“Senate negotiations to craft a bipartisan budget deal proceeded in
chaotic fits and starts Sunday, raising new questions about whether
Congress would be able to steer the country away from the fiscal cliff,”
the Wall Street Journal reports.

“The center of gravity had shifted by day’s end after talks between
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) and Senate Minority Leader
Mitch McConnell (R-KY) reached an impasse. Mr. McConnell instead struck
up talks with Vice President Joe Biden, a former Senate colleague with
whom he has worked on bipartisan budget deals in the past. The two men
planned to talk by phone into the night… No details of their
discussions were immediately available.”

Roll Call: “Efforts in the Senate to cut a last-minute bipartisan deal to avoid the
fiscal cliff’s tax increases and spending cuts continued Sunday evening
with little sign of an imminent breakthrough.”

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Chicago Tribune: “Though Obama has not commented publicly about his plans for a
library, every president since Herbert Hoover has established an archive
in his home state to house papers from his White House tenure. That
means the race could come down to Chicago — the city Obama most recently
called home — and Honolulu — the city where he was born.”

“If Chicago is selected, the next hurdle would be to determine where
the facility would be built. An Obama library likely would not open
before the end of the decade, but already it is a hot commodity because
of the prestige and economic vitality it would bring to the community.”

“As I’ve said many times before, victory and defeat is temporary.
Depending on what happens, and where we go, all of us, we may obviously
meet again.”

— Sen. Scott Brown (R-MA), in a speech the Boston Globe describes as laying the groundwork for his eventual return to the U.S. Senate after being defeated for re-election.

NBC Chicago reports “mob-related questions” keep coming in connection with a company awarded a $99 million custodial contract at O’Hare International Airport while Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanual “skirted questions” over the process for awarding the contract.

“With President Obama’s reelection a done deal, headhunters are expecting worn-out administration aides to look for new jobs in the influence industry,” The Hill reports.

“Several Obama aides started making post-election plans well before November, holding discussions with executive search firms in Washington as early as this past spring. Their stock has risen since Obama’s victory, but they face a tough job market on K Street, where belt-tightening has become the norm.”

Get the latest listings at Political Job Hunt.

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Mitt Romney had planned to celebrate his election victory with an eight-minute fireworks display over Boston Harbor, the Boston Globe reports.

“A permit filed with the City of Boston said the detonation could occur any time between 7 p.m. Tuesday, just after the first polls closed, and 12:30 a.m. Wednesday, which ended up being just before Romney conceded the race.”

Cincinnati Enquirer: “A new Ohio program intended to make voting easier could keep the presidential election in doubt until late November if the national outcome hinges on the state’s 18 electoral votes.”

“Under Secretary of State Jon Husted’s initiative to send absentee ballot applications to nearly 7 million registered voters across Ohio, more than 800,000 people so far have asked for but not yet completed an absentee ballot for the Nov. 6 election. Anyone who does not return an absentee ballot, deciding instead to vote at the polls, will be required to cast a provisional ballot. That’s so officials may verify that they did not vote absentee and also show up at the polls.”

“By state law, provisional ballots may not be counted until at least Nov. 17. That means if Ohio’s electoral votes would be decisive in the race between President Barack Obama and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, the state could keep the nation in suspense for several weeks after the election.”

Here are the latest headlines from Wonk Wire, our companion site which focuses on policy:

• Washington Gridlock is About to Get Worse
• Housing Starts Blow Away Expectations
• The (Relatively) Successful US Recovery
• Chart of the Day
• This Recovery Isn’t Different…Really
• Second Presidential Debate Reactions
• Politics is All About the Economy, But Where is the Policy?
• Regulators Consider Shielding Some Mortgages from Lawsuits
• Don’t Mind the Uptick in Inflation

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William Koch, the brother of conservative Tea Party funders David Koch and Charles Koch, is accused of holding a senior executive of his company captive for almost two days after discovering his concerns about a plan to avoid U.S. taxes on $200 million in profit, Bloomberg reports.

Fab.com just opened a pop up shop filled with great gear for the political season.

A big seller: Democratic Dream Mug Set.

In the wake of President Obama’s widely panned performance in his first debate against Mitt Romney, the Washington Post says the stakes for Vice President Biden “are suddenly higher than ever. In the Oct. 11 vice-presidential debate he must not only avoid making any gaffes but also try to puncture his Republican opponent’s arguments on taxes, entitlement reform and deficit reduction, something Obama was criticized for failing to do last week.”

“The pressure on Ryan has risen as well. Romney greatly exceeded expectations, appearing both presidential and in command of the debate stage. Ryan, who has never before debated at the national level, must prove that he is potential presidential material — while also defending the numbers that Romney put forth last week, especially on tax cuts.”

Mark Halperin: “Is Paul Ryan’s goal to win the debate or just not lose it?”

Rep. Todd Akin (R-MO) failed to report almost $130,000 in Missouri legislative pension income over the past 10 years on his congressional financial disclosure report, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports.

Said Akin: “This was an unintentional oversight and I regret any inconvenience this may cause.”

President Obama’s campaign answers the question Mitt Romney keeps asking.

Greg Sargent: “The use of Clinton in the new ad is also interesting: As noted here recently, the Obama campaign believes that true undecided voters see Clinton as a kind of ‘referee’ figure on the economy — hence the ad’s back-to-back footage of Clinton and Obama both making the case that electing a Republican president would take us back to the policies that got us into trouble in the first place. Clinton will play a major role in trying to get swing voters to feel that things are indeed recovering.”

[Read more…]

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Out next month: No Easy Day: The Firsthand Account of the Mission That Killed Osama Bin Laden by Mark Owen.

The book was written by a former Navy SEAL who helped plan and execute the raid that killed Osama bin Laden.

Fox News says the book is penned under the pseudonym “Mark Owen,” but multiple sources identify him as Matt Bissonnette, 36, of Wrangell, Alaska.