Daily Digest: Monday, Nov. 1, 2010

At 12:04 p.m., the Tom Emmer campaign was more active on Twitter than Mark Dayton’s or Tom Horner’s. Interesting, right? The New York Times has put together an interactive timeline that looks at which 2010 candidates from all over are getting the most attention via Twitter. Hit play, and the time elapses from Oct. 21 to present day. You can see how all the candidates match up or you can search for a specific candidate. It tracks tweets by the candidate’s account as well as when they’re retweeted or mentioned. It’ll also let you click to see the news related to each candidate on a given day. Today, Emmer is holding rallies in different parts of the state, which is the subject of many of the noon tweets and retweets.

Theodore C. Sorenson died of complications from a stroke yesterday. Sorenson, a “shy wordsmith from Nebraska,” was President John F. Kennedy’s speechwriter and, according to his obituary, his confidant, muse and alter ego. Sorenson worked closely with the president to write some of his most famous lines like, “Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.” He was 82 years old.

A few days after authorities intercepted two package bombs, one in Britain and one in Dubai, President Obama’s top counterterrorism adviser said the devices were designed to detonate in the air, the Washington Post reported. The packages, which originated in Yemen, were addressed to two synagogues in Chicago. The package in Dubai found in a FedEx facility first traveled on two passenger flights. Though the bombs were described as “’very sophisticated’ in how they were constructed and concealed,” the Post reported, “the devices employed cellphone technology,” which is curious to authorities who are wondering if it would have been possible for the packages to receive a signal at any point during either flight. Blame has been placed on the al-Qaeda affiliate in Yemen, the same group responsible for the failed Chistmas Day attack – the guy with the explosives in his underwear.