CNN 2011-11-10

 A bit of breaking news from yesterday afternoon.Many of you know who Michael Jackson was.The self-titled king of pon died of heart attack two years ago at age 50.Yesterday,a jury found that Jackson's personal doctor Conrad Murray was guilty of involuntary manslaughter.Michael Jackson had trouble sleeping,and what Murray did was give Jackson Propofol,a drug used to keep people asleep during surgery.That,along with other sleeping drugs,is what killed Michael Jackson.Dcotor Murray could be sentenced to 4 years in prison for the crime.

It's an election day in the United States.A lot of local elections are happening from positions like city council,mayor and judge.The big presidential vote is 363 days from now.Most is pretty certain that no Democrats 1 will challenge president Obama for his party's nomination 2.We don't know yet who represents the Republicans.The Reoublican debates you've heard about helped voters.Here's what the candidates have to say.
The process of deciding the Republican nominee 3 will start earlier next year in a series of dicussions called primaries and caucuses 4.Typically,the incumbent 5 president,a leader who's running for re-election,has some advantages in campaigning against these challenges.Jessica Y explains what these advantages are ,and why president isn't taking advantage of all of them.
Whether it's airforce 1,hail to the chief,or even the white house itself.
This crisp,cool day in the rose garden.
Part of the re-election playbook is leveraging 6 the power and prestige of the presidency 7 to overshadow your opponent.That hasn't always worked.The so-called rose garden strategy has been deployed 8 by most modern presidents.
Most of the predecessors 9 of Barack Obama would use the White House as a staging platform.They want to remind people that they're the commander-in-chief,that there's just an inherent power in seeing the great seal of the United States behind you from the White House.
Burned by the Washington gridlock,president Obama is taking a different approach.
Washington,right now,is politically as toxic 10 as you can get.And that's most people can remember it being.I think the president enjoys going out and talking to the American people.
So over the past 3 months,he's repeatedly hit the road to small towns,looking more like candidate Obama than commander-in-chief,often ditching airforce 1 for a bus,rolling up his shirt sleeves.Sometimes skipping hill to chief altogether.The image mirrors the message.
It was time to get out of Washington.
The president wants to distance himself from Washington and the partisan 11 politics that he promised but failed to fix.
Some folks on Washington don't seem to be listening.What's broken is our politics.The problem is that we got the kind of partisan brinksmanship that is willing to put party ahead country.You'll hear him say throughout the campaign that he's trying to break the gridlock,something he explained at a recent press conference.
I used up a lot of political capital and I got the dings and bruises 12 to prove it.
Democrats say the message can work.
He can go out and say I've been trying to change the system.I've been fighting the established order and pushing my job's bill which is really I think the best thing he's got going for him right now.
But Republicans are already building a case against it.The problem is he's a head of the government in Washington.And his party controls half of the Congress in Washington.It just becomes a very ,very difficult sell to the American people to persuade them that the head of the Democratic party that controls the Senate and the head of the entire government is running against the government that he heads.