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By Scott Wong (
mailto:swong@politico.com
swong@politico.com or @scottwongDC)

OBAMA'S NEW SEQUESTER VOW -- Philip Ewing reports for the hometown paper: "President Barack Obama startled Washington during Monday night's foreign policy debate when he said billions in automatic Pentagon cuts 'will not happen' - a line that could weaken his bargaining power during an epic spending and tax fight expected when Congress returns. Obama was responding to criticism from Republican rival Mitt Romney that American national security is at risk if the defense cuts are triggered in early January. 'First of all, the sequester is not something I proposed, it's something that Congress proposed,' Obama said. 'It will not happen.'

-- "The remark stakes new ground for the president, who has said he wants to avert the sequester cuts by taking a 'balanced' approach to solving the budget debacle - meaning he will not sign off on a deal that cuts spending, but doesn't increase revenues. His strongest bargaining chip: the sequester cuts, which he may have just taken off the table. After the debate, White House senior adviser David Plouffe toned down the president's remarks, saying that 'everyone in Washington agrees that sequester 'should not happen.'' ...

-- Defense hawks pounced. "I was astonished, I almost fell out of my chair when the president said, 'Don't worry, sequestration won't happen,'" Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz) said on POLITICO Live. "We've been begging the president to sit down with us to avoid what his own secretary of defense said would be a devastating blow to our national security. He just said, 'Don't worry, sequestration won't happen.' He's not a dictator yet.'"
http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=080d30a166993670c6e9c71c4c7b78336816cb027c6eaa916264e7b67402b798
http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=080d30a166993670c6e9c71c4c7b78336816cb027c6eaa916264e7b67402b798

POLITICO EXCLUSIVE: OBAMA LAUNCHES ECONOMIC PLAN FOR SECOND TERM - Speaking at 10:10 a.m. in Delray, Fla., President Obama will unveil a 20-page book version of his plan detailing what a second term would mean for middle class Americans.

THE PLAN:Cover and "Economy"
http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=080d30a166993670bb98e05174973a36a7d0cc40bfed3d3d7b8850c296228256
http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=080d30a166993670bb98e05174973a36a7d0cc40bfed3d3d7b8850c296228256 ... "Manufacturing" and "Energy"
http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=080d30a166993670d3c517609d382841a8c7ee7e0add5402e359cbcbe4fc9f5a
http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=080d30a166993670d3c517609d382841a8c7ee7e0add5402e359cbcbe4fc9f5a ... "Small Businesses" and "Education"
http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=080d30a166993670bf318cb57fca45069edf082091bb3104d31a580b4369f7fc
http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=080d30a166993670bf318cb57fca45069edf082091bb3104d31a580b4369f7fc ... "Tax Plan" and "Health Care"
http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=080d30a166993670b49d99ff423d6a5ccbec90ce178f6d13cbfa6213a41d89bb
http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=080d30a166993670b49d99ff423d6a5ccbec90ce178f6d13cbfa6213a41d89bb ... "Retirement" and "Moving America Forward"
http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=080d30a166993670b05277e187cd12feedf20dc4507284f2eae8b54529e946bf
http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=080d30a166993670b05277e187cd12feedf20dc4507284f2eae8b54529e946bf ... Back cover
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http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=080d30a166993670a95c79cb523c4f9c7511e1fd1c2fc022f6d50f79c9333635

-- An Obama campaign official explains: "Throughout the course of the campaign, whether it was on the stump, in the two-minute direct to camera advertisement or in the Convention speech, the President has laid out a detailed plan to continue moving America forward and restore economic security for the middle class - a new economic patriotism.He's also warned against returning to the same policies that crashed the economy and punished the middle class in the first place."

3.5M COPIES WILL BE PRINTED: The effort will include direct mail, advertisements, and distribution at field offices. The president, vice president, and all Obama surrogates will hold up the plan at events and ask the campaign's grassroots organizers to do everything it can to share the plan with family, friends, neighbors, co-workers and others to reach every undecided voter in the remaining days of this election.

--It will be accompanied by a new 60-second spot that will go up in the following swing states:NH, VA, NC, FL, OH, IA, WI, NV, CO.
http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=080d30a16699367050b9037acc782d195c069a0b7b9175892101051692c24f34
http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=080d30a16699367050b9037acc782d195c069a0b7b9175892101051692c24f34

AT 8:30 A.M.ON POLITICO LIVE --Jonathan Allen hosts special edition of "Driving the Day" with RNC Chairman Reince Priebus from Boca Raton, Fla. Watch at: politico.com/livestream

PELOSI MOVE SETS TONGUES WAGGING - POLITICO's Jake Sherman, John Bresnahan and Anna Palmer report: "By delaying House Democratic leadership elections until after Thanksgiving, she's spurred speculation about whether she is going to stay atop the caucus. On top of that, the delay is a reflection of the diminished Democratic hopes of taking control of the House. Pelosi aides insist the leadership pushed back the internal elections because rank-and-file lawmakers were overwhelmed by three candidates running for vice chair of the Democratic Caucus - the lowest leadership spot. But Democratic insiders say Pelosi's move means one of two things: She's getting out of leadership and wants to give
someone else a chance to organize a movement against Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.), the long-time number two; or she's simply buying time to consider her future if Democrats fall short of the majority."
http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=080d30a16699367014075bf1c5ee8d63d478527809b6d7f19c6fe6ff586ec076
http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=080d30a16699367014075bf1c5ee8d63d478527809b6d7f19c6fe6ff586ec076

NO VOTE, BUT NORTON HAS A VOICE -- "In the political hothouse that is Washington, mayors come and mayors go, along with senators, House members and presidents. But [Eleanor Holmes] Norton, in her 11th term in Congress and seeking another on Nov. 6, is a fixture, her exalted stature infused by her years as a feminist, academic, constitutional lawyer and civil rights activist. Yet, for all her acclaim, Norton represents the District without the accoutrement that adds power to swagger - a vote on the House floor - a fact that makes her the object of sympathy, admiration and no small amount of ridicule. 'The fake congresswoman' is how Stephen Colbert has introduced her to his television nation.
What Norton possesses is her voice, one that she has used to press a broad spectrum of causes, whether organizing blacks in the deep South during the civil rights movement or defending former Alabama governor George Wallace's right to hold a rally in New York City in 1968.

"In Congress, she has crusaded for statehood and voting rights for her home town, an effort that has yielded few results and exposed her to criticism that she is ineffective. But what everyone agrees on is that Norton is capable of mixing eloquence and withering outrage, like on that day in 2007 when she answered a colleague who tried to interrupt her on the House floor, a moment replayed on YouTube no fewer than 10,000 times. 'I will not yield, sir!' Norton bellowed, her diminutive frame seeming to vibrate behind the rostrum. 'The District of Columbia has spent 206 years yielding to the people who would deny them the vote! I yield you no ground!'"
http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=080d30a1669936701f358964c64814e773125d95cbe7e177105f8c92424e07b4
http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=080d30a1669936701f358964c64814e773125d95cbe7e177105f8c92424e07b4

LAWMAKERS URGE PATIENCE WITH JACKSON JR. - Bridget Doyle reports for the Chicago Tribune: "Two Illinois Democratic colleagues met Monday with Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. at his Washington home, then flew home to urge his constituents and the news media to give him time to recover from his bipolar disorder out of the limelight. 'He has not been derelict in his duties (as congressman),' said Rep. Bobby Rush, appearing with Rep. Danny Davis at an O'Hare International Airport news conference Monday night. Rush said the controversial lawmaker was like 'the Derrick Rose of the Illinois delegation' - a star sidelined by injury. 'No one is clamoring for Derrick Rose to come back before he should,'
Rush said of the Bulls star. Confirming reports that Jackson planned to return to the Mayo Clinic this week for further treatment, Rush said the lawmaker left for Mayo by car later Monday."
http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=080d30a166993670df98ed1c65b09b7f3688f010041331994752a3d8566e1076
http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=080d30a166993670df98ed1c65b09b7f3688f010041331994752a3d8566e1076

-- Jackson was leading his GOP opponent in a new poll 58 percent to 27 percent:
http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=080d30a166993670e6c8afc7fed93df6d42d2885b626b9c3dc0a8cf58202d00b
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FORMER MD. CONGRESSMAN LISTED IN BOY SCOUT FILES - The Baltimore Sun's Kevin Rector reports: "A once-prominent Eastern Shore congressman who left office in 1980 amid allegations that he had solicited sex from a 16-year-old male prostitute was flagged the same year by the Boy Scouts of America in the organization's expansive 'perversion files.' The file on former Rep. Robert E. 'Bob' Bauman provides yet another glimpse into the way the organization compiled its confidential records, which were made public last week by court order. They outline decades of allegations of sexual abuse or misconduct by people affiliated with the Boy Scouts. Bauman, now 75, denied any official connection to
the organization when reached Monday at his home in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. Scouting officials in 1980 described a somewhat tangential connection with the legislator, but a file was created nonetheless."
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QUICK HITS

Sen. John Kerry, who played Mitt Romney during President Obama's debate prep, called the former governor the "Wikipedia candidate."
http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=080d30a166993670d6e8782671bd863c7950e4fc6e59dd47147492d8332a7eef
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Paul Ryan pushed back this morning on Obama's "bayonets" jab during the debate.
http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=080d30a166993670c9aa232f3cb1bafb2cd444c5f881ca6d6ccbf7ae32838cfb
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Rep. Todd Akin (R-Mo.) is doubling down on his remarks that Sen. Claire McCaskill is like a "dog" fetching headaches in Washington. What kind of dog? A "bullshitsu," Akin's spokesman tweeted.
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GOOD TUESDAY MORNING, October 23, 2012, and welcome to The Huddle, your play-by-play preview of the day's congressional news. Send tips, suggestions, comments, complaints and corrections to
mailto:swong@politico.com
swong@politico.com . If you don't already, please follow me on Twitter @scottwongDC.

My new followers include but are not limited to @RepTomGraves and @MayorDuncan.

GOP EYES PENNSYLVANIA - The Washington Post's Paul Kane reports from Elkins Park, Pa.: "Having gone for the Democrats in every White House contest for the past 20 years, the Keystone State was abandoned early by Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney without a single dollar spent in the critical Philadelphia TV market. Usually a fiercely contested battleground in congressional races - the two parties spent $15 million on the airwaves fighting over three suburban districts here six years ago - the region has no competitive House contests this fall. And Sen. Robert P. Casey Jr. (D), the scion of a political dynasty, was coasting toward reelection after a huge win in 2006. But apparently
no one told Tom Smith that Pennsylvania was off the grid. The coal industry executive has put $17 million of his own money into the Senate race, and with no competing ads on the air in Philadelphia for weeks, Smith, the GOP's nominee, had a relatively free run at Casey until recently. ...

-- "Now, outside interest groups are considering ad buys in the Senate race, which remains a long shot but might be the only chance Republicans have of securing the majority, given their stumbles in other Senate contests. Additionally, Romney's campaign dipped a toe back into Pennsylvania on Saturday when his running mate, Rep. Paul Ryan (Wis.), held a rally with Smith at Pittsburgh's airport - the first time Ryan or Romney had been in the state in almost a month. On Sunday, Romney officials said that they were intrigued by the state but that no final decisions had been made on whether to finance ads here."
http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=080d30a1669936708da12951897223be2a534a4b2349c24a9fca085a3d9a4b4c
http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=080d30a1669936708da12951897223be2a534a4b2349c24a9fca085a3d9a4b4c

--Also read POLITICO's Manu Raju's take on the Pennsylvania race from last weekend:
http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=080d30a166993670543559b2521f8f67ca2e0e74eacb49721b22e8c85c4c8ce9
http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=080d30a166993670543559b2521f8f67ca2e0e74eacb49721b22e8c85c4c8ce9

THE PEOPLE'S PLEDGE - Roll Call's Joshua Miller reports from Lowell, Mass.: "When Republican Sen. Scott Brown proposed a pledge to eliminate third-party ads in his race with Democrat Elizabeth Warren, it had all the makings of a well-crafted but wonkish piece of political theater. Press reviews would be positive, but its run would be short. Surprisingly, 10 months and tens of millions of dollars later, the simple contract - imposing steep penalties on the candidates if the pledge was broken - has held. There have been many negative ads in this white-hot contest that could determine control of the chamber, but each begins or ends with the candidate standing by the spot. The victor of the
Senate race will be able to plausibly claim that the agreement - with its alliterative royal moniker, the People's Pledge - was to his or her benefit. What is certain is that it irrevocably changed the contours of one of the most hard-fought races in the country."
http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=080d30a166993670da89b0696f390be10fd633c59536eab9a24b8349257d8919
http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=080d30a166993670da89b0696f390be10fd633c59536eab9a24b8349257d8919

-- The Boston Globe's Noah Bierman writes on A1 that Warren and Brown are honing their pitches to voters in the home stretch: "As the tightly fought Senate race heads into its final two weeks, Elizabeth Warren has sharpened her emphasis on the national stakes of her campaign, arguing that the election is essential to determining which party controls the Senate. It is a simple and direct appeal, intended to court Democratic-leaning voters who pay little attention to politics but are expected to cast ballots for President Obama and therefore may want a Senate that backs his policies. Brown is closing with a promise to work across the aisle, calling himself one of the last of a dying breed of
moderates who can break the gridlock in an increasingly polarized Washington. Brown's message capitalizes on evidence in polls that voters are deeply frustrated with partisanship."
http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=080d30a1669936704a2c9bb145ebf61949049f946aa5fe6b8de8cc72fa1eacca
http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=080d30a1669936704a2c9bb145ebf61949049f946aa5fe6b8de8cc72fa1eacca

BUSTIN' THE FILIBUSTER - "Whoever wins the White House, there will be appointments, judicial nominations and legislation a-plenty heading to Congress - and one thing to watch for is early action in the Senate on filibuster reform," Emily Heil writes for the Washington Post. "Proponents of overhauling the curious Senate custom see a window of opportunity, but it's a narrow one with plenty of chances to cloud up. After opposing filibuster reform, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) is now in favor of tweaking it, blaming the procedure for tying the closely divided Senate in knots. If there's going to be any action, it's likely to come in the first day or so of the new session. The crux
of the argument for taking what's known in Senate parlance as the 'constitutional option' (in which the Senate rules would be changed with the consent of only a simple majority) is that the Senate's rules don't carry over from session to session, and so making a change would have to happen in the early hours of the new Congress."
http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=080d30a1669936708715ac6e7077dcf528697ed8ff6f7cf3da079a59dff449f4
http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=080d30a1669936708715ac6e7077dcf528697ed8ff6f7cf3da079a59dff449f4

HILL LEADERS FIND NICHE ROLES IN CAMPAIGN -- AP's Andrew Taylor tracks down top congressional leaders this campaign season: "At the top of their roosts in Washington, leaders of Congress are, as usual, turning out to be niche players on the national campaign stage. The Senate's top two leaders, Democratic Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada and Republican Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, are tending to home-state politics. Not so in the House, where Republican Speaker John A. Boehner of Ohio and Democratic Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of California are crisscrossing the country, siphoning every last dollar of campaign cash they can find to help win House seats. More junior
House and Senate leaders are out campaigning and raising money as well - not just to win this year's races, but to shore up rank-and-file support for when it's their turn to run for the top jobs on Capitol Hill.

-- "For Mr. Reid, all politics is local. For the most part, he's staying in Nevada, where he is at the helm of a powerhouse political machine that's fully cranked up on behalf of President Obama. Nevada is a crucial swing state and one that Mr. Obama increasingly needs to hold as polls show states such as North Carolina and Florida slipping away.On top of his efforts to help Mr. Obama, Mr. Reid is working hard to unseat Sen. Dean Heller, a fellow Nevadan, who was appointed to replace Republican Sen. John Ensign. Mr. Ensign resigned last year after a scathing report from the Senate Ethics Committee on his efforts to cover up an affair with the wife of a top aide."
http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=080d30a16699367011a06b86b4756b5fa87395eaeb586533392da83b0715f973
http://go.politicoemail.com/?qs=080d30a16699367011a06b86b4756b5fa87395eaeb586533392da83b0715f973

TUESDAY'S TRIVIA WINNER - Victoria Perrone, a recent Catholic University grad who's now working on a congressional campaign in Ohio, was first to correctly answer that Mary Josephine Hannon, John F. Kennedy's maternal grandmother, was the only person to live to see his or her grandchild become U.S. president.

TODAY'S TRIVIA - Perrone has today's question: Which two recent RNC and DNC chairman who served at the same time were also college classmates in college? And which school did they attend? First to correctly answer gets a mention in the next day's Huddle. Email me at
mailto:swong@politico.com
swong@politico.com .

WEATHER - Partly cloudy and warm with highs between 75 and 80 degrees, according to ABC7's Brian van de Graaff.

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