Christie Team Assessing 2012 Run

* NYT reports his political advisers are working to determine whether they could move quickly enough to set up effective political operations in Iowa and New Hampshire

* Challenges: raising money and spending it effectively - meeting filing deadlines, hiring staff members, recruiting volunteers, putting together a travel schedule, devising a media campaign

* They say it’s just “due diligence’ and no formal planning will begin unless he decides to run

** Those pushing him include Rupert Murdoch, Henry Kissinger, Nancy Reagan and William Kristol

** He’s under a lot of pressure and political strategists say the next week to 10 days is key and he needs to decide then

** His weight has become a public issue - but with so many Americans overweight or obese, maybe they’d see him as an everyman?

* Herman Cain says he’s too liberal and conservative voters won’t like his positions on immigration, climate change and immigration

Rick Perry's New Problem

* Texas Gov Rick Perry spent Sunday on the defensive - a report in WaPo about a West Texas hunting camp he once leased with his father with a racial epithet in its name

*** It’s the latest controversy to dog him - he also said on Saturday in New Hampshire he’d send US troops into Mexico to combat drug violence there - his campaign’s tried to walk that back, but not been clear whether he’d do it with or without cooperation

* The word “Niggerhead” was painted in block letters across a large rock flanking the property’s entrance - Perry’s called the name “offensive”, says his father painted over it shortly after leasing the land

** Problem is seven people cited in the story say differently and it remains unclear when or whether Perry dealt with the name while using the camp

* Herman Cain says “There isn’t a more vile, negative word than the n word and for him to leave it there as long as he did it’s just plain insensitive to a lot of black people in this country”

* Perry’s camp’s put out several statements trying to do damage control

* David Axelrod, chief strategist for Obama’s re-election, said “campaigns are like an MRI for the soul - whoever you are, people eventually find out, time will tell whether this comes to reflect him or not”

** Perry in New Hampshire tried hard to counter the perception that he’s soft on immigration over the weekend, taking tough questions from voters

Supreme Court Starts New Term Today

* Shift in focus from corporate law to criminal justice and First Amendment cases - and challenge to 2010 health care law, if they decide to hear it (likely) - will be huge, and could decide Obama’s re-election

* Fun stuff to be decided:

* Whether police need a warrant to put a GPS on a car and monitor movements over several weeks?

* Does the First Amendment allow the govt to regulate cursing and nudity on broadcast TV (ie celebs on award shows and yes - all the way back to female buttocks on NYPD Blue)

* Whether a ministerial exception bans suits between religious groups and employees whose work includes religious duties - can you be fired by a church

* Does the Fourth Amendment allow jails to conduct strip searches of all people detained for minor offenses without individualized suspicion?

* Can the missed deadline, the result of a mix up in a law firm’s mailroom, be suspended when the inmate was blameless and a court clerk who received a court order marked “return to sender” did nothing to set things right? Upshot - death row inmate lost chance to appeal decision against him because lawyers missed a filing deadline

* Do eyewitness ids made in suggestive settings require judicial scrutiny when the police were not responsible for the suggestiveness?

Obama And Christie Polling Neck And Neck

As cries for Chris Christie to enter the White House grow louder, a hypothetical matchup between the New Jersey Governor and Barack Obama shows that it could be a very close race.

According to Rasmussen Reports, Obama would garner 44 percent of the vote, whereas Christie would take 43 percent. This includes a 3 percent margin of error.

Christie has maintained that he will not enter the race. However, speculation continues to build, fueled by a recent high-profile speech from the Governor at the Ronald Reagan Presidential libray and statements from former New Jersey Governor Thomas Kean, who told the National Journal earlier this week that Christie was seriously considering a run.

The poll was conducted among 1,000 likely voters between September 28^th and 29^th.

U.S. Born Terror Leader al-Awlaki Killed

Anwar al-Awlaki, a U.S. born radical cleric residing in Yemen, has been killed.

According to CBS News, the operation against Al-Awlaki, considered a senior recruiter and spiritual figurehead for al Qaeda, was carried out via a drone and jet strike early Friday.

Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.), the Chair of the House Homeland Security Committee, issued a statement Friday applauding the operation and the White House.

“For the past several years, al-Awlaki has been more dangerous even than Osama bin Laden had been,” King said. “The killing of al-Awlaki is a tremendous tribute to President Obama and the men and women of our intelligence community.”