr. Obama's advisers have concluded they would probably lose such a vote. 'We wouldn't seek congressional legislation in any comprehensive agreement for years,' one senior official said. White House officials say Congress should not be surprised by this plan."
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POLITICO ON THE ROAD -Hanging with the kissing congressman: Step on into the time machine with me to go back to Saturday, Oct.11, which I spent with Louisiana Rep. Vance McAllister. As I toured the northeast part of the state with him in his tough battle for reelection, I got a good sense for how the guy won election in the first place through his natural talent as a retail politician -- and also why he's the most embattled incumbent perhaps in the country. The kissing scandal opened up the gates for eight challengers to McAllister's seat -- but if he loses it doesn't seem like it will be because of the smooch, which few people were concerned with that I spoke to in Tullos, Tallulah and
Pioneer. The bigger threat seems to be that his district might not fully accept his brand of pragmatic politics and instead go for conservative challenger Zach Dasher, who's got the Duck Dynasty blessing to boot.
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Dry John Boehner: A key exchange from my story, as highlighted by @seungminkim: "As he gobbles banana cream pudding, McAllister later admits he's gained about 40 pounds. Before McAllister left for midterm recess, he says, House Speaker John Boehner buttonholed him: 'You're getting a little thick.' McAllister attributes the gain to Washington's 'filet mignon.' Boehner's reply: 'You ever thought about getting the fish?' Also, check out this slideshow of my adventure, including a photo of McAllister taking a photo of Sen. Landrieu:
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FLORIDA -- Drama on the panhandle: Jake Sherman drops by Rep. Steve Southerland's district and finds the incumbent has his hands full there -- though for different reasons than McAllister. "Even though this district is rural, conservative and a pocket of deep resentment toward D.C. Democrats, Southerland finds himself in a multimillion-dollar brawl with Election Day rapidly approaching. The contest has shocked Washington Republicans, who resent that they have to spend millions of dollars to prop up a member of the House Republican leadership in a district where President Barack Obama's approval ratings hardly crack 30 percent."

-- "Washington Republicans began to fear the seat might slip away early this summer, when operatives at the National Republican Congressional Committee urged Southerland to fire back at Graham's television ads. But Southerland turned down the advice, saying he knew how to run his race. He called Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy - his close friend - and NRCC Chairman Greg Walden to complain about anonymous comments surfacing in news stories criticizing his campaigning ... As far as tensions with the NRCC, Andrea Bozek, a spokesman for the group, said 'this kind of gossip is eye-roll inducing.'"
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DeMAIO BLAMES IT ON PETERS: GOP House candidate Carl DeMaio says sexual harassment allegations aimed at him are the work of Democratic Rep. Scott Peters. "I guess you can say anything about the gay guy and some people will believe it," DeMaio told The Hill's Alexandra Jaffe. After a forum last week, the two didn't even shake hands.
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GOOD MONDAY, the 20th of October. Welcome to the Huddle, where your host is listed as day-to-day following a routine knee surgery late last week. Show your sympathy by sending tips to
mailto:beverett@politico.com
beverett@politico.com and following along on Twitter @burgessev.

TODAY IN CONGRESS - More scaffolding, probably.

FUTURE PLANNING -- Issa sets ebola hearing for Oct. 24, via Emma Dumain.
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MONEY GAME -- Via the industrious James Hohmann at 4:07 a.m.: "The Democratic National Committee is transferring $5 million each to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee."

DRAWING A BLUE LINE: As soon as I arrived at the University of Maryland in 2002 I was greeted to the biggest upset of my politically aware adult life when Republican Robert Ehrlich won the governor's race. A dozen years later another underdog GOPer, Larry Hogan, is making Democrat Anthony Brown sweat by attacking him ad infinitum over taxes. Last night President Barack Obama skipped a few miles east to Prince George's County to head off Hogan's surging momentum, The Sun takes it away: "'You deserve leaders that don't root for failure, don't try to re-fight the old battles, don't try to peddle fear,' the president told about 8,000 people - mainly African-Americans - packed into a
high school gymnasium in Upper Marlboro. 'If you want good policies to continue in Maryland, you've got to vote for it.'" Tomorrow, Chris Christie is expected to join Hogan on the trail.
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Getting Ill.: After the Brown rally, Obama hit up Chicago to stump for Pat Quinn's gubernatorial campaign. The president also laid out his Monday morning plans: "The first thing I am going to do tomorrow is cast my vote (for Quinn)."
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AROUND THE SENATE RACES -- North Carolina goes national: If you are an enterprising reporter looking to write a trend story, North Carolina's got it all, from big spending to "war on women" messaging to a surge in ebola and terror politics. WaPo's Matea Gold: "Sen. Kay Hagan (D), and her allies had successfully framed the campaign as a referendum on the sharp conservative turn taken by the state legislature under the leadership of [Thom] Tillis, the House speaker. But in the past few weeks, the conversation has pivoted amid alarming headlines about terrorism and a virulent epidemic, further tightening what is expected to be the most expensive Senate race in U.S. history.

"Hagan has found herself on the defensive, acknowledging that she missed a classified briefing about national security threats to attend a campaign fundraiser in New York in February. On Friday, she called on Obama to temporarily ban the travel of non-U.S. citizens from affected countries in West Africa, just days after saying that such a tactic 'is not going to help' unless it was part of a broader strategy ... 'Speaker Tillis can only criticize,' Hagan told reporters after a campaign stop in Charlotte on Sunday. 'He has not one idea on his own that he would put forward - not one.'"
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New Hampshire clip machine: NJ's Emily Schultheis takes a look at Scott Brown's willingness to jump in just about any national debate. If the president's giving a speech these days, the former Massachusetts senator's response is one of the first to end up in our inboxes.
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Alaska scramble: The Dispatch News takes a look at Mark Begich's last stand as the embattled Democratic senator pulls out all the stops for a win this fall. "No audience is too small; almost no opportunity gets turned down. One night you might find Begich at Homer's Salty Dawg Saloon, sipping beers with the locals. The next day, he may be flying to a far-flung village. On Tuesday night, Begich was in his hometown of Anchorage telling the tale of how he met his wife. At the storytelling forum 'Arctic Entries,' Begich, 52, shared a blown-up photo with the crowd of nearly 700, showing them just how heinous -- and endearing -- his hair was in his mid-20s."
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HOW TO GET CRUZ'S VOTE: The conservative Texas senator is out with an op-ed this morning outlining how he believes Republicans should run Congress -- and it's not exactly a kumbaya guide to bipartisanship. Here's 10 things he wants the Hill to do if Republicans take over: "Embrace a big pro-jobs, growth agenda ... Second, pursue all means possible to repeal Obamacare ... Third, secure the border and stop illegal amnesty ... Fourth, hold government accountable and rein in judicial activism ... Fifth, stop the culture of corruption ... Sixth, pass fundamental tax reform, making taxes flatter, simpler, and fairer ... Seventh, audit the Federal Reserve ...Eighth, pass a strong balanced budget
amendment ...Ninth, repeal Common Core, so that local curriculum is not mandated by Washington bureaucrats ...Tenth, deal seriously with the twin threats of ISIL and a nuclear Iran."
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MEET BEN SASSE: The Lincoln Journal Star takes a look at what kind of senator the favored Nebraska Republican will be. It's a little more complicated, he says, than the DeMint/Cruz caucus Republican that we here in Washington are expecting. "'I'm right of center' ... 'A constructive conservative,' he suggested ... 'The Republican Party has to be able to explain what we're for, that we're for people, not just against programs.'"
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FRIDAY'S TRIVIA WINNER - Matthew Shapanka was the first to answer that the first Cabinet Department led by a woman was the Labor Department, led by Frances Perkins, who was appointed by President Franklin Roosevelt. Runner-up goes to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.

TODAY'S TRIVIA - On this day 211 years ago, seven senators voted against ratification of this landmark deal. The first person to correctly answer gets a mention in the next day's Huddle. Email me at
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