sing about facebook. they are on it. jeanne moos. >>. ♪ zuckerberg, the musical >> reporter: new york. that's it for me. thanks for joining us. i'm wolf blitzer in "the situation room." the news continues next on cnn good evening. i'm john king. vice president biden visits ohio saying mitt romney is a greedy rich guy that doesn't get the middle class. plus, tonight's candidate report card grades governor romney on this campaign's defining issue, jobs. at least congress has had an excuse for doing nothing. the leaders were at lunch with the president agreeing on the menu but little else. we begin this evening with the campaign's biggest issue, the economy and jobs and in what arguably could end up being the defining battleground state, ohio.

vice president, biden, took the obama's case to blue collar youngstown casting mitt romney as a son of privilege and vice president saying his record suggests that governor romney cares more about profits than workers. >> my mother and father dreamed as much as any rich guy dreams. >> they don't get us. they don't get who we are. >> now, word from the vice president was from a battleground within the battleground. let's look at ohio. this is the 2008 map. barack obama carried the state 52% to 48%. a lot of red in here for john mccain. president obama went where the people are. this is youngstown. this is where the vice president was. in the general election, then senator obama carried it quite convincingly. this was hillary clinton country. you have white, blue collar workers. i am going to bring the state back.

hillary clinton carried ohio big-time. president obama winning where you have african-american population. white blue collar workers, a big problem for barack obama. why will this be a battleground in the fall? because it always is. this is the 2008 election. senator obama winning a decent margin, 52-47. that's pretty close. george w. bush just barely winning. what's different about 2008 and 2004. look down here. hamilton county, cincinnati, president obama then senator obama carried it then. make that go off. president bush carried it in '04 and 2000. the suburbs around cleveland and columbus and cincinnati, those are the big battle grounds in a general election in ohio. watch for the candidates to be there in the weeks ahead. governor romney not in ohio. he was in another huge battleground state. he had the industrial states as

he drew this contrast. >> we are able to help create over 100,000 jobs and secondly, on the president's watch, about 100,000 jobs were lost in the auto industry in auto dealers and auto manufacturers. so he is hardly one to point a finger. >> our chief political analyst, glor gloria borger is here. that will be key in battleground, ohio. if you ask the voters, president obama carried it in 2008. republicans had a great year in 2010. as we head into 2012, they seem a bit conflicted as to the psychology of this election. how is the economy doing? >> one of the reasons ohio is such a battleground state. there is a mixed message there. by a 2-1 margin, people in ohio believe the state is in a recession. the country is in a recession. 55% also believe that the economy, the recovery has begun.

people that believe that, that's good for president obama. people who believe they are still in a recession and it is terrible, 2-1. that would be better for mitt romney. this is going to be fought, as you point out and i was talking to a romney adviser today, senior romney adviser, this is going to be fought in the suburbs of cleveland, cincinnati, columbus and particularly suburban women. >> it is fascinating. if you go back campaign, four more years, four more years, the state hardly changes. certain areas are locked in to republicans. certain to democrats. you have the suburban area right around cincinnati and columbus and the suburban area up along the lake. suburban voters and women, like in pennsylvania, in the bigger states when they are locked so close, that's usually the key. >> the romney people believe that they can really do well with married suburban women. president obama's campaign believes that they have a lock on the younger, single suburban

women and urban women. that's going to be the real battleground. we talk about a large, gender gap throughout country. in these specific suburban areas, it is where it really counts in a battleground. >> the vice president is important to this president. that's his biggest weaknesses, the white, blue collar guys that work with their hands. >> you heard joe biden make the class argument i would say very, very strongliy today. they don't know how we feel in juncti youngstown, ohio. that is a message that joe biden can deliver. >> we are going to spend a lot of time. ohio, ohio, ohio. qul worry so much about just one state. this one state could settle the election. no republican has won the white house in modern times without carrying ohio. republican governor, john casey, joins us to discuss the 2012 political terrain. you are in the midst of perhaps

the most competitive battleground state. vice president biden was there to say romney was a bad guy. >> then, there is the romney philosophy which says slong tass the government helps the guys at the top to do well, workers in small businesses and communities can fend for themselves but the country will be okay if the big guy is doing well. >> you hear this coming. romney is rich. he is greedy, he doesn't care about you, the guy that works with his hands. what does governor romney need to do to counter that? >> well, john, look. this state of ohio had a near death experience in the last few years. we came in. we lost 600,000 jobs. 400,000 in the last four years. our credit was going down the drain. we had an $8 billion hold. working with the legislature, with he were able to balance the budget, cut taxes, build up the

rainy day fund from 89 cents to $240 million. get our credit upgraded when the united states' credit went down and get our credit improved out here. when governor romney was out here, i told him, i said, we are following the formula of streamlining regulations and being a job creating friendly, balancing budgets, cutting taxes and, you know, using common sense. if you get to be president, we are going to do more of that. frankly, what happens out of washington, it creates a wind in my face. uncertainly over obama care and their tax policy. uncertainly over the regulatory policy. when joe talks about small businesses, this is paralyzing small business's ability to make decisions. when they don't have certainly, they go the other way. in ohio, we have given them certainty and things have been improved. when we get a romney presidency, they are going to get much better. >> help me with the empathy case. it was a tough campaign.

you like to get on the factory floor and grab people in the streets and shake their hands. that's the knock when governor romney doesn't make the connection. what does he need to do to be better? >> what people really want to know from their doctor, if you are going to make me feel better or give me some security when it comes to my work. if i'm not working, my family is in trouble. when i am working, the fact of the matter, my whole family is doing better. all this high-fiving, it goes to a certain degree. it is frankly about, people are worried out here and they want to have some sense that tomorrow will be better. that's what he needs to communicate. that's what i've told him. >> you know the politician that you used to work in this town, washington, you were smart enough to get out. a lot of people look at the the electoral map and look at presidential history and say romney needs to win ohio. so why not pick portman to be

your number two. >> i think rob portman would be a great pick. i am not even going to express no interest, because that indicates interest. i think rob portman would be a great pick. at the end of the day, voters don't vote on the basis of vice president. we always talk about. it gets everybody fired up. i can remember when bob dole picked jack kemp. my god, isn't it great. at the end of the day, it gets down to obama and romney. what it's going to get down to is this. obama is going to say, i inherited a mess and i'm make being it better. romney is going to say, you haven't made it good enough. i can do far better than you have. it will get down to mom and dad and the kids in the living room saying, who do i trust? not who the vice president is. >> governor john kasich minutes ago. governor romney says he will be a better president because of

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>> is romney says he has a much better understanding. to grade him these are the big factors, his record at the private investment firm in bain capital. his performance as massachusetts governor and his promises this year. >> lower the marginal rate and get rid of some of the deductions and special rates that big companies get. we are going to get the rates down, particularly for small businesses. >> as we continue our record card, a closer look raises some

questions. he claims he created 10,000 jobs. other times, like today, he said that number was as many as 100,000. >> we invested in over 100,000 different businesses and those businesses have now added over 100,000 jobs. >> now, the massachusetts record also is a mixed message, unemployment fell during his term. the state gained about 50,000 jobs. massachusetts ranked 47th among the 50 states in job growth those years. >> i came into a state that was in real trouble, huge budget gap, losing jobs every month. we turned it around, three out of four years, unemployment below the national average. we ended up with 4.7. i am proud of what we were able to do in a tough situation. >> as for his promises, it is a mix of lower taxes, less regulation and trust me.

>> my plans get the economy going again. i spent my life in the private sector. i know what it takes to create jobs and to bring business back. >> so does romney's private and public sector resume give him mornea more know-how. >> andy and robert joining me. andy, let me go to you first. let's go through the points. governor romney and his campaign have given different numbers when it comes to bain capital, a private equity firm. how can they give a better, more consistent one or is there one? >> it is difficult to give an accurate answer on the number of jobs created, because of the number of companies they invested in and the number of companies they created and the period of time over which they were open and when governor romney was there or not there. staples alone accounts for

90,000 jobs. private equity firms, that's what they do. they want growth and higher profits. they want real economic growth. governor romney did spectacularly well with that while he was with bain capital. >> mr. secretary, the democrats, including the obama campaign seizing on one company where they did shut it down. is it fair if you try to look at his record at bain to say, as andy just mentioned, staples at a plus, do we have to look at it at all or can you pick out individuals? >> i think you have to look at it and ask yourself the very fundamental question and that is, does private equity and private equity firms generally, do they create a lot of jobs? are they great for the economy? is it moving money from one set of pockets to another? what is private equity all about anyway? private equity managers, such as bain capital and mitt romney, have lived off of a loophole

allowing them to treat were earnings as capital gains. that's why mitt romney pays a tax rate of only about 14% or 13%. private equity is not a magic trick. it is a trick. it is not generating a lot of new jobs. that's like saying anybody who invests in any job creating company is creating those jobs. the creation of the jobs come from the individuals who are managing that firm. since bain capital left that firm. >> is private equity a trick? >> it is no the a trick at all. there is so much in that i hope i get a chance to address it. if you are a private equity firm, you want to buy a company at a multiple of its cash flow. let's say they had $1 million. it was for sale. the founder wanted to leave. you would buy it at a six multiple, so you would pay $6 million for the company. you want that company to grow. you want the cash flow to grow and you want the company to

improve so the market will give you a higher multiple when you go public again. you do what you can. you work on marketing products and how they manufacture. you work on cutting expenses and creating new ways for the company to make money. you want to add jobs and for it to grow and get bigger. when it does, the market values at an eight multiple. you get the cash flow to $1.5 million. now, you can sell it for $12 million. the profits don't just go to some private equity guys that are looking sitting around trying to make money. it goes to pension funds that invest and to university endo you endowmentes. if you can't find a preach are or a fireman that doesn't have some of their funds invested with private equity, that loophole was there when clinton was president. it was there when president obama had control of the house.

he had a filibuster improved in the senate. nobody, even congressman levin, who tried to get captured interest taxed as ordinary income, nobody would too it. it incentivizes a particular conduct. nobody has gotten rid of it. it has been very, very successful. >> we could continue this conversation. i think we will almost every day between now and the election. i want to ask one more question. there i a lot more i would like to cover. andy, to you first and then to you, secretary rice. governor romney says he has these turn around skills. i understand when he was governor, nationally, it was a tough time wechlt should put that on the table. if he is so much better than everybody else at this, why was massachusetts 47th out of the 50? >> what you are looking at is a percentage. massachusetts didn't start off with 10% unemployment. they were little above the national average at 5.6 when he took over his government. they were bleeding jobs. when he left, they had created tens of thousands of jobs.

he had employment at 4.7%, which was under the national rate. if you wanted a job in massachusetts, when mitt romney was governor, you could get one. i wish you could say the same in the united states today. >> mr. secretary, when he was governor, did he do as well as he could given the national economic circumstances? >> in his first three years, he generated or presided over an economy that generated 5,600 jobs. that's not a lot of jobs. over the last 26 months, the administration, granted, we are talking about the entire nation. the obama administration has generated or presided over an economy that has generated 4.2 million jobs. we have got to be very clear about this. to try to compare what one governor has done in one very small time period with what the entire nation is doing tore try to say that because somebody was a private equity manager that could very quickly pump and dump companies using short-term strategies such as wall street has been using for years and got

us into a big mound of trouble is ludicrous. the question is, which of these men can be trusted to preside over an economy that is recovering, that should be recovering and going in the right direction already? i think the answer is president obama is showing that he can take an impossible situation and actually get the economy going again. >> gentlemen, i appreciate your passion on this issue. it is a defining question of the campaign. as i say thank you tonight, i will say before i do say thank you, we will have you back another day. a lot more ground to cover on this, both governor romney and the president's record. thanks to you. the truth about the group spending record amounts of money to spend your own. >> a company on shoes that you might own fined millions for false advertising.

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welcome back. here is kate bolduan with the latest news you need to know. good evening, everyone. some sad news to tell you about first. cnn has confirmed the death of mary kennedy, the second wife of robe robe robert f. kennedy jr. a body was discovered. they are not commenting on published reports that she committed suicide. closing arguments are tomorrow in the john edwards trial. his defense team rested their case after presenting only two

days of testimony. without calling edwards, his daughter or one-time mistress to the witness stand. the jury may begin deliberations on friday. we will continue to watch that. if you didn't get kim kardashian's rocking body after wearing sketcher's sneakers, you can get a refund. the federal trade commission said they deceived people saying they would lose weight without going to the gym. shoes i know that you have in your closet. >> kim kardashian's what? >> i just read what they write, sometimes. >> don't ever say that. you are no ron bergen, you are not. kate will be back in a little bit. a little twist in the scandal of a former assistant coach accused of molesting boys. his wife is suing the network that broke that. a couple's car sped up to 80 miles an hour. they say that video right there

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this half hour, the wife of a former basketball coach says espn ruined her life. her husband is accused of molesting boys and she is accused of knowing about it. she is suing. imagine being behind the wheel when your car goes berserk. sick of negative campaign ads but i hate to break it to you. this is just beginning. the truth about who is spending millions to sway your vote.

here in washington, president obama visited the local deli that supplied sandwiches, chips and cookies. you see the president there. the white house not releasing any pictures of the meeting. just like this entire session of congress, didn't seem to accomplish much. dana bash joins us from capitol hill. let's start with the et mooing at the white house. no pictures. whatest word? >> reporter: people out there may hope, they are optimists out there, when the cameras aren't there, the microphones aren't there, the presidents and leaders are behind closed doors, they can roll up their sleeves and discuss ush yissues and pro. according to accounts from both parties, that's not going to happen. the president talked about his five-point to-do list that he wants congress to accomplish when it comes to the economy. the republicans with the house speaker, john boehner, leading

the charge, talked about what he said in public, that he really believes that spending cuts have to be a big part of any debt ceiling vote in the coming months. they talked about tax cuts. it is a little bit dishearting to hear they didn't get a lot done. they did agree that they liked the sandwiches. >> we know that deli. they make good sandwiches. let's turn then. there is a lot of posturing. i want you to listen to jim cooper of tennessee. a lot of americans would think this is a great idea. >> i am proud that the kau kcaus supporting no budget, no pay. it is to get congress to do its most basic work on tile. they would have to pass a budget and the appropriations bills before october 1st of each year. the way the constitution works, we can't change it this year but

we can change it for the next congress. >> so dana, you have to love this idea. you do your work, you do it on time or you don't get paid. that's what congressman cooper and his friends say should happen in congress. i am going to bet, take us to the senate floor today. no? >> reporter: not so much. they spent all day, six hours of debate and almost two hours of voting on five budgets that everybody knew from the get-go had no chance of passing. it was republicans that pushed this issue. they wanted to make the political point that democrats who run the senate haven't passed their own budget in three years. they did it by proposing several conservative budgets to show they have ideas. also, the president's budget to embarrass the president and show he is getting no votes. it was 99-0. not even one democrat voted for his budget for various reasons. democrats took their opportunity of this political theater to

stage their protests. watching this all day today, people out there who are worried about the fact that members of congress are speaking past each other and not getting things done, this is a perfect example of politicking instead of problem solving. >> posturing, speeching, your government not at work. >> not so much. >> dana bash, thanks. espn dropped a bombshell on the college basketball report when they suggested bernie fine molested boys and his wife knew about it. fine lost his job and his wife is going after espn, suing the network and reporter and producer saying they falsely painted her as a monster who witnessed the molestation and didn't stop it. >> i am here today as a wife and mother who has had to endure the trauma of being smeared in the public as a monster. my family and close friends have stood by me. this he know i am a kind and loving person. my life has been destroyed

through the defamation that i have s suffered. this will last a lifetime. >> espn released a statement saying the suit is without merritt and we stand by our reporter. let's bring in sunny hostin live in new york. liable is tough to prove. does she have a case? >> you are right, libel is difficult to prove. truth is an absolute defense to a libel claim. she has to prove that these allegations were false, that all of the information published by espn that she discusses in her 44-page federal complaint is false. that is very difficult to prove. the other thing i think that she is going to come up against is the fact that there are tape-recorded conversations between mrs. fine and one of the alleged victims. i have read the transcripts to one of the tapes. she has actually confirmed that she did have that conversation

with bobby davis, one of the alleged victims. although, she now claims that the tape-recording itself was doctored. i would suspect that this is going to be a very difficult case for her to prove. >> let's listen to part of one of those conversations. it is a secretly recorded call, mrs. fine talking to bobby davis, who is one of the men, a younger man, who accused bernie fine of sexual molestation. let's listen. >> i know everything that went on with him. maybe they are not aware of but he trusted somebody he shouldn't have trusted. >> she is saying right there that her husband has issues. you trusted someone that you shouldn't have trusted. if you are saying she is talking to a kid that was molested, it sounds pretty damming. she says she was talking about her husband having financial issues. can she make that case? >> i think it is going to be difficult. i have read the entire transcript. i have it in front of me.

they certainly do discuss financial issues. they also discuss sex acts and molestation in particular. for her to prove in libel claim, she is going to have to prove that this conversation either didn't happen or that the tapes, in fact, were doctored or that it is not her voice. again, she has already confirmed she did have this conversation with davis. so if it goes to court and goes to trial, it will be up to a jury to determine what the truth is and in the face of this type of tape-recorded evidence, i think that's an uphill battle for her. >> sunny hostin, breaking down the legal issues, a fascinating case, we will keep an eye on it. imagine this. a car speeds through two red lights and crashes at 80 miles an hour. the driver says it is not his fault claiming the car sped up on its own. the family hopes a dashboard camera video will prove it. here is cnn's paula hancock. >> the 30-year-old son of the couple in the car who only wants

to be identified by his sir name quan says that he posted the footage of the crash online to prove it wasn't his father's fault. the foot annal is frage is from tached to the rear-view mirror. he tells cnn, his parents, both in their 60s, heard a weird noise before the car accelerated. the footage shows the car swerving to avoid other vehicles and eventually crashed into a stationary car at a speed believed to be around 80 miles an hour or 128 kilometers. he says his mother underwent an operation for internal bleegd and is waiting for a second operation on her back and his father has a fractured finger and ribs. the ministry of land, transport and maritime affairs says they are currently investigating four other cases of sudden, unintended acceleration. they declined our request for an

interview but did send a statement saying the vehicle is being investigated by the korean national forensic service. there is no time estimate for the conclusion of the investigation. japanese carmaker, toyota recalled millions of cars back in 2009 due to cases of sudden, unintended acceleration. paula haan c paula hancocks. cnn, seoul. whether you are watching tv, listening to the radio or surfing the web, some people will be spending record amounts of money to influence are vote. the truth about political ads, you can't dodge. that wonderful thing. and you smiled. and threw it. and i decided i would never, ever leave it anywhere. because that wonderful, bouncy, roll-around thing... had made you play. and that... had made you smile.

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you pick a president in 174 days. like it or not, you are already getting plenty of help with your choice. from the right -- >> president obama's agenda promised so much. >> we must help the millions of homeowners facing foreclosure. >> promise broken. 1 in 5 mortgages are still under water. >> and from the left -- >> bain capital always made money. if we lost, they made money. if we survived, they made money. it is as simple as that. tonight's truth is the fact of modern day campaign life. you might be sick of them already. the political ad is just beginning to heat up. much of the spending isn't from the romney or obama campaign. they have spent about $5 million

in the last month. many times that will be spent over the next 25 weeks. surprise, surprise, a lot of those ads will twist or shade the truth. the anti-obama group from crossroads -- >> if you are a family making less than $250,000 a year, you will not see your taxes go up. >> broken. obama care raises 18 different taxes. >> truth is, this one could come down to how you define taxes. the president has not raised tax rates on those families or anyone for that matter. the health care law does include new fees that republicans call taxes. there is this one from the anti-romney or proobama priorities usa. >> he promised us the same things he is promising the united states. i will give you the same thing he gave us, nothing. >> what he is referring to there is mitt romney. the candidate tried his hand as

fact checking that one. >> they said, oh, gosh, governor romney at bain capital closed down a steel factory but the problem, of course, is that the steel factory closed down two years after i left bain capital. i was no longer there. so, that's hardly something which is on my watch. >> now, more people see the ads, any ads than see the fact checks. history proves attack ads work even if voters complain they are too negative and frequent. expect more, a lot more, especially if you live in a battleground state. here is rich gaylen. governor romney says your ad is wrong. he was gone, two years when they shut down the steel plant. therefore, you can't blame him. you would say? >> i would say if you look what mitt romney did, he pushed that company towards bankruptcy and caused it to go down making hundreds of people lose their

jobs. and their promise of health care. >> it is not funny to the folks that lost their jobs. >> i know. and their health care and retirement benefits. >> how do we find out? he was doing the olympics at that point. no question, he was part of the purchase and the investment. he says that staples is still creating jobs. he should get credit for that. i assume your argument is, okay, if that's the okay, if something you left goes down, how do you make the decision? >> what he says about these success stories makes our point, which is that if a company has succeeded, mitt romney and bain capital made money. if it failed, mitt romney and bain capital made money. it is looking at this broader picture. this was the center piece of his argument of why he should be president. >> the broader picture is, if you are going to say, anything he did while he was at bain capital carries over after. you have to give him credit for

the 100,000 or whatever the number is jobs. that continued on afterwardsment . i think it is amazing that they set out, joe biden, who has never created a job in his life has been a member of the most exclusive club on the planet, the united states senate since he was about 30, elected when he was 29. if ever there was an example of chutzpah, it was biden in ohio talking about how romney treats people like us. he has never been like that. >> he comes from a blue collar town. >> right, 40 years he has been in the senate. >> bill is right. governor romney would not disagree with that point tichlts the central argument of his campaign. what i did at bain and as governor proofs i am better at this economy thing than the president. what more can they do? are we going to debate. staples as a success and gst as a failure.

is this what we are going to do? >> if you are going to claim credit for the jobs cre atd, you have to eat the jobs lost. we still don't have an accounting of these jobs. jobs gained, jobs lost. bain capital has told reporters they won't confirm one way or the other. the problem is the metric by which bain capital used for success was not jobs created or lost the. that was not the metric. it was profitability. romney has a pretty good success story to talk about if he wants to talk about his years at bain in managing it in a way that s incredibly successful. he is tried to reinterpret his years at bain. >> he brought it back up, that number. >> we were able to help create over 100,000 jobs. secondly rs on the president's watch. about 100,000 jobs were lost in the auto industry and auto

dealers and manufacturers. he is hardly one to point a finger. >> now, this is what the romney campaign says. they list the companies here. if you go to their websites. if he is gog say 100,000 and they are going to put this out, is he then open to criticism? >> he didn't say that in that clip but a clip you played earlier. he said net net. he is counting the jobs that were lost along the way and the jobs that were gained along the way. the first segment you had, i don't remember the gheit that was on with robert reich. >> andy. >> he got it rain. the bain capitals of the world, the private equity comes from pension funds, teachers funds, fireman's funds. a lot of people depend on organizations like bain capital so they can retire. >> neither bain or the romney campaign will give us a company by company breakdown of everyone

that bain was involved with when he was there, jobs lost, jobs gained. >> there are some legitimate privacy questions there. gentlemen, stand by. we will continue the conversation in aoutfront comin at the top of the hour. you're watching this troubling news out of greece, nervous investors around the would recall -- world. what's going on? >> a few months ago i was saying maybe it's all right to let greece go. it's seeming more and more likely greece will leave the euro. this would have worldwide implications. but the human side of it, you had lines at banks around greece today. in just one day greeks took out nearly a billion dollars of euros out of the bank. they're worried that the greek drachma wouldn't be worth as much. that's a lot of money. since the financial crisis began in greece, they have been pulling out about four billion euros a month so this is a very significant story. if you start to have a run on the banks, this story could

really spiral out of control. it hasn't yet and that's important, but we're going to talk about where it could go from here, because it's now a domino that could come right back over the atlantic, which as richard quest says is as wide as a bathtub. >> erin burnett, we'll see you in a few minutes. a record-breaking 12 million people watched mtv awards. the network shifting its schedule to accommodate an even bigger event. what it is after this. all energy development comes with some risk, but proven technologies allow natural gas producers to supply affordable, cleaner energy, while protecting our environment. across america, these technologies protect air - by monitoring air quality and reducing emissions... ...protect water - through conservation

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we're back. gentlemen, we ask ourselves why is the race so competitive, presidential race. essentially a dead heat. look at this usa today gallup poll. favorable for the candidates. for president obama, favorable 52, unfavorable 46. so he's come way up. if you look at what's happened if you go back, he's up 19 points among conservatives, 22 points among republicans. okay, the primaries are over, the guys who vote for somebody else have come home. he's also up 15% high school graduate or less which in the

primaries was a huge weakness. that has to worry you. he's essentially even. >> i would say that it is worrying. i think this will be a very close election going all the way to election day. i think it's going to be two points either way. come election day it's going to come down to a real choice and in the key states around the country, colorado, virginia, florida, pennsylvania, places where we're up, you know, there's a dogfight. >> places where you're spending all your money? >> there's a dogfight. >> has governor romney done something to improve his standing -- >> it's the natural philosophy events. as the primaries have faded away, there's still one more big day june 5th. but yeah, everybody is getting behind. remember four years ago we were still in a dogfight between mrs. clinton and mr. obama. they got in behind each other so, yeah, this is what's happening. you're right, anybody who says this guy is going to win or that guy is going to win have no idea what they're talking about. if we've learned anything, polls that we were seeing on fridays during the primaries had no

relationship to what we saw on tuesday. >> but the personal likability is still an issue for governor romney. people like the president. they like his family. will that matter in the end if it is 50-50? they're going to debate tax policy, education policy, social security policy. how much will come down to i like this guy? >> that's always a big deal in these elections but the favorable/up favorable is very volatile. it's been all over the place in the last month. i think this poll shows two things. we have a polarized electorate. it's going to be 45-45 locked in on each side and 10% in the middle. eric fernstrohm, there really is an etch-a-sketch and the general election starts over. >> i've got two words for you, richard nixon. he got elected -- >> those words haven't been spoken on this show in a very long time. >> but he was elected three times. >> appreciate your coming in. here's kate with the latest news you need to know right now.

the man known as the godfather of go-go, guitarist and singer chuck brown died today. brown and his group topped the charts in 1978 with their hit "busting loose." he died of multiple organ failure brought on by a bacterial infection in his blood. and more homeowners are making their payments on time. delinquencies on mortgages dropped to a four-year low in the first quarter of this year. the mortgage bankers association says just over 11% of homeowners have fallen behind or are already in the foreclosure process. that's the lowest level since 2008. and attention men looking to add some ambience to your man cave. yankee candles is now selling man candles. yes, i did say that. candles with scents of wood, freshly cut grass and even leather. first down combines orange and leather to remind you of, what else, gameday. and would you like to whiff some sawdust?

two by four should do the trick there. i don't know if i enjoy the smell of leather. i don't know. >> i will listen when they start selling wheat hops and barley. >> there you go. of course, that's a smell that john king loves. >> stay with me, kate. tonight's moment you might have missed. if a major scheduling conflict hadn't been fixed, two very big events on september 6th. president obama will accept the democratic nomination for president. mtv hosts the video music awards so mtv agreeing to move its show up to 8:00 p.m. to, quote, avoid conflict. and let's face it, the president wouldn't want to compete for attention with the likes of lady gaga and justin bieber, especially if you're trying to get voters from that mtv generation. right, kate? >> in my mind, it's either hilarious coincidence or a genius scheduling maneuver. you already have the mtv generation sitting down for the awards. there's your audience. b