>> she's accepted humble daisies and clutched them like a smitten schoolgirl in the videos that have gone viral, hydrangea get no respect. >> the flowers are -- >> my assistant -- >> reporter: madonna's spokesperson said she's entitled to like any flower she wants and she didn't want to hurt the feelings of the hydrangeas of the world, maybe, but her attitude was similar to that of the hoity-toity editor in "the devil wears prada." >> did i smell hydrangea? >> no, i specifically told them -- >> if i see freesias anywhere, i'll see desperately disappointed. >> reporter: if i see hydrangea anywhere i'll be desperately disappointed. from the hydrangea's point of view, madonna stinks. >> it's an unscented flower. >> reporter: jeanne moos, cnn,

new york. i'm wolf blitzer. thanks for watching. the news continues next on cnn. good evening, everyone. it is testing time in american politics. one leading republican presidential contender, texas governor rick perry, is about to make his debate debut and is drawing a political spotlight as his state deals with punishing wildfires. >> at this point we're urging people to avoid any outdoor activity which could conceivably start a fire. >> another top-tier gop contender the former mches governor mitt romney took issue with the democratic incumbent as he outlined a 59-point plan to spur job creation. >> what he's doing is taking quarters and stuffing them into the pay phone and thinking -- can't figure out why it's not working. it's not connected anymore, mr. president. all right, your pay phone strategy does not work in a smartphone world. >> and that indumb bent, governor romney speaks of, president obama, he's at a new

low point in his political standing as the president prepares to unveil his own jobs program this week, thursday night, three stunning new numbers to set the table. 6 in 10 americans disapprove of how the president is handling the economy. nearly 8 in 10 say the economy will either get worse or stay in the same deep funk in the year leading up to the 2012 presidential vote, and more voters now say they plan to vote republican for president than vote democratic. add it all up, and the veteran democratic pollster peter hart for the first time tonight says you can no longer consider the president as favored to win re-election. peter hart is with us tonight along with cnn chief political analyst gloria borger and in new orleans cnn contributor mary matalin which includes the presidential victories of george h.w. bush and his son, george h. bush. and peter, the president is no

longer favored to win re-election, and it's a collection of very bleak numbers. >> bad news. a lot of bad news. but let's understand one thing. it's not quite the same thing as saying you're going to lose. he's no longer the favored. and i would have said that george w. bush was not the favorite in 2003, so the president's got a lot of work to do. but the other thing that's fascinating about this poll is that on a personal basis they still like the president, so for all the bad things that are happening, they like him, and secondly they make the distinction between how he's handling the economy and how he's handling foreign policy. 50% give him a positive rating on foreign policy. so, does he have a lot of problems? you bet he does, but the other side is they give him good news on foreign policy. >> mary, i'm going to guess you get a sense of deja vu when you hear numbers like this and you hear peter hart say they still like him and give him foreihighs

on foreign policy. when people as they do now looked out at the economy and did not feel at all optimistic and indeed felt quite pessimistic, let's look at the numbers from the nbc/"wall street journal" poll, is the country headed in the right direction? 19% say yes. 73% of americans think the country is on the wrong track. do you approve of the job obama is doing as president? 44% say yes. a majority, 51%, say no. that's a low for the president. and do you approve, peter mentioned this, the job the president is doing handling the economy, 37% approve, 59% disapprove. having gone through it with george h.w. bush, he had two candidates, bill clinton and ross perot, i'll ask you to put your partisan hat aside. give the president some advice. what lessons did you learn going through an environment like this? >> well, this is going to sound partisan, but i don't mean it.

there is -- i guess the other silver lining for him, he has personal popularity which continues. i wouldn't put foreign policy up there. that's not the issue at this time. and they don't like the other side either, so it's they hate everybody, so there's still a contest there, but this is always -- re-elections are always a referendum on the incumbent. he's not going to be able to escape that and in the case of the '92 race that you referenced, john, the perception was reality, that the economy was in bad shape, it was actually growing at 5.5%. now reality is reality and the job situation copts to dete s ss to deteriorate, and it's not the static numbers where people are today, which is low but consistent with where this president has been, it's that looking forward, because elections are about the future, and you say how do you ask these respondents, they don't see any end in sight. they think a year from now some 80% close to 80% think the

economy's not going to get better. that's a bad turning point. that's a katrina turning point, some have been calling it, it was in our case when buchanan primaried us in new hampshire and perot got in. it's this attitudal thing that voters are starting to think that there is no forward way for this president. and i don't say that as a partisan. i say it as somebody who has lived through it a couple of times. >> mary makes an important point i think a key distinction, at this moment, some people say if the numbers go don't, won't some democrat feel the urge, oh, why not, let's primary him. no evidence of that. >> no. and that's good for barack obama if you're looking for the silver lining, it's not getting primaried. but the other thing is that when you do the matchups against specific candidates, it's close. when you do -- you know, when you do it against a generic republican, obama doesn't do so well, but the question is, okay, who is obama going to be standing there with debating a

year from now? so, we don't know yet, and so far, the american public hasn't seen anybody it absolutely is in love with to go up against barack obama. >> and so, peter, to mary's point about the funk people are in, they have a pessimistic long-term view which is going to make them less likely to support an incumbent unless they think the incumbent is turning things around. this is the president yesterday in detroit, it's labor day, he's trying to give some optimism and hope if you trust him and support his policies, the economy will get better. listen -- >> so, we got a lot more work to do to recover fully from this recession. but i'm not satisfied just to get back to where we were before the recession. we've got to fully restore the middle-class in america. >> now, i understand from a political standpoint, a branding standpoint, and optimism standpoint the president needs to do that. but here's my question to you -- as a president, the candidate that ran as a transformational,

aspirational, said washington would change, set the high hopes that things would be different, is there a risk in setting a high hope again, i want to make it back to not to only where we were before the recession, but to restore the middle-class. if the economy created 208,000 a month, it would take 12 years to get us to back to where we were at the beginning of the recession. >> okay. what it comes down to is he has to persuade the american public we've come so far across this lake, you have a choice. you can go back to the shore that you have seen before or we've done the hard part and we should move ahead. that's what his challenge is as much as anything else. the other thing i'd like to say is when you look at that speech on thursday night, he's on trial, but all the people in the congress are equally on trial. you have to understand, 54% of the american public would vote out every single member of congress if there were a lever on their ballot, and that tells

you, they, too, have something to prove thursday night. >> that's another silver lining for barack obama. >> everybody stay put. we'll pick up on the point, the burden on the republicans in congress and the burden on republicans running for office. libyan army vehicles cross the border into niger carrying gadhafi regime leaders the united states wants arrested and detained. and three weeks after joining the republican presidential field, rick perry leads the gop pack, but three debates over the next three weeks will test his staying power. [ male announcer ] the good news is,

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rick perry has few complaints about his first three weeks as a republican presidential candidate but the next three weeks will tell us more about the texas governor's staying power. there are three debates including a cnn event monday night in florida and as he prepares for the new scrutiny, his handling of the devastating wildfires offers a glimpse at his leadership style. >> when you got people hurting, when you got lives in danger in particular, i really don't care

who the asset belongs to. if it's sitting on some yard somewhere and not helping be part of the solution, that's a problem. >> now, we know governor perry enters this critical stretch in a strong position nationally. the new nbc/"wall street journal" poll shows 38% support perry, 23% support former massachusetts governor mitt romney, 9% support ron paul and 8% congresswoman michele bachmann. and we know he's about to get deep pocketed help, cnn confirms a superpolitical action committee run by a former top perry political aide is planning to spend $50 million, $50 million, to support his candidacy. should we consider perry the gop front-runner? still with us, mary matalin, and peter hart and cnn's gloria borger. you run republican campaigns for a living, mary, heading into the next stretch, what is the biggest question for governor perry to prove, that after the

initial boomlet, he has staying power? >> he's a very solid front-runner. peter's polls show he's got the highest front-runner number of any previous front-runner and i think also peter's poll shows among the most intense activists, the so-called self-identified tea party activists, he's 2-1, holds a 2-1 lead and all this happened in three weeks. but he has to show that he can withstand the front-runner assault, the comparable period in the last cycle hillary clinton and rudy giuliani and fred thompson were the front-runners, so you have to stand up to having the target on your back, which i think he -- his political skills as are evidenced in his longest-serving governor in texas are considerable and misunderestimated as we adopted texans say, so we'll get through the debates. and i think it's got down to the two-man races as ed rollins was saying last night on cnn.

>> to continue the metaphor, i guess the question is what is his stratergey heading into the edates? cnn has a debate september 12th in tampa florida and september 22nd the month of debates ends with a fox news/google/florida republican party debate. rick perry eclipses mitt romney and national polls can be deceptive. you got to win iowa and new hampshire and then we go state by state, what is your sense that in three weeks he's changed the race? what are the strengths and the question marks? >> the real question mark is it doesn't mean anything. mary's right, great number, 39%. but the reverse is, we had donald trump as the leader for one period of time, and then we had sarah palin, and then we go to michele bachmann, it's the flavor of the month, he has to prove that he can withstand scrutiny. his real problem is showing that

he has a grasp that is beyond texas and something that can appeal to a broader group of people. he -- yeah, go ahead, gloria. >> people judge candidates by how they do against the people they're standing next to on these debate podiums and i think we're going to take a look at rick perry and we're going to see how he does standing next to mitt romney or standing next to michele bachmann or ron paul. and they are more practiced on the national stage than he is, and you're just going to have to get a sense of how he performs, right? i mean -- >> yeah, it's too early. >> and, mary, how much of these superpacs have rewritten how presidential campaigns play out, $55 million, and the perry campaign said we have nothing to do with these guys, they all happen to be former top perry political aides, and maybe they are being careful legally and not coordinating. and he's not the only one, president obama has one, governor romney has one of these. we live in a new world. >> yes.

and as you know, john, there are two -- peter's so right, the numbers don't count. there's two things that do matter. follow the money, where these money guys were sitting on their stash, and they have come pretty quickly to the game for rick perry. the other thing that really counts is in south carolina before he had to rush back to deal with the fires in texas, he did attend a town hall for tim scott, a very influential new young congressman in south carolina. and i'm told he was beloved by those town hall people and he got the endorsement of a south carolina -- another south carolina republican. these are -- these -- congressmen have been sitting on the sidelines and the moneyed people have been sitting on the sidelines and they're coming over for perry and that is a significant demonstration of his strength. far more so than these numbers. >> and so does this matter? ron paul is the texas congressman, he doesn't like anyone in the republican establishment, he clearly doesn't have a good relationship with his governor, so he's put up a video reminding republicans that back in the day this is

where i first met rick perry, he supported this guy, named al gore. >> rick perry helped lead al gore's campaign to undo the reagan revolution. fighting to elect al gore president of the united states. >> that's 1988 i believe it was. rick perry was a democrat back then. >> so ald reagan. >> a lot of republicans were democrats back in those days. does it matter? >> i think it depends on what part of the republican electorate you're talking to. i think for lots of republicans, they may say, you can't trust what he says, he supported al gore. a lot of republicans will say it doesn't matter, what we want is the candidate that is the most electable and if that means he can appeal to independent voters and maybe some democrats, we'll take im. >> peter hart, when you look at the strength and weaknesses of the numbers, when you're president obama do you worry more about rick perry or governor romney or governor

huntsman as a general election candidate? >> i think you worry most about yourself. he has to correct his problems and for rick perry i would tell you that he's got the tea party behind him. we've looked at those numbers, but he's actually ahead of romney with non-tea party people, so he's creating a lot of problems for romney, and i think the early polls show the problems with romney, and that is he's thin and everybody's looking for somebody else. >> so an interesting month. it's only september, 2011, but a very interesting month of presidential politics. thank you for your help. ahead we look at the key points of the job plan unveiled today, peter just mentioned, mitt romney. >> a crackdown on the cheaters and china is the worst example of that. and also look at this, we'll take you -- wow -- to the front lines of the nasty texas wildfires. than many other allergy medications. omnaris. omnaris, to the nose. did you know nasal symptoms like congestion

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welcome back. if you're just joining us, here's the latest news you need to know right now. a senior pentagon official said the obama administration is considering an option to keep only 3,000 troops in iraq next year. 40,000 are stationed there now. senators john mccain and lindsay graham say they're deeply troubled by the prospect of such a deep drawdown, pointing out it's dramatically lower than what military leaders say to safeguard the hard-won gains in iraq. dick cheney said he has no regrets about his time as vice president and mr. cheney defends

the big deficits run up by the bush administration -- >> but i think with respect to the wars and the war on terror and the threat that we inherited, that we had to face and that we had to deal with, we didn't have any choice but to spend a lot of money. >> officials in the african country of niger say two libya convoys passed through their country this week fueling speculation that the ousted libyan leader moammar gadhafi and members of his family may be on the run. right now the reuters news agency quotes a libyan official who is coordinating the manhunt saying gadhafi was last tracked in southern libya heading towards the borders with niger and chad. ben wedeman is with us live from tripoli tonight. ben, we've heard reports like this before, any sense of whether this one is true? >> reporter: none whatsoever, john. we have to keep in mind that that area, south -- in southern libya is the sahara desert. it's a vast area and it's very difficult, especially for the

rebels themselves, to really know where anybody is down there. that area at the moment still seems to be in some form or another under the control of gadhafi loyalists. so, i think we need to approach these reports with real skepticism. let's also keep in mind that in the past rebel officials have put out reports, for instance, that saif al islam and gadhafi had been captured, it turned out not to be true, it may be part of an an effort to undermine the areas of the country that remain loyal to moammar gadhafi. outside of bani walid, they are trying to work their way, the rebels are trying to convince the local inhabitants to trust them to allow them to go in. there are battles outside the town of sirte along the coast, the hometown of moammar gadhafi, so there is sort of an attempt to undermine the resolve of those parts of the country that

until now have resisted the rebel rebel rebels' advances, john? >> and some hoped there might be a negotiated settlement between the rebels and what's left of the regime forces and loyalists, but you were part of covering those talks today, and things didn't go as planned, right? >> reporter: they certainly did not. in fact, ntc officials tell us that they were up all night last night with the elders from bani walid trying to give them these assurances that there would be no retribution, no revenge killings, no looting, no plundering if their forces went into that town, and they seemed confident earlier in the day that they had made progress, that these elders were seriously considering these pledges. however, later in the day, when the elders after the talks went back to the outskirts of bani walid, they came under fire from loyalists, and the latest is that negotiations have come to a

screeching halt. next step could be a military move into bani walid, john? >> ben wedeman, reporting from tripoli, ben, thank you. the texas wildfires now have killed four people and burned at least 700 homes. we'll take you to the fire lines next. >> got other dozers working over there. ♪ [ country ] [ man ] ♪ gone, like my last paycheck ♪ gone, gone away ♪ gone, like my landlord's smile ♪ ♪ gone, gone away ♪ my baby's gone away with dedicated claims specialists... and around-the-clock service, travelers can help make things better quicker. will your auto and home insurer... be there when you need them most? for an agent or quote, call 800-my-coverage... or visit travelers.com. [ male announcer ] how could switchgrass in argentina,

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fast-moving wildfire near austin, texas, now has destroyed some 700 homes. this afternoon authorities

announced it also claimed two lives raising the state's overall death toll to four. cnn's david mattingly is near the wildfire, and you're near the biggest fire raging near austin. give us the latest on what you're seeing right there on the scene. >> reporter: well, john, the fire is absolutely massive, burning over 30,000 acres, over 600 homes by this single fire alone have been destroyed. what we've been seeing is a massive amount of resources being deployed here. we've been watching helicopters dropping water and fire retardant from the air. crews are going in front of the ground trying to stay in front of the flames going to properties to make sure they're secured, to haul away firewood or anything else that might be fueling this fire in its path. they're doing everything they possibly can to slow it down and hopefully if they're able to throw enough resources at it eventually to get this thing contained, but at the moment it is massive. it is still burning out of control, and they are still working very hard just to keep the hot spots from spawning more

fires across this very dry countryside. >> out of control there. you were in another part of the state earlier where there's been devastation but people beginning to be allowed back into their homes. tell us about that? >> reporter: this was one neighborhood northwest of austin, texas. they let some of the residents back in today, a fire just roared through there, this was a unique place, sort of an upscale neighborhood, on both sides of it a lot of green space, some natural areas and with this dry climate that they have here, that was just tinder for that wildfire to who right through their neighborhood, so what they found when they went back and there were a couple of dozen homes had been completely incinerated, we went with one family as they went back to their house, and they lost everything. and before they went out, they had only about 15 minutes to gather whatever they could and get out of there. needless to say they didn't get very much. they left behind all their personal papers, all their family photographs, and this is just one story of loss out of the hundreds that have happened

with this fire. and, again, these fires are popping up. they're trying to stay in front of them as best they can, but the resources here are stretched so incredibly thin. it's amazing they've been able to throw equipment and people at every fire now that's been popping up, john. >> heartbreaking, heartbreaking, to see the shell, the skeleton of that house. david mattingly for us, thank you. will the texas firefighters continue to get a break on the weather or will conditions give them a break, for that let's check in with cnn meteorologist chad myers, he's in the cnn weather center, chad? >> a break today and tomorrow, but then the winds blow back east toward austin and that they will wick ttake the choking firs is route 360, west of downtown austin, to give you the view, the ground shots don't give you the scope of the fire, 30 miles farther to the fire and had is what the smoke looks like from austin. that smoke goes all the way down

to corpus christi, and that smoke will make a beautiful sunset tonight unfortunately as a cost of many people. what caused it? well, in fact it was lee. lee kind of ran up this way. tropical storm lee, not a big deal, make a weathermaker here, a couple of tornadoes into parts of georgia, but the wind came this direction, from the north 35 miles per hour without a drop of rain over texas. that lawas the issue, no rain whatsoever and it's not coming. the rain is to the northeast. there's even the potential for some tornadoes tonight in parts of virginia and north carolina, that's all from lee. now, what else is going on? well, here you go. we still have katia. we have something else developing in the gulf of mexico, and a storm you can't even see off the coast here. that's about to be maria. we've already been to "k" and then to "l" and then this will be "m," the maria storm, it's tropical depression 14. it's very impressive. it is forecast to be a category

1 hurricane very close to puerto rico on sunday. hurricane season still in full swing, john. >> chad myers for us tonight in the weather center. chad, thank you. coming up here, well, you've got mail, the old-fashioned kind, but for how much longer? can the u.s. postal service be saved? here at quicken loans, we take special pride

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"anderson cooper 360" coming up at the top of the hour. anderson is here with a preview. >> a controversial case we're covering in "crime and

punishment" a gay teenage killed in a california classroom shot by another student. >> they just mocked him and every time he came around, they ran and painful things they said painful things about him. >> reporter: more than two years ago in february, 2008, the bullying suddenly stopped, not because larry was finally accepted, but because he was dead, murdered, police say, by a fellow student. >> the case is much more complex than some thought two years ago. the shooter was charged with first-degree murder and hate crimes but the jury couldn't come to a verdict. recently there was a mistreel, the question tonight is will they retry the accused killer in the lawrence king murder. we'll talk to the teacher in the classroom when he was shot. we'll go to the front lines of the firestorms in texas. video shows you just how quickly with the wind this monster fire is moving. a live report from the fire lines ahead. those stories plus the latest from the race to the

presidency and tonight's "ridiculist" at the top of the hour. >> we'll see you in a few minutes thank you. a dire forecast today about the future of the united states postal service, it's more than $9 billion in the red and is now proposing cutting saturday mail delivery and closing more than 3,000 local post offices. outside a hearing on capitol hill today, democratic senator thomas carper of delaware told cnn things could get even worse -- >> if we do nothing by the end of this year, the postal service could default. we do nothing by this time next year, the postal service could be gone as we know it. >> republican senator tom coburn of oklahoma was also at today's hearing on the future of the postal service. you just heard your colleague there, senator, saying by this time next year the postal service as we know it could be gone. what needs to be done and does what need to be done include some form of taxpayer-assisted, taxpayer bailout? >> no. look, the business model that the post office is run on is failed, because technology has

outstripped first-class mail. and i've been working on this subject for 12 years. and we continue to have estimates that are ereasroneouse need to have a business model that adjusts. senator carper is right, if we don't do anything or change the flexibility that the management needs at the post office, if we don't let them run it to meet what the market says is out there in terms of delivering goods to homes, then they're not going to be able to. there's two or three critical problems that haven't been addressed by congress that are going to have to be addressed if you want to continue to have a postal service that has a monopoly mandate and delivered high quality with a great bunch of people. >> there will be some people that say get the government out of it, let the private sector take care of it, is that the approach? >> the private sector won't take care of delivering to every address in the country, that's the problem. is you have to give them the monopoly and they have the

capability to do it. the coul congress have hamstrun postal service to where they can't change to meet their business model and that's what has to happen. you know, just a couple of things. one is, is when they negotiate a contract with the labor unions, they can't consider their financial -- or fiscal impact on the health of the post office. well, nobody's ever going to be successful if none of -- if any of the labor contracts don't consider the financial health of the organization for which you're going to pay them to work. so, that's number one. number two is you got to give them the flexibility to be able to offer and negotiate benefits that are realistic and competitive in the world. the benefit cost per year per postal employee and salary is $84,000. that's pretty significant across the country, so what we need to do is have the real demands for the labor and the real price that the market can afford meet on that and let it really be negotiated rather than the congress stepping in the way and say here's the parameters, not

real economic parameters under which you can negotiate. i think that they're realizing that they have big problems. and i think we've got a good postmaster general that wants to address those, but, you know, there's all sorts of people who have vested interests in the status quo. like saturday delivery or post office or someplaces. you know, in my hometown we have two post offices in drugstores. it's working well. we don't have to have all the post offices that we have. >> and -- >> go ahead. >> 94 give forgive me, when he e delay delivery and close flevpo offices, and shed jobs, is that part of the solution? >> i think it is, and nesgotiat the labor contracts on behalf of the health of the organization. do you know any other company that does it without looking at the balance sheet or income statement? and that's not saying that certain employees shouldn't be

paid what they are and more, but the fact is give them the freedom to run it, otherwise what you'll have is a subsidized postal service, we'll be right back where we were and as taxpayers you're not going to pay it in a stamp, you'll pay it through additional taxes and we can't afford that. we have so many other areas where we're stealing -- robbing peter to pay paul right now, we can't do that again. so, the post office is going to have to stand on its own. we need to give them the flexibility to do that and with that will come some change in service but not necessarily a diminution in services. >> it's coming at a tough time in federal spending and a tough time in the employment sector. the post office is an entity that has a significant portion of african-american and 225,000

more, they've saved 125,000 through attrition thus far. i'm sure that we can protect those. you know, this is over a time period, but we need to give them the authority to do whatever they need to do, and i don't have any problem giving preference to those people who have served our country, and, you know, we have a great postal service group of employees, but we just have too many of them. for the volume of mail that we have. and realistically, you're either going to subsidize them to not work, you know, another problem the postal service is work rules. getting greater flexibility so you can utilize people more efficiently and effectively. it's just time for common sense. none of it's partisan. none of it's about not taking care of groups and not being attentive to the needs of people. it's the realistic aspect as first of all, the federal government doesn't have any money to subsidize the post office anymore and, two, we can't run a federal agency in any type in anything other than a commonsense fashion. >> a lot of people harshly

criticize the postal service management, you say they may have problems but the bigger problem is the congress and other entities of the government have essentially put mandates on them, you must do these things in these ways. >> yeah. and we've actually hand cuffed them so they can't respond to the changing market. one of the big problems with the post office is they way overestimated what the revenues were going to be, this $8.5 billion two years ago they weren't going to lose any money this year because they thought they were going to have first class mail. every time they've given me an estimate, they were wrong. if we quit hand cuffing them and have management be conservative in their estimates not exaggerating in their estimates, i think we can solve the problem. >> senator tom coburn of oklahoma, appreciate your time tonight. >> thank you, good to be with you. republican presidential hopeful, mitt romney, lays out his jobs details before obama. we'll give you the details next.

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breaking political news tonight. democratic sources who have been in discussions with the white house tell cnn the working number in the president's job plan, remember, he'll outline it thursday night, the working number, we're is $300 billion in tax cuts. the white house officials won't confirm that saying that the numbers might change, but jessica yellin is told that the $300 billion in tax cuts would have to be offset in the spending cuts. not an easy task.

will the new tack het help? i am joined by paul begala, and cnn contributor erick erickson and editor-in-chief of the red state blog, and i know the president wants infrastructure bank and tax cuts and $300 billion and smaller than what the white house would call the reinvestment act and not what the republicans like to favorably call the stimulus plan. from our reporting and your reporting, how big and bold is the president's plan? >> look, it's big. it is bold? i'm not so sure. think about it. you need at least $100 to $200 billion to offset the baking in the cake already when the current stimulus expires in december, so i assume that some of the $300 billion is continuing the payroll tax cut, and then there is incremental stimulus in the form of more infrastructure spending and

cuts. the devil in the details. according to reporting, he will offset with $300 billion in spending cuts. you want the tax cuts now and the spending cuts later. you get the stimulus now when the economy needs it and the fiscal balancings act when the debt is more of a problem. >> so as a democrat, who's looking a, to help the unemployed, and b, to reframe the political debate which is right now not going into the president's favor, $300 billion, too timid? too big? >> well, greg is right f it is targeted to the middle class, kit can do some good. this president originally had $200 billion of tax cuts targeted for the middle-class that did good. the congressional budget office says, so and not just liberals like me. and then in december he signed a $858 billion tax cuts that people like me attacked, and i don't like it, because it is way too expensive and a lot of it

went to the rich. we ended up cutting up the estate tax so paris hilton does not have to pay a tax when she inherits a vast tax and that is not something that is going to help. so this president wants to stimulate the economy and rich guys like you will do better still. >> thank you. erick erickson, what is the sense of republicans and conservatives do, they expect a proposal of the president, a proposal that the republicans have ruled out or expect the president to propose part of the plan, something that the speaker and the majority leader on the house side who are the critical players here can get along with and i mention that in the context that speaker boehner and leader cantor did send the president a letter saying we don't like some of what you are going to do, but maybe we should sit down to have common ground before it? >> they will try to make common ground only because the approval rating of korng is 10% right

now. they want to show some they have some common ground, but by and large, we will see a repacked old ideas and not a lot of new ideas. instead of infrastructure project, it will be infrastructure bank and rolling out of the unemployment checks and the president in interesting point with the new chair of the council of economic advisers who has written that ongoing unemployment checks subsidizes unemployme unemployment, and we will see that thrown in his face, and the republicans will go on with continuing unemployment checks regardless of what the council of economics head says. where will they find common ground? i don't know. spending and tax cuts, i don't know if the republicans will goal a long wit. >> how important is this speech, paul, to the president and the plan of where we are in the contentiont of politically? in 1992, i was talking to other side tonight and mary matalin was here and you ran on the economy of "it's the economy, stupid" pledge and you had an

economy going better than this one and george hw bush was getting it to grow, and people didn't feel it, but what about the poll numbers when it comes to the way the president is handling it, and the funk that the economy is in? >> it is enormous. for a couple of reasons. part of it is baked in the cake as greg said. and a lot of the spending cuts that the republicans wanted that actually hurt the economy. and sect, it taondly, it takes for this to work through politically as well. if he is seen as trying and this is why the speech is important, the fact that he is giving it almost means that he wins it, because he asked the congress for the time, and he is speaking to the country about jobs, and president bush senior was a great man and somebody i do actually admire, but part of the political problem is that he was not seen as passionately committed to the economy the way he was to liberating kuwait and the war and i don't want to relitigate that election, because he is a fine man, but

president obama will not be accused of ignoring the jobs problem, because he is full force on it. >> and the public is focusing increasingly on the jobs issue and three debates coming up. governor romney presented his plan today, 59 points, at a time when rick perry has eclipsed him in the republican race. he would lower the corporate tax rate from 35% to 25%, and cut nonsecurity discretionary spending by 5% and he said it would create 11 million job, and it is interesting, because he said i will stand up to china, and china is the biggest unfair player in the market right now, and if nay do not behave i will slap sanctions on them, and greg, a new plan from romney and asking the president to be bold, but do you see new boldness from the republicans who are repackaging from different republicans? >> well, is ate m shg, it is a

and there are things that obama could agree with. obama has said he would like to reform the corporate tax rate and knock it down to perhaps not 25%, but romney has a proposal every time you pass a new rule you repeal an old one that costs as much and friday you saw the president with the pressure to delay the ozone standard which is him in some sense capitulating to the narrative to the republicans that his regulations are hurting business. if there is one glaring omission from the romney plan, what do you do about the lack of demand right now which is the reason that people are not investing or spending. >> and how does this impact the race? governor romney focused on president obama, the incumbent, but governor romney has been eclipsed by governor perry of texas, and governor perry said this of the romney plan. as governor of massachusetts he failed to create a pro-jobs environment and failed to support many of the reforms he

wants to support. and many republicans like to say when he ran massachusetts they ran 47th in job creation, and does this increase the pressure on governor perry to have an economic plan of his own and soon? >> yeah, i think it does. i'm not sure how soon he needs to roll it out but within the next month for sure. the interesting thing to me reading the romney plan, there is definitely a more of a political angle here than policy angle. he wants to be the centrist moderately conservative candidate who does not spook the intellectual right in washington, d.c. and who doesn't spook independents and comes a across to the media as not the crazy right winger that the mad cowboy disease as robert ca castellanos has said about rick perry, and also contrasting jon huntsman who i'm not a fan of his has set the bar high for economics plan and based largely on what he did in utah as

opposed to mitt romney's plan that is not based on anything he did in massachusetts. >> i have watched candidates for president for 25 years say that i'm the person that america needs to help the economy and help because of the security challenges, and never have i heard that a person say, i don't want to run, but if things are desperate, and listen here. >> i think if i would have run i would have a chance to win the presidency. a chance. nobody ever knows, but i would have a hard time getting nominated. i'm a realist and i understand how the primary system works, so i would like to see if there is somebody who emerges that i think would be a strong candidate in the republican party for president, and if somebody does emerge that i believe can win, then i would probably support that person, and if i think that we are truly desperate, then i may run. >> truly desperate, vote for giuliani. i'm having a hard time with the bumper sticker,