Senator Scott Brown Pulls Out of Debate

BOSTON - Senator Scott P. Brown's campaign announced Monday afternoon that he would not participate in his fourth and final debate with Elizabeth Warren, his Democratic challenger, on Tuesday night, citing Hurricane Sandy.

“It is simply not appropriate to go forward with a political debate when a disaster strikes,” Colin Reed, a spokesman for Mr. Brown, said in a statement.

The announcement came with little notice to the debate sponsors, a consortium of Massachusetts media outlets.

The Warren campaign subsequently issued a statement saying that Ms. Warren agreed that safety was paramount and that the debate should not be held.

A poll in The Boston Globe on Monday showed Mr. Brown, above, in a dead heat with Ms. Warren, a positive turn of events for the Republican, who had been trailing in most recent polls.

Still, some political experts said Mr. Brown's pullout seemed risky.

“He appears to be slightly down in this race and he could use a big debate to change the dynamic,” said Rob Gray, a Republican consultant not involved in the race. “We're not talking about an incumbent who is up by 10 points; we're talking about a death match where you need to do everything you can to beat the other candidate.”

The Caucus Click: Biden and Clinton in Ohio

Meg Roussos for The New York TimesVice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. and former president Bill Clinton were greeted with a strong gust of wind as they exited Air Force Two on Monday in Youngstown, Ohio.

With Obama Tending to Storm, Clinton Campaigns for Him in Florida

ORLANDO, Fla. - With Hurricane Sandy barreling towards the Northeast on Monday, former President Bill Clinton played stand-in for President Obama at a campaign rally here at the University of Central Florida.

Mr. Obama had canceled his appearance to return to Washington, but Mr. Clinton easily (and happily) became the event's headliner, rescuing a potentially disappointing turn of events. Revving up the crowd of several thousand students who woke up early and waited hours outside on the state's first crisp autumn morning, Mr. Clinton talked about jobs, higher education and rising tuition costs. He was joined by Senator Bill Nelson, a Florida Democrat, and Charlie Crist, the former Republican governor turned independent who incensed Republicans here in August by backing Mr. Obama.

“I'm supposed to be the warm-up man for President Obama today, but that storm on the East Coast had other ideas,” Mr. Clinton said.

Mr. Clinton told the students that univers ities must focus more on teaching science and technology. This will allow America to better compete for jobs, he said.

“We have a demand every year in America for 120,000 jobs in computer science, and we're only educating 40,000 computer scientists in the whole country,” Mr. Clinton said. “We can do better than that. President Obama wants to do that.”

Mr. Clinton also praised Mr. Obama's efforts in expanding student loans, a crowd-pleaser here at the university.

“On this issue alone, every person within the sound of my voice should vote for Barack Obama,” said Mr. Clinton, who added that Mitt Romney supports reducing funds for Pell Grants and higher education.

One of the biggest cheers from Obama supporters came when Mr. Clinton praised the president's health care law and its provision allowing children to remain on their parents' insurance policies until age 26.

Mr. Crist, the onetime Republican who became an independent in 2010 for his unsuccessful Senate run against Marco Rubio, praised Mr. Obama for his willingness to work across party lines.

“He didn't care about parties, he only cared about people,” Mr. Crist said, reflecting on the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. “The president was here day after day after day, just like he's fighting for people in the Northeast now.”

App Snapshot: Romney\'s Move to the Middle and What Happens After Jan. 20

The presidential candidates suspended their campaign activities on Monday because of the major Atlantic storm barreling into the East Coast. Voters can take advantage of the down time to examine the candidates' statements - in the past and about the future - a bit more closely. In any weather, we're collecting the most important politics news in the Election 2012 app.

THE NARRATIVE
The Boston Globe tracks how Mitt Romney's tone has changed since the Republican primary, and The Los Angeles Times looks at how he has used his running mate, Representative Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin.

• Romney's Shift to the Middle
  Here are statements Mr. Romney has made recently, contrasted with statements he made earlier in the election contest. (Globe subscription not required.) (The Boston Globe)
• As Ro mney Edges Toward Moderation, Ryan Takes a Lower Profile
  As Mr. Romney highlights moderate views, care is taken to ensure he isn't upstaged by his conservative running mate. (The Los Angeles Times)

AFTER JAN. 20
Mr. Romney's closing argument paints a picture of his “day one” in office, and President Obama said his “first order of business” in a second term would be the deficit.

• Romney's Closing Argument a Picture of ‘Day One'
  Mr. Romney's final message will focus on tasks he hopes to take on during his first day in office if elected; all of the points relate to the economy, according to an outline. (CNN)
• Obama Says ‘First Order of Business' in Second Term Would Be Deficit
  In an interview, Mr. Obama listed deficit reduction, immigration reform, education, and infrastructure as top priorities that he would tackle if he were re-elected. (The Hill)

New Ad Attacks the Romney Campaign\'s Claims on Auto Bailout

As the presidential campaigns intensify their fight over the auto bailout, the Obama campaign releases a new ad that criticizes Mitt Romney for running an ad that misleadingly implies that Chrysler, a bailout recipient, is moving jobs to China from Toledo.

Donors Make Last-Minute Investments in House Races

A group of wealthy donors from around the country appear to be functioning as a sort of SWAT team on behalf of Democratic and Republican candidates by pouring last-minute contributions into competitive House races. What is notable about these 11th-hour gifts is that they often represent the first time the donors have given to these campaigns.

The hedge fund manager Joseph A. DiMenna Jr. and his wife, Diana, have put at least $40,000 into nine House races since Oct. 17, including the campaigns of Representative Bobby Schilling of Illinois, a conservative freshman facing a tough re-election bid, and Andy Barr, a Kentucky lawyer who is the Republican challenger to an incumbent Democrat, Ben Chandler.

Previously, the DiMennas had given more than $70,000 to the Romney Victory Fund, a committee benefiting Mitt Romney's presidential campaign and Republican Party committees.

David and Susan Duff, who own and operate Pine Bluff Coal in Kentucky, have given at least $30,000 in October to House campaigns in New York, Minnesota, California, Arizona and Florida. Among the six candidates they supported are Ann Marie Buerkle of New York and Chip Cravaack of Minnesota, two other freshman Republicans. Earlier in the election cycle, the Duffs donated $60,000 to American Crossroads, a “super PAC” that supports Mr. Romney and other Republican candidates.

But Democratic supporters are also getting in on the act during the campaign's final days. Gilbert Silverman, a Michigan developer, has given at least $33,000 to 27 Democrats in more than a dozen states stretching from New Hampshire to California. Mary and Steven Swig, a California couple whose business interests include a real estate firm and a lingerie company, sank at least $15,000 this month into seven House campaigns in Ohio, Arizona, Florida, Illinois and California. Among those they supported were Representative Betty Sutton, who is trying to defeat a freshman Republican, James B. Renacci, in Ohio.

Before October, the Swigs and Mr. Silverman were major contributors to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, with each of the three contributing $30,800.

Candidates for the House and the Senate are required to file reports with the Federal Election Commission during the final 20 days of the campaign detailing contributions of at least $1,000. The full accounting of fund-raising during this period will be available in early December.

Hurricane Sandy Disrupts Campaign as Obama Cancels Appearances

Storm Roils Campaign as Obama Cancels Appearance

Doug Mills/The New York Times

President Obama greeted his motorcade at Andrews Air Force Base on Monday in Washington. Mr. Obama canceled his campaign plans on Monday to be at the White House as Hurricane Sandy made landfall in the Northeast.

WASHINGTON - President Obama on Monday morning abandoned political campaigning in the face of the huge storm barreling down on the East Coast, canceling an event in Florida and quickly heading back to Washington to coordinate emergency response from the White House.

Hurricane Sandy had already scrambled the political calendar in the final week of the campaign, forcing Mr. Obama and his rival, Mitt Romney, to call off events in Virginia and New Hampshire. Even so, the president flew on Sunday night to Orlando to attend a rally there on Monday.

But the magnitude of the storm and the potential for damage only increased overnight. And so did the prospect that Air Force One might not get back to Washington if it did not leave early Monday.

“Due to deteriorating weather conditions in the Washington area, the president will not attend today's campaign event in Orlando,” Jay Carney, the president's press secretary, said in an early-morning statement. “The president will return to the White House to monitor the preparations for and early response to Hurricane Sandy.”

The president's aides said that former President Bill Clinton would stand in for Mr. Obama at the Orlando rally. The campaign canceled the president's scheduled event in Wisconsin on Tuesday.

Mr. Romney, who flew to Ohio on Sunday night, is expected to keep his schedule of three rallies in Ohio, Iowa and Wisconsin. Mr. Romney campaigned in Ohio with his running mate, Representative Paul D. Ryan, on Sunday.

The storm has hampered Mr. Obama's ability to campaign much more. Pursuing political gain while millions face the possibility of power outages, flooding and high winds could make the president look ineffective and uncaring.

On the other hand, the storm also provides Mr. Obama the opportunity to look presidential at a time when voters have become tired of the caustic political talk they hear in television ads and at rallies. Conversely, wall-to-wall coverage of the storm may make it tough for Mr. Romney's campaign message to get through.

Even as the storm bears down, the presidential campaign is continuing on television, with ads for Mr. Romney and Mr. Obama filling in virtually all the space between storm reports on the cable and broadcast networks.

Mr. Obama's campaign announced on Sunday that it would suspend fund-raising e-mails to the states directly affected by the storm, and Mr. Romney's campaign did the same. And the Obama campaign said it would use its Web site, Twitter feed and Facebook page to urge people to donate to the Red Cross instead.

“We urge everyone to take appropriate safety precautions and to follow the guidance of emergency management and public safety officials, and we will continue to monitor the storm to ensure the safety of our supporters, volunteers and staff,” Jen Psaki, a campaign spokeswoman, said on Sunday.

Polls released over the weekend continued to show a tight race between the two men, nationally and in some of the battleground states that will decide which one reaches 270 electoral votes. A Gallup poll of likely voters on Sunday showed Mr. Romney leading Mr. Obama, 50 percent to 46 percent.

Mr. Romney's campaign said on Monday that he had been in touch with the governors of Virginia and New Jersey and that campaign workers in North Carolina, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania and New Jersey would be collecting relief supplies to deliver to local emergency facilities. In Virginia, the campaign will be loading storm-relief supplies onto the Romney bus for delivery, the campaign said.

Mr. Obama departed Orlando just after 8:30 a.m. and arrived in the Washington area just before 11 a.m. The press corps assigned to follow him has not been as lucky. Pilots of the charter plane carrying the reporters said on Monday that it was not safe to fly back to Washington from Florida, according to an e-mail from Ed Henry, the Fox News correspondent and president of the White House Correspondents Association. Mr. Henry said the reporters would stay in Orlando overnight.

Mr. Romney issued a statement on Sunday expressing his concern for the people in the path of the storm.

“For safety's sake, as you and your family prepare for the storm, please be sure to bring any yard signs inside. In high winds they can be dangerous and cause damage to homes and property,” Mr. Romney said. “I'm never prouder of America than when I see how we pull together in a crisis. There's nothing that we can't handle when we stand together.”

The Youth Vote: Was It Better Back Then?

Boomers, Millennials and the Ballot Box

V. Richard Haro/Fort Collins Coloradoan, via Associated Press

A Colorado State University student heads to a voting booth on Oct. 22, the first day of in-person voting. 

So, the election is approaching and you're a boomer. Many of the issues that will have a direct impact on you - Social Security, Medicare, government pensions - are likely to be affected by who wins the presidency.

You're certainly going to vote, but you're frustrated because your adult children may not. They do not have as much at stake.

Of course you'll want to shame them into it and you communicate this in a way that they can't possibly ignore.

You text them.

“Vote! When we were your age, we always voted :(”

Wrong.

Resend.

When boomers were their age, they voted at almost the exact rate that the young do now.

In 1976, when boomers were between 18 and 30 years old, their turnout rate was 50 percent. In 2008, 51 percent of millennials - ages 18 to 28 at the time - voted.

And in 1972, when boomers had many incentives to go to the polls, including the Vietnam-era draft, the numbers still weren't too different. A total of 54 percent of boomers voted in the Nixon-McGovern election, versus 49 percent of millennials in the 2004 Bush-Kerry race.

Even Peter Levine, an expert on young American voting patterns who compiled these statistics at my request, was surprised at the results he produced.

“I would have guessed there's more of a youth voting problem today,” he said. As the director of the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement, a nonpartisan research institute based at Tufts University, he specializes in civic issues affecting young people.

“The fact that they're right on par surprised me,” he said. “There's a lot of rhetoric about back in the day. I'm delighted.”

Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement

Even in 1972, during the Vietnam-era draft, turnout by boomers was not enormously higher than it was for millennials when they got a chance to vote.

It is not too surprising that as people age, they're more likely to vote. In the 2008 Obama-McCain election, 69 percent of boomers - aged 44 to 62 at the time - turned out compared to the 51 percent of 18- to 28-year-olds.

Connie Flanagan, a developmental psychologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, says voting is habit forming. “Once you've made your first vote, it becomes part of your routine,” she said. “Everyone you know votes. It feels like a moral and civic obligation.”

The young tend to have more chaotic lives, she says; classes on some days, part-time jobs on others, active social lives.

“As you get older, there is more of a steady rhythm to your life,” she said. “I'm an example - this afternoon my husband and I have made an appointment to vote early.”

Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement

The turnout by boomers and millennials at comparable ages has been fairly similar.

Mr. Levine points out that there are more issues to unite the boomers - born during the 1946 to 1964 post World War II population explosion - than the young. “A young person may be anything from a medical student to a prison inmate, and there's not lots of commonality of interests there,” he said. “Relationships are very varied and miscellaneous.”

While some younger voters might share an interest in military service or Pell grants, it's not as far-reaching as for older voters.

“No matter what your status as a boomer,” he said, “you're concerned with Social Security and Medicare - which gives a lot of people a personal reason to vote.”

According to a November 2011 poll by the Pew Research Center, 13 percent of millennials name Social Security as one of the issues that matters most to them, compared to 33 percent of boomers.

The 69 percent voting rate for boomers in the 2008 presidential race was the highest since 1972, the earliest comparable year and the first time eligibility was lowered to the current age of 18.

The number of boomers registered to vote in the 2008 election - 75 percent - is also the highest, except for 87 percent in 1972, which was an exceptional year for several reasons, including the draft and the lowering of the voting age.

But in 2008, 18- to 28-year-olds actually registered at a higher rate (61 percent) than the boomers of the same age for the Carter-Ford race in 1976 (58 percent).

“This is such good news,” Mr. Levine said. “Millennials have been getting such a bad rap.”

Connect with Michael Winerip on Facebook.

You can follow Booming via RSS or visit nytimes.com/booming.

Pro-Romney Group Makes Advertising Buy in Pennsylvania

The “super PAC” aiding Mitt Romney, Restore Our Future, is making a push into Pennsylvania, a state that has been considered a strong bet for President Obama.

On Monday the group put down just under $1 million for a slate of television commercials through next Monday, the day before the presidential election.

Right now no other political groups supporting the presidential candidates - nor either of campaigns - have deemed Pennsylvania competitive enough to place any resources on the air there. But Restore Our Future's advertising purchase could prompt others to follow suit.

Much of the $200,000 purchase includes the voter-rich Philadelphia media market, where Republicans believe they can make inroads with a number of different demographics, including Jewish voters who may be open the arguments put forward by the Romney campaign that Mr. Obama has not been supportive of Israel. Republicans have sought to drive distance between Mr. Obama and his Jewish constituency because of the recent tension between the United States and Israel over Iran.

To be sure, Restore Our Future has been making some of the more long-odd bets in recent weeks. It continues to have a strong presence on the air in Michigan, which has been strongly leaning toward Mr. Obama in many recent polls. But the group also placed what ended up being a smart - and seemingly long-shot - bet on Wisconsin earlier this fall when few others were willing to devote resources there.

Now many polls show Wisconsin, home of the Republican vice presidential nominee Paul Ryan, to be competitive.

Follow Jeremy W. Peters on Twitter at @ jwpetersNYT .

Hurricane Sandy Likely to Be Biggest of Late October Surprises

Hurricane Sandy is hardly the only late October surprise to disturb the careful choreography of recent presidential campaigns, though it will probably be the most disruptive.

The late October surprises of recent elections have been much more subtle â€" changes at the 11th hour that had far less impact on the nation and its voters, but which nonetheless forced campaigns off their carefully drafted blueprints just before Election Day. Here is a look at a few.

- Four years ago, President Obama left the frenzied campaign trail only 11 days before the election to travel to Hawaii to say goodbye to his ailing grandmother, who had helped raise him. He then returned to the final sprint of the campaign, which had already been upended by the September surprise of the financial crisis, and she died the day before he was elected president.

- In the waning days of the 2004 election, the race was upended by the release of a video of Osama bin Laden telling the Ameri can people, “Your security is not in the hands of Kerry or Bush or Al Qaeda; your security is in your own hands.” Some analysts believed that its release helped President George W. Bush win re-election, by putting the focus on terrorism just before people went to the polls.

- And days before the 2000 election, news leaked that Mr. Bush had been arrested in 1976 for drunken driving in Kennebunkport, Me., throwing a late curveball into the campaign.

Hurricane Sandy promised to be a much bigger late October surprise. The candidates have scrambled their schedules to avoid the storm; Maryland suspended its early voting on Monday, and other states may follow suit; the Sunday talk shows were pre-empted in large parts of the East Coast for hurricane coverage; television stations in some states are not running the ads both campaigns bought as they cover the storm nonstop; and both campaigns are having to calculate how to continue their tasks of trying to persuade vot ers without seeming callous in the face of a potential disaster. And looming behind it all is the worry that lasting damage could disrupt the election in places.

Follow Michael Cooper on Twitter at @coopnytimes.

Q&A: Turning Off Mac Screen Notifications

Q.

Ever since I upgraded to Mountain Lion on the Mac, I get distracted by little balloons that appear on the screen when I get new e-mail messages. I looked in the Mail preferences and didn't see a way to turn these off. Is this an irreversible feature?

A.

Those little alert balloons are part of the Notifications feature of OS X 10.8, the system otherwise known as Mountain Lion. You can change their appearance or turn them off entirely, but to do so, you need to visit the preferences for Notifications.

To get there, click the System Preferences icon in the Dock or go to the Apple Menu in the top left corner of the screen and choose System Preferences. In the System Preferences box, click the Notifications icon in the top row.

In the list of programs on the left side of the box, select Mail. On the right side of the box under “Mail alert style,” click the None icon. Other controls in the Notification bo x allow you to adjust other audio and visual alerts for incoming messages.

Alerts for other programs on the Mac - including Calendar, Twitter, and the FaceTime video-chat service - can be adjusted in the Notifications Preferences box. You can also rearrange the vertical order in which messages from programs appear in the OS X Notification Center list; you can see your Notification Center messages by clicking the icon on the top right corner of the Mac's toolbar.