>> she is now. >> they went from a commencement march to the wedding march to one ceremony and now, that's graduating. jeanie moos, cnn, new york. >> very nice. congratulations and many, many wonderful years together. thanks very much for joining us. i am wolf blitzer in "the situation room." the news continues next on cnn. >> president obama goes on the attack in five battle ground states with a new negative ad questioning mitt romney's record. it is powerful stuff and has democrats that work at bain cringing and as governor romney leading a gop war on women? the score card supports the record and the gender gap and inside the syrian refugee crisis, anderson cooper sees the pain of those fleeing a brutal

regime and the frustration of the world's failed diplomacy. >> we begin with the obama campaign's effort to change the subject and refocus the presidential campaign on mitt romney's business record. team obama buying tv time during the evening news in five battle ground states. wednesday night voter in colorado, ohio, pennsylvania and virginia will see this tv ad attacking the private record at the equity firm bain capital. >> we view mitt romney as a job destroyer. >> to get up on national tv and brag about making jobs when he has destroyed thousands of people's careers, lifetimes, just destroying people. >> he is running for president and if he is going to run the country the way he ran our business, i wouldn't want him there. he would be so out of touch with the average person in this country. >> our chief white house correspondent jessica yellowen

is traveling with the president and the goal is obvious, defining him as greedy, cold and heartless. why is that such an urgent obama campaign priority. >> they would like to define him to voters before he defines himself unlike you and me, most people haven't focused in and many of the viewers have not focused on the campaign as intently as political junkies, and so now that people are starting to pay attention, the campaign wants to get a jump on mitt romney and he is calling himself the premise of the campaign is that he creates jobs. they want to argue that's not what the record has been at bain. and so this is what they're unveiling and i will tell you, though, a republican who obviously has motivation here says the ad buy is quite tieny and so that he is getting the campaign is getting more play, more bang for the buck from our conversation about this and the play they're getting on news channels than they're actually getting from the actual buy, waiting for a response from the obama campaign on that.

>> media manipulation, i would be stunned if that were the case. >> yeah. >> if you go back to the republican primaries, one of the things you heard often from team obama is that governor romney was running only negative ads and said it was proof he had nothing positive to run on. do they worry at all the same will now be said of them? >> flatly, no. they argue they're running positive ads because the president put out his positive ad messages in addition to these and i would also point out, john, this isn't even new from the democrats. when i was in iowa before the rep an primary, the republican primary, the democrats brought someone to town who had been laid off by mitt romney, or that's what he argued, and the democrats were making the case that bain did this before, so this has been a message the democrats have been pushing for many months now assuming that romney would be the nominee, for some months now, and they have been pushing this argument and so expect to see it and this is just the first in a series of ads pushing this narrative that

romney in their words doesn't create jobs, he kills them, and this is just a start. >> even if this is a tiny ad by the yeah website as well as and this will not go away. >> yes. >> thanks. one approximate earn that knows a bit about bain capital is howard anderson, one of the first investors and calls himself a recovering venture captain list and teaches business at mit. >> thanks for your time tonight. i want to play more of the ad and ask you if it is a fair characterization. listen. >> they closed it down and filed for bankruptcy without any determine for the families of the communities. >> like a vampire. >> is he a vampire that comes in and sucks the life out of things. >> sometimes they use the term vulture captain list and they're not that either. sometimes they don't do as well had he hoped and can sometimes

like staples and sports authority, they do even better. >> and so when you hear this, and you heard some of it in the republican primaries and now you're hearing it from the president's team saying essentially that bain is a vulture, bain is a vietnam pair, and mitt romney is this greedy, captain list, cold, heartless guy who all he wants to do is make money and he doesn't care what he has to do to make money, is that fair? >> not really. the bain capital way is essentially to take an analytical approach to business, to correct mistakes, and to make it grow or to make it profitable. it doesn't always work. that's the nature of capitalism. bain capital which is a private equity firm is the best capitalism when it does well and sometimes the worst when things don't work out. >> so when the company hears the name smeared like this and i know some that still work at bain and a lot of them happen to

be democrats and why doesn't the company do more? can it do more to put the record out there if the record is different? >> bain would like a much lower profile. mitt was the leader. mitt did a superb job. from '85 to '99 bain's returns were 88% per year which is a phenomenal record. bain likes to go a little stealth under the radar and doesn't even like all of the publicity that they have gotten. >> they may have to do something like this. the reputation is at stake. this is something you told the boston globe in february. they figured out a way to make money if if they lose money. it is heads we win, tails we win. you are defending the company here but that doesn't sound fair. >> sometimes the company doesn't think i am defending at all. venture capital, john, is a little like sex and so is private equity. >> i am not sure i want to ask you to explain that but go ahead. you got me now. >> when it is good, john, it is

very, very good. when it is bad, it is still pretty good. >> howard anderson, that one will be remembered by a lot of people. i think we will check back in as the campaign season unfolds and i don't think i will top that in the 54 minutes left of the program. thank you so much. gloria joins us now. this does crystalize the big argument here. if it is a referendum on the president's record, it is hard, fair or unfair because it is tough economic times or is it a choice between a guy president of the struggling economy and what they want you to think, a guy that would not help you out. >> what they're clearly trying to do with this ad and we are magnifying by the way the impact of this ad, and that they're trying to define mitt romney and they're also trying to disqualify mitt romney because they want to turn this into a choice and they want to disqualify him before you make your choice and what the romney campaign is saying compared to what? compared to whom?

barack obama? we'll take our record. i will tell you the romney campaign put out a web video hours ago responding to this ad because no charge can be left unanswered in this kind of 24/7 news cycle in a campaign and they pointed to a company called steel dynamics which was a company that bain helped get off the ground in the mid-90s and did very well and is now the fifth largest u.s. steel maker, so they're pointing to a success story where mitt romney created jobs. >> i don't think there is any question that governor romney is going to have to do a better job explaining that whether it is the success of steel dynamics or staples or others but what the obama people are doing is playing into trying to exploit an existing weakness. this is from our recent poll. who is more in touch with the problems of the middle class, president obama 51%, governor romney, 33%. in a competitive presidential election and the blue collar workers in a battle ground

state, that's the challenge and what teem obama here is trying to exploit. >> right. cares about someone like me, understands my problems, those are key polling questions you ask during a presidential race. when people vote for a president. they want to believe this person understands the economic suffering they're going through, and that is why we see president obama talking about the middle class and mitt romney now saying that president obama is the one who is out of touch and not mitt romney, and the obama campaign wants to say, you know what, mitt romney is a man who cannot possibly understand your problems. he is so out of touch, and that's the debate we're going to be seeing going into the fall. >> they put the web video up and essentially team obama trying to get them to take the bait and spend some of their money and spend more of their money defending the record as opposed to going after the president. >> of course. absolutely. we put this up and we're going to force you to respond to it and they have to spend the time

and the money to respond to it, and that's the way -- that's why this is going to be a billion dollar plus campaign because this is how they feel they have to deploy their resources. >> on a local tv station in a battle ground state. that was our mistake. >> that would be good. >> the obama campaign is already attacking rick santorum in i on women's issues and a report card on what his record really shows and later head starts rolling because of j.p. morgan chase's $2 billion loss. ♪ [ male announcer ] for our families... our neighbors... and our communities... america's beverage companies have created a wide range of new choices. developing smaller portion sizes and more low- & no-calorie beverages... adding clear calorie labels so you know exactly what you're choosing... and in schools, replacing full-calorie soft drinks with lower-calorie options. with more choices and fewer calories, america's beverage companies are delivering.

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wanted to provide better employee benefits while balancing the company's bottom line, their very first word was... [ to the tune of "lullaby and good night" ] ♪ af-lac ♪ aflac [ male announcer ] find out more at... [ duck ] aflac! [ male announcer ] ...forbusiness.com. [ yawning sound ] mitt romney, they say, is the leader of a republican war on women. >> so this november we're going to remember. >> how you threw women under the bus just to get the nomination. >> let's put that to the test as we continue our report card on the candidates and the major issues. one question is whether governor romney supports equal pay for

women. >> does governor romney support the ledbetter act. >> we'll get back to you on that. >> and his critics cite the pledge to add federal funding to planned parenthood. >> is the program so critical it is worth borrowing money from china and of course you get i had are of obama care. planned parenthood, we'll get rid of that. >> and also the blunt amend thamt allows employers to deny contraceptive coverage in the herlt care plan if they have a oral objection. they praise the record of appointing women to leadership posts >> governor romney who whom i have worked for over a decade had 50% women in the leadership of his administration. we were the only state in the nation that had that at the time. >> the question is is there a

romney led gop war on women. joining me to discuss, donna edwards of maryland and kathy mcmorris rojers. is there? >> absolutely not. it is a myth. >> if it is a myth, i am sorry to interrupt, but if it is a myth, one of the reason this is myth gets perpetuated or exaggerated or amplified is you have a team running for president of the united states. you heard the conference call. they should know his position, should they not? >> that was a bill that was passed and signed into law early 2009 and it has been several years. republicans absolutely support equal pay for equal work, and in very quickly came along after that and said, you know what, no one is proposing we repeal or change the lilly led better. >> the staff didn't do him a favor. >> i think it is incomplete if you look at it is the economy, the jobs, the debt, and that's what women are concerned about as we head into the election.

>> governor romney makes the point. are you the democrat. listen to governor romney when he talks in public about the mythical what he says war on women. >> there has been talk about a war on women. the real war on women has been waged by the obama administration's failure on the economy. do you know how many women, what percent of the job losses were women? 92.3%. >> are women going to make their choices and, look, democratic women and republican women who made their choices, in the middle, people decide and had back and forth and will make their choices about what is a liberal conservative policy divide, whether they should fund planned parent lood or on the economic circumstances of their life come october and november? >> a lot of those decisions in fact are economic. the fact that governor romney can't decide whether he supports the lilly ledbetter fair pay act when women are make being 77

cents on the daughter is a share. in maryland it is 83 cents. it is unacceptable, and governor romney should have a position on that. when it comes to economics, when a family knows that they're getting 25% less than they ought to because we don't have fair pay in this country, that's an economic question for women and for families. i think it is all fair game and contraception, if you can't make decisions about your own private health care and extra sepgs, what that means is that you can't make decisions about education, about jobs, about planning your family, and i think it is really unacceptable for governor romney to embrace the republican budget. in fact, you can call it a war. you can call it whatever you want. the facts speak for themselves where women's educational opportunities are cut back, where there are cutbacks on things like child care that women really depend on and where two-thirds of the women actually receive pell grants and yet the republican budget that governor rick santorum in i endorses and

embraces slashes. >> you hear a fairness argument and she says fairness with a special hit on women in the republican budget. >> right. equal pay for equal work. theres no controversy, and when you look at women that are with similar education, similar experience on the job market, the pay gap that is referenced very quickly closes, those are not an appears appears comparison. when you look at the contraception issue, they're not talking about taking it away. it was president obama through health and human service that is proceed toesd to change the rule regarding insurance policies and the coverage of contraception. it was president obama that proposed that change. >> and republicans had a great issue when he was at war with catholic and other religious institutions. they had a great issue. did they over play their hand with the blunt amendment that would allow anybody to say i have a moral objection, not just a religious institution, if it was john king inc. that could say i don't like contraception and i won't put it on my health

care plan. did the republicans over play a winning hand. >> i think it is important to remember with president obama that initiated the whole debate. republicans are about getting people back to work, the best thing we can do for women and families and 50% of children graduating from college are unemployed and under employed, and we have had the longest streak of unemployment since the great depression, of high unemployment, over 8%. we have a record debt this president has accumulated, $5 trillion in at the time. these are the issues that women and families are concerned about and women are the decision makers in the country. >> put the numbers up. if you look at the registered voter choice for president, among men a split. a statistical tie. look at the gender gap, 55% for the president and 39% for romney. >> the reason there is a gap even under the economic recovery where we were losing 750,000 jobs when the president took office, the first thing he did

is signed into law the fair pay act and embraced the stimulus package to make sure that our educators, many of whom are women, continued to work. he embraced legislation that to ensure that women are getting back to work, 4 million jobs created in this economy, over 25 months of growth, and 1.2 million of those are women. the president is actually embracing policies that do great service to women where as you just look at the plain language of the budget and they're slashing. >> how does he close that gap? >> he is closing that gap. it is president obama's policies that have failed, failed women, failed families, failed americans and getting people back to work. i think what the democrats recognize and why they calculated this and put together this war on women is because they know the republicans won the women's vote in 2010. it was the first time since ronald reagan, the republicans won the women's vote and they know they have to do better. >> they went win the women's vote by taking away

contraception and by taking away pell grants. >> they will win the women's vote by getting americans back to work. >> that is not a way to win the women's vote by taking away those. >> economic opportunities will win the women. >> 176 days to have the debate. we'll bring you back. thank you both for coming. if you ever stepped into the street without looking because you were sending a text, listen up. we're going to tell you where you could get a $54 ticket for jay walking while texting. i will say maybe it should be higher. people will get mad. why it is a big week for the man that got us on facebook. schedu. schedu. the first technology of its kind... mom and dad, i have great news. is now providing answers families need.

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welcome back. here is kate pald baldwin with the latest news you need to know right now. >> happy monday to all of you. bring you up to speed. former senator john edwards daughter cate may testify tomorrow but they may not hear from edwards himself. the attorneys began presenting their case and indicated they may finish by the end of the week and we'll continue to watch that. a twist in the saga of former yahoo! ceo scott thompson, the wall street journal reports thompson has been diagnosed with thyroid cancer and it is one reason why he left after only four months on the job. the other reason is thompson was caught padding his resume claiming he had two bachelor's degrees when he only has one and the subject of an oscar nominated film and the social

networking site is the debut on wall street this week at an estimated value of $100 billion and just turned 28 today. what have you done recently exactly? mark zuckerberg has a lot to celebrate. here is a look at when he first made it big with facebook. >> i don't necessarily think about what my dream job would be, but i guess this is pretty cool. >> that was from a 2006 interview. just look how far he has come. i feel like such a shrub. >> oh, yeah. >> how many billions. >> we'll look for the ticker symbol. >> we do not value by financial value alone. >> that is correct. >> happy birthday anyway. anderson cooper will join us neck in a refugee camp listening to heartbreaking stories about the fighting in their homeland. also ahead, one of the highest ranking women in the banking world forced out.

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this half hour on the ground inside a syrian refugee camp hearing horror story from survivors and why they say diplomacy won't work and what they want. there are consequences to losing $2 billion on risky bets and an executive at j.p. morgan forced out and after the meltdown of 2008, how did this happen again? we all know distracted driving is dangerous and distracted walking? it is not a joke. if you get caught in one town, it will cost you $50.

new frustrations and worries in syria tonight that a truce brokered by the united nations isn't working. this is what's going on at the street level. you see it right there. some civilians are running and others limping through streets bombarded by heavy shelling for days now and 22 soldiers killed in fighting today and since the uprising started 14 months ago, thousands of civilians have been killed by their own government, thousands more leaving everything behind. let's get a first hand account from anderson cooper in a refugee camp on the turkey and syria border. anderson, 25,000 syrian refugees there. you would have to describe diplomacy so far as an jekt failure. do they have any hope the diplomatic route there work? >> they don't. i think they have seen what's been going on for the last 14, 15 months since the uprising began and they have seen kofi

annan talking to bashar al-assad and what's supposed to be a cease-fire in existence for a month and every day they're seeing loved ones dieing and seeing the attacks continue, so i don't think they have any faith diplomacy will work. the number of peacekeepers of uni should say observer on the ground, about 100 or so. that's miniscule compared to the size in syria, the actual number they feel would be needed in order to effect some associate of change. their hope is that the world will somehow start to pay more attention and start to give them more supplies, give them more weapons, give them funds at least to be able to go out and buy weapons. >> do they want that assistance, money and weapons or do they also want as in the case of libya, international armys? do they want foreign military intervention? >> well, there is a lot of different actors in this so different people you talk to will have different an

approximatopinions. at this point they would like to see some large scale involvement of nato, no fly zones at the least, but i think very few people you talk to actually believe that will happen and i think they think if that was going to happen, it would have already happened by now. >> i have heard you describe the conditions and thanks to the generosity and the good care of the turkish government seems these refugees are in better shape than any other refugee camp you may have visited in your years around the world. that can't ease their pain of being essentially forced from their homes. what else do they want? >> they lost their businesses. their homes have been destroyed and some cases being occupied right now by syrian government forces and they have lost their children. they have lost loved ones. you ask parents to show you pictures of their children and they will show you the corpses, pictures of the corpses of their children they have on their cell phones and everybody has lost somebody and that infuses the atmosphere in all of the camps no matter how nice they are and there are schools that the kids

can go to and just starting up in a lot of these camps but they all want to go home. they know there is no hope of going home any time soon. >> anderson cooper getting a first hand look at what is an international atrocity. he is along the turkey and syria border. anderson will have more tonight on a.c. 360 tonight. here at home we have seen the first casualty of the $2 billion blunder at j.p. morgan chase and the chief executive officer ina drew is out. she was one of the most powerful on wall street and now she is retiring. erin burnett is on capitol hill. do you think we'll see more resignatio resignations? >> i think we will see more. there is a trader called bruno, the guy dubbed the london whale, whale because his trades were so big that when he got in the market he displaced everybody else. he is still working at j.p. morgan. there is a question whether there willing more people. ina drew was a very under the

radar executive, an incredibly highly paid executive. when you talk about retiring, the question is whether j.p. morgan will have claw backs. some were making $15 plus million a year. how much money they will keep is a big question as we move forward. this was a very big blunder. there will be investigations here in washington. the president weighed in on this tonight and this bank for better or for worse has been on a pedestal as a bank that did things right and now they have shown that they can make huge, huge mistakes. this big question is about what this will mean for regulation. >> and then that's why people where you are on capitol hill and every day folks when you talk to them say, wait a minute, after 2008 we had ai debate and they passed the law and it wasn't supposed to happen again and the senate banking economy says it will hold hearings and banks keep making the risks and can congress and the regulation stop it? >> what's amazing is in a sense nothing can stop it. over the past few years you may remember there was a trader in london who had a multi-billion

dollar loss and the famous trader in france who had a $6 billion loss, so these are all examples post financial crisis of massive losses that have happened because of individual traders. it is unclear whether financial reform would do anything to stop that. what is clear is there needs to be more reform and that we have not addressed the question at the center which is how big should a bank be and how big is a bank when it causes systemic risk to taxpayers in a country. j.p. morgan is 45% bigger measured bias sets today than it was before the financial crisis started, $2.3 trillion in assets, 15% of the u.s. economy represented by one company, j.p. morgan. these are real questions. you may say it is too big. what's too big and who should make the choice? i think we know the reforms put in place were not enough. this is something, this particular case, happening in the chief investment office next to jamie dimon, the ceo of the company, really could have been avoid and had should have been avoided if risk was managed

better. this was avoidable. >> a lot of questions still to be answered. what else are you working on. >> we'll be talking about mexico and the 49 torsos, literally found. they haven't even been able to identify who the people are. we're seeing an escalation in violence and escalation in the drug war and demand for drugs in the u.s. and also worries about al qaeda and hezbollah bow la infiltrating the drug rings and the united states and iran and talking to senator diane feinstein about the picture the ap had where they were doing nuclear explosive tests in iran. were they? were they not? it is a big question heading into the time months before the election and the big question whether israel will strike. >> thank you. maybe you're guilty of this. staring intently at your smartphone and maybe using your fingers as you cross the street. one new jersey town says it is

not just careless, it is dangerous and it is cracking down. here is mary snow. >> when this video of a woman in a pennsylvania mall went viral, she may not have realized how it would serve as a constant reminder of just how distracting walking and texting can be. then there is this man in california who became so engrossed with a smartphone that he almost had a close encounter with a 400-pound bear. one new jersey town says distractions are so severe it is cracking down on pedestrians. >> people aren't being alert. they are walking with their cell phones and not watching where they're going and texting. >> police chief thomas ripoli says he has seen a rise in accidents involving pedestrians including two fatal ones this year and while he can't say exactly how many involve smartphones, he believes they are a main culprit. to try to force people to pay attention he has begun aggressively enforcing a ban on jay walking and violate it and

it will cost you $54. so far about 120 tickets have been given out. >> do you find it extreme? >> i feel that my job is to keep everyone safe and that at this time i feel i am doing the right thing and we're doing the right thing. >> the stepped up enforcement is sparking a lot of reaction. some question the use of police officer's time. >> this is foolish. it is unbelievable. that's worse than a parking ticket, $54. unbelievable. >> some drivers say the jay walking ban is a good idea. >> people are just constantly typing and not paying attention to what's going on in the streets. a little nerve-racking when you see somebody crossing the road without looking. >> this man doesn't live in the town and was unaware of the jay walking fine but the sticker shock of the fee, he says, will make him think twice. >> ouch. $54, i won't do it again, that's for sure. i am not taking the chance. >> mary snow, cnn, fort lee, new

jersey. i will let the town set the fine. coming up, the truth about why the obama campaign is going negative. in communities across the country. from helping to revitalize a neighborhood in brooklyn... financing industries that are creating jobs in boston... providing funding for the expansion of a local business serving a diverse seattle community... and lending to ensure a north texas hospital continues to deliver quality care. because the more we can do in local neighborhoods and communities, the more we can help make opportunity possible. [ woman ] it's like a magnet. pulling us together for different reasons. music. games. photos. shows. we share stories, laugh... and truly engage. it brings us closer and that is my happy place. ♪

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oh, enough already with the positive obama campaign ads that popped up a week or so ago. it is time to get down and dirty. >> bain capital walked away with a lot of money they made off of this plan. we view mitt romney as a job

destroyer. >> that's part of a two-minute tv ad that will air wednesday in five of the most critical presidential battle grounds, iowa, ohio, pennsylvania, virginia and colorado. >> to get up on national tv and brag about making jobs when he destroyed thousands of people's careers, lifetimes, just destroying people. >> bain capital is complaining the ad is a disportion and democrats that work at the firm are exasperated with team obama and so is the man that helped with the president with the auto industry bailout. >> i think the ad is unfair. i think mitt romney made a mistake talking about the fact that he created 100,000 jobs and bain capital's job was not to create 100,000 jobs or another number. it was to make profits for investors, most of whom were pension funds and endowments and foundations and it did su pushily well acting within the rules and was a leading firm.

>> this isn't about a true report or bain or governor romney's tenure. it is central to an obama campaign effort to define romney as rich and uncaring about the little guy. >> if you take a look at how bain capital was discussed through the republican primaries, it really was putting aside whether it was done well. it really was damaging to mitt romney. he consistently blocked the middle class vote in every primary until he was the de facto nominee. >> this should be no surprise to anyone beginning with governor romney himself. >> i am going to stand and defend capitalists across this country, throughout this campaign and i know we will hit hard from president obama but we'll stuff it down his throat and point out it is capitalism and freedom that makes america strong. >> let's be clear. everything in governor romney's record is fair game. he is running for president. his changing claim of how many

jobs he helped create at bain opens him to legitimate criticism. team obama also has explaining to do if it is going to define hm as a boogeyman. if bain is so bad why is bill clinton so happy to pose with a top officer, and, wait, that's top obama strategist david axelrod there court side at the boston garden for a celtics-bulls game as a guest and if you look at political contributions over the past half dozen years democrats enjoyed a more than 2:1 advantage. in just this race for the white house, governor romney raised more from bain employees, more than $232,000 and the president accepted just shy of $50,000 so far from the guys rick perry called vulture capitalists during the gop primary. here to talk truth, michael crowley, and maria cardona and senior advisor kevin madden. you don't like this ad. people at bain say it is a cheap

shot or distortion. however, however, one of the problems you went through this in the last campaign as well is because bain is a private equity firm, you can't say here it is, here is the record, right? >> you can. you can make the record about the governor's experience in the private sector, the governor's experience in working with a successful venture like bain capital and a couple that with experience as a successful governor and you can paint a portrait of a candidate and a vision that governor romney has for the future and that is a better economy, better -- >> but governor romney is on the record and one time he said 100,000 and now they say thousands and you heard steve ratner saying it was a mistake. >> forgetting the numbers, i think you can have an argument whether or not it had a positive impact on job creation and whether or not that experience is the type of experience we need to help turn around this economy and then contrast that with president obama's lack of leadership on the economy and the fact that his lack of experience when he became president and we have seen it

for three and a half years t hasn't helped move the economy forward. that's what the public wants. all do you is present the choice to the american public. >> when democrats at bain capital say this is not fair and they say they have complained to team obama saying we understand, it is politics, but this is not fair, it is a disportion of who we are, any obligation to listen to people who are not republicans, democrats. >> if they have an issue with bain they should talk to romney. romney was the one that opened up the floodgates because he is putting this on a table as a reason why the american people should elect him. to your point, then his -- everything he did at bain is fair game. look, what democrats are saying is that we don't we grudge romney his wealth or the fact that he was immensely good at his job but then don't put on the table that making a lot of money for yourself and make ago lot of money for your investors puts you in a position to be president of the united states

because his job was not to create jobs. >> this was one steel company in the obama ad, one steel company in kansas city area that was shut down. i want you to listen. this is a web video put up by the romney campaign. it is a web video. we don't usually air them because there is no money put behind them. we'll play a snippet. >> i almost never got started when others shied away and mitt romney's private sector leadership team stepped in. >> building a dream with over 6,000 employees today. >> if it wasn't for a company like steel dynamics this county wouldn't have a lot. >> it is a powerful video if you watch it, michael, but here is the question. is governor romney taking the bait? if he spends his precious resources defending his record, is he taking time away from questioning the president? >> i think he probably is. i think that the most profitable route for him is to attack obama's economic record. i think you frequently see that, when an attack comes in against him, he goes straight back to jobs, the economy, and so that is the playing field that romney

wants to be on. he is somewhat on the defensive here. i think he can't just let this go. obama doesn't want to talk about the economy. he wants to define romney right now. he wants to demonstrate to people he is not an economic steward they can trust and looking out for their interests and he is taking the bait but i don't think he can let obama between him at this early state. >> i don't think we're at all on the defensive. when you actually have that choice in november, about a president that hasn't created enough jobs and put the economy on track. >> and the obama campaign will be happy to take that comparison because you have obama who created 4.2 million jobs versus romney at bain, questionable job creation numbers. he created a lot in china and indonesia and as governor he was 47th in job creation in the country. >> mr. madden will prepare his

rebuttal. we'll be back in just a moment. more politics, including new poll numbers and the presidential race is shifting yet again. how do you patch a $16 billion hole in the budget? california's governor has a plan. big cuts, big tax hikes too. we'll spell it out. and this dog just won him and his owner $800,000. his secret to success next. [ mrs. hutchison ] friday night has always been all fun and games

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we're back talking politics. while we've been on the air a new cbs/new york times poll comes out tonight. maria, why is the obama campaign going negative in its ads? mitt romney 46%, barack obama 43%. that's from a tie just last month. largely, i think, because of economic anxiety in the country, but this one is trending not your way. >> look, there are clearly months to go to the election. >> 176 days, but we're not counting. >> you are counting, right. you are counting the seconds, i know you are. it's still a dead heat. and look, the president is the first one to say this is going to be a very, very tough election. one of the reasons why i'm actually glad as a democrat that they are coming out so aggressively and so strong so soon is because, and you know this, john, democrats in the

past have been too nice and have let their opponents be the ones to define him, i.e. kerry. >> i was going to say obama/clinton, that was so nice, that was sweet. >> kerry. and so that's not going to happen again. and so this is going to be an election where the obama campaign is going to make sure that voters know exactly what this election is about and it's about a choice of continuing to be on the right path or the alternative. >> what does it say, michael, after the bloody republican primaries when the president has no opposition, it's a statistical tie but romney up 3 points. >> well, it's still a pretty evenly divided country. for another thing, i think it reflects the situation that we have with the economy right now. you know, there was a point where it looked like it would be hard for obama to get reelocated because the economy was in a disaster state. and there was some overconfidence on the part of republicans because the economic engine was revving up and now

we're in this gray area and it could break either way. i think the next three months of jobs numbers could be decisive. so i think it reflects a moment of uncertainty in the country. >> and every silver lining has a cloud. are you ready? >> susannah martinez told the governor of new mexico latino votes will be critical. she says this to "newsweek," self import? what the heck does that mean? i have no doubt hispanics have been alien natd during this campaign but now there's an opportunity for governor romney to have a sincere conversation about what he can do and why. >> i agree with her, i think she's right. it is a real tunopportunity. you have a sitting president with a billion dollars sitting at 43%, under 50%, people are very anxious about the economy. i think governor romney has an opportunity here, just like governor martinez said, to talk in a very holistic way about what he would do to help all

latinos, mainly on the issue of the economy. hispanics care about it, african-americans care about it, whites care about it. >> when he does, your friend miss cardona will come back and debate that. tonight i'm going to call a time-out. thanks so much. kate bolduan is back with the latest news you need to know. the dow closed down 125 points, pushed by worries that greece might quit the euro. talks between the greek president and the leaders of three main parties ended tonight with no resolution. the debt-ridden country has until thursday to either form a government or call for new elections. so walking through the domino effect here, no government means greece could run out of money to pay its debts and that may crash the euro. taxing the rich. well, that's one way california governor jerry brown plans to solve his state' $16 billion budget crisis. he hopes the tax hike coupled with cuts to health care for the poor and fewer work hours for state employees will help close the gap. but governor brown warns that if

voters don't approve the plan, billions will be cut from education programs. and do you hear the names ethan, olivia or noah perhaps quite a bit lately? it could be because those are some of the most popular baby names of 2011. the social security administration published the full list today. the top three boys names are jacob, mason and william. and the top three girls names are sophia, isabela and emma. i'm always interested in these lists. i'm always looking at what big news events happened in the past year and what movies started these trends. >> i'm flying up to boston to see my noah tonight but he's 18. >> you're way ahead of the curve. for this i went to college. tonight's moment you may have missed. reality tv lovers in britain have spoken. i'm going to tell you about it. they say a dog is more skilled than the human contestants on "britain's got talent." ♪