A veteran campaign worker before he can even vote(CNN) - He's only 16 years old, but CNN White House correspondent Dan Lothian reports on one Michigan teen who made waives in the Obama campaign. American leadership focus of Obama-Romney lunchWashington (CNN) – Mitt Romney's lunch at the White House Thursday was not how the former GOP nominee would have imagined it a month ago, but it did provide a postscript to this year's punishing presidential battle. The former candidate, whose motorcade during the campaign could shut down streets and stretch entire city blocks, arrived at a side entrance of the executive mansion in a single black Lincoln SUV. He sat in the front passenger seat. Gov. Romney comes to the White House![]() President Obama welcomes his opponent in the 2012 campaign, Governor Mitt Romney, to the White House today for lunch. The much-anticipated meeting will happen today at 12:30p as the two men sit down in the private dining room of the White House. Unfortunately, there is no coverage of the event so we hope that the White House will release a photo. Beyond that meeting, the only other meeting on the president's schedule is a meeting with American Nobel prize winners. That, too, is not open to the press. Presumably, the remainder of Obama's day will be spent behind closed doors, working on a solution to the impending fiscal cliff crisis. White House Press Secretary Jay Carney will brief reporters while Romney and Obama are eating lunch. For the full guidance released by the White House, click below. FULL POST Behind the scenes: Covering a presidential campaign![]() The 2012 presidential campaign is now over, and it’s back to business as normal for CNN’s White House unit. Covering a campaign requires a lot of planning, mental focus, and great physical effort. The days were 20-plus hours long while sleep was elusive and short. For example, one day the press following President Obama woke up in Cleveland, Ohio for a campaign event in the morning, then traveled to Dubuque, Iowa for an evening rally, then flew to Concord, New Hampshire and took an hour long bus ride to Nashua, checking into a hotel at 2 am, only to wake up a few hours later and do it all over again. An example of some of the memories from election night in Chicago is this “eye-candy” picture of the shadows of (L to R) CNN White House correspondent Brianna Keilar, photojournalist Burke Buckhorn, and producer Adam Aigner-Treworgy doing a live report from the floor of McCormick Plaza on election night. Foiled WH arrival plans![]() According to multiple WH aides, White House staff planned to assemble on the South Lawn to greet President Obama as he returned this evening but the arrival has now been changed due to weather, as pool has noted. POTUS will arrive by motorcade instead of chopper and that means only a limited pool of reporters get to see him come in and staff members who were looking forward to welcoming him home, no doubt with cheers, will not get to do so. Fair to say some disappointed folks here at the White House. Analysis: Obama's new Democratic majorityWashington (CNN) - If you want to understand the historical magnitude of President Obama's re-election victory, start with this fact: He lost the white vote by 20 points. In 1988, Mike Dukakis lost white voters by 19 points. He was crushed in a 40-state landslide. Obama's victory is a testament to a changing America. The president won a second term in the face of a weak economy by reassembling the bulk of his 2008 coalition: Hispanics, African-Americans, younger voters and single women. Mitt Romney's support was older, whiter, and more Protestant than the president's - a faded shadow of a time gone by. It also bore a striking resemblance to Sen. John McCain's coalition four years ago. Obama is reelectedAt 11:18 p.m. ET, CNN projected that President Obama has run reelection. Full coverage HERE Who's coming to dinner?The president's daughters and mother in law have flown into Chicago for an Election Night dinner, according to the White House pool report:
![]() FILE/President Obama plays basketball with personal aide Reggie Love and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan in May 2010. Election Day tradition: Game of hoops![]() In keeping with an Election Day tradition, President Obama took time out of his day to get in a game of hoops at a gym near his home in Chicago. The game, organized by the president's former personal aide Reggie Love, took place at the Attack Athletic facility about ten miles from the Obamas' house in the Kenwood neighborhood. Among the players, former Chicago Bulls Scottie Pipen and Randy Brown and former Illinois state treasurer and 2010 Democratic Senate nominee Alexi Giannoulias. Giannoulias gave few details over Twitter of the game and later talked to a reporter in the president's travel pool. According to Giannoulias, Obama was the player-coach of his team of five and his team won by "like 20", with a score of "like 102, 105, 108 or so to 80-something." Each team had substitutes and referees were present to call fouls. “It was a lot of fun,” Giannoulias said. “We won. I scored more points than Scottie Pippen, which was my dream come true.” He also said the president "played very well" but declined to say how many points he scored. Education Secretary Arne Duncan, Obama friend Marty Nesbitt, the president's brother-in-law Craig Robinson and White House chef Sam Kass were also among the players. The tradition of playing basketball on Election Day has been a staple of the president's routine since the Iowa caucuses in 2008. He didn't play on the day of the New Hampshire primary and Hillary Clinton won so he's made it a priority of playing on every Election Day since.
His days as a candidate over, Obama to lie low awaiting results![]() (CNN) - The final curtain isn't likely to fall on this presidential election until the wee hours of Wednesday morning, but President Barack Obama's moment to exit the stage came more than 24 hours earlier. With the imposing Iowa State Capitol looming over a soggy crowd that bore near-freezing temperatures in windswept Des Moines, Obama made his last major appearance of the 2012 campaign to urge the more than 20,000 supporters to maintain the enthusiasm that first catapulted him from a fresh-faced senator to presidential front-runner nearly five years ago. Flanked by first lady Michelle Obama and rock star Bruce Springsteen, Obama's final bow came in the Hawkeye State as the clock approached midnight there, marking at long last the arrival of Election Day and the end of the president's last campaign - 105 rallies after kicking off his re-election effort in Ohio and Virginia seven months prior. |
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