'Fiscal Cliff' countdown: 2 days to go, Congress still negotiating

As the fiscal cliff looms, what's your New Year's message to Washington? 

Washington (CNN) -- If a broader deal on the "fiscal cliff" cannot be reached soon, the Senate should vote on legislation to make sure middle-class taxes are not raised and that 2 million people don't lose unemployment benefits, President Barack Obama told NBC's "Meet the Press" in an interview broadcast Sunday.

"Over the next 48 hours, my hope is that people recognize, regardless of partisan differences, our top priority has to be to make sure that taxes on middle-class families do not go up that would hurt our economy badly," Obama said. "We can get that done."

The president's appearance on a political talk show is his first in three years, and clearly appears timed to put pressure on lawmakers to get a deal done or take a vote. The interview was recorded on Saturday.

With tax rates set to increase across the board on Tuesday, the Senate's top Democrat and Republican were working Sunday to forge a last-minute compromise to stop the U.S. economy from going over a fiscal cliff that would not only trigger higher taxes but sweeping spending cuts.

Aides for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nevada, and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky, said no details on the negotiations were expected until at least early afternoon, when the Senate convenes a session at 1 p.m. ET.

At stake in the negotiations, according to a number of economists, is the fate of a still fragile U.S. economy that could be pushed back into a recession by the broad tax hikes and automatic $110 billion cuts to domestic and military spending spelled out by the fiscal cliff legislation.

Obama again placed blame on Republicans for the failure to reach a compromise, saying they "have had trouble saying yes to a number of repeated offers."

He said if they could agree to a deal that keeps middle-class tax rates as they are, "that takes a big bite out of the fiscal cliff, it avoids the worst outcomes."

Then there can be some more tough negotiations on the other aspects of debt reduction, he said.

On Capitol Hill, "We've been trading paper all day, and the talks continue into the evening," McConnell told reporters Saturday night. "We've been in discussions all day. We'll let you know as soon as we have some news to make."

Colin Powell endorses Obama; Sununu, McCain go nuts

Yesterday, Colin Powell endorsed Barack Obama for president, explaining that he believes the incumbent has done a good job on the economy given the situation he was handed. As a former secretary of state and former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Powell also took serious issue with the foreign policy stances of Obama’s opponent, Mitt Romney, saying that ” I’m not quite sure which Governor Romney we would be getting with respect to foreign policy”:

“One day he has a certain strong view about staying in Afghanistan, but then on Monday night he agrees with the withdrawal. Same thing in Iraq. On almost every issue that was discussed on Monday night, Governor Romney agreed with the President with some nuances. But this is quite a different set of foreign policy views than he had earlier in the campaign. And my concern, which I’ve expressed previously in a public way, is that sometimes I don’t sense that he has thought through these issues as thoroughly as he should have, and he gets advice from his campaign staff that he then has to adjust to modify as he goes along.

INTERVIEWER: Are you concerned about the people that are advising Governor Romney?

POWELL: I think there’s some very, very strong neo-conservative views that are presented by the Governor that I have some trouble with. There are other issues as well, not just the economy and foreign policy. I’m more comfortable with President Obama and his administration when it comes to issues like what are we going to do about climate, what are we going to do about immigration? What are we going to do about education? Lots of things like that. I do not want to see the new Obamacare plan thrown off the table. It has issues, you have to fix some things in that plan. But what I see when I look at that plan is 30 million of our fellow citizens will now be covered by insurance. And I think that’s good. We’re one of the few nations in the world, with our size, population and wealth, that does not have universal health care.”

Lena Dunham casts a virginal vote for President Obama

You’ve heard of “tainting” the vote and “corrupting” the vote. But “sexualizing the voting process”?

That’s what the spokeswoman for a conservative media watchdog accused President Obama of doing with a video ad that has a young Hollywood star talking about voting for the incumbent as if it were her first time having sex.

In the Internet ad, titled “Your First Time,” Lena Dunham speaks to the camera and says: "The first time shouldn't be with just anybody. You want to do it with a great guy. Someone who really cares about and understands women."

The creator and star of the HBO series “Girls” goes on to describe reasons that Obama is a special advocate for women.

The response could have been predicted. Liberals and Obama supporters called the ad charming and provocative. Opponents described it as “inappropriate” and stereotyping of young women.

The Media Research Center's Lauren Thompson said, "This ad is inappropriate because it is sexualizing the voting process. This isn't an ad the average family would want their daughters to see.”

The flirty ad, with clever wordplay about Obama’s policies, is not something a campaign would probably put in front of a broad television audience. Team Obama limited the spot’s exposure by posting it online, where it mainly will be viewed by young voters who ship it to each other via the Internet.

POP QUIZ: 'Daisy,' other famous campaign ads

It’s not raunchy or explicit, so critics have to make a real effort to find reasons to complain. But we're in the final days of a close election. Inflated outrage is the currency of the realm. Think of how some Obama supporters responded to one of Mitt Romney’s sons saying he wanted to "take a swing” at the president. They pretended like it was some mortal threat instead of silly bravado.

Dunham’s got a smart and sophisticated following, which includes many young women. They’re not going to be surprised or damaged by anything conveyed in these 60 seconds.

After her intro, Dunham, 26, quickly makes it clear it’s the president’s politics she is lusting after, nothing more.

She declares that a woman’s “first time” should be with "a guy who cares whether you get health insurance and specifically whether you get birth control."

And then: "You want to do it with a guy who brought the troops out of Iraq," and, "You don't want a guy who says, 'Oh hey, I'm at the library studying,' when really he's out not signing the Lilly Ledbetter Act." The Ledbetter Fair Pay Act, signed by Obama, attempts to enforce fair pay for women.

Dunham tells the audience, which on YouTube had grown to about 300,000 a day after the ad’s Thursday release, that they don’t want to suffer the social embarrassment of telling friends they failed to vote.

"My first time voting was amazing,” the entertainer says. “It was this line in the sand. Before I was a girl, now I was a woman. I went to the polling station, I pulled back the curtain, I voted for Barack Obama."

After the initial buzz around the piece, Dunham sent a response via Twitter. “The video may be light,” she wrote, “but the message is serious: vote for women's rights.”