[Roberts:] It's 26 minutes after the hour. We are already hearing names that we haven't heard since Bush v. Gore in 2000, major election draw right now in Alaska where incumbent Senator Lisa Murkowski is on the brink of an historic comeback as a write-in candidate. Right now, the write-in votes presumably for Murkowski lead the race at 41 percent, Joe Miller is six points seven points behind at 34 percent. Miller is not backing down this morning.
[Joe Miller , Alaska Senate Candidate:] We want to make sure that there is a legal and proper process, not the suggestion that, oh, two days ago, we're going to have the ballots counted on the 18th and then suddenly moving it forward by a week.
[Roberts:] Our guest now says that we may not know who won until this Thanksgiving. Joining us on the telephone is Matthew Felling. He's the anchor for local affiliate KTVA Anchorage. It was thought, Matthew, that they were going to start counting absentee ballots on the 9th and then the write-ins on the 10th. Where does that stand?
[Matthew Felling, Anchor, Ktva Anchorage:] Honestly, that is exactly where we are as of as of this moment. The time line though that we thought were dealing with at the beginning of the week was that the write-ins were going to start being dealt with on November 18th. So in terms of the arguments that the Joe Miller camp has made about trying to get their legal ducks in a row, we just put the game on speed. We hit fast forward from the Alaska lieutenant governor who is the guy that makes this sort of decisions. And there's a there's not only that, but yesterday he also said and this is probably just a rounding error worth of a story, but it was notable that he said when asked that if somebody inadvertently I don't know why they would do it, but if somebody filled in a bubble and wrote in Joe Miller as a write-in candidate that those would get tossed out since he was not a he was not a credited write-in candidate, which I took a look. It actually looks like it goes against Alaska State statute. So that's one more battle that Joe Miller people think that they already have a very, very steep if not impossible hill to climb. They don't need to get any more difficult by
[Roberts:] Yes.
[Felling:] you know, rearranging where we thought we were 24 hours ago.
[Roberts:] There's one one thing is is certain, though, and that is the high-powered lawyers have been assembling on both sides. How nasty could this fight get? How involved can it get?
[Felling:] You know what, John, I was I've been thinking about it, it's going to get nasty. I mean, one lawyer in a town goes broke. Two lawyers in a town keep each other busy and keep each other, you know, flush. But we're going to have a lot of people up here. It's not going to be BushGore. It's not going to be Frank and Coleman. Sorry, media people. It's not going become that acrimonious because these are two Republicans. I mean, we're not going to have the national Republican people coming up from D.C. tearing down one or the other, because those they're eventually going to have a Republican that they're sending to Washington, D.C. It's not going to get that nasty. But in terms of the individual campaigns, the money they're putting out, it's it's probably going to get down and dirty and we know that the lieutenant governor, the guy running this, that he's going to beunquote, "lenient" when it comes to people spelling the word "Murkowski." We don't know exactly what lenient is.
[Roberts:] Yes.
[Felling:] And the lawyers are going to have a field day with, are you allowed one misspelling, two misspellings. What is the threshold and you know that they're going to have two different sets of standards when it comes to what I can tell with this person was going for and the other side says absolutely not.
[Roberts:] Yes. You know, it's all about measuring voter intent. And we remember that all too well from the 2000 election campaign when we had the hanging chad controversy in Florida. But when it comes to spelling and I know Fox News spelled her name wrong, Lisa Murkowski's own campaign spelled her name wrong on one of their ads. I mean, this could make the hanging chads scandal look like child's play.
[Felling:] You're looking at the highest political stakes spelling bee in potentially the history of the United States, so at least we have that going for. And the Murkowski people, it must be said, yes, they they had a couple of slipups with regards to the spelling. They have the name recognition, though, in the state.
[Roberts:] Yes.
[Felling:] We've had Frank Murkowski, Senator Lisa Murkowski's father in office for a long time before her. This is not your run of the mill long odd named write-in campaign that nobody's ever heard of before. And plus, we had over a million of dollars $1.2 million for a TV commercial ad campaign spent exactly teaching people how to fill, how to spell, getting that getting that lesson across.
[Roberts:] And there's one historical point of reference here, too. The last time that a Senate candidate was successful as a write- in was in 1954. And that happened to be the year that the Giants won the World Series. So, maybe lightning strikes twice. We'll see.
[Felling:] You know, the Murkowski people sent that out as soon as the final pitch was thrown in the World Series. And I thought, that was
[Roberts:] Right.
[Felling:] write-ins could be anybody. And write-ins could be a very botched attempt at spelling "Murkowski." In which case, we're looking for a lot of votes to get tossed out. But a 13,000-vote difference, which we are now at 100 percent in is going to be tough for the Miller campaign.
[Roberts:] All right. Certainly probably will be. Matthew Felling, good to talk to you this morning thanks for staying up late for us.
[Felling:] All right. Now worries. Thank you.
[Chetry:] All right. Still ahead: our top stories. More than 1 million people in Haiti left homeless after the earthquake are now bracing for a hurricane right now. They're hurricane warnings in Haiti right now with Tomas intensifying again. And even it doesn't turn into a category one storm. We're talking major threat of mudslides because of heavy rains. We're going to have much more on that coming up.
[Roberts:] A Qantas Airbus 380 forced to make an emergency landing in Singapore after one of its engines failed in mid air. The cowling was ripped off. The wing was damaged. Debris fell on in Indonesia. All 459 people on board are fine, though. Qantas has grounded its airbus super jumbos just as a precaution.
[Chetry:] And General Motors is hoping to raise an estimated $13 billion when it returns to the stock market later this month. The automaker is looking to sell its shares of common stock for about $26 to $29 a share. GM still owes the government $40 billion from the taxpayer bailout.
[Roberts:] Well, here's a troubling story investigators in Washington have a serious problem on their hands, it would seem. As we told you yesterday, shots were fired at a Coast Guard recruiting station in Virginia on Monday. Well, now, that shooting has been linked to four other shootings at Military buildings, including the Pentagon. Jeanne Meserve is live in Washington with the latest on the story. This could be harkened back to the D.C. sniper story. But thankfully, no one has been hurt in any of these shootings, but it's still pretty darn frightening.
[Jeanne Meserve, Cnn Homeland Security Correspondent:] Yes, five shootings over the span of 17 days. As of now, the FBI won't say if it has any suspects.
[Meserve:] FBI ballistics tests have now linked the shooting at a Coast Guard recruiting station in Woodridge, Virginia, earlier this week. Two bullets fired at other Military facilities in northern Virginia. Since October 17th, bullets have been fired at the Marine Corps Museum near Quantico, Virginia, the Pentagon, a Marine recruiting facility in Chantilly, Virginia, the Marine Museum again, and then the Coast Guard recruiting station in Woodridge. A former FBI profiler says investigators should not concentrate on one type of suspect because a narrow focus might exclude other possibilities.
[Gregg Mccrary, Former Fbi Profiler:] Could be a former Military guy, could be active, could be somebody who didn't get into the Military who wanted to. Someone that was phased out. They feel unfairly. Could be a family member of a Military person. Could be a would-be terrorist who has no association with the Military.
[Meserve:] The FBI believes the shooter has likely suffered a personal crisis in the recent past.
[John Perren, Fbi Washington Field Office:] This event may have been the loss of a job or status, divorce, financial hardship, death of a loved one.
[Meserve:] All the shootings have taken place overnight. Nobody has been injured. But security around last Sunday's Marine Corps marathon was increased as a precaution.
[Mccrary:] Certainly, it would be easy enough to shoot people if he cared to do so. But he seems to be making a concerted effort not to do that.
[Meserve:] The FBI isn't releasing any information about the type of weapon involved. But Greg McCrary, a former FBI profiler, says by using the same weapon each time, the shooter appears to want authorities to link the crimes to one another. But who he is and why he's doing it are for now a mystery John.
[Roberts:] But when you listen to them, they say it could be anybody for any reason. It really sounds like they're basically starting from scratch.
[Meserve:] Well, I mean, one important clue, McCrary thinks is the fact that all of these have been taken place in northern Virginia. And although a couple of the targets, the Marine Museum and the Pentagon, are very well-known and iconic buildings. The other two, the recruiting stations, are relatively unknown. So, they think somebody with probably familiarity with the geography of the area is involved.
[Roberts:] All right. Jeanne Meserve for us this morning Jeanne, thanks.
[Chetry:] Coming up: we're going to be talking about a topic that a lot of people care about it because we see it more and more food allergies in children, especially among especially peanut allergies.
[Roberts:] I was on a plane the other day and they said, aren't you serving peanuts? They said, we've got somebody on board with a peanut allergy. So, no peanuts on this flight.
[Chetry:] Yes, it's unbelievable because years ago, we didn't hear about this as much. And the numbers also say there have been there has been a spike, the number of people dying with these allergies. Now, they're wondering could it have anything to do with what the mother eats during pregnancy. A little bit of a correlation. And we're going to be talking about it with one the experts in the field, Dr. Scott Sicherer. He's a professor of pediatrics at Jaffe Food Allergy Institute at Mt. Sinai. We're going to talk to him about this new study still ahead.